Power shifts and algorithms

Founding Fuel’s new series Meet the Author opens with a conversation between Shrinath V and Sangeet Paul Choudary, author of Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy.

Choudary, a leading thinker on platform economics and digital ecosystems, is Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley, a Dartmouth Scholar, and advisor to global C-suites.

Shrinath leads The Salient Advisory, mentors startups through Google for Startups, and contributes to Founding Fuel.

In this first episode, Choudary makes a clear point: AI doesn’t just make businesses faster—it changes the rules of the game. Winners will be those who adapt their models, not those who simply try to optimise the old ones.

Seven insights leaders should pay attention to

1. AI is about systems, not tasks

Many firms use AI to automate existing tasks. The real advantage comes when companies rethink their whole business system—how they compete, which capabilities matter, and how strategy itself is shaped.

2. Value creation is being rewritten

Success lies in redesigning how value is created, not just in process efficiency.

• Adobe vs. Figma: Adobe’s shift to cloud kept a file-based logic. Figma’s element-based logic turned it into a collaboration platform, not just a tool.
• TikTok: Built networks through behaviour graphs, not friend graphs—allowing instant scale.
• Microsoft: Used AI across Office to tie products together, making its suite more indispensable.

3. Incumbent assets: advantage or liability

Established players have assets that can help—but only if they’re repurposed. When tied to old models, they can drag firms down. Retailers with warehouses, for example, still lose to Amazon because they lack demand-side data to reconfigure fulfilment.

4. Data readiness is the foundation

Firms that invested in data systems a decade ago are now ahead. Those that haven’t must start with the basics: audit, clean, and integrate data. Without this, AI use cases will remain shallow.

5. Beware dependence on AI tool providers

Over-reliance on external AI platforms risks turning firms into “dumb distributors.” Leaders need to keep options open, build their own capabilities, and stay alert to competitive overlaps.

• Uber vs. Google Maps: Uber depends on Google Maps, even as Alphabet competes via Waymo.

6. Innovation fails when habits win

Tools like Notion struggle when they don’t clearly outperform Excel or Word in specific workflows. User habits and switching costs are often stronger competitors than rival products.

7. Entire value chains can be reshaped

In agriculture, John Deere and Climate Corp gathered so much data they now know fields better than farmers. This enabled insurers to bypass local expertise and work directly with platforms—proof that AI can reorganise whole industries.

In part 2 of this podcast, Shrinath and Choudary examine corporate and individual strategy in the AI era

Follow the package here for a insights from Choudary's book and an extract