Spark of the Week
The narrative is shifting, hard to be sure if this is a bit of a mid-cycle breather or if it is more structural, but people are starting to talk about things like the risks and complexities of enterprise adoption and the human ability to metabolise change.
Now I’m sure many of you will say you have been flagging this forever, yes I know, but that isn’t my point. My point is that the prevailing narrative is noticeably shifting. Some of this is visible in the AI-backlash and some in the manifestation of data center pushback but most of this is really tied to the broader macro economic concerns and the very real issue of the mega-IPOs being created without predictable revenue or trendability.
What is happening now is clearly a fair bit of collective anchoring so that we can all say we told you so when things go a bit sideways on all the hype and ultimately get to a more solid footing of reality. Even if “AI is as financially responsible as a moonshot can get"
The capabilities of AI are becoming more powerful, while the economic underpinnings of the AI buildout
…and the political support for AI are becoming more vulnerable.
Reading and Pondering
Autonomous AI Hacking - This story is getting a lot of play and is happening more than we realize - what is not clear, is what happens next, do we pace the frontier or do we move fast and break things. My bet is that we first break things and then over react with a pullback. Both are going to be stressful on the system (both the financial system and our respective nervous systems) but I think the dots that need to be connected are really what happens to the aging boomers who have their retirement savings vulnerable while the social safety net for assisted living is gutted. If I were to summarize my POV: Shore up your personal savings strategy and buckle up for even more macro volatility.
On the topic of AI consciousness and risks of anthropomorphizing - Worth double clicking on the valid critique of Dwarkesh’s essay, I have to admit, that the conversation hit peak twitter soapboxing/mansplaining (for me). I feel compelled to remind everyone that as usual John Sumser got to this topic first, that incentives matter and that our mental models are lagging and that is a bigger problem for our collective ability to predict what happens next.
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Powerpoint dollars - John Sumser shares a very relatable tale of “award winning productivity measurements”.
Collective Intelligence is gendered - CI is predicted by the proportion of women in the group, mediated by average social perceptiveness of group members, and that it predicts performance on various out-of-sample criterion tasks.
Right-sizing intelligence spend - Jaya Gupta brings forward a conversation that is happening across many different circles today - is the coding use case repeatable in other areas or is the AI-optimism overblown? I find it interesting how the cycle of confidence swings back and forth so easily and how people are discovering that large global organizations are not ready to change just because we want them to. All of this is really a bigger signal to me, a signal that we are moving through the hype cycle quicker than ever before…. yay?
Related a conversation in tech circles acknowledging the whiplash reality - the durability of AI strategy (on a technical level) is about six months -this means that for many organizations the lifespan of a good technical choice is impossible to survive. I agree with Aaron’s advice on remaining flexible in your own thinking. I’d add appreciate the opportunity to re-evaluate what you know to be true. The story you tell yourself right now is very important for your nervous system/wellbeing.
Workforce planning without re-designing work and orgs is doing more harm than good. A good take by Paul Rubenstein on the need to focus on shape not size. The good news, is I’m seeing more people talking about this (some start with work evolution and some start with workflow evolution but most end up here in the end and both entry points are real) but the reality is that most of the conversations I am hearing involve a similar kind of hand wringing and visible discomfort I used to observe in the early 2000’s on the topic of workforce analytics. A few points to add: emotions are data and when people are visibly uncomfortable it’s a sign you are on to something important. The lack of clarity is the feature not the bug, we need to build systems for sensemaking, experimentation and adapting. Skills like agency and change agility and investing in first principles and systems thinking are important right now. Now is not the time for rigid systematizing, it is the time for being curious.
Work and Jobs
Functional Unemployment ~25%. what is interesting is that this is consistently high throughout the chart (from 1995) and since it includes the same data as the BLS all of the numbers are impacted by including 16 year olds. The race-based gap is the one that has seen an improvement but does vary based on overall rate (Oct 2022 gap between hispanic and white was under 1% vs. more than 18 points in 1995, but back to 3pt gap as of July).
CEO retirement scorecard - Some great tips for people experiencing transition from “big jobs” and interesting that similar to Kieran’s findings about quitting, most are satisfied after a year (suspect similar dip at three months)
Winning matters - A great summary/reminder from the awesome Dave Kellogg this is an important reminder that organizational silos have a real cost. Winning in a moment of disruption requires a larger shared goal not multiple organizational optimization goals.
More bleak data for new college grads employment - anyone with kids at or nearing post-college has been feeling this for some time. The first job is getting harder to get without connections. If you have the option, consider hiring, mentoring or recommending early talent, especially those who have fewer family resources. Thanks Gad for the data!
The need for, and the unlikely reality of an AI Pause. A great breakdown by Brian Elliott (related to the first two topics of the newsletter)
Fun and Funny
SF Isms - A field guide to SF Slang
Lifehacks - AI and Others
Seems like AI Slop - I had heard about this feature on LinkedIn but wasn’t sure where it actually was… I am including a screenshot of something that is decidedly not AI slop to avoid shaming anyone while also showing you where to find this (it wouldn’t give me the option to flag my own posts which is I guess logical, but also not helpful for this use case).
Looping Back to You
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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.
