Competition drives creativity: in war, in sports, in tech, in politics. But what happens when there is no competition? Are you doomed to stagnate? No. Because you can always compete with yourself, and the best organizations are the ones who do exactly that. The proof? Zippers.

When’s the last time you thought about your car’s engine? Most people don’t. Until it breaks. This sort of thing happened last week, when Amazon Web Services (AWS), which hosts about one-third of the internet, had a massive outage. https://t.co/MKlJt10CUN #gapingvoid #culture

Two famous authors were chatting at a glamorous party on New York’s Shelter Island – Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller (of Catch-22 fame). Vonnegut tells Heller that the party’s host, a billionaire hedge fund manager, once made more money in a single day than Heller made from all

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There was a delightfully odd moment during a recent Oklahoma State game. A fan named Trent Eaton made his way to an empty section of the stands and started twirling his shirt in the air. All alone. No announcement. No plan. And within a short time, hundreds of people joined in.

Remember that time your best friend gave a toast at your birthday dinner? And then you find out he copy-pasted it from ChatGPT? Ouch. Made you incredibly sad, right? Same words. Same moment. But suddenly it felt like less. Why? https://t.co/HSy2jjqIX3

Something’s off at Starbucks. You notice it the moment you walk in to grab your favorite drink order. The Barista locks eyes, making prolonged eye contact. “Welcome to Starbucks.”

Frederico Fellini’s 1960 film, “La Dolce Vita” is considered by many to be one of the best pieces of cinema ever made. If you see it, it’s easy to see why. Multi layered, a bit surreal, it has a host of insights buried within it.

It’s an easy enough problem to understand. We’ve gotten really good at creating elites. We’re not that good at creating economies to sustain them. But it’s not just MBA’s, frequent fliers and $7,000 handbag makers. Every business faces this problem. https://t.co/subYJd3lot

The Japanese call this phenomenon “Ma”, which translates into “space,” “gap,” or “interruption.” It’s everywhere in Japanese art, from the emphasis of the silence between the notes in flute playing, to how the white of the paper is every bit as important as the sumi brushstroke

“You think that because you understand ‘One’ that you must therefore understand ‘Two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.’” https://t.co/SDAM5dtzjm

Plato – ever heard of him? Of course you have. He’s arguably one of the most impactful philosophers who ever lived. Without getting into the metaphysical weeds, one of his more contested ideas is that the ultimate reality is a realm of ideas, not our realm of concrete things.

“We’ve built systems that give us all the social cues of belonging while stripping away everything that makes us essential.” Thanks to @gapingvoid for highlighting the power mattering. #mattering

@egregorerising i had this on the back of my business card for a while

We’re hiring an Associate for Culture Design Consulting! Location: Remote (with travel up to 30% for on-site client meetings and events with the DoD) 👉 Ready to cut through BS, design belief, and install devotion? APPLY HERE: https://t.co/c74kulmnAE #culturedesign

Someone should write a book: “Everything I Need To Know About Life I Learned Twenty Thousand Years Ago.” Everything that makes us tick was hardwired countless millennia ago, when we were still evolving into hyper-social, hunter-gatherer primates on the African plains.

As Vivek Ramaswamy warned: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Even Pope Leo XIV has recently announced “Never give in to mediocrity.” Most people tend to think of it as passive – soft, sluggish, and ‘middling’ – just ‘average.’ No

As Defense Secretary Hegseth put it, “We won World War I and World War II, not with the Department of Defense, but with the Department of War.”

AI is here to help. It shops for us, orders our food, plans our diets, writes our reports, answers our emails, and preps our meetings. It’s becoming the world’s most efficient secretary, strategist, therapist, friend and manager, all rolled into one sleepless digital brain.

Have you ever heard the old thought experiment about the indecisive donkey? A donkey is equally thirsty and hungry. He’s placed halfway between a pile of hay and a pail of water. What happens? Does he choose randomly? https://t.co/gyY9MSjHb8