Technology 4 — Tradition 1
It’s been a rough week for tradition. First, after 148 years the Wimbledon line judge is no more; the game will now rely on Hawk-Eye. Second, the Royal Train will give way to modern helicopters.
Third and fourth, the push-me-pull-you of copyright law persisted with Meta side-stepping a hot-seat while Anthropic won a key ruling. Technology 4 — Tradition 0.
It is the wild wild west. Never is this point more keenly noticed than when driving across the Golden Gate Bridge whose toll-takers long ago went the way of the dodo bird. The bridge’s iconic art-deco entrance is half-gone and looks lopsided. It’s now impossible to pay the toll (surprise!) for the person behind you. It’s so not the same.
Our new car has been in the shop for 3 weeks with no end in sight to the problem or how they are going to solve it. Numerous calls to Germany, followed by lots of scopes, probes, and electronic testing and nada. They can’t get to the bottom of why a certain light is going off and how that’s connected to the engine’s performance, or not. I wonder if they’ve asked ChatGPT.
Either way our car is in digital purgatory. Too smart for its own good, apparently as no one — let alone the machines — are able to fix it. And then an article about why American’s love affair with autos is over. I clearly didn’t get the memo soon enough.
In the midst of all this, I had lunch with a friend who wanted to talk about Outsell, hear how things are going and otherwise catch-up. A successful CEO in his own right, and with good exits for PE under his belt, we had plenty to catch-up about. He shared what was going on at his latest gig and the roll-up he has underway.
Over a killer Caesar, mine minus the anchovies, we talked about the pressures of modern-day CEOs. The trade-offs and freedoms of different ownership structures. The issue of the day we were each wrestling with. On one item, he helped provide clarity. It was nice to have someone to bounce things off of who could understand and empathize with the issue but who was otherwise neutral.
On another, we had shared understanding that only comes from actually running a firm. Some things are just unique to the role.
We talked about the importance of community and why when he was younger, he got so much out of YPO. I was reminded of the Outsell CEO network and the work we do with leaders. There are some things you can’t take to your board, your exec team, your partner or spouse.
Sometimes you just need a sounding board of other people who just ‘get it’ and who have no skin in the game or vested interest in the decision. They can simply put up a mirror and reflect unvarnished clarity back at you.
And so, while we write about defensible moats, and community being one part of them, it showed up in real life and reminded me of the power of the work we do with CEOs and the important conversations we convene and why CEOs, including yours truly, need an independent network.
Technology may be winning at some things, but it will never win at relationships, and most of all trusted relationships. While Mark Zuckerburg wants to solve loneliness with AI, I applaud Hinge’s CEO for calling him out. The power of community scored one for tradition this week. And so the week ended 4:1. Tradition is on the board!
Outsell’s US and UK office will be closed on Friday. Enjoy the long weekend!