Selling the Ladder You Just Climbed

Four hundred fifty people logged into a webinar last week. Ninety minutes in, the presenter told them the truth: only fifteen would get a seat in what he was selling. Then he spent the rest of the session convincing all four hundred fifty they wanted in anyway. That part isn't strange. Scarcity sells. What's strange is what he was selling: a framework for building the same kind of AI systems he says he charges a hundred and eighty thousand euros to build for real companies. So why would someone operating at that scale spend ninety minutes teaching four hundred fifty strangers to climb a smaller version of the ladder he's already on? This episode is the answer, and the general rule hiding inside it: a business only teaches away what it doesn't depend on. Once you know which layer of a business a giveaway sits at, free stops looking generous and starts looking like a funnel. Including, if I'm honest, sometimes my own. Iconoclast Insights is André Daus: strategic opposition, no comfortable answers.