Every time utility or productivity becomes cheap, culture is the layer that captures all the value
Like imagine at start, there must be some guy who figured out how to do agriculture thing and he was the most valuable person ever but and that paid him off well
But then when everybody understood how to do that, it became an utility or value that anyone could create
Then it was not so valuable
Now you can see agriculture not paying well at all. In places like India it puts it very close to poverty.
Then who captured all the value?
Landowners or those who could create law and power around themselves to hold the title of those lands.
And we can see the same with IT services
In 1990s, the guy who could code a computer was a well paid genius
Then we saw Indians do it for ten thousand rupees per month
And now we can see the same with AI.
SaaS applications had a multiple of 7-8 times of their revenue.
Now anyone can spin off any utility or any SaaS application.
And we see the multiple for SaaS has been going down as well.
So now productivity or cognition is very common due to AI
Earlier just being smart and creating value for corpos was enough to buy a house and retire.
What actually needs to be done now is to move to the cultural level
If you are the only person who can make something happen then cool enough
But if anyone else can also do it then you have to move to the culture level or go to somewhere else where you are the only person who can do it
If anybody can make office or productivity SaaS then the leverage is not in creating another thing of that sort
It is to move above the layer to make a satire of the productivity and office environment, maybe make a game about it, make videos about it or become the voice in that niche while running a SaaS
But what does it mean to move to the cultural level?
It just means that before to all your stakeholders, you are just giving answer to one question:
- hey what margin do I get?
Now you answer 2 questions.
- How what margin do I get?
- What happens if I associate with this thing?
A retailer receives margin, but also footfall and conversation.
A customer receives function, but also taste, belonging and social signalling.
A streamer receives a game, but also moments that can become clips, reactions and memes.
A platform receives advertising inventory, but also a subculture that gives people a reason to return.
An employee receives compensation, but might also receive prestige from having a respected company on their résumé.
An investor receives financial upside, but might also receive proximity to something culturally important.
So a culturally powerful product is almost a stakeholder attention machine. It does not merely divide money among the participants. It manufactures attention, identity and stories for them.
Everyone we see as a person who is not working hard yet making a lot, is actually working on the cultural level and they are generating a shit ton of attention of right sort be it artists architects, streamers, youtubers, influencers