Damon Scaife

AI keynote speaker and founder of in the Claude Startups program. Former Apple, 11 years teaching tech on stage. I build what I teach.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

I spent 11 years at Apple teaching tech on stage. Then I used AI to build a product of my own, solo. ZTales makes animated bedtime stories for kids. Here is how it works, and where it is going. 🧵

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Blame feels good.

Ownership gets results.

When something breaks in a business, there are two reactions.

The first one points. The tool was bad. The client was difficult. The market changed. The AI got it wrong.

All of that might be true. None of it fixes anything.

The second one asks a better question. What could I have controlled? What do I change so this does not happen again?

I see this constantly with AI. An automation sends something embarrassing and the owner blames the tool.

But someone chose to let it send without a human reading it first.

Own the system. Fix the system. Move on.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Fastest way to know if someone actually uses AI:

Ask them what it gets wrong.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

I teach AI for a living. Building ZTales is how I keep my lessons honest. Follow along, I post what works and what breaks. https://t.co/3Vgo2rYr5b

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

I spent 11 years at Apple teaching tech on stage. Then I used AI to build a product of my own, solo. ZTales makes animated bedtime stories for kids. Here is how it works, and where it is going. 🧵

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Second lesson: the clips that win are not the sweet ones. Kids laughing and kids refusing to go to bed beat everything else. My top 10 reels average about 3,060 views.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

@IlirAliu_ Interesting

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

@AarushYadav47 well done

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

@AarushYadav47 Another step in the direction of getting things done faster.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Describe the situation. Never the person.

Not this: Marcus Ruiz, paystub attached, account ending 4417.
This: Self employed borrower, two years of returns, 15% down.

The name and account number were never making the answer better. AI does not need to know who they are to help you figure out what to do.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

AI can give you a hundred options in a second.

A hundred headlines. A hundred pricing ideas. A hundred ways to reply to an angry client.

It cannot tell you which one is right for your business.

It does not know your customers the way you do. It does not know what you tried last year. It does not feel what happens in the room when you say a number out loud.

That is judgment.

And judgment only comes from doing the work. Making calls. Getting some wrong. Remembering why.

This is why I keep telling owners not to hand AI the final decision.

Let it widen the options. You make the choice.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

AI did not kill creativity.

It killed the excuse that you lacked the skills to make the thing in your head.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

How to write an AI prompt that actually works. Save this.

1. Say who you are. "I run a small HVAC company in Las Vegas."

2. Say who it is for. "This goes to a homeowner who asked for a quote and went quiet."

3. Say what you want. "Write a short, friendly follow up text."

4. Give an example of your voice. Paste a message you already sent that sounded like you.

5. Set the limits. "Under 50 words. No pressure. No exclamation points."

6. Read it like the customer would. Then ask for one change at a time.

That is it. No secret words. No magic templates.

Clear context in, useful work out.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

You do not need an AI course.

You need one real problem and one weekend.

Courses feel productive. You watch, you take notes, you feel like you are learning.

Then Monday comes and nothing in your business changed.

Here is what works better.

Pick the one task you hate most every week. The report. The follow up emails. The quote you rewrite every time.

Spend one weekend getting AI to do it. Get stuck. Look things up. Try again. Get it working.

You will learn more in those two days than in ten hours of videos.

And on Monday, something in your business is actually different.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

@dILHZBCaWQ21987 FPS slowing down——- happened a lot with one of my game, while I was adding in rich environment detail, specifically with my zombie game.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

I built a full browser game with AI as my coding partner.

People assume that means AI did it for me.

Here is what actually happened.

AI wrote a lot of the code. Fast. Faster than I ever could alone.

It also made mistakes constantly. Bugs that looked right. Logic that worked once and broke the next time. Confident answers that were simply wrong.

My job was to know what good looked like, catch every one of those mistakes and keep the whole thing pointed in the right direction.

That is the honest version of building with AI.

AI makes builders faster. A lot faster.

It does not turn spectators into builders. You still have to understand what you are making.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

@lucaardito Each game was roughly a few days. Some longer, some shorter. https://t.co/QH4goFGToT

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Levels of a presenter:

1. Reads the slides
2. Knows the slides
3. Knows the audience
4. Shows the audience their own problem, solved

Most people stop at level 2. They memorize the deck and call it preparation.

Level 3 is where it starts to change. You know who is in the room, what they are worried about and what they already tried.

Level 4 wins the room.

You stop presenting information and start showing people their own situation, fixed, right in front of them.

I spent a decade in tech presentations learning this. It is the same with AI.

Do not show people what the tool can do. Show them what it does for them.

[Damon Scaife @_DamonScaife]

Never let AI send an email for you without reading it first.

It will be right most of the time. The rest of the time it is your reputation.