I call my shots on enterprise technology. I’m rarely wrong—and I’m willing to put my name on that. But if my insight doesn’t help others succeed, then my accuracy is irrelevant. Prediction without impact isn’t leadership. — The CTO Advisor

I’ve stopped trying to be the smartest person in the room. There was a time when my edge was knowing the answers: system architecture, upgrade paths, performance trade-offs. That kind of knowledge made you valuable. But today? AI knows that stuff. Or at least sounds like it does—and for many people, that’s enough. So I’ve made a pivot. I now let AI handle the heavy lifting of “what” and “how.” My value is in helping people figure out the “why now,” “what if we’re wrong,” and “how will this land with the people who matter.” Because I’ve learned—often the hard way—that being right isn’t enough. Years ago, during a system upgrade, I realized the team had planned for the wrong software version. I knew the correct one to meet the project goals, so I changed the upgrade on the fly. Technically? I was right. But I almost got fired. My manager explained all the downstream impacts I hadn’t considered: testing schedules, integration dependencies, vendor support agreements. I made it work—but it could’ve gone very wrong. AI would’ve made the same call I did. And it would’ve lacked the accountability to live with the consequences. That’s where experience matters. That’s where trust matters. And that’s where I’ve chosen to focus.