“The Indians are coming!” The alarm bells rang in 2002 when Infosys opened operations in Australia. The fear was that “cheap” labour would take away jobs from the locals. Twenty years later the same Indians are being replaced too.
The Bots Are Here
“We use ChatGPT to write code,” Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of FreshWorks, told Fortune (paywall article). A year ago CEOs would be wary of saying such a thing given the concerns around quality and integrity. Last year, I was part of an AI writing group on Facebook where writers were using the tool but hesitating to say it. Now it is mainstream.
Opens a bunch of questions on how to value IT services, and non-linear growth, the holy grail, is finally achievable!
Not just tech companies – Darryl Long CEO of the Singapore arm of Ubisoft the video game developer said that the time to rebuild a virtual world has fallen from 3 hours to 13 seconds. Duolingo, Snapchat, Koo (desi Twitter) and Air India are the many companies to have openly embraced the AI tools bandwagon.
Can’t compete with free!
Even 20 years ago, we knew that cost arbitrage wouldn’t last forever. In the past 10 years it has made both economic and business sense to locate some production in high cost countries as India’s costs/expectations started rising. With AI, however, price is removed from the equation as how do you compete with Free? Whether you’re an author or a coder, a free 24×7 resource is impossible to beat.
What would a hedgehog do?
It would curl up. Ok, that’s not quite a strategy, I agree. So let’s talk about Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept. I have used it many times, particularly when deciding what my entrepreneurship venture would focus on. It’s about finding the intersection of the 3Ps:
Passion: What is the mission of the organization or individual
Perfection: What can you be best in the world at
Profitable: What makes you money
AI can help with perfection and profitability.
AI can drive perfection by allowing you superhuman knowledge and skills to be the best at what you do. It can drive profitability by increasing scalability many many times.
This is true for both individuals and organizations. What’s left? Passion and the ability to realize what you should be the best in the world at.
What’s your superpower?
Knowing what it is could be the difference between thriving and being nibbled away by bots. Write in and tell me what you think yours is! My human eyes read all responses to this newsletter.
