June 7, 2026
What Guinness knew that your board doesn't
Your board wants a number.
25% efficiency gains. 30% faster processing. A slide that says "AI opportunity" with a chart that goes up and to the right. They've seen the benchmarks. They want to know when you act.
You said you'd think about it.
Bien.
In the early 1800s, steam power arrived in England. Every brewery got access to the same technology at the same time. Same capability. Same machines. Same moment.
Most brewers did the math. Fired staff. Made more money per barrel of ale. Clean, rational, defensible decision.
One brewer looked at the same technology and asked a completely different question.
That brewer is Guinness. 100,000 employees. 150 countries. The ones who optimized per barrel? You've never heard their names. Nobody has. They made more money per barrel and then they disappeared.
Ethan Mollick, who runs AI research at Wharton, described this exact pattern last week. He said he worries about "too many people taking the small path and not the big one."
Too many people taking the small path.
The board slide with the 25% efficiency gain is the small path. So is "let's cut customer service costs because the AI can handle it."
Wrong is the wrong word. Small is the right one.
The CEO who uses this to shrink will have a leaner company. The CEO who uses this to go somewhere new will have a different company entirely. Five years from now only one of those two is still in business.
Your board is asking the question that fits on a slide. The one that matters doesn't, which is why nobody around that table is asking it out loud.
You describe the board slide everyone agrees on. I show you the version of your company five years from now if you build from that question, versus the version if you build from the Guinness one.
PD: The brewers who chose efficiency in 1800 made a rational decision at the wrong scale. That exact conversation is happening in boardrooms right now. Including yours.
PD2: If you are not sure whether this is worth a conversation, use the session for that. The answer can be no.
PD3: Tomorrow I'm going to tell you about something that broke this summer. Something that's been working for 4,000 years. It just snapped. And most companies haven't noticed yet.