Thoughts For The Week - 2025.10.12
The Next Great Distribution Shift, Priority Setting, FOMO-Driven Investment
1. The Next Great Distribution Shift
Brian Balfour’s post has a detailed analysis of the common pattern associated with great distribution shifts. How we’re on the verge of the next one with ChatGPT and then case study deep dives as examples and how this playbook is accelerating.
Facebook, Google, Apple, LinkedIn—every platform followed the same brutal pattern: open, grow, close, monetize. The next distribution monopoly is coming, and most leaders aren’t prepared.
Given technological innovation it's easy to get lost into the continuous list of new things. This article takes a step back and shoes that some patterns don’t change and backs that up with great examples.
The stampede is coming. If I’m right, in six months, it’s likely every SaaS product and consumer application will be rushing to complete a ChatGPT integration. In twelve months, users will expect it. In eighteen months, the platform taxes will arrive. In twenty-four months, the graveyard will be full.
The section on “There Is No Opting Out” may make uncomfortable reading, the “only” strategy for many companies short term is likely to be to partner with ChatGPT and end up having to give a way a lot of data.
How do you use the ChatGPT while building your own moat? This is the key question to answer.
2. Priority Setting
If you’re overloaded with tasks, this is just a reminder that everything can’t be a priority. Take a step back and classify them as Could do, Should do, Must do…
3. FOMO-Driven Investment
Brian Balfour in the post from point 1 is predicting 80% chance of ChatGPT winning the race. Meanwhile here’s a couple of links to alternative outcomes, they highlight the risks when investment is based purely on fear of missing out.
“If we end up misspending a couple of hundred billion dollars, I think that will be very unfortunate obviously, but I actually think the risk is higher on the other side.” [Emphasis added]
When hyperscalers like Oracle and Microsoft both invest in and consume from the same infrastructure, and a few unprofitable companies like OpenAI rely on fundraising to fulfill obligations, revenue becomes circular - and the system extremely fragile.
Interesting times ahead.
Have a great week.