Dewi here—just wanted to say thanks for writing this, and I agree with much of what’s said!
In particular, I think it’s a mistake for people to think “I shouldn’t do X because Y is doing it”. We need way more teams working on solving different problems, and BlueDot is still a tiny 6-person team doing a very specific narrow thing.
And if other people were to step up and do what we’re doing but better, that would push us to improve even more! The rivalry between Adidas and Puma pushed them both to better, and likewise for Aldi vs Lidl. BlueDot doesn’t have an equivalent rivalry, but I think having one would be awesome! And very fun.
Perhaps my top recommendation is for people to think hard about what problems they see in the “talent pipeline”, and do whatever you can to solve them. Don’t sit around waiting for permission or for someone to tell you what to do, just start trying to fix problems, and iterate rapidly as you experiment and learn!
Dewi here—just wanted to say thanks for writing this, and I agree with much of what’s said!
In particular, I think it’s a mistake for people to think “I shouldn’t do X because Y is doing it”. We need way more teams working on solving different problems, and BlueDot is still a tiny 6-person team doing a very specific narrow thing.
And if other people were to step up and do what we’re doing but better, that would push us to improve even more! The rivalry between Adidas and Puma pushed them both to better, and likewise for Aldi vs Lidl. BlueDot doesn’t have an equivalent rivalry, but I think having one would be awesome! And very fun.
Perhaps my top recommendation is for people to think hard about what problems they see in the “talent pipeline”, and do whatever you can to solve them. Don’t sit around waiting for permission or for someone to tell you what to do, just start trying to fix problems, and iterate rapidly as you experiment and learn!