Ten Metres

The paradox is sitting right there in the same building.

Inside the boardroom: a debate. Heated. Earnest. Expensive.Do we double down on the three-year platform programme we scoped back then?

Back then when the assumptions were different. The stack was different. The cost curve was different. When “delivery” meant headcount, vendors, and waiting. Close to a million already sunk. Still no meaningful release. Still more money to burn. Still more months to lose.

Now step outside the boardroom. Walk ten metres.

Marketing. Headphones on. She’s talking to her laptop like it’s a colleague. Three hours ago she watched a YouTube clip over breakfast. A young entrepreneur, building in public. It sparked something.

So she opens Google AI Studio. She uses her voice. She vibe-codes. Eight minutes later she has most of the same platform: clean UI, better analytics, collaboration baked in, workflows that match how people actually work. Backend and security still need proper engineering. Fine.

But the point is brutal: it’s 80% there for the cost of a coffee break.

That’s not an “AI discussion”. That’s economics. That’s distribution. That’s your business model shifting while the board argues over last quarter’s deck.

And it forces the question leaders avoid: When do you draw a line under sunk cost—internal time, external vendors, programme governance—and take the faster path that compounds every week?

Because the new constraint isn’t capability. It’s permission. It’s leadership courage. It’s the willingness to say, out loud:

We’re not paying 2023 prices for 2026 delivery.

If you’re a CEO or CFO, here’s the test. How many of your biggest budget lines still assume software is scarce, slow, and bespoke? If the answer is “most of them,” your budgeting mechanism is the real legacy system. And it’s due for a rewrite.

The good news is simple. Once you call time on the old programme logic, this gets easier than you think. Start with one move: call that marketing manager into the boardroom. Not for a demo. For a conversation.

Ask one question:

How did you just spend your morning rewriting the economics of this business?