Dear Newsletterest,

Do well compensated CEOs deserve our criticism? Why did I pay human musicians instead of using AI to create the sound for my new podcast? Now that the Paralympics are here, what should you know about disability that you probably don’t? Why do people seem so happy on social media when they get laid off?

These are just a few of the lead stories this week, plus you’ll read about a fantastically amateurish plot to smuggle meth disguised as watermelon across the border (watermelon sugar high!), the truth about whether a single YouTube video can actually dry a wet phone, an entrepreneur turning textiles into candy and the feud that’s tearing the paleontology world apart.

Enjoy this week’s stories and stay curious!

Rohit

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Are We Angry With Well-Compensated CEOs For the Wrong Reasons?

The viral story this week was about recently hired Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s plans to take a private jet between his home in California and the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle three times a week. He and the brand were immediately criticized for their hypocrisy of approving this environmentally unfriendly weekly commute. Also this week, 99% of flight attendants from United voted for a strike to ask for a pay increase and cited among their reasons the seemingly exorbitant $19 million pay package of the current United CEO. These CEOs and their outsized salaries are easy targets, but do they deserve all this fury or are we focused on the wrong thing?

By most accounts, Niccol is the ideal candidate for the Starbucks job. He helped Chipotle solve almost exactly the same problems Starbucks faces and had big success there. Why shouldn’t someone with his track record be able to cash in on his success? The private jet situation aside, which is an easy PR problem to solve (buy carbon offsets and fly commercial as much as possible on the very common LAX-SEA route), the idea of a successful executive getting well compensated for delivering results doesn’t feel like it’s fundamentally wrong.

On the other hand, consider ridiculous cases like the $1.7B severance package awarded to WeWork founder Adam Neumann whose mismanagement was the source of the co-working company’s decline. While severance packages are widely panned, a recent Wharton study suggests they won’t be going away any time soon. According to another study from Kellogg, these severance packages are so high in order to encourage risk taking, provide insurance for an incoming CEO and compensate CEOs for signing confidentiality agreements. Still the idea of someone being paid millions for failing, doing a terrible job, abusing employees or worse feels like a much bigger problem. What do you think? Is the executive compensation a problem, or “golden parachute” severance packages? Or none of it? Let me know what you think!

Why I Paid Human Musicians + Artists To Create The Sonic Identity For My Podcast

Earlier this week I posted on LinkedIn about a project that my team and I have been working on for nearly a year. During the pandemic, I created a video show which many of you watched. After a smart suggestion (and fair criticism) from Chhavi about how two heads talking wasn’t really compelling on video … I decided to invest in turning the show into an audio podcast. The audio for episodes would need to be remastered, the quality improved and the format changed.

In addition, I knew I wanted a distinctive sound identity for the show including music, narration to voice the intro and a well edited conversation flow. All of this could be done with AI and as someone who writes about the future … using tech would have been the natural choice. Instead, I chose to hire human experts. I brought in a studio to record custom music. I found a former broadcast journalist to do the voice over and enlisted a sound engineer to remaster the audio.

Last week Vox published an in depth article about the future of music and AI. The big question was the one on everyone’s mind: what if AI replaces people?

The question is one I have been thinking about recently too in relation to my own experience. Why didn’t I just turn to AI to do it all? I believe in hiring and paying creative professionals for high quality work, so that’s one reason. But the other truth is that we did actually use AI … or rather, the professionals that I hired used it. That’s the message we don’t hear often enough. AI isn’t always an alternative to creative professionals. Sometimes it’s a tool that can help them deliver better work faster because they understand the one thing that most of the rest of us struggle with … when to use AI and when to put it aside.

Why Branded Reselling Platforms That Allow Customers To Sell Old Products To Each Other May Be Better Than Ebay

Sustainability-first brands like Patagonia have taken their commitment to reuse to the furthest extreme by creating an entire ecommerce experience dedicated to allowing their customers to sell used products to one another. When the Worn Wear platform came out in 2020, the brand was criticized for their crazy idea of inviting their customers to keep their products for longer and resell them or buy used products instead of new ones. Now many other fashion retailers have similar platforms as this has become a trend across retail.

This week IKEA announced a similar idea they will be testing in a few European markets to create their own online store to allow customers to sell IKEA furniture to one another. I anticipate it will be hugely popular and hopefully come to other markets later this year. In the process, it may help this reselling trend catch on for brands in even more categories. Imagine being able to resell toys, or electronics or other home goods this way. You’re probably thinking we already have a way to do that with eBay or Craigslist, right?

Having the original manufacturer do it could offer some fascinating benefits, though. Imagine reselling a LEGO set where someone could buy it used and LEGO could separately send them a handful of pieces that might be missing so the set would be complete and a PDF of the instructions to build it. Or you could resell a webcam without accessories and they would be added automatically for the buyer. There are many practical reasons, such as missing parts, why perfectly good items end up thrown away or in storage. This is one problem branded reselling platforms could solve perfectly.

The One Time When Everyone Lies on Social Media: After Getting Laid Off

Getting laid off is hard. Though I’ve now been an entrepreneur for nearly ten years, I do remember those moments (yes, plural!) in my life when it happened to me and those were always emotional times. If you were to go by what people share on social media, though, you might think differently. A recent article on the Slate asked: Why is it so common to pretend to be grateful when a job ends? 

Some of the reasons are pretty clear cut. You don’t want to jeopardize future employment chances by seeming petty. And there’s the obvious desire to protect your own ego and reputation. Yet the truth is that often there is fury, resentment and sadness behind these moments … and you would think sharing at least some of those feelings openly with your online friends might help you recover or just invite a little more genuine empathy for your situation.

Yet it’s a tricky thing to be vulnerable without seeming desperate; angry without appearing unhinged. It’s a balance that’s hard to strike in real life, much less on social media. Part of doing it may be with all of us being more willing to acknowledge what we all know to be true. Getting laid off sucks and you’re likely not happy about it. The sooner we all drop the act and admit that reality, the more we can get and give support to our friends when they probably need it most.

UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of Influencers at the DNC Convention

Last week many of you wrote to me about a story I shared about the treatment of the media at the Democratic National Convention and how they seemed to be elevating influencers above journalists in priority. One follow up video that offered more context on the story was this behind the scenes video look at the convention spaces created by influencer @underthedesknews on site. Watching it was a good reminder that there really is no substitute for seeing the real situation from the ground and there’s a lot that the original article I shared left out. While I still believe in my larger point about the importance of respecting trained journalists, this video reminded me that there’s always two sides to a story. Hopefully it does the same for you.

HT to Douglas Ferguson for sharing the video.

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew

“Rethinking who needs improvement” is the provocative subtitle of this book which offers a different perspective on disability that might just shift your perspective about what it means and the way that we often see and treat people with disabilities. As a disability advocate and college professor teaching undergraduates all about disability, she’s clearly used to opening people’s minds. This short book offers plenty of illuminating insights, starting with quantifying the five main disability stereotypes: pitiable freaks, moochers and fakers, bitter cripples, shameful sinners, and inspirational overcomers.

As Shew writes, they all minimize disabled people and prevent us from hearing their full stories. Ableist thinking imagines technology as the "solution" to the "problem" of disability. This creates the perception that disabled people are fundamentally flawed and in need of fixing or saving. What people rarely think about the flip side of disability. "Deaf gain" for example, refers to what people have gained in their lives from not being able to hear. The book is filled with mind expanding observations like this. Reading it will give you an unusual look at a topic that is too often treated one dimensionally in media and culture. After reading it, you may wonder if we have been imagining who needs improvement all wrong, too.

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I will be featuring a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books 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?