This is food for thought. I reproduce the quote:
Betting on Things That Never Change · Collab Fund
Jeff Bezos once explained why this was critical:
I very frequently get the question: “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?” That’s a very interesting question.
I almost never get the question: “What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?” And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two.
You can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, “Jeff I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher.” Or, “I love Amazon, I just wish you’d deliver a little slower.” Impossible.
So we know the energy we put into these things today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.
This is one of those important things that’s too basic for most smart people to pay attention to.
Betting on things that don’t change. Technology is rapidly encroaching on healthcare, will the healthcare delivery change? When a person becomes sick, do they want to speak to a human or interact with the chatbot? The “big-tech” is betting on the latter (to “automate delivery of medicines”) by harping on the ingrained inefficiencies of the system. This may sound counterintuitive to “techno-optimists”, but it’s safe to bet that despite immense efforts to shape human behaviour to interact with mobiles (or other devices), we will eventually pivot back to “old-fashioned contact”. The “delivery” of medicine will face specific impacts, but are hard to define as “practice changing”. Possibly, my world view is changing slowly to avoid the hype, but I don’t make any bets anyway.
Still food for your thoughts!
A little more context from the link above:
In the last 100 years we’ve gone from horses to jets and mailing letters to Skype. But every sustainable business is accompanied by one of a handful of timeless strategies:
Lower prices.
Faster solutions to problems.
Greater control over your time.
More choices.
Added comfort.
Entertainment/curiosity.
Deeper human interactions.
Greater transparency.
Less collateral damage.
Higher social status.
Increased confidence/trust.
RadOncNotes 