Sensemaking with Wolé and Tobi

117: Why Your Favourite Tech Company Might Not Survive

Listen Later

You use their apps every day. You've watched their stock prices climb. Maybe you've even built your career around their tools.

But what if the tech companies you rely on most can't actually explain how they make money?

In this episode, we get into something that's been on both our minds for a while — the growing gap between what the tech industry celebrates and what it actually delivers.

We're not coming at this as industry analysts or investors, but think of us as two people who use these products, work in and around tech, and have started to notice that a lot of what gets called "innovation" doesn't seem to solve problems anyone actually has.

We talk about AI — what's changed recently, what the difference is between the tools that just talk back to you and the newer ones that can actually do things on your behalf, and why that distinction matters even if you've never written a line of code.

We go company by company and ask uncomfortable questions. Why has one of the biggest names in AI backtracked on so many promises? Why does a company worth billions still not have a clear product focus? And why are some of the fastest-growing tools in tech already showing signs they won't last?

So we put together a test. Three fundamentals that any business — tech or not — should be able to answer.

  • Is there a real problem worth solving?
  • Is there a reason for people to choose you over the alternative, or over doing nothing at all?
  • And do the economics actually work — are you making more than you spend to serve each customer?

    • It's not complicated. But it's surprising how many of the biggest names in tech can't pass all three.

    We also zoom out and ask which tech companies have genuinely lasted. Which ones have become as permanent as a bank or a soft drink brand?

    The answer is shorter than you'd think, and it raises its own set of questions about what the last twenty years of tech have actually given us.

    ...

    Jargon Decoder — a few terms we throw around in this one, explained plain:

    • Agentic AI — AI that can take actions for you (book a flight, fill out a form, organise your files) instead of just answering questions in a chat window.
    • Generative AI — AI that creates things — text, images, code. ChatGPT is the most well-known example. When someone says "AI" casually, this is usually what they mean.
    • Unit economics — whether a company makes more money per customer than it costs to serve that customer. The most basic maths of whether a business can survive.
    • Future state selling — pitching investors on what a product will do someday, rather than what it does now. A red flag when the "someday" keeps moving.
    • Moat — what stops a competitor from copying your business. Borrowed from the idea of a castle moat — something that protects you.

      • ...

      If, while you're listening, something crosses your mind, or you get that urge to jump into the conversation, we'd love to hear from you! Please send us a quick voice note using here: http://bit.ly/sensemakingvn


      ...

      Join our WhatsApp Community for episode alerts and to chat with other listeners and us: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E1zfJLM46L01jR809JmURz

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store
      Sensemaking with Wolé and TobiBy Wolé and Tobi
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5

      5

      2 ratings