The biggest successes can sometimes hide the biggest failures. And vice versa.
One of the biggest startup successes of our time was Flipkart. Founded by scrappy founders, it quickly rose to become the Amazon of India. Everyone I knew used to order from it, left, right, and center. For a long time Flipkart couldn't do anything wrong. Then the founders cashed out big and sealed the massive success story.
Fast forward to today, and no one I know buys from Flipkart anymore. It seems like a distant second to Amazon in the Indian e-commerce space. Probably similar to how its acquirer, Walmart, is a distant second to Amazon in the US.
But Flipkart could have been so much more. It could have been the 'F' in FAANG. It could have been a homegrown technology franchise, rivaling Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Maybe it could have taken on Amazon in its home turf one day.
It's hard to imagine Flipkart getting back to the top spot anytime soon. Flipkart could have been a much bigger success, not just for the founders, but for the entire Indian startup ecosystem. And therein, it seems to me, lies the bigger failure.
Closer to home, I just got off an important call with the NonBioS team. Getting up, I announced to my wife, "nbs-1 (First NonBioS AI Agent) is ready to take on the world." My wife grabbed a seat next to me and exclaimed, "Let's see what it can do."
She asked nbs-1 to create a banner for our son's birthday, complete with two balloons and a cake. It was the easiest thing it could do according to her, if it was any good. I passed on the instructions to nbs-1 and waited with fingers crossed. This is the image nbs-1 came up with.
Taking one look at the image, my wife exclaimed, "This is pretty much useless." She got up in a huff and left the room.
I spent the rest of the evening gloating and congratulating the team on a job well done.
A rookie coder might make this image on day one. And become an expert ten years later.
An AI coder might make this image on day one. But might take less than ten months to become an expert.
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