Let me show you some math that should make you uncomfortable.

Founder A uses AI to "10x their content production." They were creating 4 pieces of content per month. Now they create 40.

Impressive, right?

Except... their engagement dropped 60%. Their conversion rate halved. They're producing more content that does less. Net result: they're actually worse off than before.

This is the productivity illusion. And it's everywhere.

The Illusion in Action

Here's how the illusion works:

AI makes output easy. Suddenly you can generate more—more content, more variations, more ideas. You measure the increase. You feel productive.

But output isn't impact. More content isn't better content. More words aren't more results.

The metrics that matter—engagement, conversion, revenue, relationships—these don't automatically improve with volume. Sometimes they get worse.

I've seen founders proudly share their AI productivity gains while their actual business metrics stagnate or decline. They're measuring the wrong things.

The Inputs That Actually Matter

Real productivity isn't about output volume. It's about outcome efficiency. How much result do you get per unit of effort?

When you reframe productivity this way, the question changes from "how can I produce more?" to "how can I produce better?"

And producing better requires different AI approaches:

1. Quality inputs over quantity outputs.

The time you invest in building a proper knowledge base—curating examples, documenting frameworks, capturing voice patterns—pays dividends forever. An hour of thoughtful input saves ten hours of mediocre output editing.

2. Fewer better prompts over many generic ones.

Instead of rapidly generating content, slow down. One carefully considered prompt that produces excellent output is worth more than ten quick prompts that produce garbage.

3. Feedback loops over fire-and-forget.

When something works, capture why. When something fails, learn why. In Lenny, this means actively training your AI based on outcomes, not just producing and moving on.

Measuring What Matters

Here's a framework for honest AI productivity measurement:

Before AI: How long did it take to create a piece of content? What were the results of that content?

After AI: How long does it take now? What are the results now?

The only honest productivity gain is if you're getting equal or better results in less time. Or significantly better results in equal time.

Everything else is illusion.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Is my content performing better, worse, or the same since I started using AI?

• Am I spending less total time (including editing and fixing) or just less drafting time?

• Would I be proud to put my name on AI-assisted content, or am I settling?

• Are the things that made my content valuable—insights, perspective, voice—still present?

If the honest answers aren't good, you're not getting real productivity gains. You're trading quality for quantity and calling it progress.

What Real Gains Look Like

The founders I work with who see genuine AI productivity gains share some patterns:

They measure outcomes, not outputs. Content performance matters more than content volume.

They invest in setup. Building a proper knowledge base takes time. They do it anyway because they understand leverage.

They stay in the loop. AI generates, they judge. AI drafts, they refine. The human taste and strategic thinking that made their content valuable doesn't get outsourced.

They improve over time. Their AI gets smarter because they actively train it. Month six is dramatically better than month one.

An Honest Assessment

Here's what I'd invite you to do:

Look at your AI usage over the past three months. Not how much you produced, but what actually happened.

Did your content perform better? Did your business benefit? Did you genuinely save time when you include all the editing and fixing? Are you producing work you're proud of?

If yes—great. You've figured something out. Keep going.

If no—that's okay too. It just means your current approach isn't working, and there might be a better way.

Lenny is built around the idea that AI should make your work better, not just faster. That real productivity compounds. That quality and efficiency aren't tradeoffs.

If that resonates, I'd love to show you what it looks like in practice.