Sarah Tavel has interviewed Borislav Nikolov, the CTO of Rekki. As background, Rekki has a marketplace for restaurants and their wholesale suppliers. They deal with thousands of restaurants making thousands of orders every day. This creates a stream of nitty-gritty engineering tasks to glue things together like payments, risk management, and complicated business logic. Every time the operations team had a new need or a tweak to the system, they’d create a task for the engineering team. Until one day Borislav realized: what if I can empower everyone on the team to “solve their own problems?”. We all have something to learn from how Borislav approached this question.
The “Ah Ha” Moment
Facing a mounting backlog of engineering tasks, Borislav Nikolov realized that with advancements like GPT-3.5, non-engineers could now write SQL queries. This epiphany led to empowering domain experts to address their own problems, reducing dependency on the engineering team. He observed that traditional no-code tools lacked the expressiveness required for complex tasks, but AI bridged this gap, enabling a broader range of employees to contribute directly to solutions.
Redefining the CTO Role and Building Infrastructure
Transitioning to an AI-native company transformed Borislav's role from task execution to infrastructure development. He likened his new responsibilities to that of a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider, focusing on creating secure, scalable environments where employees could safely deploy their solutions. This shift emphasized the importance of providing the right tools and primitives to enable autonomy while maintaining system integrity.
Driving Organizational Behavior Change
To facilitate this transformation, Borislav initiated a cultural shift within Rekki. He began by educating the team on large language models, fostering a mindset that encouraged self-reliance and problem-solving. By challenging the preconceived notion that only engineers could code, he cultivated an environment where employees felt empowered to tackle issues directly, leading to increased efficiency and innovation.
The Bigger Picture: AI-Native as a Mindset Shift
Three critical insights emerge from Rekki's transformation:
Democratization of Technical Capability: AI has leveled the playing field, allowing individuals without traditional coding backgrounds to engage in technical problem-solving. This democratization means that more employees can contribute to innovation, leading to a more agile and responsive organization.
Evolution of Leadership Roles: Leaders must transition from directive roles to facilitators of innovation. By providing the necessary tools and fostering a culture of autonomy, leaders can unlock the full potential of their teams, driving the organization forward in the AI era.
Overcoming Organizational Psychology Barriers: The most significant hurdle in becoming AI-native is not technological but psychological. Overcoming resistance to change and fostering a culture that embraces experimentation and learning is crucial. Leaders must address these psychological barriers to fully realize the benefits of AI integration.
The question for founders isn't whether this transformation happens, but how quickly your organizations adapt. The companies that drive this change aren't just adding AI features - they're fundamentally rethinking what it means to be an organization in the AI era.