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And here’s the joke: you literally can’t spell it without AI.
Coincidence? No. That’s the whole game.
It’s not about having the best playbook anymore. It’s about setting the playbook on fire and figuring it out while running full speed.
From Playbooks to Ping-Pong
For the last 20 years, business was obsessed with playbooks.
Growth playbooks
Sales playbooks
Hiring playbooks
Consultants sold them (including us). VCs funded them (not including us).
But the hard truth is that every playbook ages like milk. Every playbook expires. AI just shortened the shelf life from years to months.
The real winners now aren’t the ones that memorized the manuals. They’re the ones who can rewrite the plane mid-flight.
The real advantage is playing ping-pong while the table is on fire. Or, as Bill O'Reilly would say, doing it live:
The One Interview Question That Matters
Every founder, CMO, and exec needs to ask one thing before they hire someone:
“Can this person adapt when the ground shifts beneath them?”
Because the ground is shifting. Fast.
Meta paid out billions to lure AI talent earlier this year. Now? They’re quietly pulling back on headcount.
The hype cycle snapped back.
What looked like the future turned into a mirage.
If your team can’t flex when the hype cycle snaps back? You’re toast.
AI Can’t Spell. Humans Can.
AI can code, write essays, and even paint. But it still can’t spell strawberry.
A good way to ground yourself in how early it is in AI. Pick a simple problem like:
“How many r’s in this sentence?”
Only Grok gets it without thinking (altho you can argue it’s doing implicit thinking by spelling out the problem)
ChatGPT needs 14s of thinking to get it right
— #Amjad Masad (#@amasad)
6:50 PM • Aug 28, 2025
That tiny detail is a metaphor:
AI is powerful, but brittle
Humans win with adaptability
If you’re building your career (or your company) on something AI already does well, you're building your castle on sand.
But if you are building on adaptability? You’re working with solid ground. You’re building a moat..
Scar Tissue is Strategy
The old moats were:
Capital
Data
Distribution
The new moat is adaptability.
Ask yourself:
Can your team ship faster than AI shifts the rules?
Can your brand reposition without months of committee meetings?
Can you learn faster than the market changes?
Because adaptability compounds. Every pivot you nail, every reset you survive, builds scar tissue and scar tissue is strategy.
The CMO’s Edge
Behind every great marketing org, there’s someone who can do three things:
Sniff the wind early
Kill sacred cows quickly
Rally the team to sprint in a new direction
That’s adaptability.
Not a “nice to have” anymore.
It's the whole job.
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