two ways i see people using ai: the structured way vs the cowboy way. the structured way you know those prompt templates everyone talks about? when using the structured way, and when you are writing the prompt, you’d have some kind of a prerequisite form, which you fill in like giving the ai role, the context, the ask and so on. the fill in the blanks kinda style. the cowboy way the “cowboy way” is more like having a conversation with someone who just gets whatever you say. you’d build context organically, letting the ai understand not just what you’re asking but why you’re asking it, how it connects to your broader thinking. for example, when you say “here’s this pdf i found in an article about x, and it relates to our conversation because…” you’re giving the ai a richer understanding of your mental model and goals. let’s not forget language models are pattern recognition mammoths. and so if you give in the way you think, it’ll try to repeat the patterns. with the cowboy way, being street smart with ai, you’d have a sense for what kind of input yields what kind of an output. it sometimes cannot even be documented properly cuz it’s an inner feeling and emotion involved when you’re putting down a question. and the way it worked for this problem might not yield you the same level outputs for the next problem. this just comes from vigorously using ai in any form that it takes. we can also put it this way, the business can be well run by a former one who is in the field than a structurally manufactured mba on how business works.