I remember a discussion with Nikhil(one of the best thinkers in the fintech space, btw, and og UPI crew) about utility bill payments, and he pointed out how it has evolved.

  • Bill payments 1.0: You would get a physical electricity bill. You would then go to the office of the electricity company to pay it. (You can imagine how cumbersome the process was).
  • 2.0: Instead of a physical address, you went to the website, very primitive technology, not great UX, but if the website worked that day, you could at least save a trip to the electricity board.
  • 3.0: You don’t go anywhere, be it a physical office or a website, the bill comes to you. Push versus pull. All the complicated details are abstracted. Within 5 seconds (two, three taps) you are done. A single experience for all payments: electricity, water, phone, internet bills.

Now you know that boy has a weakness for frameworks. So I started to see everything in these phases.

The latest being learning.

  • Learning 1.0: You have bought a new piece of software. Let’s say Adobe Photoshop. You would go to an offline class to learn graphic design (and the Photoshop tool).
  • 2.0: You took online courses to learn Photoshop. Maybe you watched a few YouTube videos. You are still getting information.
  • 3.0: Your teacher comes to your tool and teaches you. Push versus pull. The teacher knows how you like to learn. The time it takes you to understand a new concept. They can see you using the tool. Teaches you better ways to use it. This teacher is the new Gemini and ChatGPT that can access your screen in real time: the multi-modal mode.

It is still early days. But I see a world where you just start using a new tool and instead of reading an onboarding document or going through an onboarding flow, you just start using the tool with Advanced Voice (your new teacher). Imagine the possibilities. This is probably the most exciting time in human history when it comes to learning new skills. You’ve always had Youtube, but this is much, much better.