Ollie

London | SF

[Ollie @olpol12]

On Tuesday, I attended the UK ServiceNow User Group meeting #UKSNUG in Edinburgh.

This was my first networking event where I was flying solo.

Here are a few tips I've picked up in order to make the most out of your networking events:

[Emanate @emanateai]

Naveen is Chairman of Jindal Steel a group spanning steel, mining, power, and cement across India, Oman, and Africa. The youngest son of founder O.P. Jindal, he took a middling business and built it into one of the most efficient operations in the industry. He also serves as President of the Indian Steel Association.

Most operators at his scale chase size. Naveen is after something harder: not the biggest steel producer, but the most efficient and most profitable.

We sat down with him, and his view on AI and frontier technology is unsentimental. Everyone is using it now, and soon running leaner with it will simply be routine. The companies that refuse to digitize get left behind. We agree.

His key point: buying technology is easy; living with it is not. Absorbing a tool into your culture and the way you actually work takes perseverance most companies underestimate. It's what separates operators who compound an advantage from those who own tools they never use.

Deploy the tool. Absorb it. Compound what it earns you.
The hardest step is the last one. The companies that clear it are the ones we build for.

[Emanate @emanateai]

Most people describe the AI buildout in the language of software. Guilherme Gerdau Johannpeter describes it in the language of the physical economy.

He is Vice-Chairman of Gerdau, the largest long steel producer in the Americas, the largest scrap recycler in Latin America, and one of the lowest-carbon steelmakers in the world, a company with 124 years of history. He has spent 40 years with the company his family has led for generations, rising through its commercial and operating ranks, running the long steel business in North America, and leading the global special steel division before taking his seat on the Board. Few people have watched the industry move through this many cycles, and few speak about the current one with more conviction.

His read on the moment is direct. The reindustrialization of the United States is real. Manufacturing is coming back. More than $700 billion of capital is going into the infrastructure that AI requires: data centers, transmission lines, solar, renewables. All of it material intensive. The buildout everyone describes in software terms cannot happen without the physical world underneath it.

What stood out was where Gerdau is pointing that same technology. The company is now simulating demand, chemistry, production, and scheduling in ways that were not possible before. The producer supplying the materials for the AI economy is using AI to run its own operations.

Supply the buildout. Apply the tools. Compound the advantage.

The AI economy is being written in software and built in the physical world. We're glad to be building alongside the people, like Guilherme Johannpeter and Andre Johannpeter who understand both.

[Emanate @emanateai]

We sat down with Kevin Dempsey, President and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the definitive voice of American steel since 1855 and one of the industry's leading advocates in Washington and on the global stage.

A Harvard Law-trained trade litigator, J.D. cum laude, Kevin has spent his career at the center of the policy that shapes American industry. He led landmark international trade cases on behalf of American producers, served as counsel to U.S. Senator John C. Danforth and the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and has guided AISI's most consequential policy victories since joining the Institute in 2009. Today he is known to industry leaders, policymakers, and government officials in the U.S. and around the world as one of the most consequential voices in the field.

Faster decisions. Compressed cycles. Stronger response to data-center demand. The companies investing in America's physical economy today have the chance to pair that capital with intelligent systems that compound.

We're proud to engage with the leaders who move this vision forward, and the companies ready to lead.

[Zion @BlasianHokage]

We created the first-ever personalized launch video that changes for every viewer

We wanted to show a unique use case powered by Onairos, inspired by the rise of world models (@theworldlabs, @nvidia cosmos, @GoogleDeepMind ) and simulated experiences (@moonlake, @spawn)

[Ollie @olpol12]

When I was a kid I joined like 12 bands. All failed. The new version of that is starting an AI business.

It’s cool, I like it. Wonder what’s next

[Ollie @olpol12]

Is distribution the only wedge left?

[Ollie @olpol12]

@pontivflex Free me

[Ollie @olpol12]

@dougdanna Yes please

[Ollie @olpol12]

@solana_king Definitely

[Ollie @olpol12]

@NicholasVerge Send 🙏 thank you

[Ollie @olpol12]

How often do you look at the ads around you and decide if they're actually good?

When I see an advertisement, I don't allow it to passively enter my subconscious so that the government can convince me to steralize myself.

I ask myself

"What are they trying to sell?"

"Is this a good ad?"

"What story are they trying to tell?"

Oftentimes times, they are telling the wrong story,

The obvious story.

The best stories you can tell in marketing are the unheard ones.

The unique ones.

Stop being passive to the information you are being forcefed and learn from it.

[Ollie @olpol12]

@YouNotAri I found it helpful to write out the best version of your character and then follow it like a blueprint to go out and kill it - can’t smooth out your edges though and kill your creativity.

[Ollie @olpol12]

Creative people are loners.

Building things, being on the contrary.

Constantly struggling between ideas and your brain telling you you're crazy.

Drives people away.

The only thing that can get you through is aggressive optimism.

[Ollie @olpol12]

@Renegade1iving Renegade

[Ollie @olpol12]

@DejaRu22 Hi

[Ollie @olpol12]

At the end of the day, if all else fails, the best thing you can do is keep cool, smile and act like you belong there.

What would you add?

[Ollie @olpol12]

On Tuesday, I attended the UK ServiceNow User Group meeting #UKSNUG in Edinburgh.

This was my first networking event where I was flying solo.

Here are a few tips I've picked up in order to make the most out of your networking events:

[Ollie @olpol12]

4. Hang out in the foyer. You don't have to be at the sessions during the entire event, go to the key ones you are interested in and spend the rest of the time in the foyer checking emails, making calls and meeting anybody who comes out for a break or doing the same as you.