The Originality Metric: Jonathan Aberman on Competing with AI Homogenization

Jonathan Aberman's twenty-five-year journey from venture capitalist to founder reveals a fundamental truth: the most meaningful ventures emerge from identifying genuine problems others overlook. After witnessing organizations worldwide struggle to measure AI's actual impact on human value, he launched Hupside to quantify something previously considered too subjective. When everyone has access to the same AI tools delivering identical outputs, differentiation becomes impossible, and competitive advantage dissolves. What distinguishes Jonathan as a leader is his unwavering commitment to balancing purpose with pragmatism—a philosophy shaped decades ago by an observation that he would spend his life managing the tension between wanting to be good and wanting to be rich. Throughout his career, he has consistently pursued ventures that serve both purposes, driven by the belief that entrepreneurship answers two fundamental life questions: Why am I here, and what do I do? Returning to active leadership after years of advising entrepreneurs has been both humbling and clarifying for him, revealing the vulnerability and passion that comes with genuine ownership. The path forward requires organizations and individuals to recognize that the AI era will not be won by those who most efficiently adopt technology, but by those who most effectively combine human originality with AI capability. If you're ready to understand your own originality and how you compare to AI, take the OIQ Challenge at https://www.hupside.com/oiq-challenge—discover your originality archetype and see how you approach novel problem-solving in ways artificial intelligence cannot replicate. In a world increasingly characterized by AI-generated sameness, your originality is your competitive advantage, and measuring it is the first step toward leveraging it. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.