Don't live on autopilot
A framework for what deserves your attention.
The first week I started at Scale AI, I had a chat with Alex the CEO about whether Scale was already a “successful startup.” He predicted that if the company were to operate on autopilot without him around, it would fall into a downward spiral before ultimately imploding.
I kept revisiting this thought experiment because it applies to life in general. Your life is a startup; it can crash and burn. So I repurposed it into a recipe for how to live.
All you need to do is ask yourself a similar question: in my life, what would fail if left on autopilot?
Boiling the frog (you are the frog)
Major failure modes in life come from boiling the frog: you don’t notice the problem until it’s too late. Imagine what your life looks like 10 years out. Some areas will be fine, but others area will suffer. If you were to change nothing, where does your life go?
Some things in life feel like a big deal right now but aren’t actually important. Conversely, the real priorities can be a big deal later while barely being noticeable in the moment. But you should focus on them now.
Why do important life domains rarely feel like a big deal in the present? Because they either compound, or they expire.
Compounding Domains
Finances: Money can snowball in either direction. Crippling debt can keep you trapped for the rest of your life, while smart financial habits allow you to retire early. You don’t want to be the recently-laid-off 60-year-old with a mortgage and no savings.
Physical health: Muscle growth peaks at a relatively early age and slows down. The same happens with agility. Your physical fitness influences your longevity, and improving your fitness becomes harder when you’re old or unhealthy. The best way to be healthy when you’re old is to be healthy when you’re young.
Friendship: Quality friendships are key to wellbeing. But friendships atrophy and drift apart because people are too “busy,” and people complain that it’s hard to make friends as adults.
Expiring Domains
Dating and marriage: Dating gets harder as you age. On average, people become less attractive and more set in their ways. Fertility goes down, and it becomes harder to meet people. Yet who you partner with is arguably the most important decision of your life.
Travel and experiences: You may not have the ability to travel later in life. This may be due to physical health, energy levels, or from other life obligations. So do it while you can. Money is fungible; experiences less so.
Geographic optionality: Avoid putting down roots until you’re confident you want to stay somewhere for the long term. Homeownership is often treated like a checkbox rather than a choice. Far too often, people never move (or stay in their hometown), which closes off many opportunities.
None of these feel urgent in the moment, but they are. By the time it’s obvious, the ship has already sailed. That’s why it’s important to be vigilant of these failure modes while they don’t feel like a big deal.
What should you be doing right now?
Identify parts of your life that are operating on autopilot. Which ones are projected to fail? The parts of life that fail on autopilot are where your attention is most needed.
Select the highest priority part of your life that’s on track to fail. You can only really fix one or two things at a time. When prioritizing, ask: What will expire soon? What will compound the most? What will be hard to reverse?
Focus your attention on the most important “autopilot failure mode,” and intervene until you’re happy with its trajectory.
Systematize that part of your life (i.e. build good habits) so it won’t regress the moment you divert your attention elsewhere.
Repeat the process.
Another way to describe this is to “find the ticking time bomb and defuse it.” Most lives don’t fail in the conventional sense. They just pass by until options quietly disappear. So your job is to notice what won’t fix itself and act before it’s too late.