The Operating Essay: Personal Brand is the Human Differentiator in an AI-First World
The Operating by John Brewton Saturday Essay
In 2026, I’m working directly with 100 creators building real businesses.
I want to bring operating strategy, competitive positioning, and financial planning to a community that’s fundamentally different from my typical industrial and technology clients.
For the first 100 creator founders: Four 60-minute 1:1 advisory sessions for $95.
Context: My standard engagement starts at $10K/month. This isn’t that. This is me learning from you while helping you build something sustainable.
Limited to 100 spots. Message me with questions or to claim yours or just click below to sign up (sign up requires browser access):
Last February, I was not doing the work I wanted to be doing. The gigs were steady, and the bills were paid. But I was uninspired and tired of giving advice that failed to be executed with any real acumen. I was tired of doing the same things I had done throughout my career.
Meta had just announced another round of cuts amidst record profits. JPMorgan and Goldman were devising creative ways to avoid admitting that their most recent rounds of layoffs were AI-driven. An increasing number of my Harvard classmates, people much smarter than me, with better resumes, were adding “Open to Work” badges to their LinkedIn profiles. Credentials that were once prestigious and skillsets that had been in high demand were experiencing diminishing marginal returns.
The message was clear: No one is coming to save you.
I could see my future: ten, maybe 20, more years of the same work, competing on price to push repeat on tasks I had done 100 times before, invisible to anyone doing anything even remotely interesting, much less inspiring, much less memorable or meaningful. The companies building the future didn’t know I existed. Why would they? I looked exactly like ten thousand other operations consultants.
Then, on March 23rd, 2024, I wrote 337 words about Andy Grove…
Here’s what I wrote:
“I was convinced that the size of my vocabulary, my command of grammar’s rules, and the prestige of the education I had received, made me an effective communicator and leader. I was wrong. Very. Wrong.”
I told the story of how I’d bloviated through endless PowerPoint presentations, confused activity with progress, and nearly destroyed team morale with my theoretical knowledge. How Andy Grove’s “High Output Management” taught me to shut up, listen, and facilitate my team’s thinking instead of imposing my own.
I ended with Grove’s wisdom: “How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.”
Within 48 hours, I had three inquiries from investors and companies that wanted to work with me. Not because I’d shared some groundbreaking insight, but because I’d shown the marriage of intellectual understanding with real-world humility. They saw operational maturity, not just operational knowledge. It also helped that Intel engaged with the post, consequently rocketing it across the entirety of Intel’s LinkedIn audience and employee base (As of this writing, the post has 372 reactions and 8 reposts, across about 120,000 impressions). My subsequent posting has generated 19 million impressions over the last 12 months.
Those conversations turned into $50,000 in consulting revenue in the months ahead.
But here’s what mattered more: I finally understood why I’d been invisible. Twenty years of experience meant nothing if no one even knew I existed. It’s funny, that’s always such a challenging lesson for small businesses to learn (certainly was for me many years ago) nobody, especially the competition and customers, has any idea you even exist. In many ways, brand building is about engineering a discovery engine for your company, product or services.
Let me be clear about what this actually requires:
Daily publishing, not when you feel inspired, but every day. For months, you’ll publish into the void. In my first two months, I was lucky to get 200 views on a post and maybe three or four likes. Comments were a hope, and reposts a dream. But I kept going, learning with each passing day. I hit 1,000 followers in a few months, 10,000 in six months, and 20,000 a few months after that.
Obsessive learning from failure. Building a personal brand is a masterclass in micro-failures. Every post teaches you something: why that hook fell flat, why that font choice killed readability, why your CTA got ignored. When you start, you’re terrible; I sure was. But that’s the gift. The learning comes fast when everything needs improvement.
I became a student of what worked and what didn’t. Data told part of the story: engagement rates, click-throughs, follower growth. But the real education came from studying others, dissecting why certain posts stopped my scroll, understanding the psychology behind effective hooks, and reverse-engineering successful CTAs. This constant iteration is exhausting and essential. You’re not just building content; you’re building judgment about what hits and why.
Authentic expertise, not thought leadership theater:
The Andy Grove post worked because it combined a classic text only serious operators know, with vulnerable storytelling about my failures.
The people who become clients are rarely the ones commenting. They’re watching silently, sometimes for months. One post that speaks directly to their problem, and they reach out. That’s why consistency matters more than virality.
In 2026, I’m working directly with 100 creators building real businesses.
I want to bring operating strategy, competitive positioning, and financial planning to a community that’s fundamentally different from my typical industrial and technology clients.
For the first 100 creator founders: Four 60-minute 1:1 advisory sessions for $95.
Context: My standard engagement starts at $10K/month. This isn’t that. This is me learning from you while helping you build something sustainable.
Limited to 100 spots. Message me with questions or to claim yours or just click below to sign up (sign up requires browser access):
In “We Are All Becoming Operators” I documented my two decades building human systems that are becoming obsolete. But here’s what AI can’t replicate: the frameworks born from that experience.
Take my core operating philosophy: “Do. Fail. Learn. Grow. Win. Repeat. Forever.”
This framework emerged from the intersection of reading, experience, and crucially, engagement. I’d been dropping variations of this phrase in comments on friends’ posts, watching how people responded, refining the language based on what produced a response. The enthusiastic engagement told me I was onto something, so I built it out into a complete framework. The best ideas aren’t born fully formed, nor in isolation. They’re discovered in the dirt, in the work, in the daily practice of executing.
Expanded, it becomes a discipline:
Do something new. Do something hard.
Fail at something new. Fail at something hard.
Learn from something new. Learn from something hard.
Grow from something new. Grow from something hard.
Win at something new. Win at something hard.
Repeat something new. Repeat something hard.
Forever something new. Forever something hard.
Case in point: A PE firm hired me to advise ten portfolio companies. One SaaS company was hemorrhaging customers, stuck on a dying per-seat pricing model while the market demanded usage-based pricing. The founder couldn’t accept that what worked for years was killing the monthly recurring revenue, one cancelling customer at a time.
Using the framework, we forced them to “Do something hard”—test new pricing with 10% of customers. It failed spectacularly, but that failure taught us their real value wasn’t the product but the underlying IP. We have pivoted to exploring how this IP can be better monetized.
That framework, forged from my own failures, is creating shareholder value. AI can’t synthesize that. It can’t feel the weight of failure or the path through it.
As I wrote in “The Great Flattening,” we’re witnessing organizational structures dissolve. The $70K analysts are gone, AI does that now. But here’s the twist: the roles we undervalued are becoming the most valuable.
Your personal brand positions you for this inversion:
From Invisible Operator to Visible Strategist: Pre-brand, I competed with every consultant who could run Excel PowerPivots and write SQL queries with the best of them. Post-brand, I’m hired for synthesis and judgment, things AI can’t replicate.
From Hourly Billing to Value Pricing: My rates haven’t skyrocketed, but my opportunity flow has. Speaking fees, advisory positions, PE partnerships: Doors that were locked before.
From Employee Mindset to Owner Mentality: The future professional sells outputs, not hours. Your brand becomes the storefront for your frameworks, insights, and intellectual property.
I now work strictly as an advisor, am booking speaking engagements, and am paid for my written perspective. I’m no longer hired to do the work that the company owner doesn’t want to be bothered with or doesn’t fully understand. I’m hired for my perspective. None of this was possible when I was just another LinkedIn resume.
Why Most Won’t Do This
(And Why That’s Your Opportunity)
“Personal branding is cringe.” Sure, you’ll create content that makes you wince months, or even days, later. I have. My wife and I laugh about my early posts. We were often laughing the evening of the day they were published. My stepkids have a good laugh or two at my expense as well. But embarrassment is a small price for relevance.
“My industry values discretion.” I never discuss client specifics or EBITDA strategies for companies preparing to sell. You can build authority without breaking confidentiality.
“AI will make everyone a content creator.” Exactly. Which is why your lived experience, your failures, your frameworks become more valuable, not less. AI can write about management theory. It can’t tell your story of nearly destroying team morale before learning to listen.
The real barrier isn’t fear, it’s commitment. Most professionals won’t invest 15 hours a week for six months with no guarantee of return. They won’t publish daily into the void. They won’t push through the silence.
Your willingness needs to become your advantage.
If you haven’t started building your personal brand, you should start yesterday. But NOW always beats never.
Here’s a viable path:
Pick one platform. Master it before expanding.
Publish daily. Consistency beats quality initially.
Share real experience, not recycled insights.
Engage authentically. Build relationships, not follower counts.
Track what resonates. Double down on what works.
The brutal truth? In 2-3 years, invisible professionals will be unemployable. Not because they lack skills, but because they’ll be indistinguishable from AI outputs. When everyone has access to the same knowledge, your lived experience becomes your only differentiator.
Let me be clear about scale: I have 34,000 followers on LinkedIn and +3,600 subscribers on Substack. I’m not internet famous. I’m not a viral sensation. But that audience, built one post at a time, has transformed my business and, more importantly, given me critical perspective on how work itself is transforming.
I’m watching my profession become obsolete, and I’m documenting it in real-time. The operational roles I’ve spent two decades mastering will run better without me. But I think that’s just great.
While AI can analyze data and optimize processes, it can’t synthesize a life. It can’t transform failure into frameworks. It can’t build trust through vulnerability, not yet at least.
In “The Great Inversion,” I explained how the most valuable professionals won’t be those with the most complex technical skills, they’ll be those who master the 5% of interactions where humans create exponential value.
Your personal brand is how you demonstrate that mastery at scale.
The holiday is over.
The comfortable years of steady billing and invisible expertise are ending. What’s coming demands more: more visibility, more vulnerability, more willingness to build in public.
The clock is ticking.
No one is coming to save you.
Start building.
Not someday. Today.
Because as the great flattening continues, those who’ve packaged their humanity into scalable value, will be on the winning side of history.
At least that’s what I’m betting my future on. Keep following along, keep reading to see how it plays out. If I’m wrong, at least it will make for entertaining content.
Thank you for taking the time to read. It means a great deal.
- John -
In 2026, I’m working directly with 100 creators building real businesses.
I want to bring operating strategy, competitive positioning, and financial planning to a community that’s fundamentally different from my typical industrial and technology clients.
For the first 100 creator founders: Four 60-minute 1:1 advisory sessions for $95.
Context: My standard engagement starts at $10K/month. This isn’t that. This is me learning from you while helping you build something sustainable.
Limited to 100 spots. Message me with questions or to claim yours or just click below to sign up (sign up requires browser access):
John Brewton documents the history and future of operating companies at Operating by John Brewton. He is a graduate of Harvard University and began his career as a Phd. student in economics at the University of Chicago. After selling his family’s B2B industrial distribution company in 2021, he has been helping business owners, founders and investors optimize their operations ever since. He is the founder of 6A East Partners, a research and advisory firm asking the question: What is the future of companies? He still cringes at his early LinkedIn posts and loves making content each and everyday, despite the protestations of his beloved wife, Fabiola, at times.
Love this John. As an academic and a Brit, personal branding is the cringiest of cringe but I know now how important it is. I honestly learn so much from your posts, not only through the meticulousness of your research but the generosity of your lived experience and the confidence with which you have to stand in your own truth. 🙏
Regarding the topic of the article, your insights on personal brand as a differentiator in a AI-first world are truly perceptive. How do you envision this evolving for educational systems or labor policies to support more people, beyond those with direct strategic guidance?