AI is Changing the Game for New Businesses and Non-profits

Our episode this past Friday with Marley Rosario, Founder of MJ Ventures provided thought-provoking insight into the power of AI for small companies.  There is an extremely wide-range of tasks that larger companies often hire experts for, but that might be just as effective when generated by a chatbot. Marley's explains the consequences of this shift most strikingly for non-profits: if you are using donors' generously given money to pay for inefficiency, then won't your donors quickly  react (e.g. the next year) to find a different organization that is a better steward of your funding. For small businesses, the equation may play out differently, but the effect is similar. Will a venture capitalist or Angel investor be less inclined to work with groups who are building companies in 'old-school' paradigms? If you are an entrepreneur you might already be feeling this push by your VC backers or by the competition. 

What does this mean for the  workers who's expertise can be captured by a chatbot? To paraphrase a biotech thought leader I often cite in the context of my 'day job', AI won't take the jobs from all the experts, it will only take the jobs from those experts who don't learn how to use AI to do their jobs. Perhaps this is too simplistic, but it contains a really important message: 'ADAPT'. The new paradigm isn't so much a 'paradigm' in the traditional sense, it is a constant cycle of technological change and 'survival of the adaptive'. I admit, I can sometimes drag my feet in learning applications of AI and ChatGPT as much as anyone--I will put myself squarely in the 'Early Majority', with aspirations to be in the 'Early Adopter' group for my own business, but I am on-board and further energized hearing Marley's thoughts.

Elena, Jeff and I definitely look forward to continuing to explore AI in business and to checking in with Marley to see where he goes this year and beyond.