I think a lot of us face this question, especially right now. AI feels like it’s moving at a Kipchoge-esque pace, while most of us just picked up running. I’m non-technical, and honestly, it’s intimidating learning something when you’re pretty much guaranteed it’ll be obsolete next month (Q1 made it feel more like next week).
Now imagine having to make this decision for your entire investment team, like many of the people we’ve talked to. That fear’s magnified. I’m not talking about security concerns, that’s something every company vets when evaluating new software. What I mean is the required training and upskilling.
But I want to challenge that. Like any founding team, we don’t agree on everything, but we promised each other we’d build our company on simplicity. Let me put it this way: if someone can create an online course they can profit from that teaches you how to use Sonar, we’ve failed you and ourselves. I believe the upskilling fear comes from some software solutions being too darn difficult to deal with.
The second thing is a bit subjective, and I’ve been hearing it more and more: taste. It’s cool if we could turn an 8-hour task into something done in minutes, but would you really use it if we allowed only read-only access, disabled copy/paste, and charged you every time you entered a query? I got queasy just writing that. My definition of a tasteful product is one you incorporate into your daily workflow, without facing a prolonged ramp-up period.
Our goal, aside from ringing the bell at NASDAQ or NYSE, of course, is to build something we’d enjoy, let me say it again, enjoy (not tolerate) using ourselves.
Further readings/listenings:
This article on taste by Anu Atluru. Do yourself a service and just subscribe. It’s some of the best writing I’ve come across on Substack.
This podcast episode of Sourcery where Molly O'Shea interviews Bucky Moore. The whole episode is a worthwhile listen, but if you’re short on time, skip to 30:46 for a discussion about taste.