● AI-Native Survival

[Exclusive Analysis] The Survival Strategy of a ‘True’ AI Native Company Told by a Founder Who Sold His Company to Google

Do you think everything will unconditionally become easier once AI is introduced?In reality, completely different things are happening in the field.In this article today, I will dig into the ‘true bare face of the field’ that other news or YouTube never tells you.Going beyond simply pointing out superficial AI trends, I have included only the most hard-hitting key takeaways on why employees oppose AI adoption, what kind of business models will be shattered in the future, and how we should educate our children.I am confident that after reading this to the end, you will gain your own powerful weapon in the upcoming era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.Now, let’s dive right into the story from the field.

1. The Meeting of Cosmetics and AI, Penetrating the Gaps in Traditional Industries

The item that CEO Noh Jung-seok, who was successful enough to sell his company to Google, decided to start a business with again was surprisingly ‘cosmetics (beauty)’.Usually, you would think an IT expert would establish a cutting-edge software company, but he saw the future of business becoming perfect when a traditional industry and AI are combined.A place where software is absolutely necessary but a perfect digital transformation has not yet been achieved, that exactly was the land of opportunity.His company, ‘Bfactory’, injected AI into the value chain spanning from product planning to marketing and distribution.What was the result?A magical thing happened where a new product planning report that used to take a month was finished in just one hour.

2. 🚨[The Most Important Core Point] The Truth YouTube Doesn’t Tell You: Do Employees Hate AI?

When we usually think about it, wouldn’t it seem like employees would cheer if the company introduced work automation for headache-inducing Excel tasks or manual PPT work?However, the reality CEO Noh experienced was the exact opposite.He said the pushback from employees was so immense that a small ‘Luddite movement (machine-breaking movement)’ occurred within the company.Why was that?70 to 80% of an office worker’s tasks are ‘intellectual simple labor’ of gathering and organizing data.Once mastered, this simple labor is finished quickly, serving as a kind of ‘sanctuary’ where they could secure a work-life balance with their remaining time.However, since AI agents completely handle this initial 70%, employees are forced into a situation where they must focus solely on the remaining 20 to 30%, which is ‘new value creation (Value-add)’.The problem is that finding innovative value that never existed in the world entails immense agony akin to what a CEO experiences.Therefore, rather than welcoming AI making their work easier, people come to fear and reject the very situation of having to engage in new and agonizing contemplation.This is a very sharp insight into human nature that no other media easily points out.

3. The ‘Iron Man Suit’ Called AI, Ultimately a Battle of Who Wears It

When the company provided training on how to use AI coding tools or agents, the reactions of the employees were said to be starkly divided.If they just overcome the very small bottleneck of an initially unfamiliar environment (command lines, development environments, etc.), ‘AI native talents’ are born who grow at a crazy pace.They absorb even the work that engineers used to do, showing a level of productivity that seems to launch into space.On the other hand, those who stubbornly stick to the existing methods until the end fall behind, and the gap between these two is widening so severely that the middle ground is disappearing.Here emerges the core point that CEO Noh considers most important when hiring people or making investments.It is exactly ‘indomitable will (entrepreneurship)’ and ‘trust’.In the AI era, anyone can wear a smart ‘Iron Man suit’.Ultimately, it means the winner will be the person who has the primal will to decide where to fly wearing that suit and to soar again no matter how many times they crash.

4. The Collapse of the App Store and the Zero-Click Era, the Rules of Business Change

If highly advanced AI agents become universal, which industry will take the biggest hit?B2C platforms like delivery apps, shopping apps, and taxi apps that we use every day become endangered.In the past, platforms had a business model of securing margins using their ‘media power’ of being exposed first in front of customers’ eyes as a weapon.However, in the future, customers will not even make a ‘click’ to turn on an app, search, and choose by themselves.This is because just by saying to the AI, “Order something for my dinner tonight on your own,” a ‘chairman’s life’ where the AI decides and handles everything in the middle will become a daily routine.If this happens, existing apps will be reduced to mere ‘tools’, and all influence over customers and margins will be handed over to AI agents.The B2B market is the same. Companies that simply sell work tools will disappear, and only companies that sell the result itself, saying, “We have solved the problem for you,” will survive.

5. Child Education Methods in the AI Era: Analog ‘Pre-training’ is the Answer

What should our children learn in an era where AI takes care of everything?The answer from CEO Noh, who leads a cutting-edge AI company, was surprisingly “an enormous amount of reading and rote absorption of knowledge.”For an AI model to become smart, a ‘pre-training’ period of ignorantly cramming in all the knowledge of the world is essential.Only when this foundation exists does reinforcement learning, which builds capabilities by solving problems afterward, have any meaning.Humans are exactly the same. Even with a massive AI in front of you that can answer anything from the pursuit of truth about the universe to trivial problems, if you know nothing, you can only ask low-level questions like, “What should we eat for lunch today?”It is an era where the level of your questions immediately becomes your capability.Because of this, extensive reading and in-depth learning processes to understand broad contexts are bound to become even more important in the future.

< Summary >

1. The combination of traditional industries and AI brings about massive cost reductions and an explosion in productivity.
2. Employees resist because they fear the agony of having to create new value more than they desire the comfort of AI automation. (Key takeaway point)
3. AI is like an Iron Man suit, so ultimately, ‘human indomitable will’ to wear it and follow through to the end becomes the greatest value.
4. With the emergence of AI agents acting as personal assistants, existing app platforms and tool-providing companies will face their downfall.
5. To ask high-level questions to AI, an overwhelming amount of reading and basic knowledge (pre-training) is essential.

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*Source: 손에잡히는경제