Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
In today’s premium newsletter, we break down the flaw in an argument concerning optimization, but not the one that you might expect. Also, Apple’s AI strategy, a worrying financial trend, the latest Fed “news”, and Elon Musk’s salary package.
Now accepting keynotes for 24Q4-25Q2
Every year for the last decade or so, I have created three main presentation decks. For 2025, however, I have (for the first time) added a fourth due to popular demand. They are:
What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do: How to turn change into a competitive advantage. (Based on the new book by the same name.)
Pushing the Envelope: How to create and nurture an innovative organization.
Resilient Retail: How to survive and thrive in the modern marketplace.
The Unknowable Unknowns of Artificial Intelligence: How to manage a risk that is inherently undefinable.
If you want to book me for your event, corporate speaking slot, or workshop, merely send me an email. To make sure I am available, please do so at your earliest convenience; my availability is limited and the schedule tends to fill up fast. More information may be found here.
A couple of updates before we go-go
In what I hope will become an annual tradition, I will once again be bringing in guest writers for a couple of summer months. Partly, this is to provide me a bit of breathing room as I try to finish the book before the second child arrives in August. But it is also to keep the newsletter fresh and add different perspectives from people much smarter than I.
Although I cannot yet publish the entire list, I can reveal that the person whose guest column was the most popular will be back: the inimitable Claire Strickett.
I have never been a fan of so-called user generated content in marketing, but I must admit that this by Netflix is rather good. I mean, it will have fuck all impact in the grand scheme of things, but still. Funny.
It feels rather nice, as you get older and have to do things yourself, to occasionally fall over talents that you had previously been blind to (particularly given the speed with which the list of things you will never be able to do again grows on a daily basis). For example, it turns out that I have an eye for interior design and a knack for gardening. Whodda thunk it?
Moving on.