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Billions of dollars gone!
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Unless you live in a rabbit hole, you know what recently happened with OpenAI. Yes, the company that created the famous, beloved, and vilified ChatGPT. Well… a Chinese company unexpectedly emerged with its own AI, Deepseek, which has shaken up the market and the industry. It offers the equivalent of the most advanced ChatGPT model but it’s free—at least for now. And not only that, Deepseek made its code open-source, making it accessible to anyone who wants to use or improve it. You’ll be able to do much more with less. How do you feel about? Still no bells… Well.. after the announcement, nearly all major tech companies saw their stock prices plummet. Nvidia, for example, the company that manufactures the chips used to build and train AI models, lost nearly $600 billion in market value in a single day. And this is the most important lesson hidden in this situation: Even the biggest, most famous, and wealthiest company can fall overnight. Even if it was the first to market. Not because they’re doing anything wrong. Simply because the moment your offering becomes a standardized product, a commodity within everyone's reach... You’re destined to be overtaken by a competitor sooner or later. There will always be someone who can commoditize your product even further, lower the price (or eliminate it entirely), and offer the same features as you. And this will happen to your company, or to you. Yes, to you. As a worker, as a professional… if you don’t keep evolving, improving, learning and getting far away of being a commodity… sooner or later… you’ll lose. Do you want to know anything different today? Here you are my pick.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
Ah… Time flies and PPPs finally arrive to the end… like a terrible elected leader term… Getting your infrastructure back at the end of a concession sounds lovely. Like removing Pedro Sanchez from office. The debt is paid. The concessionaire leaves. You get the asset. Like collecting your car after lending it to a friend. Except your friend has had it for 25 years. And “the tyres are fine” means they are still technically round. Oups… Do you remember the terms of the return? 2018 Severn...
You know the IBM ad: “Nobody has been fired for choosing IBM”. Well… in procurement there are ads like that. “We didn’t just go for the cheapest.” Lovely. Everyone nods. Someone writes “quality” in the minutes. Your career feels protected. Unfortunately, the project hasn’t read the minutes. Take Scotland’s Parliament building at Holyrood. In January 1999, three final candidates were competing to become construction manager. Bovis came out comfortably ahead at interview. 82 points out of 100....
A few days ago, I talked about the smallest PPP in the world. It’s in Poland. 12.000€. Probably quite unknown. There are another one… this time famous. Small building. Small investment. Small transaction costs. Sorry. That last one was a joke. Scotland. 2002 Audit Scotland reviewed six school PFI projects. For Glasgow, it reported around £12 million in combined public and private sector set-up and advisory costs. Against £212 million in construction. For West Lothian? Around £2 million....