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Years ago, not long after I had struck out on my own to start my own PR agency, I attended a party where I met a prominent journalist at a top-tier news outlet and we had a nice chat and exchanged contact details. For years we didnt cross paths professionally. But one day, she reached out. A source for a very sensitive story needed advice on how to handle the press scrutiny that she would soon be experiencing. There was no contract, no fee, no askjust someone in need. I offered my counsel freely. As a result, over the years, the reporter has continued to refer clients to us and has introduced us to other colleagues who could be helpful to our clients. And while those referrals have certainly been valuable, what they really represent is something more powerful: trust. Beyond the numbers, theres a hidden currency in business that yields richer returns than any deal you could close. It is the power of favors, freely given and authentically received. In a world where AI can automate emails, suggest connections, and streamline transactions, the human gestures that cannot be automated become even more valuable. A well-built favor bank can unlock long-term relationships, opportunities, and goodwill that no amount of money can buy. This may sound obvious but I was recently reminded of this idea when I was asked for a finder’s fee when a former colleague made introductions for possible new business. I was struck by how transactional that felt but also surprised because I have given and received introductions freely, keeping my favor bank philosophy in mind. In 2015, researchers at the University of South Californias Brain and Creativity Institute found that even the smallest acts of kindness (holding a door open with eye contact and a smile) result in thank you, or even an offer of help in return. This is the foundation of favor banking: That small, thoughtful gestures can influence how others respond, yielding larger returns over time, both personally and professionally. But with AI handling so much of our day-to-day efficiency, favor banking is what ensures those relationships dont get reduced to transactions. How to build a favor bank Lead with authenticity. Every year over the holidays, we send highly personalized gifts to our clients. For a client who couldnt stop raving about the wool products she bought while on vacation in Scotland, I sent a locally made wool throw blanket with a note explaining why I thought shed love it. For a journalist my team worked with whod just had a baby, I made some home-cooked Indian food, offered with no strings attached. Since then, weve gone from casual acquaintances to trusted collaborators. AI might remind you of a milestone or surface a clients preference, but only you can decide to turn that information into a gesture that feels real. Sometimes authenticity means going beyond small gestures to helping people through major life changes. As media jobs grow more precarious, Ive had more and more journalists turn to me when they lose onebecause the relationships weve built are rooted in trust. In one case, a former on-air anchor at a major network reached out, and I was able to connect her with a think-tank client where she became a fellowgiving her space to figure out next steps. Others have gone on to land roles at magazines or media outlets abroad. What mattered most wasnt the placement itself, but that they trusted me enough to reach out during a vulnerable moment. Share your expertiseOne of the most effective ways to build a favor bank is to offer your expertise freely, without viewing every interaction as a business opportunity. In a recent example, a scrappy young researcher availed us of his expertise with a complex project for a client in the defense-tech space, free of charge. By doing smart, efficient work for us, he knew hed begun cultivating an ecosystem of goodwill that will pay dividends. The same principle applies to founders using AI tools: scale what you share publicly with technology, but never stop cultivating one-to-one generosity privately. Be strategicbut never transactional Of course, offering free services too often can be unsustainable. But when done selectively, it builds trust and goodwill. The ability to distinguish between when to charge for your services and when to offer them for free is essential. Heres one example: Seeking technical advice, the board member of an under-resourced nonprofit approaches the CEO of a cutting-edge AI company. Typically, the CEO might charge for the servicebut theres often much greater long-term value in doing it for free. That board member is likely connected to other organizations and companies. By offering support without a transaction, the CEO is building goodwill that could lead to opportunities when the time comes to tap into that favor bank. People remember how you helped them, and will keep you top of mind. When (and how) to call in a favor When do I call in my favor? In fact, its less a question of when than of how: With directness, confidence, and a respectful acknowledgment of the relationship youve already cultivated. Skip the preamble. Dont hedge. Dont bury the ask in paragraphs of context. Just say what you needclearly, confidently, and with respect for the relationship youve built. Be specific: Can you introduce me to X? Would you be open to a 15-minute call to weigh in on Y? Would you consider reviewing this deck? It makes it easier for them to say yes, and it reinforces the value of the relationship. Youre not asking out of nowhereyoure tapping into a foundation of goodwill that youve already earned. Why founders cant afford not to do this Strapped for time and resources, start-up founders may think they cant afford to dole out favors for free. But thats the danger of short-term thinking: Amid the chaos of starting a business from scratch, you can easily lose sight of what a robust ecosystem of those you can trust and rely on when you need it the most. In other words, start-up founders cant afford not to practice favor banking. In the early days, its tempting to chase every dollar. But the strongest foundations are built on trust, not transactions. A founder who leans only on transactional efficiency risks missing the very relationships that make scaling possible. In a world thats increasingly driven by algorithms, AI, and transactional thinking, the human element is more important than ever. In fact, borrowing a phrase from a philosopher client, in the age of AI, I am bullish on humans. A favor bank isnt built overnight, but its returns are invaluable. Whether its helping a friend with a newborn or connecting a client with a valuable introduction, its those thoughtful gestures that ultimately make the biggest difference in lifeand business.
Category:
E-Commerce
Wheneven Sam Altman thinks there is an AI bubble, then there most likely is an AI bubble. But its even worse than that. There isnt just one AI bubble: there are three. First, AI is almost certainly in what economists call an asset bubble or a speculative bubble. As the name suggests, this is when asset prices soar well above their fundamental value. A classic example of this kind of bubble is the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century, when speculators drove up the price of tulip bulbs to astronomical heights, convinced that there would always be someone willing to pay more than they had. As I write, Nvidia is trading at 50 times earnings, Tesla at an astounding 200 times, despite falling revenues, while the rest of the Magnificent 7 (Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta) are enjoying significant boosts thanks to the bets they are taking on an AI-led future. The chances of this not being a bubble are between slim and noneand while Slim hasnt quite left town, hes booked his ticket and is packing his bags. Second, AI is also arguably in what we might call an infrastructure bubble, with huge amounts being invested in infrastructure without any certainty that it will be used at full capacity in the future. This happened multiple times in the later 1800s, as railroad investors built thousands of miles of unneeded track to serve future demand that never materialized. More recently, it happened in the late ’90s with the rollout of huge amount of fiber optic cable in anticipation of internet traffic demand that didnt turn up until decades later. Companies are pouring billions into GPUs, power systems, and cooling infrastructure, betting that demand will eventually justify the capacity. McKinsey analysts talk of a $7 trillion race to scale data centers for AI, and just eight projects in 2025 already represent commitments of over $1 trillion in AI infrastructure investment. Will this be like the railroad booms and busts of the late 1800s? It is impossible to say with any kind of certainty, but it is not unreasonable to think so. Third, AI is certainly in a hype bubble, which is where the promise claimed for a new technology exceeds reality, and the discussion around that technology becomes increasingly detached from likely future outcomes. Remember the hype around NFTs? That was a classic hype bubble. And AI has been in a similar moment for a while. All kinds of mediasocial, print, and webare filled with AI-related content, while AI boosterism has been the mood music of the corporate world for the last few years. Meanwhile, a recent MIT study reported that 95% of AI pilot projects fail to generate any returns at all. But what does all this mean for your organization? What should you be doing to respond? Do the Bubbles Matter? Bubbles are fine things in bottles of champagne, but in business contexts they are generally viewed as something to be avoided. So, when we see that AI is likely in three bubbles simultaneously, the immediate instinct may be to swerve urgently away from AI. I recommend resisting that instinct. Two of the three bubbles are largely irrelevant for most organizations and should simply be ignored. The speculative bubble is the result of a modern version of tulip maniainvestors bidding up the price of equities on the hope of future performance. The overheated valuations and crazy multiples are only problems for organizations that are involved in or directly exposed to the financial speculationand most organizations are not. A market crash may cause broader pain for the economy, but that is a potential environmental issue that all businesses will need to navigate. It should have little direct effect on a carefully planned AI implementation strategy. And as for the infrastructure bubble, well, if it turns out we really are building too much, the problem will be one of overcapacity, not overvaluation. For most organizations this is not only irrelevant, it may also lead to positive outcomes, because overcapacity will mean falling prices for those who want to use that infrastructure. This leaves the hype bubble, and this is where things get interesting. The hype bubble does have an important lesson for most organizations, but it isnt the one we might thinkeven if 95% of AI pilot projects fail, the issue here isnt that AI cant deliver value, but that many companies are approaching the technology in the wrong way. Dotcom Deja Vu Ive seen this before. I was in the dotcom boom (and bust) of the late ’90s and early 2000s. I saw Pets.com burn through $300 million before imploding, I saw the NASDAQ crashing by 78% and I read the articles by pundits who authoritatively declared that the internet was a fad. Yet during that same meltdown, Amazon was methodically building fulfillment centers and refining its recommendation algorithms. Google was quietly perfecting search. PayPal was solving payment friction. And thousands of companies were developing their first e-commerce capabilities, with greater or lesser degrees of success. The point is simple: a thing can be hyped beyond its actual capabilities while still being important (and to be fair to Sam Altman, he also makes this point in the piece quoted above). Just because AI is in a hype bubble does not mean that AI is fake news or that there isnt huge value to be extracted from it. The hype bubble simply means that some people are overexcited about AIit doesnt mean that there isnt something to be legitimately excited about. I made this argument in the dotcom era and I make it again now. What happened then will happen with AI. When valuations correctand they willthe same pattern will emerge: companies that focus on solving real problems with available technology will extract value before, during, and after the crash. In sum, companies with systematic approaches to extracting value from the technology will thrive. What becomes crucial, then, is your approach to capturing that value. So, how do you actually achieve that goal? The Value Creation Playbook The companies capturing real value follow three pillars of systematic implementation: Problem-First Architecture starts by mapping organizational friction points. Where do humans waste time on repetitive work? Where do information bottlenecks slow decisions? What processes consistently produce errors? Only after identifying these problems do successful companies consider AI solutions. Portfolio Balance means mixing time horizons and risk levels. Quick wins (one to three months) might include offthe-shelf tools for document processing. Strategic bets (3 to 12 months) could involve custom solutions for core business processes. Moonshots (more than 12 months) explore new business models. A retailer might implement an inventory chatbot this quarter while developing predictive analytics for next quarter and testing autonomous purchasing agents for next year. Holistic Integration connects AI initiatives to each other and to business strategy. Successful companies break down silos between IT, operations, and business units. They create feedback loops between projects. A manufacturing companys quality control AI feeds data to predictive maintenance AI, which informs supply chain AI. Each system makes the others smarter, creating compound value that isolated pilots never achieve. This is how you build value regardless of bubbles: systematically, purposefully, and starting today. Benefitting from Bubbles Far from being a threat, the AI bubble might be the best thing that could happen to pragmatic adopters. Consider what speculative excess delivers: billions in venture capital funding R&D youd never justify to your board; the worlds brightest minds abandoning stable careers to join AI startups, working on tools that youll eventually be able to use; infrastructure being built at a scale no rational actor would attempt, driving down future costs through overcapacity. While investors bet on which companies will dominate AI, you can cherry-pick proven tools at competitive prices. While speculators debate valuations, you will be implementing solutions with clear ROI. When the correction comes, youll also be able to benefit from fire-sale prices on enterprise tools, seasoned talent seeking stability, and battle-tested technologies that survived the shakeout. The dotcom bubble gave us broadband infrastructure and trained web developers. The AI bubble will leave behind GPU clusters and ML engineers. The smartest response isnt to avoid the bubble or try to time investments in it perfectly. It is to let others take the capital risk while you harvest the operational benefits. The bubble isnt your enemy. If you play your cards strategically, it can be a major benefactor. A valuable distraction Perhaps the greatest gift of the bubble discourse is the distraction it provides. While commentators debate whether Nvidia is overvalued and conferences overflow with AI bubble panels, something interesting happens: the noise creates perfect cover for serious operators to build lasting value. This psychological dynamic creates genuine competitive advantage. The bubble debate gives skeptics intellectual permission to waitafter all, why pursue that interesting AI project if the whole AI thing will inevitably crash? Meanwhile, companies quietly pursuing systematic AI implementation face less competition for talent, less pressure on timelines, and less scrutiny of their initiatives. The louder the bubble talk, the more space opens for those willing to take a methodical approach to building value.
Category:
E-Commerce
If theres one thing President Donald Trump cannot do, its keep a secret. Alongside saying that negotiations between the U.S. and China held in Madrid September 14 and 15 had gone well, Trump decided to tease a cliffhanger that would keep everyone coming back to his Truth Social profile. A deal was also reached on a certain company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save, he wrote. They will be very happy. That certain company is TikTok, and the smart betting is that the deal that placates both the U.S. and China could involve Oracle, the company cofounded by Larry Ellison, which this month shot up in value, making the 81-year-old the worlds richest man for a short period. Oracle was a preferred buyer in Trumps eyes earlier this year, when TikToks parent company, ByteDance, denied planning to sell the app to Oracle. Despite that, Trump said that an offer from Oracle was still on the table. (Neither Oracle nor TikTok responded to Fast Companys request for comment.) Any inkling of Ellison within the TikTok deal would be yet another major media move for the magnate, who with his son, David, recently pulled off an $8 billion merger with Paramount, putting him in ownership of the likes of MTV, Nickelodeon, and CBS News. That latter media property is a concern for some: The newly christened Paramount Skydance is reportedly in negotiations with Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press, to become either editor-in-chief or copresident of CBS News. Weisss reporting for The Free Press has taken ideological slants that would be unusual for CBS News, which attempts to maintain an impartial, objective stance in its reporting. The Ellisonsfather and sonare now rumored to be looking to broker an even bigger deal. Paramount Skydance is said to be looking to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that would be worth more than $70 billion. Paramount and Warner Bros. would in essence become the biggest studio in the world with a formidable base of franchises that include DC Comics, Harry Potter, Mattel licenses like Barbie, Hasbro licenses like Transformers, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Top Gun, Dora, SpongeBob, etc., wrote Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar in a report last week. Alongside all those household names, theres another journalistic outlet that would come under Ellison ownership: CNN, up to now one of the biggest thorns in Trumps side. If the Warner Bros. Discovery deal were to go through, Ellison would control streaming services with a combined 200 million-plus subscribers, says Barclays (though there will be overlap between the Paramount+, HBO Max, and Pluto services). Its something Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren warned against on X on September 11. The deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, she wrote, must be blocked as a dangerous concentration of power. Add TikToks 170 million-plus users and one of the hottest properties in the social space and you get to a position of dominance in the media. (Warrens office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) It is not a sign of a healthy democracy when billionaires are buying up all of the means of cultural consumption, says Steven Buckley, lecturer in media and digital sociology at City St Georges, University of London. Others have pointed out that the potential playbook, if this were to go ahead, draws comparisons with Elon Musks takeover of a social platform to dominate public discourse. Musk has previously taken credit for helping Trump secure the White House in 2024 through his positioning of X as a supportive social network. It is naive to think that over time [Ellisons] business and political philosophy, combined with the external political pressures from this and future administrations, wouldnt have an impact on how the American public experience TikTok, Buckley says. Of course, many critics would argue that any deal is based on a false premise that TikTok needs to be American-owned outrightan issue that has literally been litigated as long back as the dying days of Trump’s first presidency. Fundamentally TikTok is not broke, but Ellison and the Trump administration are trying to fix it nonetheless, Buckley says. Any actual problems with the platform such as misinformation, harassment, etcetera are not going to be fixed simply by a change of ownership. And user privacy is certainly not at the front of this administration’s mind.
Category:
E-Commerce
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