It’s good to have this back on the first day of every new month. A decompress of sorts and, perhaps, a good way to think through the twists and turns of entrepreneurship.
Trending on Reddit and other social media platforms right now are so-called AI gurus and their promise-the-moon-and-stars workshops.
There are a few ways this will be pitched. There are the so-called “FOC” workshops with the promise of turning you into an AI-literate person in a matter of hours.
“Just vibe code a solution. It’s that easy,” some will say.
How that works is beyond me because a freebie aiming for hundreds or thousands of participants can’t really do much to give you personal attention when you need it.
And then there are paid workshops. This is where people come in with high expectations because they are seeking a rescue with the least amount of work to put in.
And they leave disappointed.
I mean, it does speak volumes about the participants. Why would you even sign up for it, even if your company is paying?
Now, you can use AI to do whatever you need AI to do. There are subscriptions to platforms such as Claude or ChatGPT and then there are other ways to develop a bot or an agent to perform all the tasks you need to, not forgetting free tips on social media.
You need to experiment, spend hours on polishing your prompting skills and discuss with likeminded or more technically savvy folk to work your way around using AI for the tasks you want it to do.
Is it perfect? No.
For editorial, AI is like a bad reporter or writer. So you can imagine the hours you’ll need to spend cleaning up copy and why, contrary to popular belief, AI prose and script is awful and eeky.
And cleaning up copy isn’t even perfect, because it depends on the cleaner or editor (you) staying sharp. AI prose just slips right through.
But for whatever AI-delegated task it is, it takes time and effort. People hate this process.
Then there’s plain common sense. If I discovered a way to make money from my AI chops, then there’s no way I’ll share everything with you. Because if I do, I can’t make any more money.
The need for shortcuts is everywhere, so I guess the grouses on social media and forums now over these AI gurus shortchanging folk are a microcosm of society in general.
Of course, I have taken shortcuts too, only for them to blow back right in my face. So I lived to tell the tale.
It’s not that I am against workshops, seminars and the like. But, in this context, it’s just best to be real about things.
We all need to audit our “heroes”, especially those who promise us a better life albeit with little effort. Because many times, it’s always too good to be true.
And, as always, here are August’s top stories.
These are articles that drew around 3,000 views and converted at least 10 paying subscribers (monthly/annual/founding) each:
Inside Xeraya, Khazanah’s biotech closet. PM Anwar Ibrahim has ordered a forensic probe into Khazanah’s life-sciences VC arm, whose flagship antibiotic bet went bankrupt just a year after FDA approval, among other pains.
Court blocks the SC. The KL High Court froze the Securities Commission’s document demand against property firm Primus. This is over a RM170 million capital injection from cash trust UBB Amanah.
LTAT’s listed empire goes dark. One problem remains. With BHIC’s delisting, the army pension fund has now taken all three of its Boustead-linked companies private. But has the concentration risk that nearly sank LTAT gone anywhere?
Are Malaysia’s PE/VC wells dry? GLIC-backed PE and VC programmes are sitting on billions in committed capital but struggling to deploy it, while Aerodyne — once the darling of the Malaysian tech ecosystem — has passed control to a foreign fund after its founder stepped back.
Inside Malaysia’s healthcare oligopoly. From Pharmaniaga’s drug supply to IHH and KPJ’s hospital wards, the same handful of GLICs own both sides of Malaysia’s healthcare stack. “National service” is looking a lot like a closed loop.