This week I had two big meta themes in focus -- Emerging organization models and AI Security reality.

In Sept 2024 Paul Graham wrote a point of view about founder mode. Last week Jack Dorsey took this to the next level (h/t Brian Halligan for "Dorsey Mode") - then Postman piled on I expect we will see more of these as the year progresses.

Amy Wilson and I have a few thoughts on that topic summarized here and here.

The bigger point I'd like to push on, is that yes the need to re-think organization structures and operating models is real and urgent. This is an opportunity to re-evaluate not only how we optimize with technology, but also how we expand execution modalities to deliver business strategy. We only get to the next level value when we are very clear on the purpose. We need a yes... and, approach here, where we are not just focused on removing cost and complexity, but that we are also asking what new things can we create.

This is why I'm in the camp of Amy Wilson Grower mode. Lean on that mode to build new paths to growth. This is a moment where culture has an outsized role to play. CXOs who lean in on intellectual humility will have a material edge.

This week has also elevated the conversation of security supply chain attacks from theory to reality. This at the same time that Anthropic announced the delay of their Mythos model due to the expanded security risk (and the creation of project Glasswing to give everyone a fighting chance). Taken together it becomes clear that thinking of security posture as a prevention activity is an existential risk.

The probability that you will have an incident even if you do things right is very high. It's time to recognize that every software business needs to improve their incident readiness protocol.

4. 1B company built with 1 person milestone achieved. (hired 2nd person this year so really 2)

5. OpenAI buys TPBN - This is probably old news for everyone but just in case.

6. Trust and Liability of AI - Companies are waking up to the real risks of AI efficiency. This is a predictable outcome for the reality that AI speeds up automation and automation creates a scale/surface area that few properly comprehend.  A few big thoughts on this

7. That’s a lot of wallet drop off for non-AI tech.

8. The reality of data (quality, access, context) in enterprises today is pretty fragmented. This directly impacts the usefulness of AI on the most important parts of your business.  Digiomica shares some research and recommendations on what to do. h/t Maureen Blandford

9. More on the topic of security in an AI world - we are WAY over our skis right now that is for certain.  If you are not up to date on the topic of supply chain attacks I recommend you might want to do a bit of reading. Here is a good start.

10. The decision trace opportunity in b2b software. Ashu Garg - this is a good drilldown connecting the dots between where we are today (transactional SORs as SaaS) and what the opportunity looks like when we add context graphs AND systems to capture the why of decisions as they are made. These are all pieces that will become more robust as agents increase their value and capability into operational workflows.

11. AI native businesses have nearly 2x the revenue with 40% less capital - still early days but the obvious has data now - there is a huge advantage for companies starting today and the gap for incumbents is real. These results are for the 90th percentile - there are still a lot of hacks out there but the real challenge is less the tooling and more in the business building.  The picture becomes more clear on where you need to invest in value creation – you cannot spend all your time on low hanging fruit - you have to dig in to understand where and how the game has changed and move there.

12. OpenAI economic policy proposals - Interesting overlap with the Scott Santens discussion we had on the pod (Episode 27). Meg POV: I do think we need a massive re-think on both the capital v. labor discussion and the way we fund government programs.  Feels harder to have when so much of the budget is going to defense spending and debt service.  It’s no surprise, that I’m solidly in the butter camp (vs. guns) and that I think decoupling healthcare from employment would be a massive benefit to everyone

13. Ronan Farrow does a deep dive on Sam Altman highlighting many ethics concerns. Full article in the New Yorker

14. The story of Ramp’s AI journey (and the importance of culture). “We had a culture that turned out to be the right raw material, and we just kept doing things with the people and technology in front of us and watched it compound. The most important lesson is the simplest one - just get started.” The intersection of framework building + culture + get started is a solid flywheel and one that most companies are thrashing about trying to find.  One thing that I see in this story is the Heath Brother’s “Path Shaping” concept that I think matters a lot for scaled engineering teams.

15. Lies, Damn Lies and Recurring Revenue - A SaaSpocalypse context with a deep dive of the Annual Recurring Revenue past/present and future in the Only CFOs newsletter ( thanks Nick Mehta ).

16. An important reminder of how EBITDA hides stock based compensation (one of the reasons Charlie Munger called it bullshit earnings).

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** Typos and poor grammar either because I'm too lazy to edit properly, or to make you feel confident this was written by a flawed human and not AI generated.