OpenAI paid hundreds of millions for 58,000 subscribers.
What it changes for you, your team, and your investments.
This email is normally reserved for premium subscribers of Ergon Report. I'm sending it to you for free today, as an exception, because this is the most important issue I've written, and because the founder rate ends tonight.
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What follows is the delivery email for issue 3 of Ergon Report, sent to subscribers this morning. It's shared with you as is.
Here we are at the third issue. This week, the topic picked itself on the morning of April 2, when the news swept through the tech feeds: OpenAI had just bought a YouTube talk show. 58,000 subscribers. Several hundred million dollars.
The industry's reaction was unanimous: "Wait, what?"
Yours should be different.
This issue starts from that signal, and lands on a conclusion I didn't see coming when I started writing it.
The report, Issue #3: The asset AI can't create
Everyone is chasing the best AI implementation. In the short term, that's the right call. This issue explains why it's the wrong priority in the long term, and what that changes in practice depending on whether you're a leader, an investor or a professional.
12-minute read, designed for a Sunday morning with a coffee:
::bouton[ER, Issue #3: The asset AI can't create]
The artifact: Audit my week
This week, I wanted something direct:
a prompt you give an AI that asks you the right questions about your week, then comes back with a concrete analysis of where your time goes and how to reallocate it.
How to use it, in four steps:
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Download the PDF below.
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Open a conversational AI. I recommend Claude or ChatGPT; they give the best results.
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Attach the PDF to your first message (paperclip icon or "+", depending on the AI).
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Paste these two sentences into the same message, and hit send 😀:
That's it. The AI takes it from there. It asks you a question. You answer. It digs deeper. You answer again. After 10 minutes, you'll see things about your work you couldn't see when you started.
The document I just attached contains your full role and your instructions. Read it in full, follow it to the letter, and start the conversation now as it tells you to.
::bouton[ER, Artifact Issue #3]
IMPORTANT: Ergon OS: a first look
This week's artifact is the manual version of something I'm building for you right now.
Ergon OS is a tool that does this work for you, continuously:
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it maps your week,
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identifies what AI can absorb,
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draws on everything in The Ergon Report,
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and gives you a clear view of where your time goes and how to reallocate it, with the exact tools to use.
Not once. All the time. And for your whole team if you'd like.
It will be included in your Ergon Report subscription. That's partly why the price goes up tonight. But if you subscribe before then, you're all set.
Your access to Ergon OS will be included in your current subscription, with nothing for you to do.
I'll tell you more as soon as it's ready.
TL;DR: For those who don't have 12 minutes right now
If you can't read the report right away, keep these four ideas in mind:
→ AI implementation is necessary. But it's following the same curve as the website in 2000: an advantage today, the bare minimum tomorrow. The window is closing.
→ What doesn't get commoditized is the trust specific people have placed in you. OpenAI just paid several hundred million for 58,000 people who trust it.
→ AI frees up time on the mechanical work. The real question: what you reinvest it in.
→ Those who start building this kind of trust now will have a head start that latecomers won't be able to close with a better tool.
The rest is in the report.
See you next week.
Salim,
The Ergon Report
In Geneva
P.S. Recently subscribed? Past issues are available in the archive, in your subscriber area.
End of the delivery email for issue 3 of Ergon Report.
If you've read this far, you now know exactly what Ergon Report is. One thesis a week. Concrete cases. A usable tool. And soon, Ergon OS included in the subscription.
The founder rate ends today.
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