WSJ: “Seven children flew into New York in late July to meet with the college counselor they believed would get them into Harvard University or another top-flight U.S. college. Two traveled from Switzerland, two from Australia, one from the United Kingdom. They were there to meet Jamie Beaton, a 29-year-old Rhodes scholar from New Zealand with a reputation as the man who has cracked the code on elite college admissions—and who is Wall Street’s favored partner to mine the rich vein of parental anxiety embedded in the college process. Beaton’s message to the kids distilled: Optimize childhood by starting to build skills and interests years before high school. Strategically choose areas where you can excel—if you aren’t going to be a top performer in an activity, drop it and move to something else. And find ways to be unique, whether through entrepreneurship, scholarship or well-placed PR.”
Amelia Ibarra lists the pillars of HyperFunctional SaaS: “AI Now Table Stakes. And Product Has to Much Better For It. Radical Efficiency, At Least Post-IPO. Automation Everywhere. Multiproduct The New Normal. Customers Demanding Much More Than a 10x Point Solution.”
WSJ: “AI providers and their clients may at least be more aligned than before on pricing and incentives. Providers of generative AI tech have often charged on the SaaS model, sometimes pegged to the number of employees with access to the tech. SaaS in general has been a welcome improvement over previous licensing models that often took many years and billions of dollars for customers to implement. But it isn’t perfect, either. It’s possible to oversubscribe—and pay—for services companies don’t actually wind up using, like leaving a faucet sink running. Instead of an ongoing fee, though, Salesforce is charging $2 per conversation or sales lead for Agentforce. That may help attract customers that wouldn’t have been ready to sign up for AI agents if it meant a new recurring fee for a service that might not turn out to be valuable enough. And for Salesforce, the model creates an incentive to deliver clear and concrete value.”
Tyler Cowen: “One big change is that AI will enable individuals, or very small groups, to run large projects. By directing AIs, they will be able to create entire think tanks, research centers or businesses. The productivity of small groups of people who are very good at directing AIs will go up by an order of magnitude. Philanthropists ought to consider giving more support to such people. Of course that is difficult, because right now there are no simple or obvious ways to measure those skills. But that is precisely why philanthropy might play a useful role. More commercially oriented businesses may shy away from making such investments, both because of risk and because the returns are uncertain. Philanthropists do not have such financial requirements.”
