I shared a LinkedIn post this week that really seemed to resonate, so I wanted to dig a little deeper into it here.
Last week in NYC, I was with a group of agency founders, creatives, and old-school web peeps, all people who helped shape the early days of the web. As we swapped stories, one theme kept coming up: We used to be fearless.
No playbooks. No permission. No worries. Just instinct, invention, and the sheer belief that we could make things better. So this week, I want to talk about what it means to reclaim that energy as we head into a future that’s being rewritten in real-time.
Because if you’re feeling uncertain or stuck right now, this one’s for you.
We Need to Be Dangerous Again
I went back and forth on using the word "dangerous" in this heading. But I'm going with it, because it's how I feel. We were dangerous. Shaking things up! We weren't wreckless or naive. But alive. Awake. Willing to leap.
Back in the early 2000s, we didn’t wait to be told how to do something, we figured it out. We created the processes, the tools, and the workarounds. We built digital experiences from scratch. We debugged in real time, shipped weird ideas, and dared clients to keep up.
And then… we got serious.
We built "real" businesses. We added org charts and job titles. We studied other companies and what they did. We scaled. We started to protect instead of create.
And in doing so, many of us lost the very thing that made us so special:
That empowering belief that the world was still unwritten... and we were the ones holding the pen!
Now here we are again. Another seismic shift. The Intelligence Age.
Just like the web blindsided us in the early days, no one really knows where AI is taking us. Which means we have to get fearless again. Not throwing out what works, but by experimenting, imagining, and believing (once again) that we are the ones who will shape what’s next. Who else is battle tested and ready for this if not us?
Here’s how we get started:
Audit your beliefs.
What are you doing because it’s “how it’s done”? When did you trade in curiosity for compliance?
Reclaim your edge.
Pick one process, service, or offering and ask: How would we do this if we were starting over today?
Experiment in public.
Launch something rough. Try something new. Share what you’re learning even if it’s messy. Not only does it lift everyone up, it's fun as hell.
Invest in your people.
We weren’t just reminiscing in NYC, we were pumping each other up about rebuilding teams with the right mindset to lead again.
Say no to the wrong work.
Dangerous founders don’t take crap from clients. Get clear on your boundaries and your worth.
There are a lot of us who are worried about what's happening and what's next. I am not trying to downplay that things have been and are getting even more intense at all. What I'm saying is, if this a fight or flight moment? I'm gonna fight for what I've built and what I believe in. How about you?
The Bureau wasn’t built by people playing it safe. It was built by people who said, What if? And then they did it. So if you’ve been waiting for a sign that it’s time to get moving again, to reclaim your voice, your weirdness, your courage and your swagger... this is it.
Because we are not passengers being hurled into the future. We are the architects designing what comes next.