Odds and Ends

by Ryan Markiewicz | Mar 26, 2025 | Berlin's Wall

G7 Business Advisory Council

Yesterday was the latest G7 Ukraine Reconstruction Business Advisory Council (BAC) call. As a reminder, this is business and government leaders from the major industrial nations working to help Ukraine clear the path for reconstruction.  Working on:

•        Insurance so people can have coverage to invest there
•        Port infrastructure so goods can get delivered as needed to help the economy
•        Energy to help fix what Russia is knocking out and to plan for the future
•        Housing to replace and rebuild the tens of thousands of homes that have been destroyed
•        Travel, making it easier for people to visit the country and see for themselves what is happening there, as well as the opportunities to rebuild

We have follow-up meetings in Kyiv and Rome coming up. As I’ve mentioned, this is a very impressive and caring group, headed by Dr. Christian Bruch, Chairman of Siemens in Germany (Christian also lived/worked in Buffalo and Erie years ago).  All of them are working hard to help Ukraine continue to resist and survive, keep the lights and heat on during the war, and rebuild afterward.  A good, solid group.

While everyone is glad there are peace talks in the works, some concerns were expressed about how these might end up. I told them that I had faith that things will go the right way and a “fair” peace will be achieved. That’s clearly the hope everyone has.

Signal Group Chat Leak

You know I try to stay out of politics with Berlin’s Wall (and will), but the recent Signal incident reminds me of something Prof G/Scott Galloway always says: “It’s not the f-up that gets you, it is your response to the f’up.”  I agree.

To me, how much easier/smarter would it have been for the folks in this group to say, “Sorry. Our mistake. Lesson learned. Won’t happen again,” and then just STFU?

Trying to deny this was wrong, or to say it was not classified, makes no sense to me. It’s like getting caught by your Mom with your hands and face covered in chocolate and saying, “It wasn’t me who ate that quart of chocolate ice cream.”  I don’t get it.

Everyone makes mistakes. Owning them, learning from them, apologizing for them is pretty acceptable for most people (not all–I know). But since everyone is human, and since humans are imperfect, it seems like it would have been a much smarter way to go (and maybe even Jeffrey Goldberg would not then have come up with the actual types of missiles to use and times of launches for the fighter jets that were on that chain? Maybe he still would have, but maybe not).

There is an old saying, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.”  You think these folks would know that.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Lastly, I’ve been playing around with CHAT GPT since it came out last fall. AI is still an “infant” but will soon become a toddler and then a teen and on and on. Learning very fast and you can already tell that the world will change.

I’m not an IT guy (just the opposite, as the LP IT team will rapidly attest 🤪), but I have “played” with IT from the very beginning. I owned a Kaypro back in the ’70s.  The first “portable/luggable” computer ever. (64k was its maximum disk capacity). (I know–what’s a disk? Hahahaha). But I had one.

And when I was driving a truck, I was one of the first to use beepers. And then cell phones and Blackberries (I know, what’s a blackberry?).  That is why my cell number is 3333. You could actually choose your own number back then. And now AI.

I liken it to driving a car. I can drive really well, but I can’t fix an engine, can’t change spark plugs (I know–what are spark plugs? 🤪) and usually can’t even figure out how to open the hood. But I can drive a car.

Our good friend and former colleague, Moustafa Elhadary, works for OpenAI, which created CHAPGPT.  He told me about a new image creator they’ve come out with. He made this to show me.

Pretty cool, huh?

And then told me to make something, so I made this cartoon out of this picture of my grandson, Ernie. Took less than a minute (and even I could do it! 😉). Pretty cool.

Not sure where all of this will end up taking us.

But, as always…

Onward! -JB