Article · Greg Howell · October 23, 2026
AI is a skill you practice, not a product you buy
AI is the most powerful technology I’ve seen in my career, and also the most approachable. I started with a Commodore 64 in 1982, lived through MS-DOS and the first Windows, and started an internet company that didn’t survive the dot-com crash. Nothing has come close to this combination of leverage and ease.
“It’s like learning a musical instrument. Few people are born with musical talent. If they’re competent, it’s because they practiced.”
The barrier used to be the jargon: GitHub, MCP, APIs. Now you ask the AI what the term means and it walks you through it. Learning AI is like learning an instrument. Nobody is born competent. People get good by practicing in small bits, often. Use it to plan a trip or research a hobby. Humans learn through play. Experiment and don't underestimate what you and AI can do.
“Asking Claude to write the prompt for you is an underrated skill.”