Martín Migoya | 14th edition of the NOA Economic Forum

Thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here.

Well, you were just talking about 2003 when we got together to have beers at a bar to talk about Globant, and it reminds me a lot that the first things we talked about were, first, the freedom to go out into the world and conquer it, even being nothing in Argentina, because we had nothing in that moment, just four friends and a flag, basically. And the second thing we talked about was that, well, when we have opportunities, not everything has to happen in Buenos Aires. And I remember that feeling of federalism, we started applying it the very year we founded Globant in 2003, and in 2005 when we won Google and became the first company in Google's history to develop software outside of Googleplex. Instead of bringing it to Buenos Aires, guess where we took it? To Tandil. And there began a concept that was super valuable for us: to truly become a federal company that could create opportunities, instead of making our best minds take the highway and export their talent with their bodies. We became an idea of importing those opportunities. That's where it started. That's why this invitation makes so much sense. I thank you very much, it's an honor to talk about those values that have always, absolutely always, represented me. So, I forgot your question.

Clearly, but very well. No, the question was how you perceived things after this experience at Argentina Week.

Yes. Well, regarding Argentina Week, let's see, again I'll start with something from the past. Globant did its IPO, its public offering of shares, in 2014. We were going to launch it in 2012, but it got complicated due to various problems. We went out in 2014. I remember that in 10 days, that roadshow involved 90 meetings. 10 days, that was nine or ten meetings a day for 10 business days. Meetings of about 40 minutes with pension funds and the most important investors in the United States, from Citadel to Silver Lake, passing through BlackRock. It's everything you can imagine. And of the 40 minutes I had, I could only dedicate 10 to talking about my business. The other 30 minutes were spent explaining why Judge Griesa wanted to seize the Libertad frigate. Why the exchange rate gap really had to be looked at with a certain accounting skill that Americans don't have. And I was explaining inexplicable things. So, there's no deeper understanding of the tailwind we're living today than when at last week's Argentina Week we stopped having to explain those things and started explaining the basics: that we're going to keep fiscal accounts in order, we're going to make the long-term structural reforms that are needed, and then we're going to do all the boring work of maintaining that, making it function. And the truth is, being able to talk about your business and that it's hosted—well, today Globant is very big and is in 35 countries, but it was born here—and that it's hosted in a country with that long-term vision and that vision for the future, is spectacular. Now, as with anything valuable and difficult, unfortunately, it doesn't happen in 6 months, or a year, or two, it happens in the very long term. So, in the very long term, this is like going to the doctor and he tells you, 'Hey, you have to go to the gym, Martín.' Okay. Well, I went to the gym once. Well, now you have to go every day. Brazil has been doing this same thing for 20 years, going to Brazil Week in New York to talk about Brazil, and that's how it's going for them. The truth is, beyond political swings, a solid economy, an economy that respects its currency and takes care of it, makes people want to invest in Brazil, and it's the same thing we're starting to live now in Argentina. So I can't explain the joy it gave me, first as an Argentine entrepreneur, second as president of Débor, which is the foundation where we've been pushing these values for many years. I remember during Alberto's presidency, there was a kind of anti-business fury everywhere, and with a group of people we said, 'Hey, this can't be, we have to somehow promote the message that companies do good, that we create jobs, that we think about the country's long term.' And the truth is it worked spectacularly, and it was many of the things we saw later, plus obviously all the push that these foundations give, especially Débor. So the truth is, I was very happy about what's happening. I think, like all long-term work, it's one step and you have to keep taking many in the same direction, but above all, maintaining the things we're doing well. And I think President Milei understands that, and I heard him in New York too. He is absolutely clear in his message and absolutely devastating in how he is perceived on the other side. And by the way, it's the envy of many other countries. I can't tell you the number of friends who now call me, obviously, who want to come to Patagonia. 'Martín, you have something in Patagonia, I want to visit you,' whatever. That didn't happen before. And they also say, 'Yes, the truth is, in our country we should be doing the same thing Javier is doing.'

Well, it's great to talk about this. It's practically impossible to follow everything that's happening in the tech world. I work in that, and it's what we try to do, try to isolate our clients from all that noise so it's not an impossible thing to follow. I believe artificial intelligence, obviously, has arrived to stay at Globant. We've been investing for about 12 years uninterruptedly in AI. We've been understanding what the future role of the human will be. We believe the human will stop creating lines of code to orchestrate agents and supervise agents. We believe this is happening in our industry, at least, something very similar to what happened with the cloud industry, with Amazon Web Services. Before, to do hosting, you had to buy servers, buy connectivity, pray you didn't have a traffic spike, hire people, and suddenly Jeff Bezos said, 'Ah, I have some servers left over from Black Friday, and I'm going to split them and deliver them easily via the web for people to use, and I'll scale them as much as they need.' And he created a terribly easy, accessible, and scalable proposal for all companies in the world, which gave rise to a new industry called the cloud. And on top of that new industry, hundreds of new companies were created, thousands and millions of new companies that transformed the economy. And this is very similar in the services industry where I am. Obviously, we're going to do things much faster than before, but there will be 100 times more things to do. Just paying the technical debt, which is everything we never did and had to do. Two, changing the interfaces. 100%, well, 99.9% of the interfaces of the applications we use are obsolete, they're not up to what consumers are expecting. 100% of a company's processes can be rethought with this new technology, and the human can be placed in a totally different position than they are today. So I believe all these trends mean we're going to be much more efficient in what we do, but at the same time, we're going to have to make many more changes. And this technology gets into everywhere, and I also see it as a machine for weaving connections and a machine for making people evolve in the way they work. In a way, I don't know if you've ever heard of Jevons' Paradox, which says, 'Well, if a necessary resource becomes cheaper, then it's not that the same amount is consumed as before, it's that much more is consumed.' Well, this is technology. Technology is necessary everywhere, and this will make much more of it be consumed and will give rise, as in our case, to invent totally coordinated services like what happened with Amazon, but now in professional services, where we'll be able to deliver small units of service that aren't charged by the hour or at a fixed price, but are charged based on the consumption of what each company needs, and that they can do from a website with the same ease as buying an Amazon server. That is the new proposal we are bringing to the market, the new idea of how to revolutionize the professional services industry and create what is called the AI Native Services Industry. So, I see many changes. What I'm talking about in my industry, which is the one I know, can be applied absolutely to all industries. I believe we are obligated today to rethink the models with which we operate our companies, because if we don't do it, our competition will. So, we're not in an era where you have to ship technology. You don't just have to deliver technology, you have to deliver technology very quickly. And that's what will make us different from the guys here in Tucumán, who are many. We have here in the Tucumán office almost 200 Glovers who have been working since 2012, and today I'm talking to them about this. They are very fast, very fast. They are already thinking about how to do this new wave of technology. Those are the ones who will change the future of the economy with new companies, and all business models will be affected. There isn't one that will remain standing as it was before, and that's great. It's scary, it's scary for all of us, but also, a moment of uncertainty is equally good for opportunities.

Well, each industry will have its own reinvention. Many e-commerce sites like Amazon, for example, are saying, 'No, I'm not going to let agents come in to buy on my site. I'm going to create my own agent, but I'm not going to let third-party agents enter my site and buy here, because I need the traffic, I need the eyeballs inside.' And I believe that's a great... it might be a good idea in the short term, but in the long term, it's a transcendental error, because what's happening there is that it's practically impossible for an entrepreneur not to come up with, 'Look, I'll do it, I'll let people in calmly, that's why I'm creating it.' So, at the same time that crises are created, opportunities are created. And today, I believe one of the main things to pay attention to in this AI transformation is to try to isolate yourself from the noise. We all know this technology is here to stay, that it's going to change many of the things we do, but we have to avoid that continuous analysis paralysis. Saying, 'No, this model is better today, tomorrow it's this one, the day after it's this one, no, and now this does this better.' And now Cloud Code came out that does this, and tomorrow Gemini 5 will come out that will do something else. You have to find ways—which is what we're working on a lot at Globant—and be able to build with what you have. And if tomorrow something new comes along, well, we connect to that something new, but there are ways to isolate yourself from all that noise, but not through an excess of analysis, but by having a decision on where to go.

Well, in Tucumán we have, as I was saying, almost 200 Glovers. They work for Disney, they work for Electronic Arts, they work for our main clients. Globant is a machine today for having the most spectacular logos, from Apple to Meta, passing through Google, Disney, Electronic Arts, Riot Games—I don't know if you or your kids play League of Legends or Valorant. Well, those games are made by Riot Games. Globant is Riot Games' main technology provider. Or if you go see the Globant logo at the World Cup, which in 2021 went pretty well, and that means not only that Globant wants to project itself there, but also that we work for FIFA, and many of the things being done at FIFA are being done here in Tucumán. Today I was talking to the team that's doing it. So the people of Tucumán will be present at the World Cup with the technologies you'll see at the World Cup, and that fills us with pride. And also in Formula 1 races, there's another Globant Formula 1 team—these are 360 relationships, relationships where we sponsor them but they also buy technology from us, otherwise I don't do any deal of any kind. So, for example, we built for the LA Clippers, the most important basketball team in Los Angeles, the experience of their new arena, their new stadium. It's an experience that works only with your face. You enter, you sign up on the app, you enter, there are no turnstiles, you walk straight through, there are some guys with iPads checking if you have a ticket or not. Then you go, you sit in the stadium, the stadium has seats, each seat has four sensors, a microphone, four buttons, and a sensor for whether someone is sitting or not. So with all those buttons, you can create games. For example, who screams the loudest? Because the owner of the Clippers is a fanatic for people going to the stadium and screaming. But who screams the loudest? So in different rounds of screaming, the one who screams the loudest lowers the stadium, for example. That's a game. So the seat isn't a seat, it's a gaming platform. And when you go to the shops all around the court, instead of going with your card, buying, making a line, you enter with your face, grab the cap and go, grab the hamburger and go, and it automatically appears on your app and your credit card is charged. That experience, which seems trivial, is incredible. And if you ever go to see it at the Los Angeles Clippers stadium, it's the most technologically advanced experience in the world. Part of that experience was created with people, with engineers who are here in Tucumán, plus others in many other places in the world. And that's what Formula 1 is asking us for now, to use that same technology for the paddocks and for the special, higher-value entries for Formula 1. So, what can I tell you? It's spectacular. The truth is, I have to say that my biggest surprise as I built Globant was finding the extraordinary density of talent that exists in every Argentine province. In some we could be, in others we couldn't. Today we are in 14 provinces, and Globant is made up of 30,000 globally, or 29,000 globally, of which 6,000 are here in Argentina, of which only 2,000 are in Buenos Aires, and the other 4,000 are people from the interior among the 14 cities we have. So we can say that Globant's spirit is an innate federal spirit. The main talent of Globant—when you meet with Globant's top management, no, this one comes from Córdoba, no, this one comes from Rosario, no, this is a guy who lived in Bahía Blanca, no, this one is from Mendoza, from La Plata. So I believe all of Argentina's talent is spectacular, and here in Tucumán, not only is it no exception, but it's outstanding.

I was sitting there, and an agent of mine that I'm using now to do code was calling me because it needed an answer, so I was answering it. I like to program, I'm a nerd, I'm an electronic engineer. I grab all my management and tell them, 'Yesterday was this. Get up to speed and don't come telling me nonsense because I know what I'm talking about.' So, get up to speed and study it yourselves. Guys who are already managing billions, right? And I'm an extreme user, but on my musical side, I don't use that profile much, but when I do, I discovered tools for making music with AI. But well, we just discussed here with a former congresswoman sitting in front of me about what the limit of this is, right? How do I make my mind stop thinking that this is something that's going to destroy everything? And I don't think that. And for me, a product, which can be anything from a glass to an iPhone, passing through a work of art, music, a song, a book, a service, in reality isn't that thing, but a bridge of connection between two humans. We humans are constantly seeking, from where we were born, to be connected with other humans. And those connection tools are Globant, the music we create, the books we read, the products we consume, from a package of chips at the supermarket. It's an expression of connection between two humans. So there, artificial intelligence has a brutal limit, because AI is not human, it's artificial intelligence. So it can help us as a tool to execute an intention, but it cannot replace the fact of the intention of two humans connecting. So there, I find a limit, saying, 'Well, up to here, up to here it goes.' But well, that doesn't mean it won't change many of the things we do every day. And then, hey, there's something for everything, friend. The other day I had to go to a conference, and naturally, what I would have done is read the entire list of attendees and study them one by one. Well, I put all that into Claude, passed it through a tool of ours called Globant AI, and it analyzed all the profiles and told me, 'The best thing you should do is meet with these guys for this, this, and this.' And it made me a list, and then I said, 'Well, but I want to propose this idea to them, who are the most suitable and who have the most potential?' It did a whole probabilistic study of who they were. So, the truth is, it's used for absolutely everything that is intellectual work, but it won't stop there. This topic of connecting AI isn't just about information and decisions, but it's going to move to the physical world. So when AI not only has an impact on information but moves to the world of robots, there will be a second revolution. So this is something that won't stop and will be great to see in the coming years. And far from being a threat to humans, I believe it will be an incredible relief and a reinvention of our work like we've never seen in the past.

Thank you very much. A huge pleasure.

A pleasure, José. Thank you very much. Yeah.