#133 – Sales Per Capita & AI

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Let’s jump in.

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read time 3 minutes 

#133 at a Glance:

• Quote: Speed compounds.

• Podcast: Sweat Capital November Recap.

• Interesting Phenomenon: Immigration is keeping Australia’s economy afloat.

• Deep Dive: AI & where we’re headed.

• Tweet: When people root for you vs against you.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

Podcast I listened to:

Sweat Capital #114 – November Recap

In this month’s internal Sweat Capital pod, we unpack a few things that have shaped how we’re thinking about the show and our own careers lately – starting with the power of simply asking for advice. We talk about why vulnerability builds connection, why you don’t need a formal “mentor” to get world-class guidance, and how your own experiences can become a real competitive edge.

We also break down the learnings from our first truly “sort-of viral” clip – what worked, what didn’t, and what it means for how we approach short-form going forward.

Finally, we run through what we got up to during the Sweat Capital offsite: tightening our strategy, getting clearer on our brand, and building the systems that will help us improve the show.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Duration: 39 minutes]

P.S if you haven’t followed Sweat Capital on Instagram and LinkedIn… go!

Beyond grateful for your support – means the world.

Interesting Phenomenon I came across:

Immigration Is Keeping Australia’s Economy Afloat

Check this out.

This chart shows how real non-mining sales of goods and services in Australia have grown by 51% since 2002.

However, when adjusted for population growth, real sales have remained flat, growing by just 2% since 2002.

So, in other words, if you take out immigration from the Australian economy, we’re pretty much exactly where we were in 2002.

Really makes you wonder how “advanced” we truly are if this country’s economic prosperity is so heavily reliant on just one factor within our society.

Deep Dive:

Artificial Intelligence & Where We’re Headed

Undertook quite an extensive deep dive this week into AI and where economies, markets, and industries are headed…

These are my (unstructured and work-in-progress) findings:

(1) There is an intensifying tug of war between net zero/renewable energy and the AI/data centre build out – something’s gotta give.

(2) Companies are portraying AI as an organisational transformation, often mistaking individual efficiency gains for organisational efficiency gains.

(3) Because companies are not, at an organisational level, adopting AI effectively enough to completely replace employees, we are not seeing people’s fears surrounding the job market play out (…yet…not to say it can’t happen in the future).

(4) Adoption rates of ChatGPT and other LLM’s are not reflective of the true cost of these systems – OpenAI spends $4 for every $1 of revenue. Unsustainable unless margins flip, investors are super patient, and/or subscription prices increase dramatically.

(5) You can’t get AI to engage in human critical thinking, but simultaneously, the ability to critically think is eradicating due to AI.

(6) Energy is the bottleneck – not chips.

(7) Data centres are being powered largely by oil/gas generators, and they are likely not going to be powered by any kind of renewable energy at least in the next 5-10 years.

(8) Think of data as one of the inputs for ‘AI production’ – we’re running out of data to use to train models proportionally to the amount of computing power being generated. It cannot scale mindlessly.

(9) Software development costs will continue to trend asymptotically towards zero. There will still be humans involved but their role will shift from ‘craftsman’ to ‘trouble shooter/factory worker’.

Would love to discuss any of the above (or additional points) if anyone is interested – hit reply.

Tweet I liked:

When People Root For You vs Against You

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

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This goes a long way to helping me reach more people :)

See you in the next one,

Dimi

(P.S. the best ways to get in touch with me are via email or LinkedIn).