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In the age of intelligence, how should firms protect their core IP?

Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow famously described a paradox in the market for information. “Its value for the purchaser is not known until he has the information, but then he has in effect acquired it without cost.” In Arrow’s “Information Paradox,” the seller risks giving away knowledge in order to sell it.

AI creates the reverse problem. In the AI age, the buyer risks giving away knowledge, just in order to use what they bought.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of the firm in an AI-driven economy.

This transition is different than any previous platform shift. In the past, we used digital systems to enhance human capital. This is the first time we can create a real cognitive loop between people and digital systems. That is a mind-bender, because it changes how we even conceptualize work inside an enterprise.

What is at stake is not some digital tool or system and its use, but how organizations continue to learn, build IP, differentiate, and thrive in a world where AI models can continuously absorb the expertise of humans and organizations and commoditize it.

As I reflect on the past year and look toward the one ahead, there’s no question 2026 will be a pivotal year for AI. Yes, another one. But this moment feels different in a few notable ways.

We have moved past the initial phase of discovery and are entering a phase of widespread diffusion. We are beginning to distinguish between “spectacle” and “substance”. We now have a clearer sense of where the tech is headed, but also the harder and more important question of how to shape its impact on the world.

Originally posted on X on Nov. 15

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the net benefit of the AI platform wave is. The real question is how to empower every company out there to get more out of this platform shift and build their own AI native capabilities and enterprise value (vs inadvertently just transfer their unique value to the tech sector!!).

Bill famously said a platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it. That’s the essence of the positive-sum future.