Keen On

The conventional way of thinking about digital technology revolutions is akin to thinking about how to build a house. First we build the foundation, then we add the frame and finally the cosmetic furnishing. In tech, this is known as the “stack” - and traditionally, each chapter in the narrative involves different companies and technologies. So in the case of the Internet boom, for example, first there were tech plumbing companies like Cisco, then middleware companies, and finally consumer companies like Amazon that interface with customers. But, as Andrew and Keith Teare discuss in this week That Was the Week tech roundup, in the case of the AI revolution, the entire “stack” might be owned by a single company. So OpenAI or Anthropic threaten to quite literally control the construction of the entire house - from laying the foundations to painting the walls and laying the carpets of tomorrow’s AI world. As Keith and Andrew warn, the implications of this on the future of innovation in the digital economy are im