In my 45 year reporting career I have seen perpetual change.
I have also seen enough booms and bubbles to detect their pattern.
I am old enough now to have witnessed the PC boom, the networking boom, the Internet boom, the SaaS boom, and the cloud boom.
We’re now in the early stages of a sixth boom, the AI boom.
Here are some things I have learned from those previous booms, and busts.
First, second-mover advantage. Everyone talks about getting there first. It’s more important to get there right, to understand the value you’re creating and ignore distractions. There were dozens of PC companies in the 1980s, and hundreds of software companies back then that are no more. There were dozens of search engines before Google.
Second, do one thing right. That’s the secret of Apple. It can be hard to figure out what that one thing is. It changes. But once you find it, don’t let anyone distract you. Also, think about what’s under your hood, not just what you’re selling. If you’re wrong, the market will tell you.
Third, don’t let bureaucratic success lead you to think your shit doesn’t stink. AT&T and IBM built vast internal structures, where individual success lay in believing their own press clippings. They thought they could see the future by looking up their own assholes. Never look in, always look out.
Fourth, don’t believe Wall Street. Bankers are good at extracting value, not creating it. Once a company is controlled by bankers its days are numbered. Novell. Yahoo. Hewlett-Packard. Intel CEO Andy Grove said, “Only the paranoid survive.” Intel replaced him with smooth-talking marketers.
Fifth, don’t fall in love. Any company can fail, and any stock can fall. Look for the rot in any company you own and get out before the end. Right now, I’m deeply suspicious of Google, for instance. I may be wrong about that, but my spidey sense is tingling.
Finally, we know nothing. Pundits know nothing. Bankers know nothing. Even venture capitalists know nothing. That’s why smart investors spread their bets. I’ve been wrong dozens of times, usually by getting in too early or staying in things too long. Knowing the trends, and seeing around corners, can only get you so far. Stay humble.
How does all this relate to Generative AI? I think Nvidia and Microsoft are the IBM and AT&T of this bubble. They think they know it all, and they don’t. Bureaucracies are hard to shift, and the Google of this boom probably doesn’t exist yet.
I just wish I were 40 years younger so I could hunt for it full time.
