For the last twenty years, we have worshipped at the altar of speed.
We obsessed over server latency, processing power, and bandwidth. The entire game was about making the machine faster. We celebrated every new chip, every new algorithm that shaved another millisecond off the process.
That race is over. The machines won.
The bottleneck is no longer the technology.
The bottleneck is you.
The defining constraint has moved from the silicon to the soul. We have built AI that can generate a thousand strategies, write flawless code, and analyze a world of data in the time it takes to blink. The new latency isn't in the machine; it's in our own minds.
It shows up in three places:
1. The quality of the question.
An AI can give you a brilliant answer in a second. But its brilliance is useless if your question is foolish. The machine can generate endless options, but it cannot generate meaningful purpose. Your value as a leader is no longer in having the answer, but in having the wisdom and the clarity to ask the right question.
2. The courage of the decision.
An AI can present you with a dozen data-backed paths forward, each with a calculated probability of success. It can do this instantly. But it cannot choose. The hesitation that happens next—the meetings, the debates, the fear of being wrong—that is the new latency. The courage to make a decision in the face of uncertainty remains a purely human responsibility.
3. The clarity of the vision.
We can now command AI to build almost anything we can imagine. The problem is, the AI cannot imagine it for us. It has no "why." It has no conviction. It cannot tell you which hill to take or why it matters. That is the work of a leader. Your job is to provide the destination. The AI will just help you build a faster road to get there.
We have been handed the fastest engine in history. But an engine without a driver is just a beautiful piece of machinery, sitting silent.
The work is no longer about making the engine faster.
It’s about learning how to steer.