Getting on the right side of the ice
The ice has cracked
If you want to understand what's about to happen to American businesses, picture one night in the Antarctic over a century ago.
Ernest Shackleton and 27 men were camped on ice after having lost their ship, Endurance. One night, the ice began to crack beneath them.
The men moved quickly, and those on the wrong side made the jump. In a matter of minutes, the gap became too wide to cross.
This is what I think of as I watch the ground split open beneath the American economy. But unlike in Shackleton’s camp, it’s not physical and immediate. Maybe that’s why many companies on the wrong side don't see what’s coming.
The gap is compounding
This version of the crack is quiet. It shows up gradually, in margins and growth, in recruiting ability and attrition, in conversion and churn.
My colleague Ian recently wrote about a K-shaped pattern inside engineering teams: the ones using AI as leverage are pulling away from the ones that aren't, and the gap is widening every month.
I see the split in our own data on company spending. Since 2023, the top quartile of AI spenders on our platform has more than doubled their revenue, while the bottom quartile has been essentially flat. These aren't just tech companies. A roofing company in Texas started using AI for estimates and job documentation in 2025, and now revenue is up 24%. A window installer in Utah, who has been using AI tools every month for over a year to streamline proposals and quotes, saw revenue grow by 59%. A five-person construction firm in Florida, doing over $20M in revenue, grew 65% last year and is now running multiple LLMs for contract drafting and paperwork that used to eat half their week.
The spread has grown every year, accelerating each time.
And this is from the 50,000+ businesses using Ramp to automate finance, which means it’s skewed toward fast-growing companies and early adopters; the rest of the economy likely looks even starker.
The illusion of safety
As Shackleton’s men knew, freezing doesn’t feel dangerous. It feels calm and even warm. People take off their coats.
Most companies think they'd know if they were on the wrong side of this rift. After all, revenue is still good!
But revenue is a lagging indicator: by the time it moves, the market has already moved. And revenue slowdown isn’t where it ends. It ends in shrinking margins, attrition of talent, and eventual irrelevance.
Endangered industry leaders can even continue to peak after the shift has begun. It’s hard to believe now, but digital photography was invented by Kodak and they still went bankrupt.
Make the jump
There is more urgency than most people realize. In the era of AI, years are now months; months are now days. Waiting until the crack is up against you is how you end up on the wrong side of a permanent divide.
There’s comfort in the old ways, but clinging to nostalgia is how you get left behind. Embrace the new things, learn the new tools, work in new ways. You don't have to move to Ramp. But you have to move. Because every day spent on the wrong side of the divide makes it harder to make the jump.