A lesson from The Last Samurai

This week I read a thought-provoking article on AI and the future of work, and one idea has stuck with me. As AI gets more capable and more widely adopted, the value of an institution and the value of the people inside it are splintering.

What is an institution's brand actually worth now?

Think of a world leading firm like McKinsey, or a business school selling an MBA as a stamp that verifies talent to a future employer. How relevant are they now? When the relationship between the worker and the institution frays, you find out something uncomfortable. How much of the value was ever the person, and how much was the role they held, the institution's brand and the credential wrapped around them. We're about to find out, person by person.

Three figures, not two

To illustrate, the article references The Last Samurai. A warrior spends a lifetime mastering his craft, then gets cut down by a peasant with a machine gun. The easy read is that the tool beats the craft, but there are three figures in the story, not two.

The samurai who refuses the gun dies. The peasant who has the gun but none of the craft wins for a while, then falters once the situation turns strange and judgment matters more than firepower. The one left standing is the outsider who learned the samurai's craft without forgetting the modern world he came from. Craft and tool, in the same hands.

This is our philosophy at Antlar. We're not building a machine gun so novices can gun down the experts, we're handing it to the experts. The managing agents who've spent years learning this craft are the samurai. We just want them carrying the better weapon.

Thanks to our learned colleague Pete Rose for sending this one through.