A Starbucks Conversation About AI (and the Future of Work)

So I’m sitting at Starbucks, getting some work done, and I glance over and see an older gentleman on his laptop finishing up what looked like a Slack call with his team.

And you know me — I’m on this big push right now to meet more people from my LinkedIn connections. If you haven’t gotten one of my messages yet, the gist is simple: I’m reaching out to existing connections to set up a quick 30-minute chat. No agenda besides meeting good people, swapping ideas, and seeing if there’s overlap. If there is, awesome. If there isn’t, it’s still a great exchange.

So… extrovert mode activated.

He wraps up his call, I pull out my earbuds, and I’m like:

“Hey man — hope I’m not interrupting. What are you working on?”

He tells me he’s on the product team for a financial risk platform called Red Oak. Immediately I’m interested, because I’ve got a heavy product mindset. We start talking and the guy lights up — he’s been doing this for 15 years and you could tell he genuinely loves it.

He explained how their platform helps streamline and speed up compliance workflows for RIAs and other financial groups — basically reducing the friction of staying on top of regulatory requirements.

And then the conversation naturally drifted into what everyone is thinking about right now: AI and where this is all going.

Tech is moving faster than the rulebook

I asked him something I’ve been thinking about a lot:

Regulators (FINRA, SEC, etc.) will always lag behind technology — tech moves in weeks and months, regulation moves in years. So how does a company in compliance/risk stay relevant when the ground is shifting under everyone?

What I liked was hearing that they’re not ignoring it. They’re actively working on AI systems on the backend to keep pushing the platform forward.

The pace is getting ridiculous (in the best and worst way)

I told him my honest take: AI is changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up with anything outside of what you’re directly using day-to-day. If you’re not careful, you blink and the entire workflow you “just” learned gets replaced.

He shared a similar sentiment — and we got into what we both think the future looks like:

• More hands-off / voice-first interaction (speech, auditory workflows, less clicking around)
• More high-intent dashboards (fewer features, more leverage)
• More API-driven systems (connect what you need, skip the bloat)

We even touched on RAG systems (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) — basically: letting AI pull from your data as context so it can give smarter, more accurate outputs. Not magic. Just structured inputs + relevant knowledge + better answers.

The real disruption: small teams with leverage

Here’s the part that keeps hitting me:

We’re entering a business environment where a one-person team can do what used to take 5–10 people — and do it in a fraction of the time.

That means:

• Startups can move insanely fast
• “Moats” are thinner than companies think
• Market leaders can go from 35% share to 5% share shockingly fast if they’re asleep at the wheel

And it’s not theoretical.

Even in my own world, the tools are so accessible now that you can build “homegrown” solutions that used to require entire dev teams. I’ve been working on a prototype e-commerce setup for a client recently — database + site + Stripe + email marketing + basic inventory management — and you can get something functional up way faster than people realize.

Do you still want Shopify in a lot of cases? Sure — it’s convenient and polished. But the bigger point is this:

If you know how to put the pieces together, you can move fast, stay lean, and save money.

So what does that mean for the market?

I keep coming back to these questions:

• What will orgs build internally vs. buy from vendors?
• What happens to SaaS when “AI + APIs + a small team” can replicate a lot of what SaaS sells?
• What does this mean for small business owners and service businesses who don’t want to get left behind?

My take: AI is paving the way for an operational efficiency wave across basically every industry. Before, connecting systems and automating workflows was possible, but it wasn’t accessible. Now it’s accessible.

A couple years ago, I understood APIs in a general sense. Today, my depth is completely different — not because I suddenly became a wizard overnight, but because AI accelerated the learning curve and made implementation easier while I’m learning.

That’s the world we’re in now.

Quick takeaway

This whole Starbucks conversation reminded me of something simple:

Opportunities are everywhere — if you’re willing to talk to people.

And the businesses that win over the next few years are going to be the ones that adapt fast, build smart, and don’t treat AI like a side project.

If you enjoyed this, I’m going to be publishing these newsletters once a week.

I’d love feedback:

• What part resonated?
• What do you want me to write about next?
• Are you building with AI right now, or still watching from the sidelines?

And if you want to learn more about me and what I do, you can check out my website at daniel-speiss.com.