The Upside of Bad Podcasts, an Egg Hunt For Supermodels and What Really Happened To Silicon Valley

What really happened to Silicon Valley’s ideals, and how might our reality be transformed if just a few moments had unfolded differently? That’s a question explored in the lead article from this week’s newsletter and the implications are surprising. Also, this week I offer a non-obvious take on why a maligned AI company churning out 5,000 useless podcasts a week could actually be great news for creators.

In other stories this week, a unique Swedish perfume asks you to pay with your time in the forest, a hunt across Milan for supermodels hidden inside life-sized eggs, Ed Sheeran’s secret album that will only be released after his death and a provocative book recommendation on public shaming.

Enjoy the stories this week and stay curious!

An Insider Perspective on What Happened to Silicon Valley

One of the long reads from this month’s WIRED magazine offers an insider account to the shift that’s happened within Silicon Valley and particularly to the ideals of the now billionaires who were foundational in creating the technology fueling our world today. You may know some of the pieces of this history already, but seeing the evolution of the last three decades mapped out in a single article made me think this week.

“Essentially, the big tech companies became The Phone Company—pernicious behemoths who enshittify their products to extract more profits. You can’t even get a human customer-service person on the phone. In a 2024 survey of Silicon Valley residents, three-quarters of respondents felt tech companies have too much power; nearly as many believe they have lost their moral compass.”

This is a story that goes beyond politics or technology and really looks at those pivotal moments when things could have gone one way but went another. Elon Musk getting angry for not being invited to an event. One crypto fraudster souring the world on an entire industry which then came back for revenge. A declined invitation to a meeting. It feels hard to believe the significance of these moments until the dots get connected in this way. The result is a story that will open your eyes and make you wonder how transformed our future might have been if one of those moments had unfolded differently.

Why the Podcast Company Making 5000 Episodes of AI-Slop a Week May Be Good News

Yesterday I listened to a podcast called Garden featuring Nigel Thistledown, a self-described “garden enthusiast, botanical provocateur and occasional mediator of bird-plant disputes.” The podcast is one of thousands of AI-generated shows being produced by a company called Inception Point whose CEO Jeanine Wright believes that “in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI, and we are the company that’s bringing those people to life.” Her soundbite that inspired plenty of outrage online this week was that “people who are still referring to all AI-generated content as AI slop are probably lazy luddites.”

Not wanting to be lazy or a luddite myself, I went to Spotify and listened to one of those podcasts for myself. It was as terrible, robotic and useless as you would expect. Still, I’m not outraged by this company dedicated to flooding platforms with bad content. Actually, I think it could be good news. Everything I have seen about podcast growth and listeners since having my own is that they are routinely discovered through word of mouth and referrals. Hardly anyone is relying on search to find podcasts, and those who have will quickly rethink that choice thanks to companies like Inception Point.

This means that in the future, the only way shows and content will survive is if people actually find it to be useful and good. On that metric, the show I just listened to is an epic fail. As the article about her company notes, the “startup is currently bootstrapped, and employees are not yet salaried, but the company will soon seek outside funding.” When you have no listeners, no quality and offer no value, that funding is pretty unlikely … and grabbing attention with outlandish quotes are really all you have left.

The Swedish Perfume That You Pay for with Your Time in Nature

Deep in the Småland woods of Sweden, there is a “forest-based perfumery” where perfume brand Koyia invites customers to “pay” by spending 599 seconds being still in nature instead of paying 599 Swedish kroner to buy the perfume. It’s a powerful statement and unique idea that’s quickly going viral, and there are several reasons why it works:

“Because the consumer must give something finite and deeply personal — their time — the perfume feels earned. This creates stronger attachment and loyalty … Koyia positions itself as a cultural thought leader, not just a fragrance house. They’re essentially saying: we decide what matters, and we believe time with nature is more precious than money.”

The idea of paying with time is one that could work in other situations as well for the same reasons outlined above. Like many smart marketing campaigns, the scale comes from the people who hear about it and consider the product as a result even while those who actually make it to that forest to experience the stillness for themselves is probably quite low in numbers.

The Non-Obvious Media Recommendation of the Week

Pew Research Center

What public behaviors do you find to be rude? What do Americans really think about AI and its impact on society? There’s data on all these questions and you can find it at Pew Research Center. The organization describes themselves as a “nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.” There are plenty of paid sources of data and flawed sources of opinion disguised as data, but this is a rare free example of a platform that openly conducts and shares research on all sorts of topics that matter. You may already be familiar with them due to how widely their research is quoted, but it’s probably not a site that you visit regularly. It should be. There is a wealth of historical data, studies that you haven’t come across yet and relevant facts you might have missed.

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

Some of the stories in this book are hard to read. And you’ll probably be glad that you’re not facing any of the situations that the victims featured had to live through. What makes this illuminating book about shame stand out, though, is how deep the author goes to truly try and understand the stories of people who had to go through some of the worst moments you might imagine. You could read these and think that a few of them deserved what they got … or that no one deserves this sort of public shame. The only thing you won’t be able to do is read this book and feel unaffected by the questions it raises:

“A great renaissance of public shaming is sweeping our land. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with our voice? We are mercilessly finding people’s faults. We are defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control.”

Reading this book is an exercise in schadenfreude, if you like that sort of thing, but the more positive outcome is that understanding how your actions (or silence) online can contribute to destroying a person might make you think twice about partaking in a public shaming the next time you see one happening.

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:Every week I share a new “non-obvious” book selection. Titles featured here may be new or classic books, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great reads that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I’m able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop?
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