Introducing the Power Loom

The story of the Power Loom is an illustrative tale that highlights the impacts of technological shifts on society, how those technological shifts create opportunities for new inventions and how a few people are lucky enough to capture great fortunes from those inventions.

In 1784, Edmund Cartwright invented the Power Loom. This machine, based on earlier mechanical looms, used steam power to weave cloth much faster than was possible by hand. Cartwright was a clergyman, and his intention with the Power Loom was to aid the poor, thinking that faster cloth production would reduce costs and make cloth more affordable for everyone.

However, Cartwright's invention initially did not succeed. The Power Loom was costly and challenging to operate. Over the next 100 years, there were a series of improvements. In the early 1800s, Kenworthy and Bullough commercialized the Power Loom with some success. William Horrocks later perfected it, making it cheaper and easier to operate and inventing a method to enhance the durability of the cloth it produced.

Horrocks's invention was a massive success. The Power Loom revolutionized the textile industry and made Horrocks a very wealthy man. Cartwright, however, did not profit from his invention and died impoverished in 1823.

Truly transformational technologies, such as the discovery and utilization of steam, are rare. Moreover, it is always an iterative process of discovery and advancement that occurs before such technologies achieve commercial success. It is seldom the first few attempts that succeed.

I see many parallels between past transformative technology platform discoveries and our current era, especially AI. I'll elaborate on this in future writings, but I suspect AI will significantly impact technology and society in all aspects of life through gains in efficiency and productivity. We are already seeing signs of that.

However, I do not believe AI, as we see it today, will not disrupt existing businesses and companies as steam did. Instead, it will likely serve as an accelerant for the already dominant platforms of today, such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, and benefit startups with well developed workflows and data that can take advantage of AI, much in the way electricity was provided efficiency gains on top of industrial footprint created by steam power.