Tell me if you’ve heard this story before:

“AI is going to disrupt/replace…”

I was just reading about the D’Ieteren Group. Never heard of them? I bet you’ve written on one of their notebooks. They own Moleskine – among other things. I told you that story to tell you this one.

In 1805, 14 year old orphan Jean-Joseph D’Ieteren took over a small workshop in Brussels making wheels for horse carriages. The company he would found would become one of the most celebrated horse carriage makers throughout Europe. But this carriage didn’t get wiped out by the automobile, two World Wars, or the Great Depression. In fact, it walked away from its core business four times. 221 years later, the D’Ieteren Group operates in more than 40 countries, employs over 32,000 people, and generates annual revenues exceeding $8.2 billion.

Whenever a stranger asks me “what do you do?” I’m never quite sure how to respond…unless I’ve been drinking and then the answer is usually “I own a urinal cake company” or “I sell tank insurance to the military”. 😂

What was I saying? Oh yeah, there’s a lesson in the story of the D’Ieteren Group, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. 🤷🏻‍♂️ IBM used to make calculators, Nokia started as a paper mill, American Express was an express mail order company, and Netflix used to rent physical DVDs via mail order. Water’s wet, the sky is blue, and…OH I remember what I was going to say.

“Never confuse where you live with where you work. And never confuse who you are with what you do.” -Me