A macro transformation that happens every 20-25 years

It’s been a crazy July so far with launches, campaigns, deliveries, new contracts, interviews, and more.

And activation is underway across the richest segments known as “post-economic” (i.e. no real need to work at the time).

• Investors splurging on AI models and GPU startups

• Former exited founders moving back to executive roles in FAANG-style companies

• Meta paying $100M to recruit AI engineers

• Founders like Larry and Sergey back on the battlefield in strategic AND operational seats

Jason Lemkin posted the cyclical nature in his own journey, confirming the current trend:

I’ve shared success stories and founders moving back in seat in previous newsletters, plus Mark Cuban being affirmative of the AI upskill, and entire industries pivoting to the “new normal”.

This is bigger than anything we’ve seen since the dawn of the Internet. It’s not “yet another search engine” or “a new social network” or a prototype like Google Glasses that couldn’t pick up in 2012 as $1,200 glasses at scale to develop an ecosystem would take at least 5+ years to pick up, and R&D costs don’t add up. A similar train of thought applies to Zuckerberg’s Metaverse plans - going to market was just dramatically more expensive to achieve sufficient adoption.

AI augmentation relies on infrastructure we already know and use:

1. Internet access is available everywhere in business (and on the go, from telecoms to Starlinks).

2. Computer, tablet, smartphone access basically commoditized. I’m setting aside the third world for the moment, we need to chase 100% adoption always, it’s just not the revenue-generating force controlling markets today.

3. Cloud systems, data warehouses, and the leading vendors (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) already dominating.

4. Browser-based systems and online tooling standardized (gone are the days of WinAmp and streaming videos with a desktop video app).

5. Plenty of businesses transitioning to online-first data storage for documents, too - from Google Drive for the Google ecosystem to Microsoft Office 365 and their virtual Excel and Word documents. This can be indexed, trained, and looked up by the AI overlords.

So, AI adoption can happen in a matter of months vs. 5-10 years compared to complex hardware, limited access, and expensive tooling.

The dot-com bubble was the last period with such incredible global opportunities.

A similar epic bubble with a growing stock market was present in 1973, and pre-wars, the 1929. Technically, bubbles pop up every 10-12 years, but the impactful ones I can point at are 3 in the past 50 years, with the last one just starting and growing today.

With every bubble, there are colossal winners and losers. Some titans fall. And some underdogs manage to climb up.

The broader ecosystem of small to mid-sized players is calibrating and adjusting, or lagging behind, missing all the opportunities in the market.

We’ve been undergoing the transformation since COVID as well, adjusting to businesses moving to WFH and access/credentials, then wars, and now we’re observing the GPT assimilation and augmentation inside of businesses, refining internal processes, and GTM due to SEO and organic social taking a hit (furthermore impacting paid social & search, two more key channels).

Today’s takeaway is simple as I’m diving back into onboarding calls and systems scaling:

Don’t miss this opportunity going on right now.

Valid for mid-market, SMEs, and smaller vendors/SaaS/startups, as well as individuals. What’s going on now isn’t just mass use of ChatGPT for content creation or social copy. It’s incremental, high velocity, brute-force approach trying to plug LLMs and train all company knowledge (plus unstructured data) into agents, chatbots, automated platforms, internal upskilling and training systems, HR, CX, even business development.

Some key players will stand out. Early movers will 100% make a difference.

Mario

 📚️ Books I read this month - I like this new series and may keep it ongoing:

• ✅ “Main Street Millionaire” by Codie Sanchez (100%)

• Hooked - on habits and cues and product alignment (50% in)

• “Nuclear War” by Annie Jacobsen - a detailed intelligence brief of what happens if things really turn to the worst (30% in)

• Ray Dalio’s “How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle” (20% in)

• “The Sweaty Startup” by Nick Hueber (10% in)

🤖 AI comments bite - the opposite effect of that “AI everywhere” motion are dumb template replies like this one. The guy almost called me delusional and old-school for not relying on these fully automated, generic, bland, and apparently AI comments that ruin brands. I stopped responding at some point, but definitely beware and don’t overdose without human supervision and until quality is in place.

💻️ Dashboards are everything - when data is MOAT, $100k SaaS are worthless without the right dashboard. Great enterprise summary I commented on, originally by Jason Lemkin

👥 Vibe coding and empowering engineers. Hot topics are trendy because they are polarizing. I’m not saying that vibe coding is worthless, nor that all people will disappear. But 1,000 engineering teams can shrink to 150 soon enough.

🔖 Scale campaigns with confidence. Master high-volume email server configuration to protect deliverability and optimize performance.

🔖 Streamline your data stack. Learn key API sync methods behind real-time automation and scalability.

🔖 Custom vs. pre-built: choose smarter analytics. Weigh the analytics trade-offs that affect cost, speed, and ROI.

🔖 Accelerate analytics and compliance. Use partitioning methods to speed up queries and meet regulatory needs.

🔖 Future-proof your AI strategy. Apply these five assessment steps to manage AI risk and stay compliant.

🔖 Unclog SME growth with AI. See how automation resolves bottlenecks and boosts returns by over 100%.

🔖 Strengthen strategic risk planning. Combine stress testing and scenario analysis to build resilient strategies.

🔖 Boost B2B reach with smarter platform selection. Compare the top content distribution platforms that drive funnel results.

🔖 Automate smarter ad performance. Optimize returns with NLP ad copy techniques that adapt across channels.

🔖 Outposition. Don't outbuild. Learn strategic category creation tactics that redefine growth models.

📰 Trade showdown intensifies. Trump warns tariffs on Japan and South Korea, raising market uncertainty in a policy alert.

📰 Walmart slashes tech prices. Retailer offers steep Apple and gadget deals without paywall in an anti-Prime Day sale.

📰 Sutskever prioritizes safety. OpenAI cofounder drives Safe Superintelligence mission amid AI race in a safety plan.

📰 Hydrogen tech revival. Tulum Energy raises $27M reviving methane pyrolysis for clean hydrogen in new funding.

📰 Analytics enters AI era. GA4 adds advanced attribution and real-time insights for marketers with new features.

📰 Untangld names strategy lead. Amy Gilmore joins from Accenture Song to drive Europe growth in strategic growth.

📰 Automated coding CLI. ByteDance’s Trae Agent handles debugging and CI/CD tasks via an open-source agent.

📰 New CEO at Tungsten. Peter Hantman leads SaaS expansion for intelligent automation backed by Clearlake in a leadership change.

📰 Fed leadership split looms. Trump’s potential Fed pick sparks uncertainty in monetary policy in a Fed forecast.

📰 Health system risks delisting. SunLink Health’s missed meeting triggers NYSE notice ahead of merger in NYSE notice.

📰 OtterBox refreshes branding. The “Made for Yes” campaign shifts focus to values and culture with cultural connection.

📰 Meta hires AI chief. Ex-Apple models lead Ruoming Pang joins Meta for on-device intelligence in a key hire.

Let’s see the latest offers from Flippa. Don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter for daily/weekly/monthly offers like these.

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Need My Help?

Keeping myself busy - here are the main projects I focus on:

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💼 Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink.