The Cost of "Random Acts of AI"
Do you feel you're falling behind on AI? It's not just you. Every founder, engineer, and team member is experiencing some version of AI FOMO as new tools and capabilities emerge every day.
But FOMO is not a strategy. FOMO leads to costly mistakes. We're talking about:
Vishal Kumawat (Co-Founder, Humantic AI) skips the noise in his guest essay for Neon, and explains How to go from FOMO to Strategic Advantage.
First: Where Does Your Startup Stand? Most startups fall into one of four AI adoption levels:
Level 1: No usage (healthy skepticism or passive avoidance) Level 2: Basic tool use (ChatGPT for copy, simple chatbots) Level 3: Advanced integration (AI in core workflows) Level 4: Strategic AI maturity (orchestrated AI driving innovation) But here’s the challenge. Different departments operate at different levels, which leads to startups not operating in sync which is often the only competitive advantage a small startup has.
The Real Cost of "Random Acts of AI"
When teams adopt AI tools without coordination, you end up with:
The answer? Coordinated agility: A unified framework that channels AI adoption toward solving real business problems.
Transform FOMO into Strategic Action
Vishal has created a comprehensive guide that helps you:
Don't let FOMO drive your strategy. Make informed decisions and turn anxiety into competitive advantage. The guide includes a detailed AI Adoption Spectrum table and actionable steps for each level. Perfect for your next AI strategy meeting.
There are No Checklists or Frameworks on HOW TO BE A VC.
So how do you even know if it’s the right path for you? Unlike most jobs, venture capital comes with an extremely long feedback loop. It can take years before you know whether the bets you made actually worked out. That’s why most seasoned VCs say: only choose this path if you're in it for the long haul.
This conversation will help you think through that choice. Whether you’re considering VC as a career, love building businesses, or just want to understand who really calls the shots on a cap table.
On The Neon Show, we have with us two operators turned investors:
They share lessons from evaluating thousands of startups - what they’ve unlearned about pattern-matching in investing, why Excel projections mostly fail and why founder empathy might be the most underrated edge in venture capital.
It’s truly a conversation between three VCs on what it really takes to be a VC today.
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