Five Bullet Friday, vol2
An experiment from the top of my head
Here are five thoughts that I’m reflecting on recently:
Prediction: Technology in the AI-driven era will not uniformly increase competition and availability of economic opportunities. Instead, it will drive a K-shaped split that squeezes middle-market players either upmarket or downmarket, and consolidates competition at the extremes. You will thus see several divides: smaller tech-enabled service providers vs. a few corporatized behemoths, human-driven and relational business vs. low-touch and high-tech business, fractional vs. full-time work, and VC mega funds vs. personal brand-led specialist funds. Structural inequality will only increase.
Pattern-breakers: The biggest startup winners year-by-year of the past decade have not been the buzziest tech category of the same year. Assuming past behavior is a decent (if imperfect) indicator of future performance, I wonder what winners will emerge from 2025 if not from AI.
Positioning: What professional skills are most future-proofed? How do you effectively position yourself for horizontal vs vertical plays? Generalization or specialization?
I have not yet heard of an AI-driven technology company that does early-stage market strategy and segmentation. Later-stage qualification and prospecting, yes, but not the messy initial stages that founders have to sift through.
Like a Dunning-Kruger curve, the people who proclaim themselves most loudly and often to be experts are actually least likely to be experts, and the real experts are the least likely to proclaim themselves experts - rather, they are introduced as so by others.