Apple just entered the foldable phone market after years of watching everyone else figure it out.
That got me thinking about a lot of things:
We often feel like we need to be first.
First to build the AI agent.
First to use the newest model.
First to automate a particular workflow.
But being early also means discovering all the things that do not work.
Apple did not invent the foldable phone. Samsung had already been doing it for years.
Apple had the advantage of watching the market mature, seeing what users liked, what frustrated them, and where the technology still had problems.
There is something similar happening in AI right now. You do not necessarily need to invent something completely new.
Sometimes the opportunity is to look at what already exists, understand where people are still struggling, and build a much better solution around that problem.
Being late to the party is not always a disadvantage. Sometimes it gives you better information.
Would you rather be the first person into a new AI category, or build once you can clearly see what is working and what is not?