Problems Organizations Cannot Solve

The opportunities I should seek are problems that everyone recognizes and wants solved, but existing organizations are structurally unable to solve.

I have considered many possibilities. Consumer businesses are attractive, but they are not where I currently have an advantage. Their moats lie in brand, distribution, and operations. I could learn those skills, but they would make little use of what I have already built, and the opportunity cost would be high.

If the time I have invested is to become a moat, I must begin with technology.

Yet technical difficulty alone does not make a business. Modern industries already contain complex value chains and powerful incumbent layers. Without choosing the right position within them, even excellent technology remains merely a component.

As AI makes implementation and replication easier, building what anyone can build becomes even more dangerous. What matters is not technical difficulty itself, but a structure that cannot be easily replaced.

That is why I intend to join the research lab of a large technology company. Compared with product teams, a research lab offers more freedom from immediate roadmaps and more room to explore the boundaries between technologies and organizations.

I want to work directly on complex and expensive problems, and learn where technology repeatedly stalls on its way to products and customers.

If a problem can be solved inside the company, it should be solved there. But if everyone recognizes its importance and the structure of the organization still prevents it from being solved, that may finally be the time to leave and build a company.