How Experience Plus AI Unlocks New Peak Performance with Ted Yang

What if your best performance isn’t behind you? That one assumption quietly shapes careers, confidence, and how we think about aging. I sit down with Ted Yang, an MIT engineer, entrepreneur, former Bridgewater and Citadel finance executive, and the author of Ageless Peak Performance, to explore a more useful idea: cognitive speed may slow over time, but judgment and strategic pattern recognition can increase, and AI can help close the gap.

We get practical about what AI-powered excellence actually looks like at work. Ted shares a simple rule that changes everything: treat AI like an intern, not an oracle. We talk about the risks of using generative AI as a pure answer machine, why that can weaken thinking, and how to use large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to sharpen your decisions instead. You’ll hear tactics like using AI as a devil’s advocate, working iteratively, and starting with low-stakes tasks so you build confidence while keeping quality high.

Then we zoom out to the real leverage point: workflow. It’s not just about doing tasks faster; it’s about questioning why the tasks exist at all. From note-taking to status meetings, we unpack how AI can automate the “paper processing” layer and free you to do the work only you can do: setting direction, making judgment calls, and leading people. We also connect AI to flow state and goal clarity, so you don’t optimise speed while losing meaning.

If you want a grounded conversation about AI productivity, human performance, and longevity at work, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels “behind,” and leave a review with one workflow you’re ready to redesign.

Transcript

The Peak Performance Question

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dear listeners, today I want to start with a question. Like the question that almost nobody asks. Yeah. And what if your best performance is not behind you? What if the combination of experience, wisdom, bright, intelligent systems could actually make you more capable at 50 than you were at 30? We have been taught to think of peak performance, right, as something which is young people have and older people don't have, right? But a new conversation is emerging that one that says the tools we now have, especially AI, and fundamentally uh kind of rewriting what peak performance looks like, who it's available to, and how long it can be there or how long it can last. So today we are going to have a deep conversation into this. So hey dear listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Mind Witch Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and today we are at this conversation of and at the center of this AI, right? AI, human performance, longevity, and exploring like what it actually means to build and sustain the excellence in the age of intelligent systems. If you have ever wondered like what your best actually looks like when you combine like your hard-worn experience with the right tools, then stay with us. This one is going to open something. And we have a very

Who Ted Yank Is

SPEAKER_02 1:20

lovely guest today, dear listeners. So my guest has lived at this frontier for decades and decades. And please welcome my guest, Ted Yank. So welcome to the show. Hey, thank you, Avic. Have you haven't been at me, man? It's good to be here. Amazing. Thank you so much, Ted, for joining us today. And uh dear listeners, like before we get into the discussion deeply, I'll quickly introduce you with Ted. So Ted is an MIT engineer, entrepreneur, former uh brigadier, and sorry, former uh Bridgewater, right? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

So Bridgewater and uh Citadel Finance Executive, and uh the founder of more than uh 12 companies, and the author of uh Ageless Peach uh Peak Performance. And uh the playbook for AI powered excellence as well. He's I mean he's spoken at uh South Summit Crime and the university uh commencements around the world. Uh I do not want to take much time uh explaining myself rather than we can ask Ted about it, he can explain about it, he can share us the knowledge. So I'll not take much of the time, let's get started. Welcome to the show again, Ted.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Great. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks, man. Really appreciate it.

Rethinking Decline With AI

SPEAKER_02 2:26

So, Ted, like I definitely want to start with your book because I think it challenges something that most people accept without a question. The idea that peak performance has a natural arc and uh that it peaks young and declines with the age. So, what do you think? I mean, what do people most get wrong about it? What peak performance actually is?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, I mean, listen, when people are thinking about peak performance, they're not wrong, they're just thinking it's a little bit outdated. Look, uh, the fact is that as we get older, things slow down, right? And so this isn't just your physical abilities, and really I'm talking about your mental abilities, your cognitive abilities when I talk about ageless peak performance. You know, plenty of people want to talk about your physical oper uh, you know, uh activities as well, but both, of course, slow down as you get older. So these things peak in your 20s and then they slow down for the rest of your life. Now, for me, well, that that is obviously unacceptable. I think it's unacceptable to most people. And what has happened throughout history is that we've used tools to make up for this, right? Or make up for ourselves in general, but certainly to make up for the parts of us that need improvement. So we've created all sorts of tools. Humankind has created tools, and now we've created a new tool called AI. And this AI, here I mean large language models, transformer-based models, chat bots, all those things that you like to use. Yeah, you know, when you use ChatGPT, Claw, Gemini, whatever. These tools, okay, have the ability to extend the way in which you think. And they can make up for the parts of your brain that are slowing down as you get older. Now, let me just add one more thing, which is that as you get older, you do also gain something, right? And that's that's something is experienced. And this is actually shown by neuroscience to be real. So this is not just something that old people make up, this is something real that as you see things happen, your brain, your neurons reconfigure themselves to recognize patterns. And that pattern recognition is also called judgment, it's also called strategic thinking. And the idea of I can recognize the pattern of what I've seen before, so I know now what's going to happen, gives me the ability to think strategically. And that, of course, increases as you get older because you build more knowledge and more judgment. Hopefully you do, right? So those forces are what we're talking about here today. Those are the forces that I'm talking about in my book, Ageless Performance. And the idea of using AI to be able to stay at the top so that it's not just for young people, and it's not just for someone that's saying, I can do things really fast. In fact, Avik, doing things really fast and get and doing getting things done is less important in the age of AI. I think we're all seeing all the coding that's happening right now, right? Code is then the first thing that's been disrupted by AI itself, which is kind of ironic, but it is what it is. And so you see people who are now not coding, but instead they're orchestrating coding, right? They're they're using coding there, too. They're using clawed code. They're using these AI coding tools that are often coding on their own, and now humans are directing them, right? That is the same kind of pattern that I have for the book, but it's not about coding, it's about all of the various cognitive pieces of your brain and how you can stay strong and sharp.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Exactly, exactly. So that vibe coding part is definitely correct because right now we do not have to think about the code. We have everything in our mind and we want, we are directing the system to do it. And the same way, like uh, I also agree with your point. Like, with age, we are also gaining the experience, but I have a bit different view. I mean, that is that is from my side, it's like when we age, we are gaining the experience. But is it something which is also very equal to the experience or the logic or the idea that the new generation is also having, right? Because suppose suppose right now I'm I'm in my 30s, right? And someone who is in their 20s, right? Obviously, thinking pattern capacity will be a bit different. But can we say that the experience that I have, the experience that they have, and the logic both of you we are using, will that be kind of me having at the uh precedence, or they will also have that pro, I mean, actual value? Because I believe new brain, new generation also have uh some better ideas, uh chances, better options.

Young Speed Versus Seasoned Judgment

SPEAKER_02 6:38

I mean, what do you think on that?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, I mean, look, I I think it's I think it's it's both, right? I think the point here is that everybody can perform at their best, right? And it isn't just it used to be automatically that if you're older, you are wiser, and if you're younger, you were faster. And now I think that that is what's being disrupted, right? So to be clear, it's not that everyone who's old is wise, right? And not everyone who's young is fast, but that's the general principle, right? And I but I agree with you. We this is not intended to tell young people, say, listen, give up, right? I think there are there are plenty, there's plenty in the book for young people too, because the whole point of a young person is if a young person is more native to AI, is more native to digital cell phones, social media, all of these things, right? They tend to pick up things faster than older people. However, without a playbook or without understanding how to use it, young people can go wrong very quickly because they don't have that judgment that comes from experience and say, listen, this is just another tool, right? So someone younger can jump very deeply into something. And this is where you see a lot of cases where younger people are using AI in ways that just don't make any sense, right? That that actually weaken your thinking, right? The same way that if you start Googling everything, you don't remember any facts anymore.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

So it's it's obviously very similar. If you don't use your brain, you lose your brain, right? But the point here is you don't have to go use AI in a way that reduces your capability. You can use it in a way that increases your capability, even if you're younger. So if you're younger, the focus is not so much on using AI to get answers. It's focusing on how you get answers. So for example, if you say, listen, I you know, I have this idea about how I'm gonna go start a new company, and I say, okay, this is great. So just, hey, you know what? Write me a business plan, AI. And AI will write you the business plan, right? You'll just do it, right? And then you say, okay, here we go. I'm gonna take that business plan, I'm gonna send to a VC, I'm gonna get funded. Of course you're not. That's absurd, right? So what you need to do is you take what it does, and then you put your intelligence, you put your judgment. Use your intelligence, yes. Yeah, so you use it and then you learn from it. And you say, don't write it for me. Give me ideas so that I can like refine my thesis, so I can have a stronger thesis, so that I'm more ready, right? That you can have uh the AI uh play as a devil's advocate. That's something that I give away on my book for people to use if you don't know how to use it yourself. I mean, there are these kinds of I don't call tricks, but these are really processes that you can follow, right? Methods that you can follow that I write about, that other people write about, that you can use AI in a way that enhances the way that you think, as opposed to just say, give me the answer and do it for me.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Very true. Yeah. I really love that part, yes, definitely. How we can utilize it in a more much more advanced way, that is something which we should always look

AI Powered Workflows That Matter

SPEAKER_02 9:12

for. And so if you if you see about our daily life, right, like everyday world of someone who is trying to perform at high level. So whether they are an entrepreneur, they're an executive, professional, any field. So, what does AI-powered excellence actually look like in practice? And it's not in the theory, but definitely in the kind of daily decisions, workflows, habits, yeah, make change.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, so I think the key word certainly is workflow, right? The key word is not just speed things up, but re-examine the things that you were doing, should you be doing them and how you do that, right? Because that's that's some of the opportunities that you have. For some long, much of our ability to get things done has been constrained by out, right? Our ability to do things. This is why we scale up our teams. So we need more people doing things. Well, AI can do things. Now it's about doing the right thing. So much of workflow, human workflow, is about paper processing, right? It's about workflow processing. We're human part of a machine that's processing something, right? Workflow again. And how often has that ever really been looked at, Avic? I mean, the problem that we see, you know, like say in any bureaucracy is that people don't even look at why they do things, they just do them, right? And when you just do something, you perpetuate this kind of workflow that is not optimized. Now, AI can say, can cut to the chase of all this and be like, well, why am I doing this at all, right? Why, like, and this is a very simple example. No one takes notes anymore on Zoom meetings. Why would you do that? Right? But you still need to pay attention to what happened, okay? And you can use AI to help you prepare for meetings, but if you really turn it off, then you're really not going to be prepared, right? So no one takes notes anymore. No one takes bullet points anymore. Everyone says, summarize this for me, right? So that's a good thing. But that's a good thing, okay? But it's a good thing in the way that you've now changed that workflow. But now what you really should do is why am I even having the freaking meetings? Okay, right? That's when you start to think about like how you're really powering yourself for excellence. It's not just do the meeting better so I don't have to take notes or whatever. It's why am I even having this meeting? Because if this meeting is just about communicating, AI can help me communicate to all the people, keep people updated on my team, right? Without having to have a meeting where everybody would just say, Hey, here's what I did, here's what I did, here's what I did. Well, geez, you could do that, and AI could synthesize that, and they could send it out to everybody automatically, for example, right? So why even have the meeting? So that is where you really start to see the benefit of like an AI-powered person, right? It's not just doing things faster. And that's what I put in the book, right? The book is written as principles and superpowers. So principles of ideas of how you use AI. For example, the first principle is treat AI like an intern and not an oracle, right? The idea of AI acts like an intern, it's very, it's very eager, it's very capable, but it makes a lot of mistakes and it doesn't admit them, right? So these principles of how you use AI. And then the superpowers that I have there are more the specific processes. Like this is how you can get the best out of using AI. And one of them is do things faster. It's called 10x execution, but the rest of them are not about faster. They're doing things better, doing the right things, communicating better, right? So again, these are the different types of workflows, if you will. These are the different types of interactions you can have with AI so that you can perform better. It's not just about doing something faster. It's not just about having something, a machine or a person do it for you. It's about doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Correct.

How To Start Without Risk

SPEAKER_02 12:29

So suppose uh for someone who hasn't yet integrated AI meaningfully into like how they work, how they perform, then where do you want them to start?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah. I mean, the the first thing is, of course, you just get up and use it, right? And use it in a way that's not like Google, right? So listen, I understand for younger and older people, there's a big difference, right? Because younger people will jump into things and just be like, let's go, right? Older people are going to be more reluctant to change the way they do things. And and then then some honestly, a lot of that is because of pride, right? But I think the one very important thing that I say to people is that no one has more than a couple years' experience on this. So even if you have only barely used AI, you're not behind because everything is constantly being reinvented. New stuff is coming out. Even the people who are literally writing it don't know what it does fully, right? So there's all sorts of wonderful new things that can be done with AI every day. So you're not really behind. So the the real key here is you have to understand where you are at, honestly, with yourself, and then push to be more, right? And then when you use it for something, I always tell the people look, the first time you want to use it for something real, I mean, other than Google, other than asking it for answers, right? You want it to do something, let's say, write some emails for you, okay? You don't write the most important emails, of course not, right? You don't write the one to your boss, you don't write the one to your spouse, okay? You you write like the regular ones, right? And then you say, listen, because I kind of know what's happening here and I can get comfortable with it. But more importantly, if AI makes a mistake, and AI makes mistakes, right? This goes back to the first principle. It makes mistakes all the time, right? And the key here is just like a person, it's not going to sit there and say, I did it wrong. It's going to say, I did it right, in fact. And then we've all had those kind of interactions where you say, Wait, this is wrong. It says, Oh, yeah, you were right, I was wrong. But then why did you make a mistake in the first place, right? Kind of silly. But this is again where your judgment matters. The point is, once you start using AI in that fashion, in a real fashion, where you kind of know the answer, you can build confidence, right? You can make sure you understand how it works. And then most importantly, and this is something very different from this tool than other tools, is that it's iterative, right? So you have these big context windows where you're having communications, because we have this chatbot interface with the way which we use AI or generative AI, it actually evolves in conjunction with you. So it's evolving its answers as they go on. And this is why people get frustrated sometimes when they say, well, it didn't, it doesn't do the same thing anymore, you know, the 30th time that I've asked it. Well, it's it's trying to evolve. Of course, it's probabilistic in the first place, but it's trying to evolve, and you're not. And so you're asking it to be deterministic. You're asking it to do the exact same thing, but that's not what AI does. Okay. So trying to understand the best way to use it, again, you can understand these kinds of limitations when you already know the answer and you're not using it for something that's really high stakes, right? So that's what I advise to people. Try using it for real on something that matters, but is not completely scroll critical that if it gets it wrong, there's a problem, right? And then pick whatever that is, and then just start to use it more. Then then you just keep going. And there, you know, again, it's an iterative process.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

That's interesting. Really

Goals Flow State And Leadership

SPEAKER_02 15:32

interesting. If I also ask, like uh about the uh what I think I mean, uh the honest tension is like because I think it matters. AI is extraordinarily powerful, but also there is a real risk as well that people use it to optimize without ever asking what they're optimizing for. So how do you make sure that AI powered excellence is kind of pointed in the right direction, like towards life and performance that actually matters to the person who's living it?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah. Yeah. So I think the goals here matter, right? So one of the principles is make AI flow. And this is the flow state concept. I did not invent the flow state concept, but you know, the flow state concept is basically where athletes and musicians, when they're really performing at their best, they're not really thinking about the mechanics of what they do, right? So Michael Jordan with the ball, I should say messy, since the World Cup is on. When when he has the ball, he's not thinking about dribbling the ball or what direction he's moving in. He just goes, right? He's just doing what he's right, because it's that's called flow state, right? And that idea of flow state where you're performing at your best, you're not thinking about your tools, right? Everything is just seamlessly working together, right? Is a, you know, this again, this is there's a lot of studies about this, whether you believe this or not, certainly relative to AI is where I'm asking people to pay attention, right? So that's why it's one of my precipitations. And it's saying, what is the goal here? And the goal is not to focus on the tool, right? Obviously, in order to get started, you need to put a lot of attention on the tools. But so many, so many things that I see online, so much advice is really about prompts. And it gives people this really weird concept of like, well, just cut and paste these prompts and the world gets solved, right? That's not the point. You know, if you're going to be doing the right thing, if you want to improve things properly, it is a process. It is iterative. It is something where you're trying to not focus on the tools. You're trying to be like the athlete or the musician that is not focused on their instrument, they're not focused on the tools, they're not focused on the ball. They're just getting something done, right? And in order to do that, you really have to build a level of comfort and understanding with AI and the way in which you use it. But again, this is just natural, right? It's like when people type, you know, like when you you first start to type, you know, it's very difficult and you really focus on it. But afterwards, you know, whatever, you just put you're communicating, right? Boom. Words are appearing, right? And it's the same kind of idea, but of course it's much more. That is really trying to make sure the goal is right, Avi. That's the point. What is your goal, right? Because this is, and then like let me just take a step back and talk about teams a little bit. And the book talks about teams because a lot of people listening are to your podcast and other podcasts are leaders, right? They're not people at the very beginning of their career. They're people that may run a small team, a large team, they're gonna be CEOs or some, you know, start startups, uh, right? They might have their own startups. But you're a leader. How do you think about this, right? And again, it boils down to what is your goal? And I I say to any leader, so much about AI right now is hype. It's people talking about replacing humans, it's all this other stuff, which I think is completely the wrong direction. Because replacing humans is like, or at least the kind of work that they're trying to replace is like this basic level work. But you shouldn't be doing that. What you should be thinking about is how you can make your people more powerful and stronger. And the reason behind that is, as we all know, it's very difficult to find a good team, right? Very difficult to find a good team. Whether those are humans or AI, it doesn't matter. Finding a good team that you work well with is very difficult. But once you have it, you should use it. And then you should make that team as good as possible, as opposed to saying, well, I just want a cheaper team. Who says this? Nobody says this. But yet that's what we hear about AI all the time. Let's just find a cheaper, newer AI. And that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what that

Three Rules For Using AI

SPEAKER_02 19:06

to be?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Well, I would say a couple things, right? So the first thing I would say is, look, again, you're not behind. Get out there, go and just just try it. Just try it, right? So you know that you want to listen to my podcast, you want to buy my book, you want to listen to your podcast, it doesn't, none of this matters, right? You need to get out there and use AI. You cannot pretend that it's not going to happen. That's the first piece of advice to me, right? Because a lot of people said, so you know what, I'll just I'll pretend I use it because the boss makes me use it. I'm not really gonna use it. But what's gonna happen is you're gonna fall behind. You're missing an opportunity to perform at your best. And when you don't perform at your best, somebody else will be, right? And then you gotta watch out because that person might end up taking your job, right? So you need to worry about that. Excuse me. The second thing I would say is it's even more simple than that, which is don't get obsessed with tools, right? We have this weird culture because we like technology. I mean, you or me, people who like technology, we get obsessed with these tools. The tools don't matter, right? What matters is you. What matters is how we use these things. Now, yes, of course, there are differences between Claude and ChatGPT and all this kind of stuff like that. But I don't know how many people ask me or IB ask you, the same thing, Abic, right? And they get obsessed with the tools. Don't focus on the tools, focus on you and how you use them.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Very true. So I mean, uh, when the focus is on the content or the tool, right? So uh, I mean, what will be the kind of difference they should look for?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah. I mean, I would go back to the flow thing. I would say what you're what you're looking for is really this kind of like effortless improvement. But again, that takes time and it takes work, right? So I think maybe that's the other thing. Maybe that's the third piece of advice, but it's it's it also goes back to what you're looking for, which is it takes work to get better, right? If you go to the gym and you mess around, you don't get stronger, right? You don't get more fit, you don't lose weight. You have to actually be determined and actually have a plan for how you use it. And AI is the same thing. If you think you're gonna perform at your best with AI without a plan, that doesn't make sense. You don't have to have my plan, you don't have to buy my book. But you need to a plan, right? You don't just go you use it and expect it to make you better. Otherwise, again, you're the other side of this and it actually weakens your ability to do things. Okay, think about calculators. Okay, you have a calculator. Can you really do arithmetic anymore? No one can, okay? But that's fine because now you can do so many other things so much better, right? But think about there is a trade-off to that. Now, AI, because of the chat interface, well, it seems like it's super helpful and can do everything. But again, if you turn off your brain, right, then and use it in ways that are going to turn off your brain, then you're actually gonna weaken yourself. If you want to strengthen your abilities, you actually have to have a plan on how you use it.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Interesting. Definitely

Where To Find Ted

SPEAKER_02 21:34

interesting. So if listeners want to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah. So my book is Ageless Peak Performance. It's available on Amazon or on my own website, which is agelesspeakperformance.com. So again, agelesspeakperformance.com. You go there, that's you know, on there has all of my socials. It has, you know, the ways you can reach me. You can leave a comment there. Uh, you know, that's really the easiest way to get a hold.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Amazing. So, dear listeners, like, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for your easier friends so that you can easily reach out to Ted. And uh, Ted, I have to say thank you so much for uh being here today and sharing your knowledge with us about AI, about tools, about thinking, about your book as well. So it is really, really great. And for anyone who is listening, like I'd say, like, here is one question uh definitely for this week. Well, in your work, in your life, or are you doing things manually that an intelligent system could carry for you? Like freeing you up for the things that you can do, right? Which you only you can do, right? So that's where you your leverages. Just find it and let the machine carry the rest. And I'd say that's it. Just just try and share with us like how you feel. Uh what's I mean, I mean, uh what do you think, right? What you found, something new. It'll also be helpful for all of us to uh understand because something new is always eager, right? Uh with this hope this is your host of weekend. This is Mind Meets Machine. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much. Thank you, man.