The New AI Mantra

Move fast and loot everything.

There's a new joke making the rounds in tech circles: "Move fast and loot everything." It's a cynical twist on the classic startup motto, and honestly? It's the most honest thing I've heard about the AI industry in months.

We're watching the largest wealth transfer in technological history unfold in real-time. Meta just delayed their flagship model because it wasn't good enough—and they're pouring billions into the race. Amazon is putting guardrails on their own AI coding tools after their systems went down. Google is embedding AI into Chrome itself, across 50+ languages.

The pattern is clear: everyone's moving fast, and everyone's scrambling.

But here's what the joke misses. The "looting" isn't just financial—it's capability. Every company is grabbing for every edge, every data source, every vertical integration they can sink their teeth into. Amazon didn't just build Alexa; they built a health AI agent. They didn't just do AI coding; they did AI coding that took down AWS.

The real question isn't who's winning. It's whether anyone can actually hold what they're grabbing.

The next six months will separate the companies that are building lasting infrastructure from the ones that are just building hype. Meta's delay tells me they're feeling the pressure to actually deliver—and that's a good sign.

The rest? They're still moving fast. Still looting.

We'll see what sticks.