This week, as Ronan Farrow’s expose on Sam Altman was published, I want to sensitize you to the fact that AI companies are run by humans. And this means that what we buy and how it works is very dependent on leadership, culture, values, ethics, and the personal motivations of these young, ambitious executives.

Obviously this is nothing new, but in this case OpenAI and Anthropic are by far the fastest growing businesses ever created on planet earth. So their ability to steer, direct, and prioritize their investments makes a huge difference in how they meet the needs we have in our companies.

I have learned over the years that great, long-lasting tech companies are among the most tumultuous businesses to lead. Not only are the personal economic payoffs huge (I live in a community with lots of Anthropic millionaires) but they are brutally competitive and the cost of a missed opportunity can sometimes be fatal.

In this case, I admire all the people in this space but as the AI vendors play larger roles in our lives and careers, we have to think much harder about their leadership and culture. As you’ll hear, many others (analysts, stock market, politicians) are also working on this, and I think we’re likely to see some of the most interesting business “drama” play out in the coming years.

As a consumer and buyer of AI, I encourage you to investigate the leadership, culture, and motivations of the vendors you do business with – it really matters.

Additional Information

New Yorker Expose on Sam Altman

Interview with Ronan Farrow, author

Irresistible: The Leadership Culture that Works

The Value of Values When Organizations Lose Trust

Get Galileo: All Our Research and Leadership Academy In AI

• (00:00:00) - The Human Side of Building AI
• (00:02:40) - Microsoft and the Human Side of AI
• (00:10:59) - The culture of startups
• (00:17:57) - NVIDIA and the future of tech

The Microsoft Copilot is even more expansive than you think. In this podcast (and detailed article on Substack) you see how Microsoft’s new Copilot “surface” (ie. product strategy) is likely to give them the lead in revenue and market share for Enterprise AI.

There are many players to consider here: Anthropic, OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, and vendors like ServiceNow, Okta, and big platforms like Workday (Sana), SAP (Joule), Salesforce, and others.

Despite all their various strengths and revenue streams, Microsoft has a huge advantage. And as you’ll hear, the corporate AI market is moving from “models” to “applications” (Surfaces) with an enterprise focus on Agent build, Agent deployment, Agent security, and Agent management. Microsoft is building to this direction and the recent leadership reorganization is fueling this momentum.

Read this in-depth analysis of Microsoft vs. Anthropic vs. OpenAI revenue and enterprise AI strategy.

Additional Information

How Microsoft Could Take The Lead In Enterprise AI (substack)

The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI And Where Business Rules Go (podcast)

Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think

The Age of the Superworker (and Supermanager)

Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR

• (00:00:00) - Why Microsoft Is the Leader in AI
• (00:02:41) - The Future of AI: No One Model
• (00:09:52) - Microsoft's Work IQ and the Context Layer
• (00:21:01) - SANA vs. Microsoft: How Microsoft Will Win

One of the new enterprise AI challenges we face is this: where do we put all the business rules, security rules, policies, and company specific practices we’ve built into our legacy systems for the last 30 years? If we want to embark on Agentic HR (or any other domain), do we rebuild all these rules in the Agents?

Well the big idea going forward is the development of a “context layer” or “semantic layer” which stores all the company structure, rules, and policies in a single place. Today ServiceNow introduced its “Context Engine” which plans to do this, and last week Gloat did the same.

In this podcast I explain what this is and the implications of various AI architecture options, and compare the idea of building this in ServiceNow or Gloat or using AI Agent tools from Workday, Oracle, SAP, or other incumbent vendors.

Additional Information

Agentic HR: Where Enterprise AI Is Going – Imperatives

Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think

The Age of the Superworker (and Supermanager)

Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR

• (00:00:00) - What is the Business Rule
• (00:07:41) - ServiceNow, Business Rules Integration