Tip
Alex Komoroske talks about the builder vs gardener mindset. Builders have a plan, manipulate things to match that plan, force outcomes. Gardeners direct growth, add energy where needed, curate what emerges. Builder creates exactly what you put in. Gardener creates systems that grow on their own—if done right, it looks like magic.
Turns out AI implementation works exactly like this.
You’ve watched enough optimization projects die. The team builds a beautiful AI workflow, maps every step, assigns clear owners, tracks metrics. Three months later, nobody’s using it. Why? They tried to force adoption instead of letting it grow organically.
Younger managers default to builder mode because it feels like control. “We’ll roll out AI tools Q1, train everyone Q2, measure adoption Q3.” You know better. You’ve seen those rollouts fail repeatedly. The ones that work? Someone starts using Claude for one task, shares results in Slack, three people try it, someone finds a different use case, it spreads.
That’s not lack of planning—it’s recognizing when systems need space to evolve. You provide the nutrients (access, permission, examples), remove obstacles (bad tools, unclear policies), curate what works (celebrate wins, share patterns). But you don’t force the outcome.
This judgment—knowing when to garden versus when to build—comes from seeing both approaches play out dozens of times. You’ve watched forced AI rollouts create resentment and wasted budget. You’ve watched organic adoption create advocates and unexpected use cases. That pattern recognition is your edge.
Context
Alex Komoroske spent 13 years at Google (Search, Chrome, Maps AR) and led corporate strategy at Stripe. The gardener vs builder framework emerged from watching projects succeed and fail at scale.
The insight applies broadly—organizational change, AI adoption, team development—anywhere systems can grow organically. For experienced leaders, this isn’t a new skill to learn.
It’s recognizing you’ve already seen enough optimization death spirals to know when to stop forcing and when to nurture. That pattern recognition only comes from watching both approaches repeatedly.