Let’s get one thing straight: business is not an Olympic sport. No medals. No referees. No level playing field. It’s not drug-tested either, and you can forget about fair play.
The idea that commerce is some noble amateur pursuit where everyone lines up at the same starting line, toes behind the white paint, and waits for the gun is a comforting delusion. Out here, in the mud and chaos of modern busines, it’s survival of whoever’s got the better kit, the smarter coach, and the secret stash of performance enhancers that no-one else has worked out how to get hold of yet.
And right now, that secret stash is artificial intelligence.
There’s an enduring British fondness for the idea that if you just work hard, play fair, and put in the graft, you’ll win out in the end. Lovely in theory. Utterly laughable in practice. Anyone who’s ever tried to run a small business knows that it’s like trying to sprint uphill through treacle while Amazon and Apple whizz past on hoverboards powered by other people’s data.
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