What Works

A few episodes ago, I shared that I was rethinking social media as a way to fix my "distribution problem." Well, it's been a month, and I've posted 8 videos. The results have been not at all what I expected. In this quickie, I share my results so far, what's changed, and—because I can't help myself—a bigger question I have about interest-based distribution algorithms.

Summer Seminar is back! Join me for this pop-up reading and discussion group that combines speculative fiction with critical thinking and personal reflection. We start July 7. Flexible pricing. Learn more and register!

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode (with charts!).
• "Can Patreon fight fire with social media fire?" Patreon CEO Jack Conte in conversation with Nilay Patel
• Audience capture

If you're like me (and frankly, you probably are), you're easily overwhelmed by the sheer scope of your ideas. Not so much because they're so grand or world-changing, but because you see all the connections that could be included in your projects. Background information, theory, history, caveats... if you're curious and value context, any project can take on epic proportions.

And that's when you need a short assignment.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• "Rethinking Social Media" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• Tara McMullin on Instagram (@tara_mcmullin)
• Summer Seminar starts July 7

☞ Summer Seminar is back! ☜

Summer Seminar is a very chill reading and online discussion group where there’s no such thing as being behind and no right answers. Think of it as an intellectual choose-your-own-adventure. This year, we’re reading On the Calculation of Volume (I) by Solvej Balle and The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. I loved both of these books, and they’re both full of ideas I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read them. I’m stoked to share them with you.

Learn more about Summer Seminar and register with flexible pricing!

Today, I'm resharing an episode from last spring but with a fresh introduction about the feeling (too) late and some timely advice for my daughter, who graduates from high school tomorrow. It might be a good one to share with the graduate in your life!

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This episode is about the long term—the commitments, projects, and relationships we can work on when our "temporal bandwidth" widens. How we perceive time and our ability to do what's meaningful to us in time does have to be constrained by the urgency of now. There are ways to feel more grounded and create more possibilities at the same time.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein
• On Freedom by Timothy Snyder
• Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs
• How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
• "Practicing the Future" by Tara McMullin
• "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey Stuff" by Tara McMullin
• "Busyness Decoded" by Tara McMullin

Find the What Works archives and subscribe to the newsletter at whatworks.fyi.

• (00:00) - EP 489: Temporal Bandwidth

"No matter how hard you post or what sites you do it in it’s never going to be 2019 again." — Amanda Mull on Bluesky

I'm thinking about getting back on social media. Weird, I know. But (1) I have a distribution problem, and (2) it's not what it used to be... which is bad, but maybe also good for me? Today, I'm putting my thoughts into words and relying on a new essay by communications scholar danah boyd to make sense of why getting back on platforms feels vaguely appealing.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this post.
• "Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media" by danah boyd in Social Media + Society

Eight months before ChatGPT launched to the world, I wrote about "the eggbeater effect," or the tendency for labor-saving tools to create new labor. Four years later, I'm revisiting that idea. Remember: just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• "The Stepford Wives" on You're Wrong About
• More Work for Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
• "The Illusion of AI Productivity Gains" by Philippa Hardman
• "AI Doesn't Reduce Work—It Itensifies It" by Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye in Harvard Business Review
• "AI's big productivity boost? It's happening from the sofa" at Stanford Institution for Economic Policy Research
• "Seeing Software" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "The Eggbeater Effect" by Tara McMullin on What Works (original)
• "How the Push for Efficiency Changes Us" by Tara McMullin on What Works (work intensification)
• MIT State of AI in Business 2026
• "Beyond Productivity: Measuring the Real Value of AI" from Workday

• (00:00) - Making Things Fancy

You can always rely on me to channel my righteous indignation at shoddy data analysis into a lengthy podcast episode.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• "How Short-Form Clips Took Over the Internet" on Galaxy Brain with Charlie Warzel
• "The Clip Economy" by Ed Elson on the Simply Put newsletter
• "What happens when the short-form video bubble bursts?" by Ryan Broderick on Garbage Day
• "Sorry (Not Sorry) Self-Promotion Doesn't Work" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "The Case for Zero-Click Content in a Zero-Trust Ecosystem" by Amanda Natividad for SparkToro
• The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han
• Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
• Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

Another episode featuring HBO's The Pitt? You know it. This time: finding your course of action in the space between personal challenges and systemic and structural failings.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version here.
• "Rethinking Busyness" on What Works
• HBO's The Pitt
• "Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work–Life Integration in Physicians and the General US Working Population Between 2011 and 2023"
• AMA STEPS Forward
• A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville

On March 11, the 5-time World’s Best Restaurant, Noma, began a 3-month Los Angeles residency. The vanguard establishment of New Nordic Cuisine, was finally available to Americans without an international flight. All-inclusive bookings—sold out well ahead of opening day—went for $1500 per person.

Diners, arriving in luxury vehicles with tinted windows, anticipated the hyper-local, painstakingly presented menu designed by Noma’s celebrated chef René Redzepi. But first, they had to make it past the protesters. They held signs that said, “Noma broke me,” “Prestige is not a paycheck,” and “No Michelin stars for violence.”

The allegations of psychological and physical abuse by Noma’s Redzepi weren’t exactly news. They came to light in drips and drabs over the last decade or so. What’s more, the hostile and often violent environment of commercial kitchens at all levels of service has become fodder for TV and film. But Noma LA provided an event to organize around, a point of focus for demanding attention, action, and restitution.

There are a bunch of reasons I wanted to dive into this story on What Works. First, this is a labor story. It’s about what’s acceptable and what’s not when it comes to how we work and why we work. Second, and closer to my literal home, it’s a topic that my husband Sean is super passionate about, having spent the bulk of his working years in restaurants before I rudely relocated him to central Pennsylvania.

Last Thursday, I texted him a link to one of many stories about Noma by New York Times food writer Julia Moskin, and said, “We need to do an episode.” So here we are.

Sean and I talked through his own experience in restaurants, his long-time interest in the Noma project, what we understand of the past abuse at Noma, the response from Redzepi, and how this all ties in with the constructions of work-life we all experience.

Spoiler: it’s a story about hierarchy and making sure everyone is in the “right” place.

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• Read Julia Moskin's reporting at the New York Times (all gift links):
  • On the abuse allegations
  • On industry responses
  • On René Redzepi's decision to leave
• The Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen
• "Noma Abuse" website created by One Fair Wage
• "What Noma did next" by Kieran Morris in The Guardian (2020)
• Making It by Ellen Meiser
• "Culture of the Kitchen" by René Redzepi in Lucky Peach (2015)
• "Essays on Marx's Theory of Value" by I. I. Rubin
• Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
• The Story of Capital by David Harvey

• (00:00) - Most Expensive Meal

To the uninitiated, "being your own boss" sounds pretty nice. Of course, the moment you go into business for yourself, you realize the wide variety of skills it requires—skills that you yourself do not possess. Skills that you don't want to and have no intention of learning. Being your own boss means balancing a host of functions within one corporate (that is, "body") system. You can address the variety of those functions in a number of ways: learn, hire, minimize, or fight like hell and hope the problem goes away on its own. 

Today, I'm exploring how we think about who a small business owner or independent worker is, what mental models have informed that identity, and how that identity plays into economic reality as work in the knowledge and creative sectors becomes increasingly hard to come by.

First, we'll talk about a pair of influential books. Then, I'll take a look at recent layoffs at The Washington Post. And finally, I'll propose a different way to think about what "going solo" actually means and how it can help identify the trade-offs on offer. After the main episode, I've got a brief coda about some highly relevant Grammarly drama.

P.S. Making Sense starts soon! Join me for a 8-week live workshop series that helps you turn your audience's "Wait, what?!" moments into clear and compelling content. Get all the information & register here!

Footnotes:

• Read the essay version of this episode.
• Get Tara's new guide Blank Slate, a workbook for rethinking your business assumptions.
• The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
• Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Michael C. Winters
• "Washington Post lays off one-third of its newsroom" via NBC News
• "Washington Post cuts one third of its staff" via CNN
• "Grammarly is using our identities without permission" by Stevie Bonifield on The Verge
• "Grammarly will continue using authors' identities unless they opt out" by Sean Hollister on The Verge

[ UPDATE ] There have been two developments in the Grammarly story. First, it wasn’t user error (thank goodness). Superhuman did, in fact, disable the feature on Wednesday, March 11. Second, journalist Julia Angwin filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all those whose identities were used improperly. Superhuman’s CEO issued a statement that did include an apology.

• (00:00) - Company of Multiple Personalities

I live for people explaining how they approach analysis and critique. I desperately want to know how other people think about things so I can learn to think in new ways. I want a compelling intellectual or journalistic project, but I also want to know how it was conceived and executed.

I hope you enjoy hearing that kind of behind-the-scenes, too, because that's exactly what this episode is. It's a case study that I shared with the last cohort of Making Sense, my 8-week program for turning "Wait, what?!" moments into compelling content, explaining how an article I published last year came together. You'll hear just how messy the process (and why working through it is worth it).

Footnotes:

• Read the article version of this episode.
• Check out Mia Sato's article about dupes for The Verge and her TikTok video explaining how she approached the topic.
• "Drafting Towards the Status Quo" on What Works
• “Wait, What?!” on What Works
• Learn more about Making Sense!