Reflections, 17th of May

On asymmetry, symbiosis, and the role we do not yet have a word for

There’s a crack in everything. It’s where the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

Where the Puck Are We Going?

Wayne Gretzky’s father, Walter, coached him to move to where the puck was going to be, not where it had been. It was a line famously used by Steve Jobs when he talked about the iPhone.

In the frenzy to capitalise on a technology we do not yet really understand completely, I think we may have forgotten this lesson.

When I look around the business press, social media, and increasingly, unfortunately, here on Substack, people are obsessed with where the puck has been. I think they’re missing the point.

The critical factor in any organisation, particularly in volatile and emerging sectors, is not the tools or the technology. It’s the social friction between people. AI can speed up tasks, coordinate, and reduce infrastructure and overhead, but it cannot build trust or relationships or the deep knowledge of who does what and why.

AI does not change the nature of small groups. It changes the re…