April 5, 2026
Athletify
@anthonycorletti

Among the most successful ventures in terms of community building and economic engines is professional athletics.

Professional athletics demonstrates a powerful combination of massive, deeply engaged communities and enormous economic output: leagues like the NFL generate tens of billions annually, while events like the FIFA World Cup engage billions worldwide. Few other areas of the global economy command this level of attention, identity, and sustained revenue at scale, until now. Enter the era of knowledge work athletification.

With OpenAI's reported acquisition of TBPN, we will likely see more athletics-like dynamics emerge in technology. In TBPN's case, the broadcast layer, the "ESPN for tech" if you will, moves into focus. Over time, adjacent layers like scouting and recruiting, investing and team-building, and performance tooling will follow.

Writing software is becoming increasingly commoditized. What remains differentiated is how we build brand and trust, craft experiences, and develop a deep understanding of the human needs our products serve.

If you're building software, systems, and products for people, it is more critical than ever to focus on the outcomes they can achieve with your product in the loop. It is easier than ever to make lateral moves between products and services.

Think of it this way: if you're building a training system for professional soccer players, what makes your system indispensable? Teams win more with it than without it, with clear, causal links to performance in matches. Simple.

For systems like this, the metrics that matter are not DAUs, MRR, or engagement percentages. What matters is whether the team is winning, and whether decisions made with your system consistently lead to better outcomes.

Winning transcends price. It gives your business the value proposition it needs. You want your users to say, "We need this because we win with it."

It is time to rethink how we measure product success in a world where AI is making software a near-commodity.

Measure for their outcome, not your margin.