Joseph Schumpeter wrote Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy at Harvard and published it in 1942. Its seventh chapter, only a few pages long, gave the world the phrase creative destruction. Capitalism, he wrote, keeps revolutionizing its economic structure from within, destroying the old one and building a new one.
He was writing against the textbook picture of firms competing on price. The competition that counts comes from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply and the new type of organization. That kind of competition hits existing firms at their foundations.
Agents bring a new type of organization
Most talk about AI and competition stays at the level of price, with the same service delivered cheaper. Schumpeter would point at the last item on his list. A firm that runs a process with a handful of people and a fleet of agents has a different cost structure and a different idea of what a team is.
He also thought the entrepreneur’s moment passes. Once innovation becomes routine work inside big companies, the heroic founder matters less. Large firms with data and distribution will absorb what AI start-ups prove, and the shakeout among the start-ups will come quickly.