This is an overview of the strategic pattern named Falcon, proposed by Patrick Hoverstadt and Lucy Loh on their book Patterns of Strategy.
Warning: I’m experimenting here. Any constructive feedback is welcome.
I will be using the OpenAI Vs Google for this exercise. This topic is already being commented here: Microsoft, Google, Chat GPT, Bard and other things.
Things you need
- Ability to foresight with good perspective the context.
- A significant advantage in power, particularly a store of latent power that can be turned on at will.
- Fast cycle times, particularly to accelerate from a standstill to faster development cycle times in order to overtake a slower moving competitor who is already operating in the market.
Does OpenAI have these capabilities? I would say so.
The diagram
The maneuvers
Each maneuver is defined by a set of capabilities required by the actor trying to play that game. Putting in perspective with Wardley Mapping, these capabilities are build thanks to the resources (in house or external) and the prevalent doctrines of the organization.
In Wardley Mapping, doctrines are defined as “universally useful patterns that a user can apply regardless of context“, and on the diagram above what we can see in the rectangles are capabilities derived from doctrines.
Doctrines in an organization can be organized by four phases:
- Phase 1: Stop self-destructive behavior
- Phase 2: Becoming more context aware
- Phase 3: Better for less
- Phase 4: Continuous evolution
I don’t know OpenAI organization, just some of how they are organized, but we could assume they are on phase 4 Continuous evolution. Hence they have some of these derived capabilities mentioned in the diagram: change rate, critical mass, agility…
Anyway, let’s review the 4 steps proposed for the Falcon pattern.
Step 1: Foresight
The strategy starts long before any actual maneuver with two things: scanning for possible targets and, in
parallel with that, developing the capabilities to mobilize and reconfigure resources fast.
I don’t know if OpenAI had this clear in 2015 when they started the company. I doubt it, I think that in this case the the foresight was done around 2021-2022, once they have clear the capabilities they could deliver.
Step 2: Build organizational capabilities
OpenAI started in 2015 and they were a non-profit company till 2019. What happened in 2019? Many things:
- They transitioned to “capped profit” company.
- They hired top people in the industry.
- They partnered with Microsoft.
- Get investment from venture capital companies and Microsoft.
These events are significant and I would not like to forget about the focus and efforts these guys did to overcome every single challenge they had.
Step 3: Decision to act
The publication of ChatGPT was done in October of 2022. The question I cannot answer is when it was decided the approach to go for ChatGPT as main vehicle to get presence in the market. We cannot forget OpenAI has other products (for instance Dall-e).
This decision to act have been done and more than probably coordinated with Microsoft that is doing announcements around this topic in parallel (Microsoft Office is the direct competitor of Google Workplace).
Step 4: Act synchronized, fast and iteratively
This is what OpenAI is doing since October 2022.
Things I miss
The Falcon approach is not the only thing that OpenAI is doing. Taking the table of Gameplays from Wardley Maps we can identify other gameplays as: education, open approaches, press release processes…
I have highlighted gameplays that I identify as part of Facon for this concrete case, and other relevant gameplays for this “battle” thar are not part of Falcon.
There’s a new space in the market, they have opened
I would like to remember this Wardley Map (source: here) to highlight the blue ocean that is discovered thanks to this technology advance and the disruption that potentially can provoke.
Takeaways
To many things to explore and gain details related to Patterns of Strategy from my side.
As usual, any feedback is welcome.
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