I just read your essay on what you define AI-first companies as, and I think I have an idea of what you mean, but I think you're definition is unclear. You write a lot about what these companies could do or what they should expect or how they think, but relatively little on what they *are*. Even the definition including anti-fragility is…
I just read your essay on what you define AI-first companies as, and I think I have an idea of what you mean, but I think you're definition is unclear. You write a lot about what these companies could do or what they should expect or how they think, but relatively little on what they *are*. Even the definition including anti-fragility is how a company responds to change, not what it fundamentally is. Is it fair to say this is a definition:
"An AI-first company is one whose core products and business processes are run by AI, with human actors as direction-setters and output-verifiers" ?
In this case, I think the AI-first company is, to an extent, a vibe-coded company and comes with the same issues as vibe coding. It'll only take you so far. And with the new scaling issues we're seeing with LLMs and inconsistency in repeating tasks, I don't think it's a fair assumption that the AI engine will just get better and better, even if the statement that these companies would benefit from that is true.
Thank you for a thoughtful comment. I think there are two different questions here.
One is whether AI-first companies under your definition will be viable. I’m more optimistic than you, but I think we’ll have to wait and see.
But the other issue is different. I define AI-first companies a one enabled by and benefiting from AI progress. It could be a regular Ltd run by regular people. But at its core, the value it creates is a function of the power of AI models it uses. Say, Perplexity is an example: it couldn’t have existed before LLMs and it benefits from LLM progress. It doesn’t mean it’s run by AIs or even that any of its code is vibe coded. I would guess it’s not.
So my main point is that if the value created is a function of AI power, AI-first companies have an incredible advantage over the rest, like Airbnb has an advantage over a hotel: as technology progresses, Airbnb gets stronger without lifting a finger (more people online) but a hotel doesn’t. Similarly, Perplexity has an advantage over, say, Wikipedia, in this regard.
It doesn’t mean that every AI company will win, but overall my bet is on AI-first companies like twenty years ago I would have bet on tech-first companies.
I just read your essay on what you define AI-first companies as, and I think I have an idea of what you mean, but I think you're definition is unclear. You write a lot about what these companies could do or what they should expect or how they think, but relatively little on what they *are*. Even the definition including anti-fragility is how a company responds to change, not what it fundamentally is. Is it fair to say this is a definition:
"An AI-first company is one whose core products and business processes are run by AI, with human actors as direction-setters and output-verifiers" ?
In this case, I think the AI-first company is, to an extent, a vibe-coded company and comes with the same issues as vibe coding. It'll only take you so far. And with the new scaling issues we're seeing with LLMs and inconsistency in repeating tasks, I don't think it's a fair assumption that the AI engine will just get better and better, even if the statement that these companies would benefit from that is true.
Thank you for a thoughtful comment. I think there are two different questions here.
One is whether AI-first companies under your definition will be viable. I’m more optimistic than you, but I think we’ll have to wait and see.
But the other issue is different. I define AI-first companies a one enabled by and benefiting from AI progress. It could be a regular Ltd run by regular people. But at its core, the value it creates is a function of the power of AI models it uses. Say, Perplexity is an example: it couldn’t have existed before LLMs and it benefits from LLM progress. It doesn’t mean it’s run by AIs or even that any of its code is vibe coded. I would guess it’s not.
So my main point is that if the value created is a function of AI power, AI-first companies have an incredible advantage over the rest, like Airbnb has an advantage over a hotel: as technology progresses, Airbnb gets stronger without lifting a finger (more people online) but a hotel doesn’t. Similarly, Perplexity has an advantage over, say, Wikipedia, in this regard.
It doesn’t mean that every AI company will win, but overall my bet is on AI-first companies like twenty years ago I would have bet on tech-first companies.