VIDEO + WHAT THEY SAID + MY NOTES
Hey family, I watched this video and I want to share it with you, along with my notes. Watch first. Read what Bill Gross said. Then read MY NOTES so you know what is his and what is mine.
- 01I Watched This Video
- 02The Video
- 03What They Said
- 04Help Me Think
- 05What Am I Missing
- 06Unconventional Solutions
- 07What Question
- 08Blank Line
- 09Five Clarifying Questions
- 10Pros and Cons
- 11Hidden Wisdom
- 12Adversarial Synthesis
- 1350x Reframe
- 14My Notes
- 15This Week For This Family
- 16Diagnostic
- 17Checklist
- 18Declaration
- 19PDF and Related Guides
HEY FAMILY, I WATCHED THIS VIDEO
I want to share it with you, along with my notes.
I watched this because you are in my mentoring community and a lot of you are using AI. I do not want you using it only for chores. I do not want you collecting prompts and doing nothing with your life.
Bill Gross taught 10 prompts at DLD26 in Munich. That is his talk. I am curating it. I am not claiming it as my original teaching. Mentorship is obedience with a witness. Watch the video. Read what he said. Then sit with MY NOTES.
You will see the same order on this page every time I do this. The video. What they said. My notes. I will not baptize his whole system as Christian. I will tell you where I agree, where I warn you, and what I want you to do this week.
Live PDF: guides.rickpina.cloud/get-the-most-out-of-ai-premium-guide.pdf.
THE VIDEO
Bill Gross, Idealab. How to Get The Most Out of AI: 10 Prompts That Will Change Your Life. DLD26 Munich. About 10 minutes. Watch it before you read the rest.
Ten things to listen for. Write them down while he talks.
Then five more. Blank line from Amanda Caswell. Five clarifying questions. Pros and cons. Hidden wisdom. Adversarial synthesis and the 50x reframe from Azeem Azhar. He said he has five more in an appendix. Those five were not on the screen. I will not invent them.
WHAT THEY SAID
This section is Bill Gross. Honest breakdown. Credited by name. Not my sermon.
Bill Gross • DLD26 Munich • What he taught
He said his goal was simple. Save you time. Give you things you can start using tomorrow morning. Not a speech about the future. A list you can use.
The story that opened the talk: he was closing a Series B at ProRata. A board member asked for a two-page Word document of everything that changed from Series A to Series B. He blocked five hours. Then he uploaded five board-deck PDFs and the request into ChatGPT. Thinking for five seconds. A two-page draft. A few small edits. Five hours became five minutes. What shocked him was not only what the model did. It was how close he came to forgetting to use it.
He said we keep using new tools the old way. Email started as paper memos sent electronically. Factories put one electric motor where the steam engine used to sit. Then people put a motor at every station. AI is the same test. Most people use it to polish a draft or summarize a document. He wants it as a thinking partner for the hard work.
He closed with this: we will look back on this window as a turning point, not because AI became perfect, but because it became widespread. Electricity became infrastructure for power. He said AI is infrastructure for thought. Watts to tokens. Watts to a thinking partner. The biggest extra risk, besides the serious ones, is that we use it the same way we worked before it arrived. The real leverage is when you ask, "Help me think." In an age of abundant intelligence, how we think matters more than ever. It is no longer access to knowledge that matters most. It is asking the right questions. Judgment. Intention. Human judgment in how you use this.
WHAT THEY SAID: HELP ME THINK
Prompt one. Help me think this through without telling me what to do.
Bill Gross • Prompt 01
Slide header: Help me think. He said give this prompt to your favorite AI system. Sometimes the most valuable help is not an answer, but a process of thought.
He said it often surprised him because it reframes AI as a thinking partner, not an advice machine. That is number one.
Help me think this through without telling me what to do. Here is the problem I am working on: [describe the situation in plain language]
WHAT THEY SAID: WHAT AM I MISSING
Prompt two. What am I likely misunderstanding about this?
Bill Gross • Prompt 02
Slide header: What am I missing? He said this prompt is really great because people, him included, rarely ask AI to challenge them.
Most of us ask AI to confirm what we already think. He said this flips the relationship from assistant to intellectual mirror. Give it a problem you are working on. You might see completely new things. It will not only give you exactly what you asked for.
What am I likely misunderstanding about this? Here is the situation: [describe it] Do not flatter me. Show me what I am missing.
WHAT THEY SAID: UNCONVENTIONAL SOLUTIONS
Prompt three. Give me 3 unconventional solutions to this problem.
Bill Gross • Prompt 03 • Credit: Dipti Sharma
He credited Dipti Sharma. AI usually provides very obvious answers because it is trained to give the most probable next answer. If you ask for unconventional solutions, it starts searching for things you might not have thought about.
Even if you do not use the ideas, it expands the universe of things you are thinking about. He called that very useful for brainstorming and innovation.
Give me 3 unconventional solutions to this problem. The problem: [name it] Do not give me the obvious first answers. Stretch.
WHAT THEY SAID: WHAT QUESTION
Prompt four. What question should I be asking myself right now?
Bill Gross • Prompt 04
Slide header: What's the question? He said sometimes the problem is not the answer, it is the question. It is meta. It is personal. It is often uncannily relevant.
This is especially valuable when you feel stuck. Ask, what question should I be asking myself? He said it opens new doors of possibility. The questions that come up are usually unexpected and helpful.
What question should I be asking myself right now? Here is where I feel stuck: [name it in one paragraph]
WHAT THEY SAID: BLANK LINE
Prompt five. The blank line. A sentence with one thing missing. Credit Amanda Caswell.
Bill Gross • Prompt 05 • Credit: Amanda Caswell
He called this one the blank line prompt. It is a sentence with one thing missing. It comes from Amanda Caswell. He said it is really creative.
His slide examples: I'm putting together a cozy gift basket with a candle, a mug, tea, and blank. The moment I stepped off the plane, I knew this trip would change everything because blank. One idea no one's thought of yet for solving this problem is blank.
He said this prompt is unusual because it feels more like a thought you did not finish. That is exactly why it works so well. It uses the statistical data to give you something you might want to add to your thinking.
One idea no one's thought of yet for solving this problem is ____ The problem: [name it]
WHAT THEY SAID: FIVE CLARIFYING QUESTIONS
Prompt six. Ask me 5 clarifying questions before answering.
Bill Gross • Prompt 06 • Credit: Dipti Sharma
Slide header: Clarify Before Answering. Credit Dipti Sharma. He said this forces the AI to deeply understand your request before completing.
Normally the model starts from your first prompt and guesses. If you ask it to give clarifying questions, it guides the work more precisely. He said this can dramatically improve strategy and complex problem solving.
Ask me 5 clarifying questions before answering. My request: [state the task] Wait for my answers. Then respond.
WHAT THEY SAID: PROS AND CONS
Prompt seven. Compare the pros and cons of these options and suggest the best one.
Bill Gross • Prompt 07 • Credit: Dipti Sharma
Slide header: Pros and Cons. Credit Dipti Sharma. He said you already compare pros and cons in your own life. Asking the AI to do it was something he had not tried before.
It helps you analyze ideas, products, and strategies efficiently. What he valued most was seeing the reasoning. The reasoning sometimes gives you ideas. That is where the full value of this prompt is.
Compare the pros and cons of these options and suggest the best one. Option A: [describe] Option B: [describe] Option C if I have one: [describe] Show your reasoning. Do not hide the tradeoffs.
WHAT THEY SAID: HIDDEN WISDOM
Prompt eight. The hidden wisdom decoder. Credit Md Riyazuddin.
Bill Gross • Prompt 08 • Credit: Md Riyazuddin
He called this the hidden wisdom decoder. Credit Md Riyazuddin. Ask for the lesser-known, under-the-surface truths about your topic or field that are rarely shared publicly because they challenge mainstream thinking. Ask it to explain them with historical context, real-world examples, and why they remain hidden.
He said this uncovers things you might not have realized, things other people are not usually thinking about, and it can be a very powerful assist to your thinking.
What are the lesser-known, under-the-surface truths about [insert topic/field] that are rarely shared publicly because they challenge mainstream thinking? Explain them with historical context, real-world examples, and why they remain hidden.
WHAT THEY SAID: ADVERSARIAL SYNTHESIS
Prompt nine. Give Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT the same task and have them argue. Credit Azeem Azhar.
Bill Gross • Prompt 09 • Credit: Azeem Azhar
He called this adversarial synthesis. It comes from Azeem Azhar. In the talk he said Azim. The slide names Azeem Azhar. Credit him.
Give ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or your favorite models the same task and have them argue it out. Have each one critique the others. This will quickly surface gaps in your thinking. Each model has its own perspective. It challenges your assumptions and raises the quality bar.
He said it turns your prompt into almost a panel discussion, and that panel can surface blind spots.
Give Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT the same task and have them argue. The task: [state it] Have each one critique the others. I want gaps in my framing, assumptions I did not realize I was making, and a higher quality bar.
WHAT THEY SAID: 50X REFRAME
Prompt ten. What would I do if I had 50 people working on this? Credit Azeem Azhar.
Bill Gross • Prompt 10 • Credit: Azeem Azhar
The last one. The 50x reframe. Also from Azeem Azhar. He asked, what would I do if I had 50 people working on this?
Describe your current work process. Then have AI walk through what this would look like if you had a team of 50 people dedicated to doing it comprehensively and systematically. What would each role focus on? What would their output look like? How would you spread out the tasks? Which parts could be done by a human? Which parts are best to do by AI?
He said if you want to think through a process at your project or company, the 50x reframe is very powerful. Those are the ten he selected. Five more sat in an appendix. He offered to send the whole deck. I will not invent the five I did not see.
What would I do if I had 50 people working on this? Currently describe your [task/process]: [describe it] Walk me through what this would look like if I had a team of 50 people dedicated to doing this comprehensively and systematically. What would each role focus on? What would the ideal output look like? Then help me identify which parts of that hypothetical team's work could be automated or assisted by AI tools, and which parts should stay human.
MY NOTES
This is Rick. I sat with the video. This is my mindset for this family. Do not confuse this with Gross.
I watched this because you are in my mentoring community and a lot of you are using AI. I do not want you using it only for chores. Frame this as ASKING BETTER QUESTIONS, not "ten ChatGPT tricks." The prompts are tools. The thinking is the lesson.
He is right that we forget to use the tool we already have. He is right that old habits waste new power. He is right that the question now matters more than access to information. I am not throwing the whole talk out. I am putting it under the Word.
- The skill is the question. Access to knowledge is cheap. Judgment is not. Ask better questions. Then obey what you already know.
- A thinking partner is not a lord. Help me think is good. Tell me my future is not. Conviction belongs to the Spirit.
- Do not collect ten prompts and do nothing. Pick one. Run it on a real problem this week. Do the human work after.
- Mentorship is obedience with a witness. A private prompt with no obedience is a hobby. Bring it to the comments or the 1:1.
- This is the YEAR OF DISCOVERY. Discover the question you have been avoiding. Then move.
THIS WEEK FOR THIS FAMILY
Pick ONE prompt. Run it on a real problem. Do the human work after. Bring a witness. Do not collect all ten and do nothing.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- Which one prompt will you run this week? Write the number. Not "I will try a few."
- What is the real problem you will put under that prompt? One sentence. No speech.
- What is the human work after the prompt? Who will you face? What will you decide? What small test will you run?
- Who is your witness? Comments. The 1:1. Your spouse. A trusted person. Not only the chatbot.
- Where are you treating a model like a prophet? Name it. Then put that output back in the hypothesis pile.
PROMPT DIAGNOSTIC
Answer honestly. Your responses save in your browser.
YOUR GET THE MOST CHECKLIST
- I watched the video. Open Gross / DLD26 video
- I downloaded the PDF. get-the-most-out-of-ai-premium-guide.pdf
- I read WHAT THEY SAID as his teaching, not mine.
- I read MY NOTES and I know the difference.
- I picked ONE prompt for this week. Not ten unused copies.
- I treated AI output as a hypothesis, not a prophecy and not a word from God.
- I did the human work after the prompt. God. A person. A conversation. A decision.
- I brought a witness to the 1:1 or the comments.
DECLARATION OF BETTER QUESTIONS
PDF AND RELATED GUIDES
Take the assets. Do the work. Do not leave this as a nice read.
Live PDF: https://guides.rickpina.cloud/get-the-most-out-of-ai-premium-guide.pdf