Your best years can last far longer than you think.
Traditional peak performance follows a brutal arc: you spend your twenties and thirties building expertise, hit your stride for maybe 10–15 years, then watch as your edge slowly erodes. Conventional wisdom says this is inevitable, but AI Adopters are rewriting that story.
A new class of high performers are extending their prime from 10–15 years to an astonishing 50–60 years. They’re strategically deploying AI as cognitive leverage to compensate for what declines with age (processing speed, working memory) while amplifying what improves with age (pattern recognition, judgment, strategic thinking).
For experienced professionals, this means maintaining and elevating your output as your forties become your fifties and beyond. Your accumulated expertise becomes more valuable when AI handles the cognitive grunt work that used to slow you down.
For younger strivers, this means compressing the expertise-building phase from decades to years. AI scaffolds knowledge, accelerates iteration, and lets you punch above your weight class from day one. Then you maintain that edge for the rest of your career.
Using chatbots to write emails isn’t what this is about. It’s about fundamentally restructuring how you think, learn, execute, and sustain excellence. It’s about building an AI team that makes you superhuman in domains that matter. It’s about becoming an AI Adopter - someone who doesn’t just use AI tools, but who has reimagined their relationship with cognitive work itself.
Inside, you’ll find:
- Principles that persist no matter which AI tool you use
- Superpowers you can deploy immediately at work and at home
- Practices that turn sporadic AI use into sustained cognitive advantage
- How your Team can perform at its collective peak
- The Mindset to work hand-in-hand with machines without losing what makes you human
Your next 50–60 years of peak performance are waiting. Ageless Peak Performance shows you how to claim them.
Praise for Ageless Peak Performance
“The workforce is changing faster than ever. The leaders who thrive will be those who learn to understand and manage AI. Ted Yang has written the practical, no-hype guide to doing exactly that without losing what makes us human.”
— Ned Lamont, Governor of the State of Connecticut
“Ageless Peak Performance reframes learning as a lifelong advantage in the age of AI. Ted Yang shows how technology, used thoughtfully, helps people grow, adapt, and contribute at their highest level at any stage of life. Not something to fear. Something to master.”
— Miguel Cardona, 12th United States Secretary of Education
“I approached artificial intelligence initially with skepticism. This book changed my mind. Ted Yang shows how AI used wisely can be a great equalizer, bridging opportunity gaps for people everywhere, whether in Addis Ababa or Washington, in boardrooms or classrooms. The AI revolution will either widen the gap between haves and have-nots, or close it. Throughout history, access to tools has determined who rises. Ted Yang has written the guide to wielding this one—not for the privileged few, but for anyone with the will to learn.”
— HIH Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie, grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I
“Ted Yang does an amazing job telling easy to understand stories about a complex and critical technological shift happening in front of and around us all. His great insights into what to do and how to engage are worthy of your reading time. And his story telling style makes it enjoyable. Learn and enjoy!”
— Nick Donofrio, IBM Fellow and Former EVP Innovation and Technology, Member, National Academy of Engineering, Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering, Board of Directors, AMD.
“As a CTO, I've watched brilliant engineers plateau with their speed declining while juniors surge ahead. Ted Yang flips this script with a framework for using AI to offset cognitive decline while amplifying the judgment only experience provides. His four principles cut through the hype and the 90-day plan is essential reading for any technical leader serious about extending their team's peak performance for decades.”
— Matt Swann, Former CTO Booking.com and NuBank
“The best AI doesn't replace human judgment, it sharpens it. Ted Yang understands that better than most. Ageless Peak Performance is a practical guide to using AI as a true partner, one that makes you superhuman in the domains that matter, while keeping you fully in the driver's seat. The guidance here isn't just for individuals — great teams will benefit too.”
— Shishir Mehrotra, CEO Superhuman, Board of Directors, Walmart
“Every day, I speak with CEOs who are navigating the same quiet question: In a world where AI is accelerating everything, what happens to human advantage? Ted Yang’s answer is bracing and liberating. The old model of peak performance was narrow: a brief window where speed, stamina, and expertise overlapped, followed by inevitable decline. But AI is breaking that arc. Not by replacing experience, but by compounding it. Ageless Peak Performance is one of the first serious books to explain what high-performing leaders are discovering in real time: that the future belongs to those who learn to use AI as cognitive leverage to extend judgment, compress learning curves, and sustain excellence for decades. This isn’t about writing faster emails; it’s about rewriting the lifespan of CEO leadership.”
— Robert Reiss, CEO, The CEO Forum Group, Best-Selling Author of The Transformative CEO
“AI is a freight train racing straight toward us. Our choice is simple: step aside and let inevitability roar past, or grab hold of a species changing opportunity and learn how to ride it. Ted Yang offers a clear and grounded path to embrace AI without losing our humanity. His perspective is calming, enlightening, and refreshingly different from the noise of headlines and podcasts. This is critical, practical reading for the new era that is already here.”
— Adam von Gootkin, Founder and Chairman, Highclere Castle Spirits
“What Ted Yang captures so crisply is not just that we have fleeting windows where peak competence and peak energy coincide. But that AI can extend your peak energy exactly at the moment you achieve a leadership role. This is when leveraging your team skills together with AI becomes more valuable than success as an individual.”
— Charles Bralver, Chairman Sigma7Risk, Co-Founder Oliver Wyman & Co.
“Ageless Peak Performance is truly a masterpiece. Ted Yang is a visionary and great communicator that envisions a very possible future with humanity advancing with exponential technologies. Thanks to what he describes as superpowers, we might become super intelligent and super long-lived in a world of super abundance. If you want to 'see' the future, you have to read this book.”
— José Luis Cordeiro, Best-selling author of La Muerte de la Muerte ("The Death of Death"), Fellow, World Academy of Art and Science, Founding Faculty, Singularity University.
“Ageless Peak Performance speaks directly to leaders responsible for large teams and complex organizations who want them to perform at their best. Ted Yang offers a clear, human-centered framework for integrating AI into how teams think, learn, and execute, so performance improves without burning people out or losing judgment. This is exactly the kind of perspective leaders need as AI moves from experimentation to everyday work.”
— Liz Fleming, Chief Ecosystem Officer, South Summit
“Healthcare faces three considerable challenges: the pace at which new information must be learned; the increasing complexity of our work; and a growing administrative burden. AI holds the promise of transforming all three and Ageless Peak Performance provides practical advice with relatable examples about how to gain its benefits and avoid its many risks. Ted Yang's playbook is already accelerating my own AI journey.”
— Michael Apkon, Former CEO Tufts Medical Center and SickKids
“What makes Ageless Peak Performance powerful is its focus on what endures. Ted Yang does not chase specific models or trends. Instead, he reveals the principles and superpowers that allow AI to extend human performance from a brief window into a long plateau. I see this shift every day in my own work as a CEO. AI is not only improving productivity. It is transforming outcomes. This book is a practical, deeply human guide to thriving in an AI world. It shows the future of peak performance is not human or machine, but human with machine.”
— Ronak Sheth, CEO, Pricefx
“After 25,000 hours investing, I’ve seen every cycle and more than a few surprises. What resonated most in Ageless Peak Performance is the clear reminder that ‘AI has absolutely no stake in the game.’ It can sharpen analysis, expand diligence, and test assumptions, but the consequences of a bad investment still sit with us. For anyone allocating capital in this environment, this book is a thoughtful guide to getting better and not just faster. And, as I think about how much longer to stay in the game, Ted Yang's book gives deep insights into how and why players will use AI to maintain peak performance.”
— Matt McCooe, CEO, Connecticut Innovations
“AI changed how we build software. Now it's changing how everyone works. Ted Yang has written the playbook for professionals ready to make that shift.”
— Yiğit Ihlamur, Founder, Vela Partners
“For those venturing into the much hyped world of generative AI, Ageless Peak Performance is a 'travel guide' for getting the best. AI is a tool for getting more done in a busy life and the core of Ted Yang's advice is that you get the most out when you put the most effective questions in! We have different speeds of thought and ability to assimilate large amounts of data as we grow older. Ted gives us all hope that we can use this powerful new technology to have richer lives and more fun time with our families and friends.”
— George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon
“Gustav Mahler was a man haunted by the scarcity of time and the limits of human endurance. As a composer, he sought to 'build a world' in every symphony; as a conductor, he was a relentless perfectionist, consumed by the grueling of rehearsals, administrative battles, and the microscopic details of orchestration. If Mahler had possessed Ageless Peak Performance, his legendary intensity would not have been a path to early exhaustion, but a blueprint for a lifelong crescendo. In this book, Ted Yang provides the exact framework a detail-oriented genius needs to conquer complexity. Mahler often complained that his duties as a conductor robbed him of the time to compose. For the perfectionist who demands excellence in every bar, AI is not another instrument—it is the ultimate orchestra.”
— Francisco Bricio, Chairman, Mahler Foundation
“Amidst an almost daily torrent of articles, news stories, and other writings about the wonders and dangers of AI – a complex and often misunderstood technology – Ted Yang's important and well-written book offers clarity about how AI can and cannot serve us. Some AI users rely on it as a savant for financial decisions, romantic interests, and educational endeavors, while AI skeptics reject it entirely. Ted sets forth four principles for using AI and demonstrates that following these principles allows AI users to unlock its 'superpowers' to achieve peak performance individually and within team settings.”
— Ira Bloom, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Lehman College, Former Vice-Chancellor, City University of New York
“In Ageless Peak Performance, Ted Yang powerfully reframes AI as a force multiplier for human potential rather than as a threat to it. With clarity and practicality, he shows how we can extend our intellectual vitality, sharpen our judgment, and sustain meaningful impact across decades. This book is a timely guide for leaders and lifelong learners who refuse to let their peak be temporary.”
— John Maduko, Chancellor, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities
“Ageless Peak Performance invites a compelling shift in how we think about AI. Ted Yang encourages readers to engage with AI not as an expert to replace thinking, but as an assistant that can help us reach flow in both personal and professional life. From an educator’s perspective, this message is especially timely. Rather than viewing AI as a threat to academic integrity, this book challenges us to see AI's potential to deepen thinking, personalize learning, and support human growth.”
— Amy Hawrylchak, Chief Academic Officer and Principal, Tech Valley High School
