As someone who’s spent years helping brands reposition physical spaces,hotels, cities, resorts,the Florence analogy hits hard. People don’t just defend what’s useful. They protect what they emotionally invest in. That’s what Altman seems to understand better than most tech leaders: if you can get enough people to believe they’re participating in something civilizational, the “moat” becomes cultural, not just technical.
Would love to see you expand this into how governments might adopt this kind of narrative strategy,especially around AI or climate. Because right now, most are still busy digging digital moats while someone else is busy throwing Renaissance parties.
It's a really good piece. I like how you moved from Moats (medieval) to Moats (Buffet), wove in Florence, Tesla, Open AI, etc... I remember thinking when I visited Florence and Sienna and all those other Tuscan cities, how did this all work at the time of war? They were so different from what all those other medieval cities that they needed to use another "power" to protect them.
I can now almost hear the Hamilton Helmer quote (benefit and a barrier) ringing in my head as I rewalk those beautiful streets.
Tesla's charger won in NA because no one else bothered to invest in charging infrastructure, so it became the standard. In Europe, despite Tesla selling lots of cars CCS actually became way more prevalent. I doubt hype had anything to do with this. It's just a first mover advantage.
My point is about failure of institutional mechanisms (CCS) vs a company with a narrative solving a problem (Tesla). Tesla sold a story and showed how it works. Institutional mechanisms like CCS couldn't make it work because there was no coordination.
I understand what you're arguing, but I think it's a poor fit and too simplistic.
The following explains Tesla's charging infrastructure winning out:
- Tesla had a first mover advantage
- an integrated solution with their cars (remember Tesla's superchargers locked out anyone but Tesla up until only a few years ago). Tesla built the network because everything else before it sucked since it was the only pure play electric player at the time it needed the network more than anyone.
- a bigger network than anyone in the US causing it to be the defacto standard (even though the Nissan Leaf was around for much longer than mass market Tesla's)
@Sangeet This nails why 2024’s hype crash isn’t about overpromising, but under-anchoring coordination. Building on your Ch.9 (‘Institutional Lock-In’), the Medici→Tesla parallel needs just one tweak:
Tesla/OpenAI: NACS mandates + Azure APIs = still reversible
Your ‘narrative debt’ concept explains the 73% dev trust drop (Stack Overflow). Is the solution ‘switching dread’ via deeper ecosystem entanglement? (E.g., CUDA’s 28M devs).
Great comment, I agree that this is reversible capture. Florence did operate in an environment where the only uncertainty was military threat so once they dismantled that, the relatively slow cycle of change helped to cement their position. Both those things are no longer true in these examples.
On Tesla, Musk has proven he is really good at solving constraints to create coordination and done it repeatedly (battery, charging etc.) but hasn't yet demonstrated how well he can create lock-in around it.
Excellent work. Would you be interested in guest posting this?
Sure, dropped you a direct messgae
👏👏
Excellent work !
Quality stuff
We have added your book to our technology book listing. I have your Platform books, which were excellent.
https://docs.teckedin.info/docs/teckedin-technology-books
This is one of the nicest articles on hype. Tried checking the book but it's for US, when it shows up in Indian Amazon, will pre-book it :)
Thanks Manoj. I'm not sure why it's not showing up because it works for some buyers in India and not for others.
At launch, it will be available in all formats. Stay tuned!
As someone who’s spent years helping brands reposition physical spaces,hotels, cities, resorts,the Florence analogy hits hard. People don’t just defend what’s useful. They protect what they emotionally invest in. That’s what Altman seems to understand better than most tech leaders: if you can get enough people to believe they’re participating in something civilizational, the “moat” becomes cultural, not just technical.
Would love to see you expand this into how governments might adopt this kind of narrative strategy,especially around AI or climate. Because right now, most are still busy digging digital moats while someone else is busy throwing Renaissance parties.
insightful
It's a really good piece. I like how you moved from Moats (medieval) to Moats (Buffet), wove in Florence, Tesla, Open AI, etc... I remember thinking when I visited Florence and Sienna and all those other Tuscan cities, how did this all work at the time of war? They were so different from what all those other medieval cities that they needed to use another "power" to protect them.
I can now almost hear the Hamilton Helmer quote (benefit and a barrier) ringing in my head as I rewalk those beautiful streets.
Tesla's charger won in NA because no one else bothered to invest in charging infrastructure, so it became the standard. In Europe, despite Tesla selling lots of cars CCS actually became way more prevalent. I doubt hype had anything to do with this. It's just a first mover advantage.
Trying to think of a better exam,ple.
My point is about failure of institutional mechanisms (CCS) vs a company with a narrative solving a problem (Tesla). Tesla sold a story and showed how it works. Institutional mechanisms like CCS couldn't make it work because there was no coordination.
If you look at the section where the example is given, it's a section making the case for progress as solving a coordination game.
I understand what you're arguing, but I think it's a poor fit and too simplistic.
The following explains Tesla's charging infrastructure winning out:
- Tesla had a first mover advantage
- an integrated solution with their cars (remember Tesla's superchargers locked out anyone but Tesla up until only a few years ago). Tesla built the network because everything else before it sucked since it was the only pure play electric player at the time it needed the network more than anyone.
- a bigger network than anyone in the US causing it to be the defacto standard (even though the Nissan Leaf was around for much longer than mass market Tesla's)
I think hype was more of a result than the cause.
As I said, tesla was more to illustrate progress as a coordination game and the failure of institutional mechanisms to achieve it, not of hype.
The issue is with how I wrote it. That distinction should have been clearer sp your point is well taken.
@Sangeet This nails why 2024’s hype crash isn’t about overpromising, but under-anchoring coordination. Building on your Ch.9 (‘Institutional Lock-In’), the Medici→Tesla parallel needs just one tweak:
Florence: 4 Popes + 300 banks = irreversible capture
Tesla/OpenAI: NACS mandates + Azure APIs = still reversible
Your ‘narrative debt’ concept explains the 73% dev trust drop (Stack Overflow). Is the solution ‘switching dread’ via deeper ecosystem entanglement? (E.g., CUDA’s 28M devs).
Great comment, I agree that this is reversible capture. Florence did operate in an environment where the only uncertainty was military threat so once they dismantled that, the relatively slow cycle of change helped to cement their position. Both those things are no longer true in these examples.
On Tesla, Musk has proven he is really good at solving constraints to create coordination and done it repeatedly (battery, charging etc.) but hasn't yet demonstrated how well he can create lock-in around it.