Nowism - Edition 33

The punchiest podcast I've ever done, and what would life look like if we designed it today?

Deeper ones.

1 - Rethinking life.

What happens when tech smashes assumptions?

A few years ago I was on a Greek ferry passing one of the countless dreamy uninhabited islands, and it dawned on me that it’s always been near impossible to live in such a place—but that this could soon change.

Fifteen years ago you’d need to somehow get electricity, cellular or fixed phone service, fresh water, and of course you’d need to build the thing. To get stuff (like yourself) there often, you’d have to fashion some sort of harbor. It would pretty much all be impossible in almost every direction.

Today you could plonk any number of futuristic modular, prefabricated homes from a helicopter onto some piles in seconds.

You’d get insanely fast, cheap internet and comms with Starlink.

Electricity would come cheaply from wind and solar, batteries would smooth out supply shortages, and desalinated water would be simple.

You’d circumvent a harbor by using a drone, and you wouldn’t need to leave so much because school or work could be remote, doctors’ visits could be done via telehealth.

The only thing that would be difficult would be every single part of getting any form of permitting, or a mailing address, or permission to live in the country. Literally every interface with bureaucracy would be as slow, painful, physical, and anachronistic as ever.

We often forget that the future is built on the foundations of the past. And while possibilities may change quickly, and our imagination eagerly works at how technology challenges assumptions, things don’t necessarily become faster. They tend to become more chaotic, more tense, more complex. Entropy increases.

This little daydream on a boat a while ago gets to the heart of many things today. But the one I want to dwell on is the idea that technology has profound implications for changing some of the assumptions that hold us back. My first two books were based on the idea that technology changes how we behave and the rules of business. The tagline was: “What would your business look like if you set it up today?”

I don’t think I ever want to write another book, but if I did, the tagline would be: “What would your life look like if you built it today?” Because many of the core parameters of life are design criteria that we never challenge, despite no longer being especially true.

We retire because we presume our bodies will wear out, but most people reading this will be more able to create value at 80 than they were at almost any earlier time. For most people, learning, socialization, and work are unbundled from location. Most of our life is still shaped by status, privacy, scarcity, proximity, risk avoidance, and a fear of standing out. It’s built around formal education, accumulation, consistency, and stability. But who has asked the question: what does a good life look like in the modern era? Are we automatically designing our lives around the parameters of the past? What if we live a really long time? What if economic growth forever doesn’t happen? Are we optimizing for things that we assume matter, but that perhaps don’t mean as much anymore?

2 - Zuckerbored

I do think Zuck is just bored these days. He just announced plans to spend $50bn on a server farm the size of Manhattan to “do AI things.”

While I do find Zuckerberg and everything he touches to be accidentally misanthropic, what puzzles me most about him is he’s remarkably consistent inability to have a vision or good ideas. Other than “the Portal”, buying instagram and buying WhatsApp, he’s never been shown any ability have or follow good ideas.

Meta is a deeply simple and smart company, it makes money from eyeballs, or more specifically from showing ads to eyeballs, or even more specifically, from using closed loop data signals that showed advertisers their ads worked, and automatically debiting their credit cards.

It’s true that today every company “needs” to be an AI company, just as in 2015 every company “needed” to be “a tech company”. But the real question is: how much of the technology do they actually need to own, invent, or operate?

BMW, Netflix, or P&G didn’t become digital by running the internet; they just had to understand it, and it’s implications, and to use it.

So maybe, at the risk of sounding old-fashioned, Apple, Meta, Amazon, SAP, Tesla, Pinduoduo, or Samsung don’t need to build AI from the ground up. Maybe they just need to get extremely good at understanding what it means, and how to use it best and maybe it won’t change consumer behaviors, maybe we like buying things.

3 - My punchiest podcast ever.

I do about 5 Podcasts a monht and much to every hosts annoyance I almost never promote them because can you imagine how insufferable my posts would be. This is an exception because

1. It’s important to me for people to see it. I care.

2. The questions were great, great hosting Jon.

3. I think I was really lucid and clear and articulate for once.

   ---

   The Spark of Discovery – Reigniting The Emotion of E-commerce - Sponsored by Criteo.

   There have always been two types of commerce: shopping vs buying.

   Shopping is about a fun experience, it’s about discovery, persuasion, seduction, surprise. It’s the trip to the mall, the farmers market, it’s something you look forward to.

   And then there is buying, the efficient procurement of a need, the urgent fulfillment of a practical need.
   

   AI won’t change everything immediately but it looks likely to impact both commerce journeys.

   • For shopping it helps us make decisions, it provides guidance, it can make what was overwhelming more fun.

   • But buying could be revolutionized more readily. In theory more logical purchasing could be done in a more automated way. More data, more decisioning also means retailers and buyers can transact in ever more efficient and speedy ways. 
     

   In Criteo's report, “The Spark of Discovery – Reigniting the Emotion of Ecommerce”, the research explores what it takes for brands to stand out when shopping and buying blur across physical and digital spaces.

   For me, the biggest misunderstanding in online marketing is that people don’t want to be helped, remembered, or served. In reality, they expect brands to understand them, to anticipate needs, suggest relevant options, and remove friction. People don’t hate personalization they hate when it's done poorly. 

   The report shows how we can break out of the loop and bring real discovery back to commerce. The companies that succeed won’t be the ones with more data, but the ones that use it thoughtfully alongside AI. 

   Definitely worth a read for anyone rethinking what online shopping and buying could be. 

   ---

   Little ones.

   a) I like these bite-sized ideas. I keep sneaking them into articles, but nobody seems to pick them up—so I’ll just keep hammering on about them.
   

   1. Work expands to fit the technology available.
   We always think new tech will mean shorter working weeks or radical productivity gains. In reality, it usually just enables more pointless work, more bureaucracy, and more distraction.
   

   2. We apply technology where it’s easiest, not where it matters most.
   The first use of any tech is to do the same things faster or cheaper—it has to slot into existing systems, mindsets, and business cases. The next stage is doing the same things better. Only much later do we rethink the system entirely and use it to do new things in new ways.

   
   3. Most predictions are just preferences.
   People imagine the future in ways that suit them, shaped by their worldview and biases.

   
   4. AI finally forces ambition.
   For once, companies see their IT departments as strategic, future-focused functions—not just cost centers.

   
   5. Tech adds entropy.
   It rarely replaces old ways of doing things; it just layers new ones on top. The touchscreen didn’t kill the keyboard. Our wallets have more in them now than ever.
   

   b) A nostalgic history of pizza ordering online , somehow Pizzas and Porn seem to be the harbinger of tech.

   c) It’s great when anyone can make anything, but sometimes maybe they shouldn’t What are people actually “vibe coding” and have a look and see if it’s any good.

   d) Wouldn’t it be great if Amazon could hear everything I ever said

   e) How to rewire your curiosity, just one of 129 tabs open on my laptop, one of which is about oddly short runways.
   
   f) A site full of amazingly useful newsy charts.

   g) I got more drunk than planned with a Norwegian ( Hi Vidar) on a drink that crosses the equator twice and it fascinated me how inefficient logistics can be a powerful product proposition
   

   h) Worst advice ever, the UK government genuinely and seriously tells people to delete emails to conserve water. ( Aren’t most data centers closed loop anyway?)
   

   i) Host makes an Airbnb damage claim using AI generated images, what a funny time to be alive.
   

   j) Cartwheels and somersaults are easy but Robot dexterity is still hard.

Me me me.

I’m doing more “board level advisory” work these days, which is a way of saying helping boards or individuals at the top level, navigate change, challenge assumptions, avoid distractions, bring the world into the room, and ask more naive but powerful questions.

I’ve got a couple of open slots now, so please get in touch if I could be valuable.

That’s it for now.

Thanks,

Tom

( as always, I read all replies, and reply to most )