Today’s episode is a special one for me.

Tea & Tech is four years old.

Four years of conversations about technology, business, AI — and the human side of all of it.

And honestly… the number of things that have changed in those four years is mind-boggling.

When I started this podcast, there was no ChatGPT.

And even saying that now feels a little unbelievable.

I want to talk about what I’m calling the invisible pivot.

For the past couple of years, AI has lived at the tip of the spear when it comes to fear.

Fear of replacement. Fear of loss of control. Fear of identity erosion. Fear of speed without guardrails.

And to be clear — those concerns weren’t imaginary. They were real. Necessary, even.

Fear can be a useful signal when something new is moving faster than our ability to metabolize it.

But fear is not meant to be a permanent operating system.

What I’ve noticed recently is that AI is no longer the loudest fear in the room.

The world has gotten heavier. More complex. More fragile in very human ways. And when that happens, fear reorganizes itself.

What rises to the top isn’t abstraction — it’s immediacy. Safety. Stability. Meaning.

And in that environment, something interesting happens.

AI doesn’t disappear. But it moves.

A validation loop is simple. You do something. You get immediate feedback.

You learn what is rewarded. You repeat.

Likes, Views, Scores, Rankings, XP, Badges, Leaderboards

None of this is inherently evil.

But when feedback is constant, identity becomes external.