Burn The Ships

Hey everyone,

This is your Sunday Space, where I serve up the best ideas, tools and resources I’ve found each week as we explore the technology shaping the future.

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IDEAS
Burn The Ships

Throughout history, when the mode of transport in war was confined to ships, leaders would purposefully destroy their own means of retreat to ensure full commitment to the mission at hand from their troops.

This concept is famously attributed to the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519. He sank his ships to prevent retreat and force his men to fully commit to the mission.

In modern times, this story has evolved into a powerful idea for committing wholeheartedly to a new path by eliminating any possibility of turning back.

Steve Jobs, upon returning to Apple in 1997 and facing a company on the brink, made the bold decision to cut excess projects and focus on key products like the iMac.

Action like this required full commitment to a new strategic direction and was do or die for Apple. Without Jobs “burning the ships,” Apple might not be the most valuable company in the world today.

This idea applies to our lives as much as it did to Steve Jobs or the conquerors of old.

Yes, it’s good to make decisions with a fallback, to do scenario analysis, and to have options A through Z. But there are some decisions where we just have to go all in.

Like the Spanish conquistadors, sometimes we need to burn the ships.

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INSIGHTS
1 Article

Klarna Plans to Replace SaaS Providers With Internally Built AI

The company has decided to eliminate its use of major enterprise software providers, specifically Salesforce and Workday, in favour of developing its own internal AI-powered applications. Klarna's CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, announced that this move is part of a larger initiative to combine AI, standardisation, and simplification to replace several third-party providers.

Luca’s take: I recently wrote about how AI initiatives in marketing and customer support will contribute to halving their headcount and eliminating their annual losses. However, deprecating enterprise systems like Salesforce and Workday will save them hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Whether they can develop their own AI-powered CRM and HR tool in-house is unknown. Not even Microsoft, Google, or Amazon have achieved this feat, not for a lack of trying.

I admire their CEO’s courage to make commitments like this. In a sense, he’s burning the ships on software dependencies for the promise of AI.

1 Post

1 Video

THOUGHTS
Quote I’m Pondering

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

— Mike Tyson

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Thanks for reading,

— Luca

P.S. How good does Larry Ellison look…