Ira Glass said it best: when you start out, your taste runs ahead of your ability. You can see what good looks like. You just can’t make it yet.
Most people read this as a problem to solve. Get better. Close the gap. Don’t quit.
I think the gap is the useful thing. It’s your compass.
The founders I work with who build the most interesting practices have outsized taste. They look at a deck, a pitch, a draft, a rollout plan, and immediately feel what’s off. They can’t always articulate it. They definitely can’t always fix it. But they know.
That knowing is the whole game.
It’s also the part of your work no AI replaces. The agent can build it faster, draft it cleaner, test it more thoroughly. The agent cannot tell you whether it’s any good. That call is yours. The agent’s job is execution. Yours is taste.
The gap is what makes you irreplaceable. Not its eventual closing. Its existence. The day you stop being able to feel what’s off, the assistant has nothing left to bring you.
You’re the compass. The compass is the work.
Keep the gap sharp.