Jennifer Janson retweeted
Beautiful design is now a commodity.
I've spent the last 24 hours with ChatGPT 4o images, and it's clear we've entered a new reality: "Execution is cheap, ideas are everything."
For decades, we were told the opposite. Everyone had ideas. Few could execute them well. The ability to turn a concept into reality separated the winners from the dreamers.
But in an AI world, it's completely flipped.
When anyone can execute at 90% perfection with the right prompts, the limiting factor becomes the quality of your ideas. The creative direction. The strategic insight. The unique perspective.
The most successful companies I'm seeing are shifting resources from production to ideation. Less time pushing pixels, more time exploring concepts.
They're running 20-30 creative directions where they used to do 2-3, because the cost of trying ideas has collapsed.
In a world where anyone can create a beautiful website, logo, or packaging, the winners are focusing on the things AI can't (yet) simulate:
I think it's authentic relationships, innovative products, and unique perspectives.
The real advantage is in knowing when to break the rules of good design in ways that resonate emotionally.
The human touch is becoming less about execution and more about strategic deviation from the optimized norm.
This is creating strange new dynamics in hiring too. When I started our design agency @meetLCA, we hired for world class technical skills - mastery of tools, execution ability.
But now we care more about hiring for conceptual ability and creative direction. People who consistently generate novel ideas rather than perfect executions. Obviously, top tech skills still matter, but way less.
As AI makes "good enough" design accessible to everyone, the market is splitting. At the low end, good enough is actually good enough.
But at the high end, there's a premium on the truly unexpected - the ideas an AI wouldn't generate because they break conventional patterns.
I think we're heading toward a bifurcated creative world: automated beauty for most purposes, with human creativity focused on creating the unexpected, the ideas and approaches an AI wouldn't think to try because they don't follow established patterns of "good design."
The challenge for most of us now isn't "how do we execute this idea?" but "which ideas are actually worth executing?"
Execution is cheap, ideas are everything.
Tremendous alpha in it.
You're an idea person now. We all are?
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Allbirds stock trades below $1 per share, or ~$100m market cap
Most people just say 'DTC is hard' when telling the story of allbirds - but there's a deeper lesson in this story, and one that I think every DTC operator should hear
let's break down where Allbirds went wrong 👇👇
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Quick rewrite:
I’m the CEO of CrowdStrike. I’m devastated to see the scale of today’s outage and will be personally working on it together with our team until it’s fully fixed for every single user.
But I wanted to take a moment to come here and tell you that I am sorry. People around the world rely on us, and incidents like this can’t happen. This came from an error that ultimately is my responsibility.
Here’s what we know: [brief synopsis of what went wrong and how it wasn’t a cyberattack etc.]
Our entire team will be working all day, all night, all weekend, and however long it takes to resolve this and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
We’ll be sharing updates as often as possible, which you can find here [link].
If you need to contact us, the quickest way is to go here [link].
We’re responding as quickly as possible. Thank you to everyone who has alerted us to the outage, and again, please accept my deepest apologies. More to come soon.
Just finished Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. What a beautiful, haunting, eye-opening book. Highly recommend.
Truly the most beautiful co-working space I’ve ever been in @SHACK15sf. I’m sure I did better work there because of it 😀
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Toronto #founders: I'm planning our annual Poker Tournament again this year. Last year tickets sold out within 24hrs of going live. This year I'm hacking a workaround for founders. If you're a founder in Toronto and want a ticket, comment or DM and I'll make sure you'll have one.
Ha! This was advice my dad gave me when I first started working (and travelling a lot). I had long since forgotten the rationale - but I’m sure it was similar. It’s why you’ll always find me at the airport with plenty of time to this day.
Jennifer Janson retweeted
I’ll be live tweeting @betaworks AI Camp: Agents demo day which is kicking off in a few minutes so follow along for deets on the 9 companies in the cohort
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Calling all Canadian founders and leaders – time to assemble. Join our @BetaKit Town Hall on May 7 in Toronto, ft. a discussion and AMA with @tobi. lu.ma/betakit-townhall
Announcing a special @BetaKit Town Hall for a pulse check on the state of 🇨🇦 innovation, productivity, and optimism. Featuring a discussion / AMA with @Shopify’s @tobi and more.
Join us on May 7 in Toronto. Limited tickets available. #CDNtech
betakit.com/betakit-town-hal…
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Even as someone who lives and breathes new technology, I am not immune to the increasingly savvy scams that seem to be taking over marketplaces everywhere. @goconfirmapp launched a new AI assistant to help Canadians identify fraudulent behaviour. 👏 ow.ly/5WKg50RmOLZ
Jennifer Janson retweeted
What. Are. We. Doing 🇨🇦 ?!?
Bad day for Entrepreneurship in Canada 🇨🇦👎. Capital gains tax rate is increasing from a 50% inclusion to 66%.
This increases the net capital gains tax rate from 27% to 36%...
Compared to the US which has a 20% capital gains tax rate (+ major incentives like QSBS)
In my conversations with Canadian entrepreneurs, it's clear: They're feeling less motivated to build businesses here when moving just a bit south could mean saving a lot more.
Jennifer Janson retweeted
At Cobot, we've raised $130M in the past 9 months in one of the tightest fundraising climates we've seen. And we've raised from the top firms... @neo @khoslaventures @sequoia @generalcatalyst @lux. My perspective on VCs has changed. 🧵
Jennifer Janson retweeted
First timer's guide to working directly with a CEO:
1. Meet your deadlines.
2. Be positive.
3. Raise your hand for help.
4. Be transparent and don't hide stuff.
That is it.
Love this story so much.
I first met @ivanhzhao 11 years ago -- and his pitch for @NotionHQ was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
We did not discuss technology products like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Instead, we spent an hour discussing the openness and form factor of paper. Ivan marveled how a blank sheet of paper allowed anyone to express anything (in writing, math, drawing) without artificial constraints or limits imposed by the paper-creator. The paper-creator did not have to "guess" what people would want to use their tool to create.
Ivan believed that software should be as open and free as paper. Thankfully, @firstround invested.
Today's @Forbes profile captures how remarkably different Ivan and @NotionHQ are -- and their journey to build the Internet-powered paper...
forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/…
Jennifer Janson retweeted
At this point, we all know AI is drastically changing many job functions, across many industries. But not all verticals are created equal – and not all verticals are a good fit for tailored AI solutions.
@TakuMurahwi and I wanted to take a hype-free, clear-eyed approach to figuring out which verticals were most ready for vertical AI adoption, based on their approach to collecting and sharing data, how unique their workflows are relative to other industries, the importance of personalization and other key indicators. The end result is a map of where we expect vertical AI to have the most impact in the near-term – and where we expect to see startups notch the biggest wins.
@OMERSVentures
linkedin.com/pulse/mapping-i…
Jennifer Janson retweeted
Industry leaders Lise Birikundavyi (@LBirikundavyi), Katy Yam (@happykatyyam), Sarah Stockdale (@skstock), and Jennifer Janson (@JenJanson) reflect on diversity and inclusion in #CDNtech in this week’s Best of BetaKit. #IWD #IWD2024 buff.ly/3wLjaCJ




























