(Preview) Monday Mailbag: AI Abundance and Enterprise Questions; Automated Podcasts; Big Tech and China Tariffs; Reading Habits
12:51 Share

Hello, and welcome to a free preview of sharp tech. So salesforce, correct if i'm wrong, but they're selling salesforce products based on per ced licenses. But to the extent that like agented, AI becomes a real thing and is eventually able to do the work of like entire departments or entire teams, is that a concern that A I would actually reduce overall licensed software and overall profit for sir?

I mean, I think that one of the many open questions is what happens with the business model in part of the part of the brilliance of sales force at the beginning was all this stuff that that bend off did all fit together. So being on the cloud. So you had deserved over the internet that made sense to shift to a subscription model and the sort of proceed license model or per coral license model, all these things that that that you sorry, like the the installation, you know license models, that description sort of license and also like older marketing, like other grille marketing things like that.

Why did that work? Because you're actually it's more of A P R, thinks you're trying to reach lower levels of the company like the best public because they could just go you can do trials, right? You can do trials if you have to go in, install the software, your own premises thing, that's all a top doone sale and then you have to go through.

And then maybe after you're and a half, if IT works, then you can actually that's your first time actually trying the product, right, right? And so where is with sales force back in the day, some random sales parks could just walk up the sales force and tried IT out because it's already installed because it's a cloud service. And so all those things went together.

So the question is, as we shift to these new bottles, does that just layer on nicely? Or if you still want A I and someone doing a job in place of a person that's more of a usage model, right? You're paying for something to be accomplished.

And as part of agent force, they have like a questioner product. I think you know like an obvious sort of A I application, everyone, that's the obvious way out, of course, cause a sense I think they're charging like two dollars per completed calls. So it's basically like, you know so how many calls can aee complete in the day?

What's that equivalent for an actual employ and sort of figuring that out. But that's it's a fundamentally different business model. So will existing companies be able to adjust to that or will sort of go in the other direction before says shipped in a bit?

It's not cell s isn't just a crm like the crm sits on top of a platform which which is sort of four stock comm sort of platform and they that has and there you as a developer, you can build on top of that. They have their own APP store like where you can go. And I find things that work with all your stuff together and that has usage based pricing.

So so it's not a usage based pricing is completely foreign to them, but all of this is sort of up in the air. What's the right business model? What's the right approach? How do you get the data, those search of things? And you know I think their their argument. So sorry, that's part one. Yes, part two beneath argument is that he sort of push back on my supose tion, that agents, the first way that is, is like a play replace an energy spects.

So he did push back, but then he also invoked an example. And he laid out sort of an agent's use case for dockery offices and health care providers, where an agent calls you to follow up and schedule appointments. Ts, and that did sound to me like a IT would expand the capabilities of various health care practices, but IT would also render a lot of repetitious type folks obsol in the abstract. But I don't know.

right? No, exactly. So the other one, he like like this textbook example about why we like. No, in the in the fall they rap up because lots people buying textbooks. They need more support.

And the way he wants to frame IT is I label this is of A I abundance that actually came that that kind kind of occurred to be right after the interview. And so IT wasn't actually in their view. That's why put in the headline this idea of I analyzed IT to like energy, right? So right now, with energy, everyone has a scarcity mindset. You is like, we have to live in our energy. We have to do more efficiency, all these sorts of things.

And the interesting thing to think about, particularly if h in the one one with solar, but also if we do actually commit to building lot of nuclear, is what would we do in a world where of your energy of budgets, where energy doesn't have any Greenhouse gas sort of concerns if you have as much as you want? Like what could you actually do if you had a limited electricity? And it's actually hard, it's almost hard to think about because it's so coward to the way we think about this, by and large.

But the fact is, so hard to rock kind of speaks to what a transformative thing that would be, right? Like, what would you do if you had infinite energy? right?

We would like we been building with those limits in mind for literally like hundreds of years at this point.

right? Exactly would be transformative. Like, like there, you know, casey hammer and open this week about like terraforming and divided desert, right?

Like like an desalinization plants and all these sorts of things. And and it's a fun blog to read because why why not? Would you just just as a thought exercise?

What if you had infinite energy? What could you actually do? And and we may be approaching that, like we may actually see that a lifetime, particular with the way that sour costs have gone down and things over time.

And that's insure to think about the entry here to the vision that bena wants. The pitch is, what if you have infinite workers? Don't think about replacing your workers.

What if you actually, right now workers are a cost center. You every can you hire someone? And I think about this is a small business, right? It's a like it's a big thing to hire someone. You're committed to them going to pay them like you like their their livelihood and their families are now depending on you like it's .

a it's a big bird anders jerseys every couple years.

You know, we are in sink because I was just going to say that I was sitting.

Why am I really? yes. So I took a big .

leap to we've the law to be a professor. Podcasting that way is heavily on me. right? Like to think about, right? But you think about all those stuff in life.

What if you actually could hire as many workers as you want at no cost, right? What could no one's ever actually thought about that? Because it's never been possible and that's what he's sort of pitching.

Now in reality, what actually happens is usually every fall while we hire a bunch of temp workers to have their surge and then they wait them office or temporis like a holiday. You are like country reality, right? Those jobs are being limited, right? So you, like you, I appreciate the vision, but that is an eliminate jobs.

Now, those are pretty crappy jobs, a tempt jobs sort of thing that you you get for a few months. And you have to do something else or something similar like its self driving cars, right? If we actually get to this world of autonomy and all these cars where there's a lot of people that have found jobs as uber drivers, right? Like what up when that goes away.

So we'll see there's definitely job losses in tail, right? By and large, in the long run, more automation, more capabilities do generate more jobs in the longer more possibilities, more stuff gets created. And but there is a people along the way.

But no, the entire progress of humanity, the entire increase in wealth, is all downstream from technology doing things more. Yeah, that's right. And so this is good in the fullness of time. But you know, the certain medium term is still there will .

be some upheaval. What would be really great in the fullness of time is if we could sort of solve the energy issues sometime in our lifetime.

That's right, because that that is a prerequisite for infinite workers, right? That that the A I is a manifestation of energy that that gets stuff done. Everything's downstream from energy the way like that. And IT, you know.

And when you think about IT, it's more likely that we would solve the energy problem, then find a way to live on basically half the energy that we currently consume now, which is created. This is .

problems is frustrating people. They get so focused on mistakenly, and they immiseration themselves. They are.

Do you see europe doing this to itself? Like this is it's sad to watch the decisions you makes and it's it's like it's such a limited view of potential and possibility where it's like we have to miserable ourselves to save equipment. And like meanwhile, like no, what you need to do, technology was is the key. That's what solves the problem. And and honestly, maybe A I know A I is not going to be a big deal, but one of A I is biggest contributions are arguably so far is all these nuclear announcements.

I know I was telling my wife this over the weekend. I was like, after thirty years, A I is such an urgent societal sort of movement that people might actually have to get over themselves.

so obvious that we should build. It's one of the biggest like humanity levels grow ups that where the planet is not paid with nuclear reactors, which would give us the unlimited free energy. Right now I be not a limited actually built them, but once they're built, it's clean your docking in ablution.

Yes, you have to do the ways. But relatively speaking, and even the worst accidents, the number have died, router people died from my smog or pollution. It's never remotely close.

It's a good example. It's like the self driving car versus car that we all obsessed about. A soft driving car accident went in reality.

And we just completely ignore all the human initiated accidents which kill LED tens of thousands of people here in the U. S. Alone, right? And so so it's just hard for humanity to not wrap their head around IT.

But it's pretty striking that suddenly it's like out of nowhere, the whole world done to one eighty are nuclear. And you one of the solar advocates, they could. This is always so we just do everything I think people like because we've talked about a little bit just the baseline capabilities of nuclear party in such a perfect match, a data res, right? Like, you know exactly.

I'm good to me. You put them together. They don't even need to beyond great argument like you imagine, like a nuclear actor.

And it's match sort of data center just together and then the actually only connection outside world as a fibro decline to Carry the data sort of back and forth, right? And dub, I don't. So we'll see how that plays out.

The solar bit is is is really interesting in compelling. Obviously, you almost all new installed capacity in the U. S.

For the last four years is albin solar. One of the funny thing is by far the most solar in the U S. Is in taxes, not in california ah in that part because it's the it's the more regulated grid.

So there's a lot of orbital opportunities um to sort take advance, particular with batteries ies. Ah would you pair that with solar? All this stuff is um like it's this is but it's not just that A I is coming and this is fun.

It's like we are their social shifts happening. And to the extent AI is driving this energy, bt, just because we need energy for ai, no, we didn't energy for everything. And it's it's decision that at .

a regulatory thick IT for decades now, and if A I can help greece the wheels and make that process easy over the next several years, then it's a great thing for everybody, whether you care about A I or not. So yes, we are in year one of a whole new era and a whole bunch of front. Um and speaking of which, we will keep IT moving and will talk podcast.

I got to read these two emails in tandem and this is consistent with the automation theme we were just discussing. All right, and that is the end of the free preview. If you'd like to hear more from that night, there are links to subscribe in the showed tes.

Or you can also get a shark tech that F, M, either option will get you access to a personalize feed that has all the shows we do every week plus lots more great content from protector. And this protector plus funder check IT out. And if you've ve got feedback, please email us at email at sharp tech dot F M.