🔥Today’s layer of competition isn’t about products or ideas anymore, it’s about access to the talents

Last week, Daniel Iankilevich, co-founder of Expio, attended a standup by Oskar Hartmann (Top-18 business angels globally) and shared several observations worth pausing on.

1️⃣ Scale of the economy & long-term thinking
The global economy grew from ~$21T in 1980 to ~$200T by 2025. A projection mentioned on stage: it could double again by 2041. It reminds that long-term thinking is becoming a competitive advantage again

2️⃣ AI: we’re still early
One line resonated deeply: “Even the engineers behind ChatGPT are sometimes surprised by what it can do”. It feels like we’re still in a phase of rapid discovery, which means early testing and adoption matter more than polished strategies

3️⃣ Concentration of influence
Around 570 companies generate up to 80% of global economic output. Seen through this lens, ecosystems, partnerships, and smart entry points become just as important as the product itself

4️⃣ Unicorns & social dynamics
Some numbers that stayed with us:
• $1.3T spent globally on searching for and building unicorns
• Founders come equally from business and non-business backgrounds
• First-time and serial entrepreneurs
• Migrants and locals
• Up to 90% of unicorn founders come “from villages”
• Immigrants created ~55% of unicorns while representing ~3% of the population

Even if some details are debatable, the practical takeaway is clear:
talent is widely distributed but access is not.

And this is where a new layer of competition emerges. Winning today isn’t only about ideas, products, or speed as earlier, it’s about how quickly teams connect to the right people, knowledge, and markets, especially as regulation and market complexity increase.