Month: July 2026
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Why AI shifts bottlenecks rather than remove them
In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a machine that could separate cotton fibers from their sticky seeds. The ‘Cotton Gin’ (short for ‘Cotton Engine’) mechanised what was previously a hugely laborious and inefficient manual process and it transformed the textile industry almost overnight. Suddenly mass-scale cotton production became not only more possible, but vastly more profitable.…
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The Great Unbundling of Work
On 4 May 1948, the US Supreme Court ruled in a landmark antitrust case that would change the way that Hollywood studios worked forever. Until that point the studios had owned everything, from the production lots, through to the cinemas that the films played in. Actors, Directors and writers were tied in to long-term, exclusive…