One of my all-time favorite books is The Phoenix Project. Toward the end, the character Erik shares this insight:

“I’ve long believed that to effectively manage IT is not only a critical competency but a significant predictor of company performance,” he explains. “One of these days, I’d like to create a hedge fund that invests in companies, taking long positions on companies with great IT organizations that help the business win, and short the companies where IT lets everyone down. I think we’ d make a killing. What better way is there to force the next generation of CEOs to give a shit about IT?”

Kim, Gene; Behr, Kevin ; Spafford, George. The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win . IT Revolution Press. Kindle Edition.

This idea has stuck with me: top companies excel at IT quietly. The less it’s talked about, the better it’s working. I believe the same is happening with AI. Companies that succeed long-term won’t tout AI, but they’ll be curious, finding efficiencies without hype.

Take this quote from Meta’s 2024 Q3 earnings call:

“More than a million advertisers used our GenAI tools to create more than 15 million ads in the last month, and we estimate that businesses using Image Generation are seeing a 7% increase in conversions – and we believe that there is a lot more upside here.”

That’s AI as a tool for business augmentation, not the business itself. (yes, I know Meta is also building out Llama…but stay with me…) Over the next few months, I plan to dive deeper. Based on my decade in tech, here’s my hypothesis:

Companies with clear vision, grounded leadership, and a focus on efficiency will succeed long-term. AI can support them, but it shouldn’t be the end goal. Companies that have slapped “AI” on their marketing without clearly understanding how it fits into their business model will struggle.

Advice from Historical Leaders on Leveraging AI

(shameless plug: "ask" feature is a paid upgrade)
I’ve been enjoying asking questions of podcasts through [Audio Brevity](https://audiobrevity.com/), especially with the Founders podcast by David Senra.

I asked the some episodes what advice historical leaders would give leaders on leveraging AI. Here are some of the responses:

Rockefeller:

“Control expenses, invest in technology, know your numbers, focus on service, be intolerant of slowness, and build strong partnerships.”

Michael Bloomberg:

Leverage AI to enhance your core product, not as the main focus. Innovate from within, prioritize data, and continuously adapt.

Daniel Ludwig

Focus on innovation, prioritize hard work, maintain control, and leverage data with frugality.

Andrew Carnegie

Invest in technology, optimize costs, focus on quality, and invest in people.

So in between diaper changes, late night coding sessions, and the holidays coming up, I’ll be exploring this idea further.