NYTimes: “In 1977, Karen Wynn Fonstad made a long shot cold call to J.R.R. Tolkien’s American publisher with the hope of landing a dream assignment: to create an exhaustive atlas of Middle-earth, the setting of the author’s widely popular “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” To her surprise, an editor agreed. Fonstad spent two and a half years on the project, reading through the novels line by line and painstakingly indexing any text from which she could infer geographic details. With two young children at home, she mostly worked at night. Her husband left notes on her drafting table reminding her to go to bed. Her resulting book, “The Atlas of Middle-earth” (1981), wowed Tolkien fans and scholars with its exquisite level of topographic detail; the most recent paperback edition is in its 32nd printing.”
Ben Thompson: “The [AI] future may arrive but be unevenly distributed, and, contrary to what you might think, the larger and more successful a company is the less they may benefit in the short term. Everything that makes a company work today is about harnessing people — and the entire SaaS ecosystem is predicated on monetizing this reality; the entities that will truly leverage AI, however, will not be the ones that replace them, but start without them.”
Steven Sinofsky: “CES proved a transition year with many established product lines showing incremental improvements or focusing on B2B areas and new product lines showing a rush to demonstrate their relevancy to AI…The major theme was experimentation specifically with AI. What I mean by this is that much of the emphasis on products being shown was showing as much as they could credibly get done between a given company’s recognition of the enormity of AI (specifically GPT/LLM) and the show. In SV a year ago the phrase was “AI wrapper” and many companies have moved on from that view. In the world at large I think we’re still seeing a lot of AI wrappers. This is not a negative and is not only expected but it is necessary. This is literally how innovation happens. The first ideas aren’t always the best, but you have to traverse this idea maze to get to the good ideas.”
Business Standard on freebies: “For many voters, these measures are a lifeline amid rising unemployment, inflation, and economic disparity. However, experts warn that such handouts drain resources from critical sectors like healthcare and infrastructure, as seen in states like Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, while deepening fiscal stress. According to the Reserve Bank of India, these giveaways now constitute a significant portion of state budgets, leading to mounting debt concerns, particularly in states such as Punjab and Rajasthan. Yet, the narrative around freebies cannot be dismissed outright. Their appeal becomes more understandable when viewed against the backdrop of economic distress, stagnant wages, rising inflation, declining household savings, and mounting debt, which have made freebies attractive — if not essential — for survival.”
Josh Bersin: “Superworker: An employee empowered and supported by AI. In a world where AI agents support every employee, a Superworker can step up their value, productivity, and output by learning to optimize their use of AI systems.” FT: “Essentially, we are using AI to help us do our existing jobs. The big leap — and one that Josh says will be happening this year in some companies — is to reimagine jobs, and recruit different staff accordingly. It’s an intellectual leap, rather than just a technical one. In customer service roles, for example, the AI will do the basic interactions, so recruiters may be looking for people who have a better understanding of data and a higher education level than was previously the case.”
