Hey friends,

A post went viral this week from a tech founder named Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_ on X). He's the founder of HyperWrite, has spent six years building AI startups, and he wrote something that's getting shared everywhere.

His message, in short: AI just crossed a line. The latest models released on February 5th (Claude Opus 4.6 from Anthropic and GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI) changed everything. He describes telling AI what he wants built, walking away for four hours, and coming back to find the finished product done better than he could have done it himself.

He compared this moment to February 2020. The "this seems overblown" phase right before the world changed.

And he's right. For most people, this is going to feel like it came out of nowhere.

But not for us.

Because I read his entire post, and here's what kept running through my head:

We already know this. We've been living this. And nobody's talking about it from our perspective.

I want to give you the key points from Shumer's post because they're important. And I want to give him full credit. This is his experience, his words, his warning. I'm not claiming any of it as my own.

But I am going to reframe it through our lens. Because the story changes completely when you do.

Here's what Shumer laid out:

The models that dropped on February 5th are a different thing entirely. He describes AI that doesn't just follow instructions but makes intelligent decisions. Something that feels like judgment. Like taste. He says the distinction between AI capability and human capability is starting not to matter.

He's no longer needed for the technical work of his job. He describes what he wants in plain English, walks away, comes back to finished work. Not a rough draft. The finished thing. Done better than he would have done it himself.

This isn't just about tech. He says the experience tech workers have had over the past year, watching AI go from "helpful tool" to "does my job better than I do," is the experience everyone else is about to have. Law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design. Not in ten years. One to five years. Maybe less.

AI is now helping build the next AI. OpenAI's documentation says GPT-5.3 Codex was "instrumental in creating itself." The feedback loop between current AI and next-generation AI is accelerating. Each version helps build the next, smarter version.

His advice: Start using AI seriously. Pay for the best model. Spend one hour a day experimenting. Get your financial house in order. Rethink what you're telling your kids about career paths. Build the habit of adapting.

It's a well-written, honest, and genuinely alarming post. And for most people reading it, it probably feels like a wake-up call.

For us, it should feel like validation.

Shumer's post is written for the mainstream. For people who tried ChatGPT once in 2023, thought "that's kind of cool," and went back to doing things the old way. For people who are about to be blindsided.

That's not us.

This community has been using AI as a cognitive partner for years. Not because we read a tech blog and thought it sounded interesting. Because our brains demanded it.

When you're dyslexic, you don't have the luxury of waiting for the mainstream to figure out that these tools work. You find them. You adopt them. You integrate them into your daily workflow. Not because it's trendy. Because the alternative is spending three hours on something that should take thirty minutes, burning cognitive energy on symbolic processing that your brain didn't allocate resources for.

Shumer says the people who will come out of this best are "the ones who start engaging now."

We started engaging years ago.

He says the single biggest advantage is "simply being early."

We were early before early was an option.

He says the most important skill is "the muscle of learning new tools quickly" and getting "comfortable being a beginner repeatedly."

That's the skill neurodivergent people have been forced to build their entire lives.

Every accommodation you ever asked for. Every workaround you cobbled together. Every time you found a different path to the same destination because the normal path wasn't built for your brain. Every time you figured out a new tool, a new system, a new hack to get around the friction.

That's adaptation. That's the skill. And you already have it.

Here's what fascinates me about Shumer's post versus what we talk about in this newsletter.

His story is a threat story. AI is coming for your job. The water is rising. Prepare or drown.

Our story is a liberation story. AI is the load balancer that finally lets our brains operate at full capacity. The tool that handles the high-friction symbolic work so we can deploy the pattern recognition, strategic thinking, and abstraction that our cognitive allocation prioritizes.

Both stories are true. But they land completely differently depending on where you're standing.

If you're a neurotypical knowledge worker who's never needed to adapt your workflow, who's always been able to do things the "normal" way, then yes. This moment is terrifying. Because the "normal" way is about to get automated.

But if you're a neurodivergent thinker who has never been able to do things the normal way? Who has always had to find creative workarounds, build custom systems, adapt on the fly, learn new tools faster than everyone around you?

This is your moment.

Not because AI makes dyslexia easier. Because the skills that dyslexia forced you to develop are the exact skills the entire workforce now needs to learn from scratch.

Let me be specific about this because I think it's the most important thing I've written in 328 editions of this newsletter.

Shumer says the people who will thrive are the ones who are:

Deeply curious. We've been curious our whole lives. We had to be. When the standard path doesn't work, curiosity is how you find the one that does.

Adaptable. Every neurodivergent person alive is an adaptation specialist. We adapt to classrooms that weren't built for us. Workplaces that weren't designed for us. Communication systems that don't match how we think. We adapt every single day.

Effective at using AI to do things they actually care about. This is what we talk about in every edition of this newsletter. Using AI not as a replacement for thinking, but as a cognitive partner that handles the friction so you can focus on the work that matters to you.

Comfortable being a beginner repeatedly. When you're dyslexic, you're a beginner in every new text-heavy environment you enter. You learn to get comfortable with not knowing. You build the muscle of figuring it out anyway. Over and over and over.

Builders. Shumer says "pursue the things you're passionate about." He says AI removes the barriers to building. You don't need to know how to code. You don't need to hire a team. You describe what you want and it appears. For neurodivergent thinkers who always had the vision but struggled with the execution? That barrier was the only thing standing between you and the thing you wanted to create.

Read that list again. That is a description of the dyslexic experience. Every single bullet point.

The world is panicking about needing to learn the skills we were born practicing.

Shumer says something in his post that hit me as a dad. He says: "Rethink what you're telling your kids."

The standard playbook, good grades, good college, stable professional job, points directly at the roles that are most exposed to AI automation. He says the people most likely to thrive are "deeply curious, adaptable, and effective at using AI to do things they actually care about."

I think about Makena when I read that.

She's 14. She's neurodivergent. She already used ChatGPT to structure an argument that changed my mind about cat medication. She didn't learn that in school. She figured it out on her own. Because she needed a tool that worked with her brain, and she found one.

The education system is telling kids like Makena that using AI tools is cheating. That they need to do things the "right" way. The traditional way.

The traditional way is the thing getting automated.

The kids who are going to thrive are the ones who already know how to work with AI. Who treat it as a thinking partner, not a shortcut. Who use it to build things they care about.

If your neurodivergent kid is already doing this? They're not behind. They're years ahead of their peers. And the world is about to find out.

I want to be fair to Shumer's post because there's something in it that I think is genuinely beautiful, and it lines up perfectly with what we believe here.

He wrote:

"Your dreams just got a lot closer."

He says if you've wanted to build something but didn't have the technical skills, that barrier is largely gone. You describe an app and have a working version in an hour. You want to write a book but struggled with the writing? AI can help you get it done. The best tutor in the world is available to anyone for $20 a month. Knowledge is essentially free. The tools to build things are extremely cheap.

That's the cognitive partnership model.

That's what we've been talking about for two years. AI handles the execution friction. You bring the vision, the pattern recognition, the creative insight, the strategic thinking.

For the mainstream, that's a new idea. For the dyslexic community, that's Tuesday.

We've always had the ideas. We've always seen the patterns. We've always had the big-picture vision. What held us back was the execution layer. The linear sequencing. The symbolic encoding. The spelling, the formatting, the structure.

AI handles the execution layer now.

Which means the only thing left is the stuff our brains were built for.

Matt Shumer wrote a warning for the world. And it's a good one. People need to hear it.

But here's the version I want you to hear.

The AI revolution isn't something happening to you. It's something that finally works for you.

The skills the world is scrambling to develop? Adaptability, curiosity, comfort with change, creative problem-solving, learning new tools fast, building things from vision instead of following templates?

You've been developing those skills your entire life. Not by choice. By necessity.

The people who are going to struggle most in this transition are the ones who've always done things the conventional way and never had to adapt. The ones who followed the standard path and assumed it would always be there.

That was never an option for us. And now that turns out to be the advantage nobody saw coming.

Don't let this moment scare you. Let it motivate you.

You are not behind. You are not catching up. You are not at risk of being left behind by this technology.

You are the community that was built to thrive in exactly this moment.

The world just woke up. We've been up for years.

If Shumer's post found its way to you and it scared you, good. It should create urgency. But don't let it create fear. Channel it into action. Keep using these tools. Keep experimenting. Keep building. Keep showing the world what a neurodivergent thinker with a good AI partner can do.

And share this edition with someone who needs to hear this version of the story. Because the mainstream narrative is all about threat. Our narrative is about opportunity. And both of them are true.

Matt "Coach" Ivey

Founder, LM Lab AI  |  Creator, Dyslexic AI

(Dictated, not typed. Obviously.)

📣 The Viral Post: Tech founder Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_ on X) wrote a warning that went everywhere this week. His message: AI just crossed a line. The models released February 5th (Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.3 Codex) changed the game. He compared this moment to February 2020. The "this seems overblown" phase before everything changed.

🧠 His Warning: AI is coming for knowledge work. Law, finance, medicine, writing, design, consulting. Not in ten years. One to five. Maybe less. The water is rising. Start adapting now.

🔄 Our Reframe: The dyslexic and neurodivergent community has been adapting to AI as a cognitive partner for years. Not because it was trendy. Because our brains demanded it. We were early before early was an option.

💪 The Advantage: The skills the world is scrambling to learn (adaptability, curiosity, comfort with change, creative problem-solving, learning new tools fast, building from vision) are the exact skills neurodivergent thinkers have been forced to develop their entire lives.

👨‍👧 Your Kids: The education system is calling AI tools "cheating." Meanwhile, the traditional career path those schools prepare kids for is the thing getting automated. Neurodivergent kids already using AI as cognitive partners aren't behind. They're years ahead.

🚀 The Point: Shumer's post is a threat story for the mainstream. Our story is a liberation story. AI handles the execution friction. You bring the vision, the patterns, the strategic thinking. The world just woke up. We've been up for years.

Full credit for the original post to Matt Shumer, founder of HyperWrite/OthersideAI (@mattshumer_ on X). His warning is real and worth reading. This edition reframes it through the lens of the neurodivergent community. Both perspectives matter.