Before you read this, you should know what it’s about, because it isn’t really about AI. It’s about the fact that, at some point, without a meeting or a memo, your name started going on work you didn’t make. For most people it happened before anyone said it out loud. It’s happening today, whether you use the machine or your company uses it around you. And everything that used to protect you, being good at your job, working hard, being liked, protects you less than it did, because the machine is good at your job, works around the clock, and everyone likes it fine.

What still protects you is one thing: being the person who can stand behind the work. Who checked it, can defend it, and answers if it breaks. That’s not a virtue. It’s a skill set, it can be learned in about ninety minutes of reading, and the people who have it are becoming impossible to remove from the room.

The warning is this: somebody on your team is going to become that person, the one who stands behind the work. The ones who don’t will spend the next decade being quietly rearranged by people and machines they can’t see. This book shows you how to be the first kind. That part it can do. Standing behind your own name, only you can do.

One more thing, for the reader in a hurry: at the back of this book is a single page with six questions about your week. You’ll fill it in with real answers from real records, it takes about twenty minutes, and it will tell you where you actually stand. If you read nothing else, read your way to that page.