"Taste Is The Only Moat" is BS

It’s been a while since I sent one of these - partly because I’ve been putting a TON of time into AI images and video lately.

This might be a bit unexpected for those of you who know me as a marketer or YouTuber, but it turns out, I have a pretty specific set of skills that I didn’t really put together until now.

Since I know a lot you have had a less conventional career path, I’m betting a lot of you are in a similar place.

So I thought it might be helpful to explain where I’m at, what I’m doing about it, and most importantly, what it means for you.

Taste matters

At the risk of sounding arrogant, my work is objectively very good. I’m generally very hard on myself, but I know this is a fact.

That said, the quality may not be obvious, because the images and video I make are usually slightly weird, maybe even a little unsettling.

It’s not the most accessible stuff, and that’s on purpose... Because I specifically DON’T want to appeal to everyone.

Yes, I could get a lot more likes if I made memes or dumb videos of Charlie Sheen fighting Pikachu like you see going viral all the time, etc.

But I’m not optimizing for likes. I’m optimizing for the attention of the small number of people at the high end of the market - and to put it bluntly, those people tend to like weird shit.

And it’s working: I’m getting follows and DMs from my favorite AI artists and designers on Twitter, doing calls with companies in the space, etc.

Taste matters.

Technical skills ALSO matter

With that said, “taste” is NOT enough. Yes, you need to have creative vision and high standards aka “taste.”

But if you can’t execute on your vision, then all you have is an opinion… and we all know what opinions are worth.

You need the combo of taste AND mastery of craft. You should be able to execute anything you think of, and do it better than anyone else.

And this isn’t a new thing. The technical skillset has always been a moving target.

When I started out back in the late 90s, people grumbled because they had to learn HTML. Then it was Javascript, Flash, etc.

Now it’s Claude Code, WebGL, etc… a new toolset, but the same dynamic as always: the combo of taste AND technical skill is what puts you ahead of the pack.

And contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, AI tools are definitely NOT easy mode.

They’re actually the opposite: way more complex than the previous generation like Figma, Notion, Zapier, etc (which were already too much for most people).

Yes, anybody can prompt and get something “acceptable.”

But getting the most out of AI tool is HARD, because they’re inherently non-linear and probabilistic. It favors a specific kind of brain, which I happen to have: hyper-logical and systems-oriented (*cough autism cough*).

I’m not an engineer, but I’m not that far off either. I wrote code for a living back in the LAMP days, I have a pretty good handle on computer science fundamentals, and I’ll happily spend hours reading about tensors, GANs and attention steering to understand the nuances of AI image generation.

So I realized that (to quote Liam Neeson in Taken), “I have a very particular set of skills.” One that’s very, very uncommon.

So where am I going with this?

To be totally honest, I think it’s a bit too early for most people to understand this - they’re still trying to wrap their heads around the basics.

Right now, the only ones who get it are Twitter people on the bleeding edge. But it’s only a matter of time until everyone else gets there too.

And I’m not changing anything fundamental about what I do for my clients.

My job is still the same: create more awareness, then turn that awareness into new business. I’m just finding places to apply this skillset, because we’re so early it gives them such an unfair advantage.

For example, I just helped an ecom brand build out an ad creation pipeline that’s literally 10x faster, better and cheaper than what they had before.

I’m pretty sure this workflow will become standard for anyone running paid media in the next 12-18 months, but for now there’s still a huge advantage- and that might be enough for them to get a permanent lead on their competitors (just like everyone who invested in Facebook ads in 2014-2017 when they were basically free money).

That’s just one example, but you get the idea:

I’m finding all the ways that I can apply the rare combo of 20+ years of design experience paired with a fairly deep understanding of the technology.

I don’t know exactly where it will go yet, but I trust the process.

So what does this mean for you?

First, think about what that “particular set of skills” looks like for you. No matter who you are, there’s some combination of experience and skills that’s both rare and valuable.

Second, I hate typing these word because it sounds so cringe and cliche, but it's also true: You need to be AI-native company, and you need to do it yesterday. It’s just too powerful to stay on the sidelines.

Double down on those two things, and find the people who will see the value in them.

Be patient, but trust the process. It WILL work out, as long as you keep putting in the work.

PS - I don’t have anything to sell you, so there’s no sales CTA. But if you liked this email, reply and say hi! I love hearing from people.