Why do we type?

Quick housekeeping note: your time and inbox is precious. Starting in October, I’ll be sending the BYC newsletter monthly instead of weekly. As always, thanks for reading!

It's the week before I graduate from college.

I'm sitting in the computer lab learning Excel shortcuts.

Finals are over. I just need to wait until Monday to walk across the stage and receive my official diploma so that I can go to work on Tuesday.

I go through the drills:

Alt + H + O + I to resize the column
Alt + A + S + S to sort the data
SUMIFS to calculate the data
Turn on iterative calculation for circular references

Boom, financial model created.

"Campbell, what the hell are you doing?" A few friends with beers are walking by. "No classes are going on, and finals are over. Come celebrate with us!"

"I'll see you tonight," I reply, thinking to myself that a few more reps will be useful in building muscle memory in my fingers.

That finger muscle memory turned out to be useful. It helped me get a job and build financial models that helped business deals get done.

But fast forward to today, the same muscle memory in my fingers is getting less useful. The reason is that those same Excel sheets can be built with AI. No keyboard shortcuts needed. No need to miss out on fun parties.

And soon, we'll no longer need to type. At least, that's what Jensen Huang, the leader of the world's most valuable company, thinks will happen (watch a short clip here).

And I couldn't be more excited about it.

Because my goal was never to be the best at Excel. My goal was to have meaningful work that made a positive impact.

Excel helped me accomplish that. Typing helped me accomplish that, which is why I did it.

If I can do meaningful work that creates a positive impact without typing, I am all for it.

— Ian

Running is cool