Think Differently

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the importance of thinking differently to achieve ambitious goals, using the author's experience at a company called CompStak as an example. It also covers recent funding news in Europe and Israel, as well as insights on the current state of AI and the software industry.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Think Differently

1. What was the author's initial plan for expanding CompStak, and how did the CEO's challenge change his approach?

• The author's initial plan was to launch 5 markets in the next 12 months, focusing on excellent launch execution and solving the "chicken or the egg" problem in each market.
• The CEO challenged the author to launch 30 markets instead, which forced the author to completely change his thinking and approach the problem from a new angle.

2. How did the author's new approach involve "seeding" markets in advance?

• To launch 30 markets, the author realized they couldn't launch them from scratch one at a time. Instead, they ran a competition where markets competed against each other based on their data coverage.
• This allowed them to start "seeding" markets in advance, gathering interest and data from users before officially launching in those markets.

3. What was the key benefit of the author's new approach compared to the initial plan?

• The new approach allowed them to start at 80% data coverage rather than zero, which made a huge difference in their launch pace. They didn't need to hire as many new people, as they were not starting from scratch in each market.

[02] Europe and Israel Funding News

1. What are some of the key funding rounds highlighted in the article?

• Helsing raised €450M for its AI-powered battlefield software.
• Buildots raised $60M for its AI-powered construction management software.
• Exein raised €15M for its IoT cybersecurity company.
• Soda raised $14M for its data quality platform.
• Lemon Markets raised €12M for its "brokerage-as-a-service" platform.
• Enso raised $6M for its AI-as-a-service platform.
• Tracebit raised $5M for its canary-based intrusion detection platform.

2. What is the potential significance of Google's reported interest in acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz?

• The potential $23 billion acquisition would be Google's largest ever and the largest acquisition of an Israeli company, surpassing the $15 billion Intel paid for Mobileye in 2017.
• The acquisition is seen as significant given the "cyber fever" in the industry, with companies like Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike becoming billion-dollar businesses.

[03] Insights on AI and Software

1. What are the five levels of agentic systems described in the article?

• The five levels range from "fixed automation" to true "autonomy", with the current state of the art being "Plan and Reflect" - systems that can create plans, execute them, reflect on success, and modify plans mid-execution.

2. What are the key concerns raised about the potential value of AI investments?

• Goldman Sachs' Jim Covello questions whether AI will ever generate enough value to justify the estimated $1 trillion investment, arguing that AI is not built to solve truly complex problems like the internet did.
• Covello is skeptical that AI's costs will decline enough to make automating tasks affordable, and doubts whether AI models trained on historical data can replicate humans' most valuable capabilities.

3. What are the counterpoints made about the future of software applications?

• Christoph Janz argues that while AI could enable new ways of interacting with software, there are still significant challenges in replacing complex enterprise applications like CRM, ERP, and HR systems.
• Janz believes that software will continue to play a key role, with AI potentially acting as an "application" that users interact with via natural language and dynamically generated UIs.