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5 years ago I bet $100 on AI. Here’s what I’m doing with it now.
Published December 29, 2025 · 84 views on YouTube
What is Darby announcing in this video?
Five years to the day after first paying $100 for an early AI writing tool, Darby announces a 4-week Claude Mastery Sprint running January 6-29, 2026 inside GenAI University. The sprint is a focused, live program built around going deep with Claude and Claude Code rather than chasing new tools.
Why is Darby focusing specifically on Claude and Claude Code in 2026?
After five years of hopping between AI tools — starting with Conversion AI (rebranded Jarvis, then Jasper) through the rise of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — Darby says the opportunity now is going deeper on a smaller set of tools rather than tool-hopping. He’s choosing to build on top of Claude and Claude Code specifically to create better workflows, features, and value for the ventures he’s running instead of starting from scratch each time.
What is the 4-week Claude Mastery Sprint?
It’s a live cohort inside GenAI University running January 6 through 29, 2026, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Central. It includes eight live calls where Darby will develop and share recipes for using Claude and Claude Code in business operations — sales, marketing, and internal systems and processes.
- Live sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Central
- Eight live calls total over the four weeks
- Darby develops and shares Claude/Claude Code recipes with the group
- Existing GenAI University members get access to the sprint resources as part of membership
Who is this sprint for?
Darby aims it at people already building and operating a business — in sales, marketing, or operations — who want to get more out of the time they invest in developing systems, working with clients, and using AI tools. He frames it as useful whether it’s an individual, a team, or a few collaborators looking to build tools, apps, products, and services around AI.
Full video transcript
Five years ago on this day, I sent $100 over to the team that was developing a tool called Conversion AI, which was later rebranded to Jarvis, which Disney didn’t take too kindly towards. And so they rebranded again to Jasper.
And over this 18-month period between the time that I got started working with Jasper and using it for my own Amazon and e-commerce consulting to the launch of ChatGPT, there’s this crazy window of time where we were just learning how to use AI to write us books, blogs, social media content. And it was so limited, even though it felt like so much back then compared to what we can do now.
And now today you see ChatGPT, you see Claude, you see Google Gemini, and all these innovations from these companies with basically unlimited resources to keep developing and creating the next best feature and tool. There’s so much to keep up with, but there’s so much opportunity to lock in with a few tools that can really crush it for what we’re building right now and then what we want to keep building on top of.
And so one of the things I’m going to be focusing on in January of 2026 is building on top of the stuff and building better features, better value, more things that I can do to just deliver better services and experiences for the different projects and ventures that I’m working on — using AI tools to fit into those workflows so that I’m not starting everything always from scratch. I’m not hopping from tool to tool to tool, but I’m going deeper on a more select number of tools, specifically Claude and Claude Code in 2026.
In January, I’m going to be kicking it off. We’re going to be doing a whole month, a four-week focus sprint where we’re going to be mastering Claude and Claude Code for our businesses. This is going to be for people that are already building and are already doing things in their business — sales, marketing, and operations — who want to get more out of the time that they’re putting into developing and building their business or working with their clients, creating new systems and processes and things that will make what you’re doing right now better than it was before, and doing so as an operator behind these AI tools and creating the workflows that are going to support building a life and a business that is designed to serve us as the humans refining these machines and these innovations and actually using them in practical ways to grow our business.
Now, all that said, we’re kicking off on January 6th here inside of GenAI University. And I’d like to extend an invitation to anyone who is operating and building with AI to join us inside of GIU for the month of January. We have tickets available to join us for the four-week sprint. Specifically, we’re going to be meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Central time. We’re going to be going deep in the cloud — I’m going to be developing recipes, we’re going to be sharing everything that we’re doing with our community and with those that buy the four-week sprint tickets. And of course, if you’re a member already, you’re going to have access to a lot of these resources.
If you are on the fence about joining GenAI University, this is a great first step — four weeks to just come in and get so much out of Claude, whether you’re already using Claude or want to understand how to use Claude more effectively in your business, and apply these skills that you’re going to be using into any other sort of large language model that you’re going to be working with.
But I’m super excited to go deep with Claude and Claude Code and level up my own skill and my own ability, and then put everything that we’re going to be learning during this four-week period immediately into practice. We’re going to level up the rising tide inside of GenAI University, and those that are joining with us who are actual operators and actual implementers are going to rise with the tide.
And if that sounds like you, and that sounds like something that you want to level up with your own skill and ability with using Claude in your business — maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team, maybe it’s a few people that you are working with that are looking to level up to build tools, apps, products, resources, and other services around AI and to make your own business and life better — then join us inside of GenAI University for the four-week Claude Mastery Sprint. We’ve got eight live calls, we’ve got tons of resources coming your way. We’re going to see you live inside of GenAI University January 6th through 29th, 2026.
All right, guys. Happy New Year. See you inside of GIU. GIU.com/school is where it’s all going to be happening. I’ll see you on the inside.