The same way I've successfully kept up on tech progress for 3+ decades now:
By sitting back, doing what I know, and letting everyone else burn their energy on "keeping up". Then, when the hype has died down and I see what really has worked and stuck with people, I go learn it.
On the one hand I keep wondering if that would not have been the better approach, as keeping up with generative AI developments for the last year nearly did my head in.
On the other hand, I have a pretty good feeling for just how this is going to change things and what can be done with the current and future models.
I'm betting on easy-access UI tools never being as useful as working with raw models. If I'm wrong, oh well. I had a lot of fun tinkering.
Yeah. I subscribe to the theory of conservation-of-cool. You get to either build something cool with something boring, or something boring with something cool.
Are you founding something in "AI-assisted programming"?
Because if you're not, it sounds like you're distracting yourself with shiny things instead of focusing on your industry, on your investors, on your leads and clients, on your team, etc. While common, that sounds like a terrible founder approach.
AI-assisted programming may be something that your engineers bring into your company because they find it improves their work. But like any other tool one's staff may prefer, your role as a leader doesn't involve "keeping up on the advances". At best, it involves sourcing trusted perspectives when you face a decision point (authorizing a request, perhaps), making the choice, and then moving on to other leadership tasks.
By sitting back, doing what I know, and letting everyone else burn their energy on "keeping up". Then, when the hype has died down and I see what really has worked and stuck with people, I go learn it.