Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
Some family farms are suddenly worth a lot more than the farmers thought.
Alan Pentz says most small businesses still aren’t spending enough on AI.
Even manufacturers are finding that offering flexible hours can attract job candidates.
A survey indicates that businesses are operating under the assumption that inflation is here to stay.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
There are only two kinds of company: “In 1895, if you walked into an American factory, you’d see one enormous steam engine turning one enormous shaft running the length of the building. Every machine in the plant hung off that shaft through a jungle of belts and pulleys. The building wasn’t designed around the work. It was designed around the shaft. Then the electric motor showed up. The incumbents did what incumbents do: they bought the new technology and bolted it onto the old architecture. They ripped out the steam engine, installed one giant electric motor, and used it to turn the same shaft. Same belts. Same pulleys. Same building. They technically ‘adopted electricity’ and got almost nothing for it.”
“Here’s why: the gains were never in the motor. They were in what you could build if you started with the motor. Small motors on every machine. Single-story factories arranged around workflow instead of around a drive shaft. New plants, built by people with no shaft to protect, ran circles around factories full of managers who were working just as hard as they were.”
“We just crossed another line like that. It runs straight through 2025, and it splits the business world clean in two: companies born before, and companies born after. Not big versus small. Not tech versus non-tech. Before and after. That’s the only taxonomy that matters now. A company started today doesn’t adopt AI. It’s assembled around it.”
“Right now, the thing making this possible has a name: MCP. The Model Context Protocol quietly became the plumbing that lets AI operate every system in the business instead of sitting off to the side answering questions. I have watched what gets built on this architecture, and I’ll just say it: it is earth-shattering. The speed, the customization, the cost — none of it was imaginable four years ago. Something better may come along. It will only make this argument stronger.”
“I’m not writing the obituary for the pre-2025 middle. Some will navigate it very well. Some will get acquired at a number everyone will call ‘strategic.’ What I am saying is that the question boards keep asking — why isn’t management moving faster? — is the wrong question, and the frustration behind it is aimed at the wrong target. The right question is harder: can this building be rewired at all?” READ MORE
