Alex Puutio teaches leadership, economics and management at Harvard, Columbia and NYU Stern. He is also juggling three kids, hundreds of CEO interviews, and a new course at Harvard called AI for MBAs.
Ask him how he keeps it all going, and he won’t talk about hustle or life hacks. He’ll talk about AI.
Not as a magic productivity machine, but as a way to shift your time toward what really matters. For Alex, that means writing, teaching, and hanging out with his sons, or his “barbarians at home,” as he calls them.
Alex doesn’t see AI as just a way to squeeze more productivity out of your day. He focuses on how professionals use the time AI gives back. For him, it’s about shifting energy toward the work and people that matter most.
His approach for busy professionals is practical, fast-moving, and deeply human. And it starts with one thing: just get going.
"You have to get started… and restarted. Quite often too. Things change so fast - remember when [AI] agents came out in January? Back then it wasn’t obvious they’d matter. Now it’s like, of course."
Here's what that actually looks like.
Most people wait until they “get it right” to begin using AI. Alex says that’s the wrong approach.
AI isn’t a destination. It’s a tool you show up to every day, not something you master overnight.
"There's so much that just an individual person can do with AI. You don’t need a course - though Harvard has some good ones. You can just have half an hour in the evening, try things, and start seeing how this might apply to you, your team, or even your clients."
That speed of innovation can feel both overwhelming and unclear. Which is why he recommends small steps. "For you to get anywhere, my goodness, you have to start,” Alex said. “Because otherwise someone else is. So you just have to start figuring out how you shave that extra 4 hours of your week - and try to do that 4 times a year."
The fear of falling behind or "doing it wrong" is the very thing that keeps professionals from realizing its benefits. Alex sees adoption not as a linear path, but a series of micro-expeditions. You’ll try tools. Toss them out. Start again. That’s not failure. That is the strategy.
For Alex, the pace of change is the point: this is a "democratized revolution." Anyone can start, anytime. It’s not about catching up - It’s about keeping pace.
One of Alex's most repeated lines is also his most radical:
"My number one takeaway... is to be aggressively you-centric. Not even human-centric… be you-centric. Get yourself out of the equation wherever possible, and go meet your client. Have your AI agents handle your email. If you could only spend half a day before, now spend the whole day."
That’s how he recommends leaders approach their time. Not to be self-centered, but to be self-aware.
AI, he argues, should reduce noise, not relationships. If a tool buys you back four hours, spend it meeting a customer, checking in on a teammate, or calling someone who hasn’t bought from you in a year. That’s the kind of work no tool can automate.
"Even if you get an hour back, spend that with your number one client,” Alex says. “Or [find] the one who hasn't bought anything in a year. Go see them."
At Hoop, this message hits home. Our product exists to help busy professionals gain hours they would've spent juggling tasks back so they can focus on what matters. Alex’s philosophy mirrors this: use technology to expand your capacity to pour into the parts of your business that need you the most.
Alex describes businesses as a three-layered concentric circle: “You could simplify any organization into concentric circles… the customer-facing edge, the operational middle, and the strategic core."
AI is already transforming the obvious areas: call centers, marketing workflows, internal assistants. But Alex encourages leaders to also consider how AI might shape the core of their business.
That doesn’t necessarily mean blowing everything up, but it means being willing to ask deeper questions.
"The fringe layers have changed. But changing the core takes courage and a willingness to question everything, even if you’re already successful."
This is why innovation often comes from outside: incumbents are incentivized to protect what works, while startups don’t have legacy baggage. What might seem like a small disruption to one leader could be the entire opportunity for another.
It isn’t always easy to rethink the core. But the leaders who do have a better shot at long-term relevance.
"It only takes 3 weekends and $10K to recreate Salesforce. That’s not an exaggeration - with tools like LLMs and Lovable, and someone who can spin things up on AWS or Azure, you can rebuild the basics. So the real edge? The idea."
That timeline sounds like a joke… but it actually isn’t.
When anyone can spin up the same tech, what matters more is how fast you learn and what you’re building toward - and your taste. Your ability to connect, persuade, and build trust at scale. Your ability to adapt fast and keep building.
Alex sees this firsthand. After hundreds of interviews with startup founders and CEOs, he says the differentiator isn’t who has the best tech stack. It’s who has the clearest idea of what they’re building, why it matters, and who it’s for. "I've had founders tell me it was pivot number nine… pivot number twenty,” Alex told us. “It's not about getting it right on day one. It's about being willing to keep trying."
You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to keep moving.
"Your moat is your relationships. It’s who you know and how you show up. Maybe we all have to go get our MBA just to build that network."
What can’t be commoditized by AI are human connections and vision: relationships, boldness, and adaptability.
AI might be great at scale, but humans crave connection. Alex makes this clear: in a world where tools are accessible to all, likability, clarity, and trust are your most underutilized assets. "I teach a whole course on influence and persuasion,” Alex said. “You don’t have to be the Wolf of Wall Street. You just need to connect."
He even calls it “introvert charisma:” the ability to show up meaningfully without needing to perform.
When a pitch falls flat, it’s rarely because of the tech. Most of the time, something just didn’t connect.
That’s why the best use of AI isn’t about scaling faster. It’s about returning to what only humans do best. So, where do you begin?
If you’re bought in but unsure where to begin, start small. Here is our simple, actionable framework synthesized from Alex's expertise:
- Pick a problem → test a tool
- Something annoying. Manual. Frequent. (Inbox zero? Call summaries?)
- Automate one small thing → reinvest that time in a human moment
- Text a mentor. Visit a customer. Check in with your team.
- Create a 6-month ‘you-centric’ roadmap
- Where do you want to spend the time AI gives you back?
AI isn't just a tool. It's an invitation. The best professionals won't just use it - they'll reshape work around what only they can do.
For Alex, that means writing, teaching, and building new models of learning. For professionals, it might mean finally having time to lead, connect, and build something worth remembering.
Where will you start?
Curious how Hoop helps teams reclaim time for what matters? Learn more →