We work in blue-collar industries such as logistics and manufacturing, the backbone of the U.S. economy, where most processes remain manual.
Small and mid-sized companies resist change. Convincing them to adopt even basic “data entry” automation can take months. Many prefer to keep friends or relatives on the payroll instead of modernizing. At the level of production lines or logistics functions, the resistance is stronger. The prevailing view is: “we have done it this way for decades, why change.”
I believe the future will not come from persuading reluctant incumbents. It will come from new manufacturing companies that start digital-first, with AI at their core. These firms will redeploy workers into higher-value roles, outpace legacy operators, and set a new standard for U.S. competitiveness.
Case in point - China. They started manufacturing companies mostly from 2000s, using slightly more modern tech than US did in 50s. Obviously, China has more efficiency and higher production capacity per (any normalized unit). Or, in financial services, in APAC, nobody uses checks, or even in Africa. Because they did not have to deal with legacy financial systems.
The opportunity is not to patch the old, but to build the new.
Small and mid-sized companies resist change. Convincing them to adopt even basic “data entry” automation can take months. Many prefer to keep friends or relatives on the payroll instead of modernizing. At the level of production lines or logistics functions, the resistance is stronger. The prevailing view is: “we have done it this way for decades, why change.”
I believe the future will not come from persuading reluctant incumbents. It will come from new manufacturing companies that start digital-first, with AI at their core. These firms will redeploy workers into higher-value roles, outpace legacy operators, and set a new standard for U.S. competitiveness.
Case in point - China. They started manufacturing companies mostly from 2000s, using slightly more modern tech than US did in 50s. Obviously, China has more efficiency and higher production capacity per (any normalized unit). Or, in financial services, in APAC, nobody uses checks, or even in Africa. Because they did not have to deal with legacy financial systems.
The opportunity is not to patch the old, but to build the new.