Back in 1997, I was running a little web development agency. I still remember clients asking me to "make me an internet". That was the brief.

I remember how one day, we were meeting with a major retail chain. Their "big move" into the digital age? Put their product catalog online. That's it. Customers would still have to call in orders or show up at the branch.

We sat in their corporate office surrounded by glossy brochures and award plaques. They even brought in the CEO himself to impress us.

They thought they were nailing it. In reality, they were already doomed. Amazon, eBay, and later Shopify were coming like a tidal wave. The business model was about to collapse. Power was shifting from physical storefronts to digital platforms.

But they couldn't see it. Because in their minds, they'd already "entered the internet". Job done.

That's not progress. That's the illusion of progress.

Nokia's mistake (that wasn't really a mistake)

We love to think Nokia and Blackberry ignored the iPhone. That they were arrogant or asleep at the wheel. The truth? They weren't.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, Nokia's CFO said: "This launch will benefit us. The iPhone will expand the market, and people will choose our N95".

They thought they had it covered. But they didn't. They were stuck in the same illusion of progress.

Because the winners weren't just "adding mobile". They were becoming mobile.

Uber wasn't possible without GPS, a touchscreen, and an app store in everyone's pocket. Uber wasn't mobile-enabled. Uber was mobile.

The trap of "faster horses"

You've probably heard the line often attributed to Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses".

That's the trap. Focusing on incremental improvements – faster, cheaper, shinier versions of what already exists – while missing the bigger shift entirely.

It's the same trap companies fall into when they think they're innovating by tweaking around the edges, instead of reimagining the game itself.

Even Edison missed it

When Edison lit up Pearl Street in Manhattan in 1882, he imagined a few thousand lightbulbs at peak demand. That was the vision.

He couldn't picture the ripple effect: washing machines, televisions, microwaves, computers. He couldn't see how electricity would reshape society itself – women entering the workforce, teenagers glued to PlayStations.

That's the thing with revolutions. We see the first step, not the avalanche that follows.

Fast forward to 2025: "Make me an AI"

Today, history repeats itself. "Make me an internet" has become "Make me an AI".

Companies are rolling out pet projects so the CEO can tell the board: we're doing AI. It's the modern record-company-website move.

And look – there's nothing wrong with experimenting. The danger is mistaking that for progress.

The real questions

When I ask myself if my own company has truly changed because of AI, the honest answer is: not enough.

The real question isn't how do we add AI?

The questions are:

  • What do we dismantle so we can rebuild?
  • How are our customers changing? (streaming vs. records)
  • How is the business model shifting? (taxis vs. Uber)
  • Where is the power moving? (customers? platforms?)
  • How do we deliver 10x the value? (Google vs. Yellow Pages)
  • What's our role in this new landscape?
  • And what will never change?

Because if we don't ask those questions, we'll end up exactly like that foreclosed retail chain: sitting in a shiny boardroom, eating raisins, telling ourselves we're "relevant".