What can go wrong when the CEO pushes technical decisions, shift focus from users' problems to unreliable technical capabilities, and try to persuade everyone else to follow suit?
‘Someone saying, "We're an electricity-first company, before using manual tools, we'll try electric ones first, etc." doesn't sound all that smart and innovative.’
Being an “electricity-first” company is meaningless today. But what if electricity that’s broadly available is *new*? What if people in the company are slow or hesitant to adopt it?
The whole AI first framing is a push to overcome barriers to adoption. Barrier to adoption across all the functions in the company, not just engineering.
The point is to adopt it across the board. Not (just) into the product but into the “factory.” Into how finance does audits. How marketing does research. How sales tailors messages to leads.
So it should be the CEO, not the CTO driving it.
And it should be done, because we are in the middle of a transformational shift in tooling. Just like electricity.
Thanks for taking the time to express your disagreement, Gilad.
That's one of the reasons why I like posting online.
I don't intend to change your mind on the subject, as we clearly have diverging views on it, and that's totally fine.
Yet, I do recommend you read Baldur Bjarnason's book The Intelligence Illusion, in case you haven't. The reason is that he describes very clearly the fact that there is no first-mover advantage in technology and that what's driving a lot of what we see around AI these days is driven by FOMO rather than by a subtle analysis of what is going on.
The recent backpedaling of both Klarna and Duolingo are just the freshest examples of what happens when CEOs take such decisions when barely understanding what they're talking about.
I disagree 🙂.
Let’s take this quote:
‘Someone saying, "We're an electricity-first company, before using manual tools, we'll try electric ones first, etc." doesn't sound all that smart and innovative.’
Being an “electricity-first” company is meaningless today. But what if electricity that’s broadly available is *new*? What if people in the company are slow or hesitant to adopt it?
The whole AI first framing is a push to overcome barriers to adoption. Barrier to adoption across all the functions in the company, not just engineering.
The point is to adopt it across the board. Not (just) into the product but into the “factory.” Into how finance does audits. How marketing does research. How sales tailors messages to leads.
So it should be the CEO, not the CTO driving it.
And it should be done, because we are in the middle of a transformational shift in tooling. Just like electricity.
Thanks for taking the time to express your disagreement, Gilad.
That's one of the reasons why I like posting online.
I don't intend to change your mind on the subject, as we clearly have diverging views on it, and that's totally fine.
Yet, I do recommend you read Baldur Bjarnason's book The Intelligence Illusion, in case you haven't. The reason is that he describes very clearly the fact that there is no first-mover advantage in technology and that what's driving a lot of what we see around AI these days is driven by FOMO rather than by a subtle analysis of what is going on.
The recent backpedaling of both Klarna and Duolingo are just the freshest examples of what happens when CEOs take such decisions when barely understanding what they're talking about.
Okay, so I actually think we agree on most things.
The question is what does 'first' in 'AI-first' mean?
It does not imply being first-to-market, where there's no first-mover advantage.
It does imply when and how AI, as a tool, is used at work.
AI-last: do the work, then consult the AI.
AI-first: let AI do the work, then review.