Harvey. Expertise is the moat.
Harvey AI is a legal startup valued at $11 billion that, Huw says, hasn't built a single piece of tech. What it has is a deep understanding of what lawyers need.
THE GIST ON HARVEY AI: "Expert Witness"
What is Harvey?
Harvey AI is a legal startup that hasn't built a single piece of tech. It just understood what lawyers need, and it's been valued at $11 billion. The most valuable thing in the AI revolution is knowing what to do with it.
Law firms charge £500 an hour for junior lawyers to review contracts, find risks and summarise cases. Something that normally takes weeks, Harvey does in minutes, using the same tech you and I use but with a proper understanding of what lawyers actually need.
Why didn't OpenAI just beat them?
OpenAI released its own legal tool: same tech, all the money in the world. And still Sequoia, the firm that backed Google, Apple and WhatsApp, put in the money at that valuation.
You can't just point AI at law and expect it to work. One misstep and a contract review could cost millions. Harvey has spent years earning the trust of the biggest law firms on earth. You can build a better tool, but you can't build that.
Is human experience going to be worthless?
The constant AI narrative is that it will be. Harvey is proof, thank God, that it's not true. The people who deeply understand an industry have gone from a very expensive overhead to the entire competitive advantage.
Amazon built infrastructure. Salesforce built a tool on top of it for salespeople and became worth $200 billion. Technology became a commodity, but the expertise became priceless.
What happens next?
Every industry is about to have its own Harvey. The most valuable people in this revolution won't be the ones who understand AI. They'll be the ones who spent 20 years working out where to use it. If that's you, boy, do you have a bright future.
Will AI make industry experience worth more or less?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
What does Harvey do?
It does in minutes what junior lawyers charged £500 an hour for over weeks: reviewing contracts, finding risks and summarising cases.
Why does Harvey beat a generic tool?
It has spent years earning the trust of the biggest law firms, and one misstep in a contract review could cost millions.
Who wins in the AI era, according to Huw?
The people who spent 20 years working out where to use it.
See you on the next one.
What should the next one be? Suggest a topic for Huw to explain
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