Oh goodness, if we’re talking about sustainable growth then boy do I have some hockeystick charts to reject that notion. For decades, growth has largely been an illusion created through clever accounting and inflation metrics - it’s why the industry keeps desperately trying to jump on “brand new” stuff like crypto, blockchain, and generative models: a new industry means actual growth as opposed to illusory growth, which would create a new wealth class above and beyond any of the existing billionaires of today. For all of Sam Altman’s own blowharding, he’s not wrong that whatever the next brand-new revolutionary industry turns out to be - AI, space mining, molecular fabrication, whatever - will require literal trillions of dollars to explode into a 100x ROI.
That said, if we abandon this idea of “infinite growth forever” and accept that market saturation and incremental improvements provide opportunities to rebalance structures and remediate institutional flaws, then there’s a lot more hope to be had. You can’t build new things forever, and eventually need to take time to pay off outstanding debts, improve existing systems, modernize legacy infrastructure, and basically make everything simpler and sustainable for whatever the Next Big Thing turns out to be.
…unfortunately for me, making that pitch to leadership usually just gets me laughed out of the room because maintenance and efficiency isn’t “sexy”, nor does it boost their share valuations. Ah well, won’t stop me from trying.
Does he? Don’t most people in tech roll their eyes when the suits, be it business or economy, talk about growth? Not saying what he said is wrong or stupid or whatever. I just thought that was the status quo outside of the business bubble.
That said, if we abandon this idea of “infinite growth forever” and accept that market saturation and incremental improvements provide opportunities to rebalance structures and remediate institutional flaws, then there’s a lot more hope to be had. You can’t build new things forever, and eventually need to take time to pay off outstanding debts, improve existing systems, modernize legacy infrastructure, and basically make everything simpler and sustainable for whatever the Next Big Thing turns out to be.
…unfortunately for me, making that pitch to leadership usually just gets me laughed out of the room because maintenance and efficiency isn’t “sexy”, nor does it boost their share valuations. Ah well, won’t stop me from trying.