The human sits on top of the robot

Our logo has been the same for about ten years. A person, standing on top of a robot's head.

Most people read it as a mascot. It is an argument.

The robot is everything underneath the work. The software, the automation, the AI. It is strong, tireless, and cheap. It will do a thousand things while you sleep. What it will not do is care whether any of them were the right thing to do.

That part is your job. You are the one standing on top.

The mistake nearly everyone is making right now is standing in the wrong spot. They ask the machine what to write, what to sell, what to charge, what to become. They hand it the steering wheel and keep the pedals. Then they wonder why the business drifts somewhere they never chose to go.

Run it the other way. You decide, the machine executes. You choose the customer, the offer, the standard, the line you will not cross. The machine handles the follow-up, the reminders, the receipts, the ten-at-night phone call. Judgment stays with the human. Labor goes to the robot.

Here is a clean test for anything you are tempted to automate. Ask whether it is a decision, or the carrying-out of a decision you already made. Carrying-out is safe to hand off. Deciding is not. A text that fires the second a call goes unanswered is carrying out a standing decision to always follow up. A change in price is a decision. Do not let the machine make it just because the machine can talk.

Leverage is not the machine doing your thinking. Leverage is the machine doing your doing, so you have room left to think at all.

Stay on top of the robot. That is the whole reason to build one.