Every company claims to have an AI strategy. Blaine Mathieu says that’s hardly the point.
In this episode, Eric Chemi sits down with Blaine, founder of the River Group and author of “The River Doesn’t Wait,” to unpack why a technology strategy is table stakes for the AI era and how the real competitive edge comes from an operational strategy. Eric and Blaine dig into the “river” analogy behind the new book and the importance of a content marketer’s POV (Blaine’s son) in adding that context. The conversation also covers whether size still matters for the agentic era and how the gap between early adopters and laggards is widening faster than in any past technology shift.
Blaine Mathieu spent more than 30 years as a CEO, Chief Product Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Gartner analyst before founding The River Group, which helps senior executives navigate agentic AI disruption across their organizations. In his new book, “The River Doesn’t Wait” distills that experience into a practical framework for deciding where to retrofit existing operations and where to reimagine them entirely. You can get your copy here: https://therivergroup.ai/book/
To learn more about Blaine’s work, visit: https://therivergroup.ai/