036 AI for Operators

Hi there, 

Welcome back to AI for Operators. Here’s what we’ve got for you this week:

• The Operator: Off this Week

• The Essay: The Seven Career Powers: Career Strategy in the Age of AI

• The Jobs: Senior AI roles with salaries up to $250k

• The Links: 9 links including including a beginner’s guide to OpenClaw, conflicting views on AI-driven economic disruption, and the narrative around layoffs caused by AI is accelerating

• The Events: New AI Fellowship dates and two new AI workshops

This is an excerpt of a longer guide that we’ll be releasing soon. We’d love to hear your feedback - is this useful?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an AI accelerationist, a doomer, or something in between: we’re in the midst of a major change for the labor market. How should you react to this change?

The career strategies that have been drummed into us from an early age no longer work. Getting a great education, developing expertise, and doing complex cognitive work is no longer a sufficient strategy for securing a meaningful or economically viable future for you and your family. 

The most exposed professions are ones where workers are more educated, more experienced, and more highly paid. At the same time, early-career workers in AI-exposed occupations have already seen a 16% relative employment decline. 

Instead of thinking about career success like leveling up in a video game - acquiring knowledge and skills - it’s better to think about capturing and occupying strategic positions on a Risk board, then fortifying those positions to withstand attacks.

The Seven Career Powers framework outlines the strategic positions that are most likely to survive and thrive in the age of AI.

While it may be daunting to change your career approach from acquiring skills and doing complex knowledge work to prioritizing strategic positions with structural power, making this shift now will put you ahead of your peers who have not yet realized the magnitude of the change to come. 

The Career Power Audit

Not all powers are available to everyone. Answer these questions to determine which are structurally available to you where you stand today:

• What points of leverage do you hold today, even partially?

• What industry are you in? What powers does it naturally support?

• What is your level of risk tolerance?

Stacking Powers

While the framework addresses the powers in isolation, they are substantially more powerful when combined in pairs. Here are some of the more durable combinations:

• Agency + Ownership: The founder who retains equity in the company they started

• Celebrity + Ownership: The well-known public figure who parlays their visibility into compounding assets that generate sustainable value

• Regulatory + Network: The partner at a professional firm who holds a professional license and controls the relationships that bring the firm revenue

• Accountability + Celebrity: The public-facing executive whose reputation is their career moat

• Embodiment + Regulatory: The physician or master electrician whose license protects their role and whose physical skills make them valuable

The goal is not to collect all seven powers, it’s to find a mutually-reinforcing pair that you can wield.

What You Should Do Today

Activating this framework won’t happen overnight; it will be a multi-year process to construct something meaningful and sustainable. The first step, however, is to stop asking “what should I learn” and start asking “what position should I occupy, and what action can I take next to occupy it?”

A few concrete tips:

• If you’re early in your career, prioritize Agency. The downside is most survivable when you have little to lose. As you exercise Agency, build Ownership by negotiating for equity.

• If you’re mid-career with some standing in your organization, you may already have some Accountability Power. Document it, make it concrete, and find ways to make it portable.

• If you’re in a licensed profession, determine whether your license sits on a growing or shrinking domain, and be active in the relevant professional groups to protect your license.

• No matter what position you occupy, focus on building your Network deep, not wide.

Some AI strategy and implementation roles that caught our eye:

AI Enablement and Innovation at Gong

Own their internal AI operating model.

• Comp: $143k - $210k

AI Enablement Lead at Ridgeline

• Help the Ridgeline team understand, adopt, and integrate AI into their day-to-day workflows.

• Comp: $170k - $190k

Director, AI Strategy at Alkermes

• Drive responsible, high-value AI adoption across functional areas including Commercial, R&D, and Operations.

• Comp: $220k - $250k