The AI Future Worries Thai Lee, And It's Coming Faster Than You Think
Thai Lee is a billionaire businesswoman, and CEO of SHI International, one of the largest woman-owned businesses in the United States.
Born in Bangkok, Thailand, to Korean parents, she moved to the U.S. as a teenager, went to Amherst College, and later became the first Korean woman to graduate from Harvard Business School with an MBA in 1985. In 1989, she and her then-husband, Leo KoGuan bought a small IT company, renamed it and grew it into SHI International, which has 35 offices around the world, and revenue of $14-$15 billion. As an aside, KoGuan is also a large and vocal shareholder in Tesla.
I interviewed Lee for a story about a partnership between Nvidia and SHI, and asked her for some of her thoughts about leadership, AI and entrepreneurship. Below is an edited version of that part of our interview. Lee built her business by moving quickly to seize opportunities. I was most struck in the interview when she talked about her worries for what she said was an AI-dominated distant future – but what she meant was merely 10 or 20 years from now.
Are there rules you live by in your business life, things you'd advise for other entrepreneurs?
Move fast, and be opportunistic. We're going to see a lot of disruptions.
Do you spend time thinking about risk, or de-risking? Or are you more about action?
Fortunately we can experiment. We've achieved some scale and have access to resources, so we, we can be a little bit more risk seeking. Whereas smaller companies probably need to be more more mindful of how they spend their resources.
I mean, you'll find that the largest, the most profitable companies these days are spending 10s of billions to prepare for future that is unknown. Microsoft, Meta, Google, AWS spend $40 to $80 billion each on research and development.
What makes you different from other leaders?
I was very fortunate that we started the business 36 years ago in an industry, PC, which was changing really rapidly. That's what I mean when I say, I move fast. I like really moving fast to really take advantage of the opportunities that arise as the market's changing.
As we've grown, we are still trying to maintain that entrepreneurial spirit.
The best opportunities arise when markets are changing.
Yes.
It also sounds like you really like to win, which I appreciate.
You do see a lot of athletes in technology companies.
Are you an athlete?
Not at all. I have been glued to my desk chair.
What would you say to young people who want to be leaders at this moment when the world is crying out for leadership on so many fronts?
I would say get a YouTube premium subscription. You will find every topic covered by some of the world's experts, whether it's on leadership or on technology or just, you know, fast moving companies. It's a wealth of information.
I find it's better than the formal education I've had and it's really source of incredible learning.
Curiosity is probably the trait that that would give you the most advantage in life now.
How to ask the right question, how to prompt the AI?
You know, in the AI world, knowledge is gonna the marginal cost of obtaining knowledge is gonna go to zero, I think.
Not wisdom, though.
Well, that's different.
What worries you about this economy or how worried are you about this economy?
I do think about the technology that's coming. I'm not worried about the economy as much. I am worried about like what happens many years on the road when you have physical AI robot that can do manual work substantially better than human beings 24/7. What happens when a lot of the jobs can be automated?
I don't know what happens, when humans will face the purpose of life and other things, but that's many years down the road.
In the meanwhile, I do think that most all of our lives will be improved significantly. Productivity is going to be improved through AI, agentic AI and all the physical AI robots and to come.
I don't know about 10-20 years from now though.
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