Writing
2026
The Missing Moat In AI: Your Eval Data
AI’s next moat is eval data: the answer key for agents. I propose a thin client on Claude to make eval data first-class and help workflows self-correct.
#DNA Is Becoming Programmable. Curing Cancer With AI.
How a startup is curing cancer with AI: Earli writes DNA like text, but the real moat isn't the model. It's the proprietary data and human-guided learning loop.
#If Your Name Isn't Western, AI Could Cost You The Promotion.
Companies use AI to track contribution and decide promotions. This experiment found it hears easy names 5x more often. Your name could quietly cost you the job.
#Three Mistakes Brands Make In The Age Of AI-Driven E-Commerce
AI is rewriting e-commerce around the shopper. The three costly mistakes brands make with GEO, chatbots and search, and the data-driven fix for each.
#The State Of E-Commerce: Every Layer Of Discovery Changed At Once
The State Of E-Commerce: Every Layer Of Discovery Changed At Once r2decide, the company I started, is now part of Zoovu. Here is the bigger picture behind that news.
#The State Of E-Commerce: Finetuned AI For Every Brand
Online shopping has looked the same for thirty years. A search box, a grid of results, a page full of specifications. That era is ending, and what replaces it is the most exciting shift retail has seen in a generation.
#Frustrated with AI Agents? You’re Not Alone!
You run 30 personal AI agents. Meeting scheduling. Video cutting. Personal feedback. They all kind of work, and they all keep breaking. Face it, today's personal AI agents terrible. Trust me, it's not you and it's not the model.
#AI In The Boardroom? What Directors Need To Know
What must Board Directors measure in the new AI world: track training, manage supplier and model risk, add guardrails, and reassess business models in revenue and cost.
#Meta Laid Off 8,000 And Launched AI - Why Jobs Need Different Skills
Meta cut 8,000 jobs and launched new AI the same day. The news that AI replaces people is wrong. They want different people who work with AI.
#SaaSpocalypse Is Dead - The Future Of SaaS Is SaaS
The SaaSpocalypse is wrong. Long live SaaS. Eleven major SaaS companies analyzed across five dimensions, data moat, MCP, regulation, threat awareness and platform shift.
#AI Cuts Creative Teams: What Companies Must Learn About AI Leadership
AI can produce content at scale. It can’t decide what’s right. Why designers, product leaders, and creative judgment matter more now in the age of AI.
#Chris Hemsworth Super Bowl Ad Shows Why We'll Use AI Even If We Fear It
What to Do About the Absurd AI Trade-Off like Death vs. Massage? We need to understand: incentives, audit trails, user controls, and evals.
#Healthcare's AI Lesson: Autocomplete Isn't Understanding
Healthcare AI lesson: AI won’t replace drug scientists, it supercharges them: faster discovery + cheaper testing. The real revolution is operations + cash flow, not hype.
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2025
Good News For Consultants. Google CEO: No Company Is Immune To AI
AI is reshaping every workflow, and Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, warns that no company is immune. An opportunity for tool builder, workflow designer and consultants.
#AI Is Changing The Rules Of Web Traffic — A GEO Playbook For Online Retailers
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are reshaping retail. Generative engine optimization beats SEO. A playbook for online retailers.
#AI Fail — Trump Says 'Merz' —YouTube Transcribes 'Merkel'
AI Fail: YouTube heard “Merz” but wrote “Merkel.” AI predicts averages, not truth, reminding us that human judgment, not blind trust, is still essential.
#AI Agents - The Internet Is Being Rewritten - Survey Users Vs Brands?
OpenAI aims to be the interface for everything online with AI agents. I’m researching with Retail Wire how users and brands adapt. Take our short survey about the future.
#AI For Private Equity — The Future Of B2B Distribution
AI is transforming B2B distribution by scaling expertise, improving customer acquisition and turning complexity into a competitive advantage. Private equity is watching.
#The End Of Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy? AI-Driven Retail Unbundling
Retail is being unbundled, just like media was a decade ago. Amazon & Walmart's homepages are dying. Learn how retail brands can win in the age of AI-driven discovery.
#Answer Engine Optimization — What Brands Need To Know
Time to act: What every brand needs to know about AEO, how it works, why it matters and how to make sure LLMs recommend you.
#Study Shows LLM Conversion Rate Is 9x Better — AEO Is Coming
Study shows that the discovery through LLMs like ChatGPT converts 9x better then Search Traffic. The start of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
#Nvidia Wants To Power Europe's AI Dreams. The EU Isn't Ready
Europe can't win the AI race with cash alone. Nvidia sparks momentum, but only bold reforms will make EU a true AI power. Here's how to catch up fast.
#Internship: Growth Marketing Hacker
R2Decide is looking for you - the MBA with the marketing skills that wants to dip their toes into the world of AI and e-commerce. Join us this summer as a Growth Marketing Hacker. This is not your average internship.
#Artificial Intelligence Made in the U.S.A. – Can Europe Learn From the Past?
Intereconomics, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 154-159. How Europe has missed every major wave of the third industrial revolution; how broken IP rights could be Europe's fix; why regulation alone isn't enough, Europe needs bold builders; and why AI is just a tool, agency still belongs to us.
#AI In Education — Up-level Your Teaching With AI By Cloning Yourself
AI for Educators: How to level up your teaching with AI. Discover how to use clones and GPTs in your classroom, personalized AI teaching is the future.
#Trump's Third Term — The Role Of AI In Creating A Strategy
Trump’s third term? AI already knows how this can be done. A study shows how OpenAI, Grok, DeepSeek and Google outline ways to dismantle U.S. democracy.
#ShopTalk 2025: Just 1% Of Vendors Use Generative AI To The Max
Generative AI and multimodality is hyped to transform e-commerce, is it happening? The results of an analysis of 700 vendors at ShopTalk 2025 may surprise you.
#Europa verliert im KI-Wettbewerb
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Meinung & Debatte, 19 March 2025, page 19. While the U.S. and China dominate AI, Europe risks missing the wave once again. Macron and von der Leyen promise billions; Lutz argues that money alone is not enough. Europe needs four shifts: more freedom to deploy (a Section-230-style liability shield for AI), easier access to training data (Japan-style), open weights for any model used in Europe, and a sovereign chip-and-policy stance between the U.S. and China.
#Overhyped: Manus From Monica — AI Made In China
Manus AI isn’t a breakthrough, it’s just another LLM executing scripted workflows. True AI success lies in integration, specialization and human oversight.
#Goku, A Chinese Open-Source Model, Challenges OpenAI And The U.S.
ByteDance's open-source AI model Goku challenges U.S. AI control. It also lowers business barriers. Business leaders need to focus on AI literacy to create value.
#Macron's AI Investment — But Europe Will Need To Do More To Catch Up
Europe Is Behind In AI, and France’s investment in AI isn’t enough to change that. What should Europe do to compete in AI?
#Musk Vs. Altman: Value And Reality Of Open AI
Musk’s bid for OpenAI - I doubt the business rationale for the bid. However, the bid itself could signal an issue with the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership.
#DeepSeek - New Economic Rules And Regulatory Challenge
China's DeepSeek became OpenAI's competitor - faster, cheaper, better. It's a start of a new reality for business leaders and government officials.
#Is OpenAI A Victim — DeepSeek And IP Rights — A Playbook For Leaders
Did DeepSeek violate OpenAI's IP rights? An ironic question given OpenAI's past with IP rights. What can we learn from this classic playbook to protect a business?
#Is AI Replacing Us — Good News For Knowledge Workers
AI Replacing Jobs? I Replaced Myself with an AI Clone as a Teacher. Here’s What I Found: AI Is Not Replacing but Transforming Jobs – Case Studies in Healthcare and Law.
#Stargate: The $500 Billion Message To China — The Future Of AI Regulation
Stargate is just one piece in the race for data, AI and global power. A glimpse into the future of U.S. regulation.
#Sam Altman Says, 'We Know How To Build AGI' — Not So Fast
Sam Altman's AGI predictions may be an overreach, but they highlight the Big Tech race for better data and user access to shape the future of the workforce.
#The Race For AI Agents. Who Will Supply Tomorrow's Workforce?
In 2025, AI agents will transform work. Microsoft leads with user access, Salesforce & Google with data, and OpenAI bets on tech. Who will build tomorrow's AI workforce.
#Multimodal AI In 2025: From Healthcare To eCommerce And Beyond
Multimodal AI revolutionizes industries by integrating text, images, audio, and more. From healthcare to eCommerce, it transforms how enterprises work in 2025 and beyond.
#AI Agents In 2025: What Enterprise Leaders Need To Know
Discover why 2025 is the year of AI agents transforming workflows across industries. Learn key strategies to build scalable, value-driven AI solutions for enterprises.
#2025: The Year Of Search But Not The End Of Google
2025 is the year of search, with AI-driven models like LLMs transforming how we interact with information. Google faces competition from startups and tech giants alike
#No AGI But A 'Killer App' — 2025 AI Prediction
We won't see AGI in 2025. Large language models excel and OpenAI's O1 is amazing, but it's not artificial general intelligence. Technical shortcomings of AI explained.
#No-AGI
There will be no AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) in 2025, no matter what Sam Altman or others claim. The concept of AGI revolves around the idea that AI can operate independently, like a human, adapting to tasks across diverse…
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2024
Biden's AI Plan And Why Central Control Might Not Work
Biden’s AI Plan: Can Central Control Really Work? Discover why regulating AI is more complex than it seems and why we need a different approach for true transparency.
#Emmanuel Macron On AI: We Are Regulating Ourselves Out Of The Market
President Macron warns, 'We are over-regulating.' AI regulation needs balance. Here are the three key levers: transparency, use-case focus, and leveraging existing laws.
#Regulating AI: It’s Not a Question of If, But How
Recently, I was invited by the GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) to share my thoughts with a delegation from Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and…
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2023
How OpenAI Can Secure Its Investments - A Playbook That Needs Microsoft
OpenAI is focused on the right area to create a moat and protect their R&D: User Experience, Data Feedback Loop, Workflow Integration, Data Access, Regulatory Support.
#OpenAI Isn't Going Bankrupt, But It Has A Business Model Problem
Experts predict that OpenAI will be bankrupt. Large Language Models and generative AI does not create a moat. But there are other ways to protect OpenAI's investment.
#Changing Healthcare - A Platform Approach Using Data & AI
Value-based Care (VBC) saves lives but about 40% of the commercial market has no access. It's time to change healthcare with an AI-driven platform for VBC.
#Healthcare And Data - How To Measure Quality
Did you know that you're not the customer in health care? It does not have to be this way. Explore real-world examples of how performance measures can make a difference.
#Three Trends Of Transformation: How AI & Value-Based Care (VBC) Will Drive Transformation Of Self-Insured Healthcare
Healthcare is on the brink of a seismic shift, and AI is its catalyst. (1) Large Language Models extend our predictive capabilities. (2) Self-insured companies' risk profile and the patient needs are aligned. (3) Value-Based Care (VBC) providers are actively reducing risk. Let’s change healthcare.
#What Is The Competitive Advantage Of LLMs Like ChatGPT For Your Business? Three Takeaways.
Do large language models (LLMs) create a business moat? AI-driven businesses have a combination of either a model moat, a data moat, or a brand moat. LLMs like OpenAI's model can provide an advantage in all areas, but it is by no means a given. For example, ChatGPT might only have a brand moat.
#Hack For Fairness: Unlocking The Predictive Power Of Data Validation And Quality Assurance In Education
Discover how a custom data validation tool is transforming education. Learn how we applied statistics to achieve fairness in peer reviews. See how we successfully scaled the "Design Data Products" course, focused on ML and AI, led by Lutz Finger, using innovative data-driven approaches.
#Large Language Models & AI In Healthcare
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing healthcare. Large Language Models (LLMs) are allowing us to combine traditional methods of patient engagement with AI to improve patient outcomes and reduce overall costs. Find out how the healthcare of the future looks.
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2022
Deepfakes - The Danger Of Artificial Intelligence That We Will Learn To Manage Better
Scared that deepfake technology will kill the 'truth' and undermine democracy as we know it? Don't! The same tools we use for fake emails, fake Amazon reviews, and fake bot conversations will help with deepfakes: Transparency, regulation, education and artificial intelligence (AI).
#Overview Of How To Create Deepfakes - It's Scarily Simple
Deepfakes are simple to make. A simple overview of the artificial intelligence (AI) behind deepfakes: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Encoder-decoder pairs and First-Order Motion Models.
#Enchanted Place Called Google Health
Google is truly a fantastic place. No, I am not talking about the colorful bikes, the great food, the free perks, and more. After four years of building what Google Health is today, here is my view of what makes Google so unique: people…
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2021
Get Vaccinated? How Trust In Institutions Determines COVID Vaccination Rates In The EU
Why do Republicans have lower vaccination rates? Trust! Trust in our institutions is essential for fighting COVID-19. How EU vaccination rates uncover this hidden truth.
#Clubhouse's Future Depends On Data - How To Build A TikTok Like Algorithm
The future of Clubhouse depends on Data. Today's Twitter like curation is not a good user experience. Clubhouse will need product and design choices that allow a TikTok like recommendation engine to help users find content and enable engagement.
#President Biden Is Man, Woman And 40 Years Old - Why We Need Algorithmic Transparency
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, was classified as 'boy' till Microsoft changed it. President Biden is still only 40 years old. The failure of artificial intelligence is an issue, especially if there is no transparency. How explainable AI can help and how regulation differs in the US vs. EU.
#WhatsApp: We Should Discuss What Our Data Is Used For, Not Who Has It
We are having the wrong discussion about WhatsApp and Facebook. We should not discuss who has access to the data but what is the data used for? We need a framework for data usage that applies as well to our international partners.
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2020
It's The Data, Stupid! Why AI Might Get It Wrong.
Artificial Intelligence is based on data. But that data might not be sufficient, biased, or out-right wrong. To have control over AI we need tools to check for biases.
#How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.
My course for Cornell’s MBAs and computer sciences students is now virtual. How to make online learning effective? Insights from a self-experiment!
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2019
2017
Should You Airbnb Or Sell Your Property — Big Data Helps
Data-driven decision making is a practice in many commercial industries now. But especially the real estate industry is using data. Companies like Zillow or Redfin provide estimates of a given house in a given neighborhood for renters and…
#How A Small Restaurant Can Use Its Data
How can small businesses leverage point of sale data to make informed decisions? Big Data sounds often like Big Business, but the power of data is available even to small businesses without extensive resources.
#Uber Data Determine The Best Food Places In New York City
Anyone who lives in the Ditmars neighborhood of Astoria, Queens will speak fondly of El Rey Del Taco, a neighborhood favorite food late night food truck that often has a line down the block.
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2016
Life In Data - The Tasks Of A Data Scientist
Do you want to work in data? What does this mean? For the last 3 years I was at one of the coolest companies in the data space: LinkedIn! LinkedIn has amazing data assets and they have been at the forefront of data science.
#Wer kann was? Europakarte der Fähigkeiten
Deutsche sind immer pünktlich, Franzosen haben den besten Wein und Italiener machen die leckersten Spaghetti – was einzelne Nationalitäten angeht, haben wir alle ganz bestimmte Bilder im Kopf.
#Racial Injustice In NYC Revealed By Data
Every morning, New York City police officers receive insights from computers, directing them to areas where crime is likely to occur. If that sounds similar to the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report, it’s because it is quite similar.
#The Force Awakens In Data - Industry Leaders Comment
How does the latest “Star Wars” movie parallel with the data industry? Both have a force that awakens. However, while Rey, the tough scavenger in “Star Wars” (played well by Daisy Ridley), saw her force come to life in less then 30min, the…
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2015
How Cornell Trains Future Data Managers
How do you create amazing new data driven products! By studying deep, deeper and the deepest machine learning algorithms? Nope – by enabling business folks to talk and think data . Recently I had the opportunity to test this theory.
#Why LinkedIn Is As Important As The Capital Market
Recently, my favorite INSEAD Professor, Kevin Kaiser, came over to LinkedIn with a group of executives from around the world. We chatted about value creation in Silicon Valley.
#Why President Obama Needs A Chief Data Scientist
During this year’s STRATA conference, President Obama introduced Dr. DJ Patil as his new Chief Data Scientist in a video message. DJ is a very well known data scientist and is even credited by some with coining the term “data science”.
#Predictive Analytics - A Case For Private Equity?
Framed Data raises $2M, 6Sense raises $12M, Reflektion raises $8M… The list goes on and on. What these companies have in common, aside from multi-million dollar investments, is that they are all in the market of predictive analytics.
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2014
Give Me The Data! Why So Many Data Ideas Fail
To build a data product you need to have the right data. This sounds simple, but it is often forgotten by entrepreneurs or top managers alike. Data should not be confused with the product or the business question that makes it powerful.
#Our Future: Free Will vs. Predictions with Data
What is the future of big data? It will be all about predictions! Predictions based on data has come into our world and we often do not even know it.
#The Reason Why We Love Big Data: Recommendations
Recommendation Engines have gained the most attention in the Big Data world. Why is that? Big Data has created three distinct types of data driven products: Data used to Benchmark Data used for Recommendation and Filter systems Data used…
#3 Data Products You Need To Know
Today we see discussions on Big Data everywhere. Big Data - so has been the promise since 2011, when this hype started - surrounds all of us and will yield to new products - DATA PRODUCTS.
#Data can fail us - like Brazil did
Germany defeated Brazil in the World Cup semi-finals. It was a brutal 7-1 drubbing and totally was unexpected! What does this tell us about data? Many of us who work with data hail the possibilities (see the Age of the Algorithm).
#Rule the World with Small Data
I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what Big Data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin - Microsoft's Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, it’s time for a vision but not on Big but on Small Data.
#The Age of the Algorithms - SxSW summary
South by South West Interactive (SxSW) is no ordinary conference. It is a festival and platform that allows showcasing the fusion of content with technology.
#STRATA 2014 - Data Demystified
"Data Demystified" is the best way to describe this year’s Strata Conference. The data conference STRATA has grown substantially: more visitors, more talks, more vendors at the exhibitions, and more space.
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