Sailing Against the Current of Frictionless AI

Terrain partner Willem Van Lancker wrote our most recent Thesis, about productive friction in the age of AI. Rhea Purohit spoke with him about the origins of his philosophy—including 10 tips for cultivating friction in your own life.—Kate Lee

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Willem Van Lancker was six years old when he learned a lasting life lesson: from a rope, a sail, and the salty taste of a sea breeze.

Van Lancker’s dad, a sailor and boat builder, sent him and his older brother out to sea in a small dinghy. The two boys prepped the boat: tied knots, checked lines, and wrestled sails into place, making sure everything was in place, or so they thought. They’d fixed one of the lines wrong, and as the boat turned into the wind, it capsized. Their father had to swim out and bring them and the boat back to land.

Years later, reflecting on the adventure, Van Lancker recognizes that sailing is as much about preparation as it is about the act itself. What you choose to do, or not do, at that stage is viscerally felt once you’re out on the water. Understanding how all the components go together goes far beyond being a necessary chore; it is essential to making it work at all.

That lesson now drives his contrarian take on AI: As it erodes friction from our lives, we risk losing the struggles that build judgment, expertise, and personal taste. According to Van Lancker, a partner at early-stage investment firm Terrain, a lifelong designer who has worked at Google and Apple, and shepherded several dozen startups from day zero, we need to intentionally preserve friction in our work. We caught up with him to hear about how he’s doing this for himself.

He’s nearly always learned by doing

Van Lancker inherited his love for working with his hands from his parents, his father a boat designer, his mother a painter and an art educator. “In some families, knowledge is passed down through dinner-table debates or the steady drip of books on bedside tables,” he says. “In mine, ideas emerged from busy hands and workbenches crowded with projects.”

Growing up in a house “humming with projects” from an “in-progress car rebuild in the garage” to “printed pillows drying across clotheslines in the yard,” Van Lancker learned by making. “My parents didn’t teach through abstract theories or carefully reasoned arguments; instead, they invited me to join their process and figure it out with them,” he says.