A year in the eye of the AI tornado

I’m in Rome with my family, winding down on this absolutely wild year.

I’m writing you from the desk where I started studying AI almost 10 years ago. Christmas is always a good moment for introspection, to look back at the year that has passed and where our life is, so I want to share both some facts and some reflections with you.

I’ll stick to a professional angle. My first company AI Academy has gone through quite some change this year, being in the eye of the AI tornado. This year we:

• Doubled the team

• Trained 4.000+ people from 35+ countries

• Reached over 6.000.000 people on social media

• I traveled more than 100.000km with 43 flights and 16 trains (and offset the entire company's emissions)

• Many more things we can't count, like touching the lives of so many people who have found joy and fulfillment from our trainings ♥️

On top of that, I launched a new startup (more on this soon) that in 3 months has closed deals with 5 Fortune 500 companies and we’re about to lift off.

First of all, this hasn’t happened just because I and all the people I work with did a great job. This is also about being in the right place at the right time.

When I was in Silicon Valley, someone told me that good entrepreneurs are like good surfers: they find a good wave they ride it. If you’re on a good wave, you’ll go 100x faster than you’ll ever be just by swimming. I’ve been in AI for almost 10 years waiting for that wave, and now we’re reaping the benefits of that intuition (and patience).

But again, finding a wave isn’t enough. You have to ride it. And first of all, I’m grateful for having a great team that I’m riding this wave with. I started hiring people in 2022 when I wanted to switch from being mostly a freelancer to having a “real” company. Now we have a team of 6 great individuals who believe in our mission and are absolutely key to getting the results we got.

I also have to be grateful to myself, for having trusted the process, for believing in my intuition for almost 10 years and for taking risks: AI Academy has no investors, everything has been funded through my own work. I don’t like praise, but it’s important to be aware of what we’ve done right looking back.

Last, writing this from the room where I started this journey 10 years ago reminds me of how grateful I have to be for having had the opportunity and safety to take these risks. That’s not something to take for granted.

"Overnight success takes 10 years". I feel like we're just getting started, but there's definitely something to be grateful for already.

Thanks everyone, see you in 2024 ✌️

If you want to invest in your own AI education in 2024, we have opened waiting lists for two programs:

• The Master in Prompt Engineering, to build an AI prototype in 2 months.

• Lead with Intelligence, a program for leaders who need to bring their organizations in the AI era

Hope to see you in class in the new year!