AI-Augmented Growth Mindset Drives Radical Experimentation

Key Quotes

"one word that she used which i loved and i wrote down to talk with you about later is the word yet yet she said that at the beginning right i can't do that yet and that i have found is a hallmark of a growth mindset you talk about this whole the classic kind of growth versus fixed mindset one of the ways it's manifested as i understand it is the use of the word yet it implies someone has the expectation of progress and i just love that she started there because so much of her personality and potential gets unleashed by that sense of she is someone in motion making progress"

Henrik highlights Diarra Bousso's use of the word "yet" as a key indicator of a growth mindset. This word implies an expectation of future progress and development, suggesting that current limitations are temporary. Henrik argues that this perspective unleashes potential and signifies that the individual is actively moving forward.

"i mean like we talk a lot about experimentation on the podcast i think sometimes it's as we talked about in the conversation here sometimes it's misused a little bit because it's kind of like becomes the excuse for mediocre kind of like ideas and and a little bit like also just you know i was just testing so i think there's two things which if we double click on the experimentation part i thought was interesting the one thing is that she kind of talks about how she's helping specifically some of our junior folks with the origination which i think is interesting because i think there's been like this kind of distance practices for many years was like you know i'll just set overall goals and then just let my team do their thing right and i do get the sense that diara is like active in her brainstorm and probably even has like a strong voice i would imagine too"

Jeremy discusses the potential misuse of experimentation, noting it can sometimes serve as an excuse for mediocre ideas. He finds Diarra's approach to assisting junior staff with idea origination particularly interesting. Jeremy contrasts this active involvement with a more distant management style where leaders set goals and leave execution to the team, suggesting Diarra is more hands-on in the brainstorming process.

"but on the flip side i think she also is aware of her abundance of ideas and you know she talks about how she's like i don't know if she said she used all over the place but she used kind of terms realizing that she kind of has a lot of ideas and a lot of stuff going on and so she has her staff to help manage up with right which is obviously a very kind and not very forceful approach and so i thought there was an interesting dualism in her approach to experimentation which is this it's okay to be somewhat explicit with some of the ideas that you have for what people should experiment with but there's also kind of like a stand where you can say but i realized i also say a lot of different things and maybe i'm just saying all this because it resonated a lot with me so you have to manage me back when i come with 10 different things that you can't kind of like run experiments on maybe just manage me back and saying you know hey here's the two things i heard that i liked the most from all these ideas you had and those are the ones i'm going to test for next week"

Henrik identifies a dualism in Diarra's approach to experimentation. He notes that while she is active in generating ideas and may have a strong voice, she also recognizes her own abundance of ideas and relies on her staff to help manage them. Henrik explains that this involves her staff guiding her by selecting the most promising ideas from her many suggestions for experimentation.

"i mean your life is your preparation and there's something to the conversation we're having about folks being intimidated maybe by how fast younger people are getting up the learning curve we talked about the experienced designer who's gone wait you know the person who can lift 300 pounds but somebody can only lift 100 if ai is going to be 10xing them they're going to be able to outperform and diara's comment that you've already done the hard work the learning how to collaborate with ai is actually not the hard work you have done the thing that can't be replicated you've got you're able to bench 300 pounds right now imagine what will happen if you're going to get unleashed"

Jeremy emphasizes Diarra's perspective that "your life is your preparation," suggesting that past experiences are the true hard work. He addresses the intimidation some may feel about younger individuals learning AI quickly. Jeremy highlights Diarra's point that learning to collaborate with AI is not the difficult part; the foundational skills and experience one already possesses are the irreplaceable assets that AI can amplify.

"and diara said that's one one thing she said is like i i did this because i didn't know i wasn't supposed to you know and you said i mean it seems like that's the way that everybody should do it and she goes well that's not how the industry does it and the only reason i did it is because i didn't know you weren't supposed to and i think that that just vindicating and validating sometimes not knowing is really important so is you know acquiring knowledge and apprenticeship and all that stuff it's these things they seem to contradict but they don't that your navete or your fresh perspective is sometimes a tremendous advantage to see an existing system in a new way and there's tons of examples of this throughout the history of innovation i just love seeing it before our eyes with how she's disrupting the fashion industry"

Henrik discusses Diarra's insight that sometimes not knowing the established rules can be an advantage. Diarra explains that she pursued a certain approach because she was unaware it was unconventional within the industry. Henrik argues that this naivete or fresh perspective can be crucial for innovation, allowing one to see existing systems in a new light, which contradicts the idea that only acquired knowledge leads to breakthroughs.