The Springboks may have solved a problem that business is only beginning to understand. As AI reshapes work, the world's most valuable resource might not be intelligence. It might be experience.

The Savage Take is where EasyEquities CEO Charles Savage shares what he’s seeing, learning and thinking about each week, in markets, business and the bigger shifts shaping how people build wealth and ownership.

From Charles 

Watching the Springboks this weekend, it was impossible not to be blown away by the depth, diversity and sheer brilliance of the young players coming through.

Arguably the envy of the rugby world.

What struck me most was not the players themselves. It was the system behind them.

South Africa did not wake up one day with the best rugby depth in the world. We fought hard for it. We built structures. We invested in schools, clubs, academies and provincial pathways. We attracted coaching talent and created development programs that reach from grassroots rugby all the way through to the professional game.

It did not happen overnight. It was not a straight line.

The post-apartheid era produced some of the best and worst rugby we had to offer along the way. There were false starts, setbacks, poor decisions and periods where many doubted the direction entirely.

Yet here we are. Not perfect. Still learning. Still evolving. Still deepening the talent pool. But unquestionably possessing the greatest Springbok structures and development pathways we have ever built.

The results are now visible to everyone.

Only a handful of these young players will ever pull on a Springbok jersey. But thousands more will emerge as quality rugby players capable of filling the ranks across every level of the game. That is what great talent systems do. They produce far more talent than ultimately reaches the top.

And that's when it hit me.

Perhaps rugby has something important to teach us about the future of work in an AI world.

Because unlike most professions, these young rugby players are probably safer from AI than almost anyone. In fact, AI may strengthen the system. Coaching expertise can be distributed further. Conditioning programs can become more accessible. Performance analysis can reach schools and clubs that previously could not afford it. The talent pool may become even deeper.

The game still belongs to the players. AI simply helps develop them.

Business may not be so fortunate.

For generations, companies carried much of the burden of developing young talent. Graduate programs. Internships. Junior analysts. Trainee accountants. Young developers. Associates. The work was not always productive. Developing talent is often expensive, time-consuming and frustrating. Senior people teach, review, correct mistakes and provide context. We did it because we understood something important. The junior role was never really about today's output. It was about creating tomorrow's experience.

AI changes that equation.

Suddenly one experienced person can do the work that previously required a small team. The experienced lawyer needs fewer candidate attorneys. The experienced developer needs fewer junior coders. The experienced marketer needs fewer coordinators. The experienced analyst needs fewer graduates.

Experience plus AI becomes a superpower.

That is wonderful news for those with experience. It may also extend careers dramatically. Retirement itself may become a concept we revisit. If AI removes much of the repetitive work, experienced people can remain productive, relevant and valuable for far longer than previous generations.

The concern lies elsewhere.

Experience remains the one thing AI cannot manufacture. It can explain it. Simulate it. Reference it. But it cannot give it to you. It comes from doing. From mistakes. From pressure. From responsibility. From surviving things.

And if AI removes the need for junior roles, where exactly do young people acquire the experience that business will eventually demand from them?

Perhaps the Springboks offer a clue.

Rassie Erasmus does not simply select the best team for today. He is constantly building the best team for tomorrow. Young players are introduced before they are ready. They are exposed to pressure before they are comfortable. They make mistakes in public. They learn in real games. Sometimes it costs South Africa the perfect result on the day.

But Rassie understands something many leaders miss. The objective is not simply to win today's match. The objective is to ensure there are future Springboks capable of winning tomorrow's.

South African rugby does not produce depth simply by identifying talent. It produces depth by creating experience. Deliberately. Relentlessly. Systematically. The result is that when injuries come, retirements happen or form disappears, another player is ready. Not because they studied the game. Because they played it.

Perhaps this is where education faces its greatest challenge. Our education systems were largely built for a world where information was scarce. The future may require them to prepare students for a world where information is abundant but experience is scarce.

Less focus on memorising answers. More focus on solving problems. Less classroom. More experience. Less testing knowledge. More testing outcomes.

Perhaps the CV of the future looks very different. Not a list of qualifications. A list of experiences. Projects built. Businesses started. Communities led. Problems solved. Evidence of having carried the ball.

If AI becomes universally available, knowledge becomes commoditised. Experience becomes the scarce asset.

And scarce assets tend to become valuable.

The future constraint on economic growth may not be capital.

It may not be technology.

It may not even be AI.

It may be our ability to produce experienced humans.

The Springbok system is ultimately a machine for doing exactly that. Not producing rugby players. Producing experienced rugby players.

There is a difference.

And I suspect business, education and governments will spend the next decade rediscovering it.

Markets

The week began with the Fed and ended with diplomacy.

Kevin Warsh chaired his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting and delivered exactly what markets feared. Rates held at 3.50% to 3.75%, as expected. What nobody was fully prepared for was the dot plot. Nine of eighteen policymakers now pencilling in at least one rate hike before year-end. The easing bias is gone. The post-meeting statement ran to 130 words. Price stability is the stated North Star. Wednesday was the S&P 500's worst Fed day under a new chair since 1994.

Then Thursday happened.

President Trump signed an interim agreement with Iran at the Palace of Versailles. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world's oil flows, is set to reopen. Brent fell sharply on the news. Gas prices dropped below $4 a gallon in the United States for the first time since March. The inflation premium that had been baking rate-hike expectations toward 90% probability started unwinding in real time.

For South Africa, the story was simpler. Lower oil prices matter. Every dollar off the oil price is effectively a small tax cut for an economy that imports most of its energy.

On the same day, Trump announced that Intel would design and manufacture chips for Apple domestically. Semiconductors surged. Intel jumped over 10%. The Nasdaq recovered Wednesday's losses and added more. Three of the four major indices closed the week at fresh record highs. US markets closed Thursday for the Juneteenth holiday, ending a shortened but eventful week firmly in the green.

The rand weakened modestly through the week despite improving risk sentiment and lower oil prices. Much of the move reflected the market repricing higher-for-longer US interest rates following Kevin Warsh's first Fed meeting. Even so, lower energy prices should ease pressure on South Africa's import bill and inflation outlook. The SARB, which raised rates 25 basis points to 7% in May, now has more room to hold at July's meeting. The two-hike trajectory priced in weeks ago has already softened to one.

The Savage Take

The greatest risk of the AI era may not be unemployment.

It may be under-experience.

A generation of young people armed with extraordinary technology but denied the opportunities to develop judgment through doing.

South African rugby offers a different model. Rassie understands that future champions cannot be manufactured when they are needed. They must be developed years in advance. Sometimes at the expense of today's result.

The same may soon be true for business. The organisations that thrive will not be those that use AI to eliminate junior talent. They will be those that use AI to accelerate it.

The future bottleneck will not be access to intelligence. It will be access to experience.

And just as no one learns rugby without carrying a ball, nobody becomes exceptional in business without carrying responsibility.

The companies, universities and countries that figure that out first may build the Springbok systems of the AI age. And those systems may become the most valuable assets of all.

Because experience remains the one thing that cannot be downloaded, prompted or generated.

It still has to be earned.

Just ask a Springbok.

The world is not waiting. What you do next is the only thing that matters.

Stay Savage,

Charles

 The Savage Take is published weekly.
Opinions are Charles Savage’s own. Not financial advice. 

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