I Thought I Was Building an AI Company.

Yesterday I took the day off.

Well… sort of.

I wasn't feeling well, and if I'm being honest, my motivation wasn't exactly showing up either. So I closed my laptop, convinced myself I was going to rest, and then spent a good part of the day thinking about everything I wasn't getting done.

Apparently my brain interpreted "take the day off" as "perfect, now we finally have uninterrupted time to overthink everything."

It reorganized articles I haven't written yet, replayed conversations that haven't happened, rewrote my homepage at least three times, and reminded me, repeatedly, that companies have the annoying habit of refusing to build themselves. Somewhere between the guilt and the rest, I realized something.

We don't talk much about the quiet parts of building something.

We celebrate launches, funding announcements, and big milestones. We don't usually talk about the afternoon you spend wondering whether you're making meaningful progress or whether you've just spent thirty minutes deciding between two fonts and somehow convinced yourself it was a strategic business decision. For the record, I still think typography matters.

We also don't talk about how quickly your brain can go from, "Take care of yourself," to, "You'll never build this company at this rate." The funny thing is, I don't think those thoughts are unusual. I actually think they're just unusually honest.

Maybe that's what we need more of. Not louder success stories, but more honest ones. The kind that makes you stop reading because you've thought the exact same thing but never quite had the words to say it.

That's the company I want to build.

Not one that pretends the journey is always exciting. Not one that acts like clarity arrives overnight. And definitely not one that believes AI has all the answers.

Over the past several months, I've spent countless hours researching AI, building frameworks, refining ideas, rewriting messaging, rebuilding my website more times than I'd like to admit, and reaching out to people I admire. Somewhere around website revision number fourteen, I began to suspect perfectionism had quietly accepted a full-time position on my team. 

From the outside, it probably doesn't look like much has changed. From the inside, everything has - somewhere along the way, I stopped asking, "How can I help people use AI?" Instead, I started asking a different question:

"How can I help people stay human while they use it?"

Because I don't think the biggest challenge of the AI era is learning new technology.

I think it's remembering what technology can't replace.

Clarity.

Judgment.

Curiosity.

Empathy.

Execution.

Those aren't just nice human qualities anymore. They're becoming competitive advantages. It took me months to realize I wasn't just building an AI company. I was building a place for people who still believe that human judgment, curiosity, and clarity deserve a seat at the table.

That's why I started The Merriment. 🐝

Not to convince people that AI is good, not to convince people that AI is bad, but to convince people that the future won't just be built by better AI. It'll be built by people who know how to think clearly, communicate thoughtfully, and make wiser decisions alongside it.

That's the conversation I want The Merriment to be part of.

And if you've been asking those same questions about how we preserve curiosity, clarity, and humanity in an AI-driven world, I hope you'll join me.

I'd love to learn from you, challenge ideas together, and build a community of people who believe technology should amplify human potential rather than diminish it.

Because I have a feeling there are more of us out there than we realize.

Maybe we just haven't found each other yet.