Hey everyone,
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If you're new here, welcome to Tech Flavor—where I share with a few hundred top-tier enterprise executives what’s been on my mind professionally, along with breakthroughs in IT, AI, and Health.     

Now onto this week’s issue…

Maybe it’s weird, but sometimes I ask myself—if I died and was brought back to Earth to live another day, would I live the same day I have lived today the way I have lived it?

Because some days I feel like the day has been wasted. And some days I feel like the day has been lived to the fullest (whatever that means).

Do you also feel something like this at times?

I’m not sure why I like the “full” days more, but I definitely don’t enjoy the “wasted” ones. On those days, I feel hollow, flat, colorless, tired, ambivalent.

I started to drill into this issue in my mind to figure out why it was happening.

Was it because I chose to watch YouTube all day instead of doing my work? Not really. I did almost everything I planned to do.

Was it because the result of my work wasn’t immediate? No, because I understand the rules of the game I play—everything takes time.

Maybe something in my personal life interfered and drained me? No again. I feel present, connected, and loved by my family.

Then what the hell?

It was clearly coming from work. But I couldn’t figure it out for so long.

Until today.

You know, I usually don’t get nightmares. But recently I started picturing a scenario that terrifies me to my bones:

I’m a tech executive who has worked for this top-tier enterprise for 30 years. And it’s my retirement party.

Everyone is saying how great I was as a leader, a friend, a mentor.

But none of the speakers mention anything great I have accomplished.

And I’m sitting there watching them speak with enthusiasm, holding my drink and realizing that all these years I was playing it safe.

No, of course, I was a team player, I had to play by the rules. No one needs a risk taker who ends up blowing the company up.

But what if…

What would a 25-year-old me say now?

Have I fulfilled my dream?
Have I used all my potential and now I’m here?

Or did I go with the flow, following the logical order of projects and promotions, where bonuses were as predictable as our next year’s IT projects?

And then I realize, this send-off is not a celebration.

It’s a funeral.

And it’s just a ghost of me sitting among these smiling people, talking about me as if they are talking about someone else. 

I’m dead. And I can’t change anything. 

And then it came to me.

I realized that my “wasted” days were days when I did mediocre things. I felt mediocre and accepted mediocrity in my work. And most frightening is that I did it consciously.

I don’t want to be a mediocre technology leader creating mediocre solutions with average results. No sir.

I want to leave a mark.
I want to impact lives.
I want my work to be loved and utilized by as many happy customers as possible.

But you know why mediocrity is so dangerous? Because it drains you of your most valuable asset, your time.

I’m going to wrap up with this:

When I was in Fairbanks, AK, for my 40th birthday this year, I walked into their little cute Visitor Center by the river.

To be honest, I didn’t go there because I was so keen to learn more about Alaskan history, but because it was -15°F and I was freezing my butt outside.

To my surprise, the museum was beautifully decorated and contained a lot of great info on the interior Alaska history. But one thing stood out.

Full-body images of the Alaskan pioneers, people who were the first to experience this climate, the hardship of the time, the struggle that came along naturally in 1885, etc.

Not a single man, pictures of whom were everywhere on the walls there, was described as a loving father, loyal husband, or simply a good man.

No, they were described based on their accomplishments, and that’s the only reason they deserved their photo on the wall.

None of those folks was mediocre. They were extraordinary people with an incredible will to risk and do more.

And this is a good way to work, in my opinion.

That’s all for this week…but one more thing. If you’re enjoying this, can you do me a favor and forward it to a friend? Thanks.

-Alex

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What else was on my mind last week 👇

NEXT IN AI
Jump off the bridge

You have probably already seen dozens of real and fake screenshots showing how Google’s newest AI Overview feature suggests crazy things to knowledge-hungry truth seekers.

Here’s just one example (this one, I believe, was one of the real ones). Yet another reminder that we’re still in Beta when it comes to AI. Companies need to be extra careful not to create an atomic bomb in their AI kitchen.

FUTURE OF HEALTH
Don’t jump off the bridge yet

Following the footsteps of the previous Google AI news above, here’s the antidote:

Dartmouth researchers report they have developed the first smartphone application that uses artificial intelligence paired with facial-image processing software to reliably detect the onset of depression before the user even knows something is wrong.

Finally, all those people sending smiley faces with absolutely stone-cold looks on their faces will get the treatment they need. 😄

🫠 THIS MADE ME SMILE