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“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
— Pablo Picasso
The Red Thread This Week
The Wrong Fight
Near the end of last month, in what I can only assume was an attempt to break news on my birthday, iHeartRadio announced their new initiative: “Guaranteed Human.”
No AI voices.
No synthetic hosts.
No AI-generated music.
At the top of every hour, their stations will now proudly proclaim: “Guaranteed Human” via a new audio ID.
And… my inbox lit up.
Friends across music, radio, entertainment, etc. shared the news with me and sent along reactions—some relieved, some furious, some confused.
Many celebrated the announcement as a stand against AI.
And I’m pretty sure I managed to upset them all.
Because my replies all started with some variation of… “I doubt any actual listeners asked for this.”
In fact, a friend and classically-trained pianist who studied at the Royal Academy of Music said something to me recently that landed:
“The premium on real expertise is actually increasing as the cost of an average skill set basically goes to zero. The premium work…is more premium than ever.”
Translation:
AI isn’t threatening the best creatives. It’s threatening the ones whose tools were doing the heavy lifting.
And this is where the story stops being about radio—and becomes about you.
Whether you’re a freelancer, founder, nonprofit leader, coach, educator, podcaster, craftsperson, or creator…
AI isn’t coming for your job.
It’s coming for the average version of your job.
The part that is procedural. Predictable. Replaceable.
What AI can’t touch is the part that comes from lived experience, taste, judgment, presence, and point of view—the parts that make your work yours.
So the Red Thread this week is about Creative Destruction (a rabbit hole definitely worth going down) and what happens when every creative field gets disrupted/reshaped at the same time.
And why the people who thrive won’t be the ones fighting to preserve the old tools, but the ones willing to ask:
“What can I make now that wasn’t possible before?”
~ Jaime
🔑 The Unlock
How to Survive Creative Destruction
When the means of production get democratized, 3 things always happen.
Understanding this pattern helps you stop resisting change, and start positioning yourself to thrive because of it:
1️⃣ Recognize the Pattern (We’ve Seen This Movie Before)
Every disruption follows the same script:
A new tool makes creation faster, cheaper, easier
Incumbents fight to preserve the old way
The market chooses what it wants, ignoring “the way it’s supposed to be”
People who master the new tools win
This happened in hip-hop during the 80s with music sampling.
With digital photography. With desktop publishing. With YouTube. With streaming movies and TV.
And now with AI.
Your move: Stop asking “How do I stop this?”
Start asking: “What can I create now that I couldn’t before?”
2️⃣ Understand What’s Scarce Now
The last generation of music/creative software (Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, etc.) sold people a story: “You don’t need deep knowledge—just some autotune, drag, drop, and go.”
AI tools are WAY more telling.
DJ/producer AFRIQUA explains: "The stuff that I can get out of Suno is better than a lot of people imagine, based on the prompts I can give it. And that's just based on my knowledge of music. I wouldn't have those words without my knowledge of music."
When creation gets easier, experience becomes the differentiator.
The better your vocabulary, the better your prompts. The deeper your understanding, the more powerful the tool becomes.
Here’s what’s set to explode in value right now:
Taste — knowing what’s worth making in the first place
Judgment — Knowing what to do, in what order, and why
Vocabulary — knowing how to articulate it
Point of view — knowing what only you can say
Experience — Having lived enough to know the difference
Your move: Inventory your actual competitive advantages. Not your tools. Not your process.
Your knowledge, taste, and perspective.
3️⃣ Redefine Your Craft vs. Your Tools
As one producer I know put it: “If I can get better hi-hats from an AI model than from digging through vinyl for four hours, why wouldn’t I?”
The craft isn’t in the source. It’s in what you do with it.
So ask yourself:
If AI can handle 80% of my tasks, what’s my 20% that actually matters?
If you can’t answer that clearly, you’re not protecting your craft, you’re protecting your comfort.
The job of the creative professional hasn't changed:
Use the tools at your disposal to bring forth meaningful work that moves culture toward better.
What's changed: The tools got better. And cheaper. And more accessible.
Which means the bar for "good enough" just rose dramatically.
Your move: Separate your identity from your tools. Your value isn't in knowing how to use Pro Tools. It's in knowing what's worth recording.
📌 Remember: When tools get democratized, the people who thrive aren’t the ones who cling to the old methods. They’re the ones who learn the new ones faster, and use them with better judgment than everyone else.
💡 Creative Edge
You Didn’t Stop Instagram
One of the sharpest lines I’ve heard this year came from an indie artist: “You didn’t stop Instagram. You were late, and now you’re dancing in Reels and talking to the camera.”
iHeartRadio’s “Guaranteed Human” initiative is Blockbuster Video protecting its stores; a defensive move dressed up as a statement of principals.
And I get it.
When your identity is tied to infrastructure you’ve invested heavily in (sunk costs)—studios, on-air talent, broadcast rights, distribution channels—democratization of that infrastructure feels like theft.
But it’s not theft. It’s Creative Destruction doing what it always does.
Markets don't care about your business model. They care about serving customers what they want.
But there’s a HUGE twist here…
AI isn’t just allowing tech people to replace creatives.
It’s allowing creatives to replace tech people.
Coaches who’ve never coded are launching apps.
Designers are prototyping software without engineers.
Podcasters are building video channels without editors.
Nonprofits are doing donor research without analysts.
Teachers are generating creative lesson plans with less friction.
The democratization cuts both ways.
📌 Mindset shift:
When the tools change, your craft doesn’t. But if you can’t separate the two, you risk becoming obsolete while insisting you’re being loyal to “the real thing.”
🎲 Prompt Playground
The Craft Audit
Use this to future-proof your work and identify where you're creating value that isn't being captured:
Prompt:
I want to understand how AI is changing the value of my work and identify where my true competitive advantage lies.
My context:
What I do: [describe your work]
What AI can now replicate: [list tasks or outputs]
What people actually come to me for: [their real needs]
What part of my work feels most uniquely “me”: [intuition, judgment, experience, style, POV, etc.]
Help me see clearly:
If AI can replace the functional parts of my work, what remains that only I can do?
What knowledge, taste, or perspective would make AI more powerful in my hands than in someone else’s?
What could I create now because of AI that I couldn’t have made three years ago?
What’s one shift I could make this month to move away from defending my tools and toward sharpening my craft?
✅ Bonus: “What would become possible if I stopped asking how to protect my work from AI and started asking how to amplify my work with it?”
📔 Field Notes
My internet this week
Warren Buffett was always a brand guy (a 1972 letter from him to the CEO of See’s Candie’s) — Collaborative Fund
Brainrot is officially a scientific phenomenon — Tubefilter
NBCUniversal wants to turn the Winter Olympics into a creator playground. Is that what viewers want? — Net Influencer
Subcultures, and sub-subcultures are absolutely thriving — It’s Nice That
Spotify Wrapped is for advertisers too — Marketing Brew
Jonathan Sasse and I are talking about the Customer Journey this week on our Slackers podcast
Ari Emanuel’s “Anti-AI” bet on live entertainment [watch] — Invest Like the Best
🛠️ Creator Tools
Google AI Studio – Build fully functional web apps without any coding experience needed
Excalidraw – A collaborative whiteboard tool letting you easily sketch hand-drawn looking diagrams
Photoshop Chrome Extension – Photoshop functionality now in your Chrome browser
Tendem (beta) – Handle your tedious tasks by combining AI + human experts.
⚡ Before You Go
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Thanks for spending time with Red Threads this week, I’m glad you’re here :)
~ Jaime