“Healthy Disregard for the Impossible”: Google's Lessons for the AI Era

Artificial intelligence has gone from being a futuristic concept to becoming a central element in professional life and business. In an immersion in Google offices in New York, I was able to get to know how the company sees this transformation and how its organizational culture serves as a foundation for technological advancement. The experience revealed not only Google's vision for the AI era, but also fundamental lessons about the future of careers, innovation and business adaptation.

One of the most striking concepts is the so-called “healthy disrespect for the impossible”, a mentality that drives the company to constantly challenge the status quo and seek solutions that seem, at first glance, unattainable. This thinking connects to the so-called “10x Thinking”, where the goal is not just to improve a process or product, but to find ways to make it ten times better. It is an approach that values boldness and the courage to make mistakes, understanding the error not as a failure, but as an essential part of learning.

This logic is reinforced by practices such as the 70/20/10 model, in which 70% of efforts are dedicated to the core business, 20% to adjacent projects and 10% to ideas completely outside the box. More than budget, it is a mentality: innovation flourishes when there is room for experimentation, collaboration between teams and psychological security to test and fail.

In the field of work, artificial intelligence is not seen as an apocalyptic threat, but as a reconfiguration force. Instead of eliminating entire careers, technology rearranges tasks. The so-called “red” routine and repetitive “red tasks” are easily absorbed by intelligent systems. On the other hand, “green tasks”, creativity, empathy, ethical judgment and originality, remain exclusively human and become even more valuable. The professional of the future will be a “hundred” hybrid, a human and AI, combining the advantages of technology with skills that machines cannot replicate.

Another central point of the experience was realizing how Google keeps the user at the center of everything. The maxim “if the user has a problem, so does Google” translates a vision that guides the development of increasingly accessible tools. If before it was necessary to master complex prompts to get good results, today AI is going to become more intuitive, allowing simple commands to generate effective solutions. This democratization of innovation opens space for companies of all sizes and sectors to use AI to automate processes, generate insights in real time and deliver more relevant experiences.

This reality evens the playing field, allowing small businesses and startups to have access to tools previously restricted to tech giants. AI is therefore not only a technical resource, but a globally competitive engine.

For leaders, the great challenge is to create environments that stimulate experimentation. A practical suggestion is to carry out an “audit” of the repetitive tasks of the teams and identify where the AI can act, freeing up time for strategic activities. For professionals, the tip is to see technology as an extension of their own abilities, and not as a substitute. The invitation is to embrace a personal rebirth, putting in the foreground the human skills that AI will never replicate.

The greatest risk is not in the adoption of technology, but in remaining tied to the tasks that it can easily replace. The speed of transformation requires resilience and adaptability. And that is precisely where the opportunity lies: as AI takes on repetitive work, which makes us unique, such as creativity, empathy, analytical capacity and vision of the future, it gains exponential value.

The message is clear: Artificial intelligence is not an end, but a means. An invitation to reinvent careers, companies and ways of thinking. The future of work will not be defined by the technology itself, but by the way we choose to use it to enhance the most humane we have.

Jaimes Almeida Neto He is a co-founder and CRO Budz, a Brazilian pet tech that uses artificial intelligence to empower pet tutors, where, with its extensive experience in growth strategy, monetization and strategic partnerships, it leads the company's B2B expansion, strengthening its presence in the market. In addition, he worked through the financial market at EQI Asset, where he worked in the management of real estate funds and in the structuring of debts, acquiring solid knowledge in investments, fundraising and financial modeling.