Breaking the Rules of Business

Something fascinating is happening, and I think the world of AI is magnifying it.

Those tidy MBA frameworks? They're crumbling in real time.

Let’s look at a few so-called “rules” and how AI is rewriting them.

1. First-Mover Advantage

Not what it used to be.

OpenAI got there first. No doubt. They shaped the market, built the brand, and grabbed the headlines. But did they lock things up?

Not even close.

• Anthropic leaned into safety and stole hearts (and wallets) in the enterprise.

• DeepSeek showed up with lower costs.

• xAI’s Grok carved out a fanbase by simply… being allowed to say more.

👉 Being first helps, but so does being focused.

2. Move Fast, Break... Trust

Speed doesn’t win if it shatters credibility.

Google rushed Bard and lost $100B in a single day.

Meanwhile:

• Anthropic earned trust with a careful Claude rollout.

• Meta took its time with Llama and got licensing right.

The point? Users don’t always care how fast you ship. They care whether they can trust what you bring to the table.

(Unless you’re Apple. Then you might be able to take 3 years and still do ok. But you're not Apple.)

3. Distribution Eats Everything

Even product.

AI is showing how much reach matters:

• Google stuffed Gemini into every app it owns.

• Microsoft turned ChatGPT into a native Office feature.

• xAI uses data from the X social media platorm.

• Perplexity exploded with the help of its Samsung deals.

People won’t always hunt for a better product. You have to meet them where they are.

4. “Best” Is a Trap

Benchmarks are like those awards that car commercials flaunt. Most people don’t really care about them.

GPT-4o could be fine for most. But Claude feels more creative. And could Gemini 2.5 be best for devs?

TLDR: There is no “best model.” Just best-for-what.

If you’re not clear about what your product should be best at, your users won’t be either.

So What?

The old playbooks are glitching out and the rise of AI just makes it more obvious.

You don’t need to be first.
You don’t need to be fastest.
You don’t even need the “best” product.

But you DO need to:

• Serve the market no one else is thinking about.

• Build trust as you scale.

• Prioritize distribution.

• Define your OWN version of “best.”

• Build tight feedback loops and iterate.

The new rules are… there are none :-)

Stay Healthy, my friends.

💚Andy