Post by True Ventures

At True, we spend a lot of time studying new innovation cycles, especially the ones that refuse to fit inside old playbooks. Our partner Rohit Sharma often reminds us that we tend to interpret new waves through the frameworks of the past. It’s comforting and dangerously blinding. Rohit points out that in the mid-90s, the internet’s potential was measured through telecom networks and Baby Bell revenues. In the late 2000s, social media’s promise was framed by Yahoo and Google. He challenged us to stay sharp — to spot which old mental models are breaking — because if AI really is a new form of labor, the comparisons to past waves won’t hold for long. They’ll distort more than they clarify. If this wave is rewriting the playbook, which old rules are crumbling first?