dionlim

The Two Questions Everyone Is Asking As the labs parade new apps and products weekly, entrepreneurs and investors alike are asking: “Where is the white space vis-à-vis the model companies?” For ordinary people the question is: “What kind of jobs are safe from AI?” The answer to both those questions is...

This month's hot topic du jour at our CEO Dinner Insights Report... is software dead? ceodinner.substack.com/p/was-the-saas…

IQ and EQ Aren't Enough Anymore. The Age of AI Demands AQ. Intelligence and social savvy are necessary but not sufficient. What separates those who ship from those who stall is having high agency (AQ). open.substack.com/pub/ceodinner/…

If only people had read our November CEO Dinner Insights Report... ceodinner.substack.com/p/ceo-dinner-i…

@dharmesh Love the concept of high CQ. Would love to see you break it down further. E.g., size of context window size x speed/quality of context discernment. "The smartest person in the room is useless if they just walked in." is pure gold.

I've been working and building in the CRM industry for 30+ years (so have far exceeded the needed 10,000 hours). The last big transformation we saw in CRM was over 25 years ago with Salesforce's launch of what became the Cloud CRM. Eventually, every (successful) CRM was a cloud CRM. The next big transformation is happening now with the advent of AI and agents. But it's not about being "AI first", it's about being CONTEXT FIRST. Context isn't a feature. It's the whole game. Modern AI models are sensationally smart. But success is not just about high IQ, it's also about having high CQ (Context Quotient). The smartest person in the room is useless if they just walked in. An AI that knows your Q2 pipeline is full, your best rep is on parental leave, and your biggest account just hired a new decision-maker responds very differently than one that doesn't. In most companies, context lives in databases, docs, message threads… and people's heads. It's scattered and fragmented. That's a problem because without shared context, AI is just a very smart intern on their first day at work. AI agents are awesome – but only if they're context aware. So, I'm thrilled to finally share what HubSpot has been working towards. It's been 20 years in the making: The Agentic Customer Platform A customer platform built for both humans *and* AI agents. One that is context-first. A platform that combines the world's smartest AI models with the deepest context to deliver the most effective agents to drive your growth. Agents are the future of software and agentic is the future of customer platforms. Eventually, every (successful) customer platform will be an agentic customer platform -- and every successful GTM agent will need to integrate with an agentic customer platform. Yes, I know I'm biased, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. :) You can read more details about our vision in a post today by @yaminirangan (HubSpot's CEO). You can get to it by visiting: acp .net (yes, I like short links…and I don't know why). I'll be digging into the details of what this means from a product/technology perspective and how it actually works over the coming weeks and months. I love it when the dots start to connect.

I've heard for the last 16 years that people would love to be a fly on the wall of our CEO Dinners. With an abundance mindset that is why I started publishing a Chatham House rules compliant CEO Dinner Insights Report. CEO Dinner Insights: January 2026 open.substack.com/pub/ceodinner/…

So proud of @itsalfredw and the @ListenLabs team for truly creating a product that is better, faster and cheaper than the time-intensive and labor-intensive process of getting user feedback. A process many companies skip due to the friction. l1nk.dev/aLVT9

CEO Dinner Insights: December 2025 Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT Grade Last Year’s Predictions and Place Odds on 2026 open.substack.com/pub/ceodinner/…

“These companies have survived for so long on switching costs. You need 50 sales engineers to customize Workday for your organization. AI is going to decimate that.” tinyurl.com/pftw4b2u

“Robin Hood is crypto native and retail friendly. Coinbase is neither.” → Platform positioning and user alignment matter more than first-mover advantages in fintech. @dionlim1/note/c-184431679" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@dionlim1/note…

“The amount of money going into depreciating hardware with high margins is the exact same story as Cisco. Somebody will find a way to eat that margin.” tinyurl.com/pftw4b2u

“Neo-labs are all just tweaks on the margin. You need distribution, a product, and a boatload of compute.” → Model architecture innovations alone cannot overcome structural advantages of established players. tinyurl.com/pftw4b2u

“DoorDash faces Zipline doing 3% of their business in Dallas alone with drones. They can deliver a cup of coffee to your doorstep in 15 minutes.” → Labor elimination in delivery creates cost structures traditional players cannot match. #ceodinner tinyurl.com/pftw4b2u

“If you build a great business, no one can hurt you. If you build a bad business, no one can help you.” → External support matters far less than fundamental execution quality. #CEODinner ceodinner.substack.com/p/ceo-dinner-i…

“The scarcest resource in Silicon Valley are people (bangers) who can produce new things (miracles) consistently.” → Talent differentiation accelerates as AI handles routine work, making miracle workers 100x more valuable. #CEODinner ceodinner.substack.com/p/ceo-dinner-i…

This month’s fun CEO Dinner hosted by @dickc was a throwback format from the old All Things D conference. Name one company you are long and one you are short. And why. Enjoy! open.substack.com/pub/ceodinner/…

The AI Wildfire Is Coming. It's Going to Be Very Painful and Incredibly Healthy. open.substack.com/pub/ceodinner/…

And, because special photos are taken at parties, weddings, birthdays, backyard BBQs, conferences, Shine by @sunshine also does events. Available free at shine.sunshine.com, organize your event with photo sharing built in right from the start. (1/8)

“Don’t forget to send me that photo!” How many times have you said that? And, how often have you actually gotten the photo? Maybe 20% of the time? The reality is photo sharing is broken. (1/12)