When I was in consulting, I gained 20 pounds working 80-hour weeks

When I was in consulting, I gained 20 pounds working 80-hour weeks. AI is about to make that a choice, not a requirement.

Here is the question almost nobody is answering: if AI makes you 50% more productive, who keeps the 50%? You, or the company?

Back then, the whole model was billable hours. You got paid for time, not outcomes. So the incentive was simple: work more hours. AI breaks that model completely, because the hours are about to collapse.

Now take a VP of Sales. If I can do my job in 30 hours instead of 40, am I expected to hand those 10 hours back to the company? Or have I earned the right to spend them on my health, my family, myself?

My answer to my own team is: the balance.

We want to be more effective. We want to lower our cost to serve. And we want a better quality of life. Those three do not have to fight each other. The time AI gives back should be split, not swallowed whole by the company.

A while ago, one of my team came to me and said he needed medical leave. He had been to a physiotherapist. His core had gotten so weak from sitting and overworking that he had to rebuild it from scratch.

That is not what the company wants from you. It is certainly not what your family wants from you.

Your health and your family come first. You do not get to wither your body away because you were working too much. That is not acceptable to me.

So drive to the office a little less. Go to the gym. Build your core. Take some of the time AI gives you and put it back into yourself.

And if you lead people: when AI makes your team more productive, do you take all of it? Or do you give some of it back to their lives?