030 AI for Operators

Hi there, 

Welcome back to AI for Operators. Here’s what we’ve got for you this week:

• The Operator: [Replay] Bryce Murray, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Upstory (formerly at Permanent Equity) - listen here

• The Essay: The Conglomerateur’s Dream

• The Jobs: Senior AI roles with $140k - $212k+ salaries

• The Links: 7 links including the AI Steering Wheel, Ralph Wiggum, and ‘my agents are working, are yours?’

Conglomerates swoop in and out of fashion every few years, depending on the whims of the FTC & the Justice Department and how interest rates are behaving. What doesn’t change are the desires of CEOs to oversee larger empires.

Is AI the key to help them do it right this time?

This piqued my interest because the three AI strategy roles that stood out this week (listed below in The Jobs section) are all at conglomerates of one form or another. Interparfums is a group that wins licenses to develop, manufacture, and distribute fragrances for well-known fashion brands. Unilever is one of the handful of companies that controls the US food supply through its dozens of sub-brands. And Crunch Fitness (Undefeated Tribe) is a franchisee of the Crunch Fitness brand, which owns a few dozen locations across Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and other states.

Coincidence, maybe. But the logic is there for conglomerates to go all in on AI.

What’s the biggest challenge for would-be conglomerateurs? Apart from financing, it’s talent - finding, managing, and motivating enough talented people to run a bevvy of disparate businesses is hard. The ones that do well (or seem to!) become legendary for this specifically (think Jack Welch’s GE, before a more critical eye was cast on his legacy; Koch Industries, with Market-Based Management; Danaher with the Danaher Business System, and

What do these systems have in common? Several things - all of which (spoiler alert) are made easier by AI.

1. A codified “way we run the business”: what could be more AI friendly than a set of explicit instructions - often quite detailed - on how work should be done?

2. Decentralized decision-making: while the important decisions will still roll up to overall leadership (who will have a greater ability to analyze tons of information quickly), setting up agents that can take action within a defined playing field based on up-to-date context means faster iteration without the incentive to hide bad results that humans often fall prey to.

3. Relentless portfolio pruning: if a business or business unit is underperforming, it’s a lot easier to cut it loose if it means 10 jobs (with 100 specialized agents) are lost than 1,000. Expect AI-enabled conglomerateurs to make decisions even faster and more ruthlessly. If you’re a customer of one of these portfolio companies, beware.

4. A commitment to continuous improvement: people get tired, lazy, and rest on their laurels - AI doesn’t (at least not in the same way). Self-improving systems, or at least accurate reporting that allows management to tweak the systems fast, are well within the reach of AI.

None of this is news to the VCs that poured money into AI-enabled roll-ups (though I’d bet that few of them have the actual scars that come from operating a group of businesses before). But as vibe-coded point solutions compete with these VC-backed AI roll-ups and the AI MegaGiants that seem to be taking over every part of the economy, spare a thought for the traditional conglomerates (Unilever, etc.), who seem to be waking up to the opportunity that AI presents to help them stave off the competitive onslaught.

So what are the takeaways for operators? Well, these companies may be better positioned to take advantage of the AI wave than others, so I’d consider them if I were searching for a job. If you’re not working at a conglomerate, I’d take these lessons and try to apply them anyway; how do you set up the systems that allow your organization to codify its operating system, delegate decision-making to those closest to the information, jettison unsuccessful projects, and improve continuously? And, if I were a Chief of Staff, or in a Strategy/Exec role, at one of these companies, I’d be putting together a plan to completely transform the business with AI yesterday. Like with seemingly every other part of the economy these days, endless opportunity and complete ruin are just around the corner - which path you take ddep

Some AI strategy and implementation roles that caught our eye:

Senior Director, Artificial Intelligence - Interparfums, Inc

• Build and execute on the AI vision and roadmap for the company that develops fragrances for Oscar de la Renta, Ferragamo, Abercrombie, and more

• Comp: $180k - $200k

Head of Commercial AI - Wellbeing Collective - Unilever

• Unilever’s Wellbeing Collective Group holds the company’s functional nutrition brands (e.g. LiquidIV, Olly, Nutrafol, etc.). In this role, you’d be working with the eCommerce, Media, Sales, Marketing, and Finance leaders to prototype, pilot, and scale AI use cases.

• Comp: $141k - $212k

Director of Strategy & AI - Crunch Fitness - Undefeated Tribe

• Define and lead the company’s AI transformation roadmap

• Comp: Not listed