September 2025
Intermediate to advanced
84 pages
1h 27m
English
Content preview from AI Essentials for Tech Executives
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Chapter 1. 99% of Executives Are Misled by AI Advice
As an executive, you’re bombarded with articles and advice on building AI products.
The problem is, a lot of this “advice” comes from other executives who rarely interact with the practitioners actually working with AI. This disconnect leads to misunderstandings, misconceptions, and wasted resources.
A Case Study in Misleading AI Advice
An example of this disconnect in action comes from an interview with Jake Heller, CEO of Casetext.
During the interview, Jake made a statement about AI testing that was widely shared:
One of the things we learned is that after it passes 100 tests, the odds that it will pass a random distribution of 100k user inputs with 100% accuracy is very high. (emphasis added)
This claim was then amplified by influential figures like Jared Friedman and Garry Tan of Y Combinator, reaching countless founders and executives:
The morning after this advice was shared, I received numerous emails from founders asking if they should aim for 100% test-pass rates.
If you’re not hands-on with AI, this advice might sound reasonable. But any practitioner would know it’s deeply flawed.
“Perfect” Is Flawed
In AI, a perfect score is a red flag. This happens when a model has inadvertently been trained on data or prompts that are too similar to tests. Like a student who was given the answers before an exam, the model will ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.