The primary goal of IoT is to solve business problems, not to

Host: The warehouse was silent, save for the low hum of machines and the soft buzz of fluorescent lights hanging above like tired stars. Dust floated in the air, caught in the shafts of morning sunlight that crept through the broken blinds. Rows of metal shelves, half-empty and coated with age, stretched into the distance like the bones of a forgotten factory.

At a steel table near the center, Jack stood hunched over a tablet, the screen’s glow painting his face in pale blue. He looked focused, but not content. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against a stack of boxes, her hair tied back, sleeves rolled, eyes sharp and questioning.

A half-empty coffee cup sat between them, steam long gone.

Jeeny: “You know, Maciej Kranz once said — ‘The primary goal of IoT is to solve business problems, not to deliver a cool project or new technology.’”

Jack: (smirking, without looking up) “Yeah, and every executive quotes that after spending a million dollars on sensors that tell them the coffee machine’s out of beans.”

Host: A faint laugh escaped Jeeny, but it wasn’t amusement — more like exhaustion. The factory floor felt like a graveyard for ideas, each prototype and unfinished device lying there, a monument to ambition without purpose.

Jeeny: “That’s exactly the point, Jack. We’re all chasing ‘cool’. Smart shelves, smart locks, smart bins. But none of it’s solving anything that matters.”

Jack: “You sound like a consultant’s brochure. ‘Solve problems, not create gimmicks.’ The truth is — nobody buys the problem. They buy the shine.”

Jeeny: “Do you really believe that? That people only care about the shine?”

Jack: “In business? Absolutely. Look at our last pitch. They didn’t want to hear about improved logistics. They wanted to see a dashboard that looked like a spaceship. That’s the game.”

Host: He tapped the tablet, and a diagram appeared — lines, nodes, and data streams like a digital nervous system. He zoomed in, the screen reflecting in his grey eyes, cold and metallic.

Jack: “We built the perfect predictive system — real-time monitoring, anomaly detection, all of it. And what did they say? ‘It’s too technical. Can you make it sexier?’”

Jeeny: (pushing off the boxes, her voice rising) “Maybe because you forgot who you were solving for! You built for yourself, not for them. Kranz was right — IoT isn’t about the toys, it’s about the people using them. The business. The need.”

Host: Her words cut through the room like a spark, and the machines, as if listening, whirred softly. Jack finally looked up, his jaw tight, his fingers still hovering over the screen.

Jack: “You think I don’t know that? You think I didn’t start with a purpose? I did. But purpose doesn’t pay salaries. Hype does. Investors don’t care if we save a logistics manager three hours a day. They care about headlines.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why we keep failing. Because every time we trade the real for the shiny, we lose trust. Look at Siemens’ early IoT projects — they started with flashy demos, but it wasn’t until they focused on predictive maintenance, real factory problems, that they saw real ROI. They stopped showing off, and started solving.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flickered, a mix of memory and frustration. The sound of a machine starting somewhere in the distance echoed through the metal beams, filling the silence between their words.

Jack: “You talk like solving problems is easy. You think customers know what they need? Half the time they don’t. They say they want optimization, but what they mean is — make me look good in front of the board.”

Jeeny: “Then it’s our job to help them see deeper. That’s the partnership Kranz was talking about — ‘work with your customer to solve it.’ Not sell them a trick, but stand beside them long enough to understand the pain.”

Host: A beam of light slipped through the window, catching a tiny robot arm on the table, its metal joints coated in dust. Jeeny picked it up, turning it slowly in her hands.

Jeeny: “This little thing — remember when you built it? You said it would change warehouse operations forever. But it ended up as another ‘cool project’ with no buyer. Not because it didn’t work — but because no one needed it.”

Jack: (with quiet bitterness) “It was ahead of its time.”

Jeeny: “No. It was ahead of its purpose.”

Host: The words hung like smoke, lingering, heavy, almost visible in the still air. Jack said nothing for a moment; his breathing slowed, his eyes softened.

Jack: “So what, Jeeny? You want me to stop inventing? Stop dreaming?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I want you to dream smarter. To dream with the problem in mind. You can’t save the world by ignoring it. You can only save it by understanding where it’s broken.”

Host: The sunlight had grown stronger, spilling across the floor, turning the metal edges of every object into blades of gold. The warehouse no longer looked dead — it looked waiting.

Jack: (quietly) “You really believe tech should kneel to business?”

Jeeny: “Not kneel. Serve. Tech without purpose is art with no audience. Beautiful, maybe. But forgotten.”

Host: Her voice softened, the anger replaced by a kind of warm sadness. She walked toward the window, wiping the dust with her hand, looking out at the loading bay where a truck idled.

Jeeny: “See that driver? He doesn’t care how elegant your algorithm is. He just wants to know why his shipment’s always late. Solve that, and you’ve built something worth having.”

Jack: “And you think that’s enough? Solving small problems while the rest of the world races toward AI, robotics, the metaverse?”

Jeeny: “That’s the irony, isn’t it? Everyone’s chasing the future, but the future is just the present — finally done right.”

Host: Jack laughed, but it was a quiet, almost tired laugh. He set the tablet down, the screen dimming, its glow fading from his face. For the first time, he didn’t look like an engineer defending his blueprint — he looked like a man trying to see through his own creation.

Jack: “Maybe Kranz had a point. Maybe all this time I’ve been building temples to technology — when what people needed were bridges.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Build bridges. And if they’re beautiful too, that’s just a bonus.”

Host: A long silence. Only the machines whispered, the sound of gears like a heartbeat reborn.

Jack: “You know… when I started this project, I told myself I wanted to change how businesses think. Maybe I just wanted them to notice me.”

Jeeny: (softly) “You can still change how they think, Jack. Just start by listening instead of dazzling.”

Host: The light shifted again, illuminating the dust, floating like tiny constellations in the air. It felt like a metaphor for everything they’d been chasing — beauty scattered in motion, waiting for form.

Jack: “Alright, Jeeny. Tomorrow — we start again. No dashboards, no buzzwords. Just problems worth solving.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “And customers worth working with, not selling to.”

Host: Jack extended his hand, and Jeeny shook it, their fingers clasping like a quiet truce. Outside, the truck pulled away, its engine fading into the morning air.

The warehouse was still, but no longer silent — it breathed, alive again, as though the machines themselves understood that something had shifted.

Host (final voiceover): The primary goal was never the technology — it was the trust it could build, the burdens it could ease, the stories it could rewrite.

And as the sunlight filled the room, the truth of Kranz’s words glowed through every corner —
that the smartest thing a machine can ever do…
is help a human being.