Welcome to the 5th edition of This is Not Advice, a non-advice column for premium subscribers of What Works. If you’re already a premium subscriber, thank you! If you’re not, I still think you’re great—and you can read a solid chunk of this column for free. Or, subscribe to get access to full-length columns and podcast episodes.

Or, read this excerpt here.

Next week, I’m teaching a workshop on how to pitch yourself to appear on podcasts for YellowHouse.Media. I’ll show you how to find shows to pitch, how to think like a producer, and how to prepare for your interview. Click here to learn more & register.

"Failure" got a glow-up sometime in the last 20 years. Instead of something to be feared, gurus tell us to embrace failure. That failure is a waypoint on the path to success. But this shift in our relationship with failure has only further inscribed the winner-loser binary that causes so much of our anxiety about the future.

What if "failure" wasn't part of the "success" formula? What if we looked beyond conventional notions of failure and success to question whether those ideas even matter at all? Whether they serve us at all?

Today on the podcast, Kate Tyson (Strathmann) is queering failure. She's questioning what it means to build a business or a project without the normative notions of success and failure. And how calling those norms into question allows us to imagine new and different ways to do business—or any kind of venture.

"Queer Failure" is an excerpt from [Im]Possible Business by Kate Tyson.

Footnotes:

• [Im]Possible Business by Kate Tyson
• Follow Kate's writing on Substack
• The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam
• Fox Market and Bar in Montpelier, Vermont
• "Don't Bail Out the Restaurant Industry" by Tunde Wey
• Saidiya Hartman
• Étaín Underthings
• Runway's Entrepreneur Universal Basic Income program
• Wanderwell Bookkeeping and Consulting
• "Queer Theory" by Nancy Harding in Key Concepts in Critical Management Studies

Buckle up—today's episode was inspired by something that got me really worked up this week: "I think home-baking is one of the stupidest things anyone can engage in," says Rick Easton of Jersey City's Bread and Salt.

This episode is about shoulds and supposed-tos, baking at home, and the ways we devalue certain kinds of labor. Whether or not home-baking is your thing, you'll recognize the way value is narrowly defined by culture and, I think, gain new language for the worthiness of work that doesn't fit the capitalist mode.

Footnotes:

• "Leave the Baking to the Professionals" by Hannah Goldfield, New Yorker
• Bread, and How to Eat It by Rick Easton and Melissa McCart
• "On Bread" via From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
• "What could 'food is political' mean?" via From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
• King Arthur Baking: Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Loaf
• Breadhead by Greg Wade
• History of Low-Carb Diets on Wikipedia
• "I love bread!" Weight Watchers commercial
• "Home Cooking can be a Feminist Act" by Nigella Lawson
• "Men More Likely Than Women to be Seen as Brilliant" via NYU
• "When Male Chefs Fear the Specter of 'Women's Work'" by Meghan McCarron, Eater
• "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" by Audre Lorde, YouTube
• "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" by Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

Essay versions of every episode of What Works are published at whatworks.fyi — subscribe FREE to have them delivered straight to you. Or become a paid subscriber for just $7 per month and get access to bonus content, discounts on workshops, and more! Go to whatworks.fyi to learn more.

"Outsiders" shoulder a disproportionate burden when it comes to fitting in. Can we demand more from the "insiders?"

This is a preview of the 4th installment of This is Not Advice, a not-advice column for paid subscribers of What Works. If you’re not a paid, enjoy the first half of this essay (audio or written) or upgrade your subscription to access the whole thing. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus content and help me make this show!

For a written version of this episode, go to: www.whatworks.fyi

What gets labeled as "authentic" is often quite predictable. It's a market-compatible expression of what was once something unique or personal. Authenticity is a vibe—and a valuable one at that.

"Predictably unique" is how David A. Banks defines authenticity in his book, The City Authentic. Authenticity, or what's "predictably unique," describes how culture, place, and style are packaged to become recognizable—and, therefore, consumable—to a general audience.

And while Banks's interest is in the politics of urban planning, his analysis spoke to a question I've pondered for almost as long as I've been a Very Online Person: Why does authenticity often feel so fake?

How can a form of expression feel legitimately authentic one day and discernibly contrived or derivative the next? Is it the expression or my perception of it that changes? Why does "authentic" become an aesthetic, a legible set of features that denotes the "real?" And why does formulaic authenticity convey such social capital (or at least promise to)?

I tackle these questions and more in this episode!

Footnotes:

• The City Authentic by David A. Banks
• "'She Looks Like an Instagram:' How Empowerment Became a Brand" by Tara McMullin
• "The Strange Logic of Value in the Attention Economy" by Tara McMullin
• The Jargon of Authenticity by Theodor Adorno
• "Personal Branding and the Crafting of Self" by Tara McMullin
• The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media by Emily Hund
• How to be Authentic by Skye Cleary

Every episode of What Works is also published as an essay. Go to read.explorewhatworks.com or subscribe to get them automatically delivered to you! You can also chip in $7 per month to support my work and to get access to bonus content.

On June 8, Skye Pillsbury opened the latest edition of her newsletter, The Squeeze, with the header RIP Gimlet. She continued:

I devoured Alex Blumberg's Startup when it first came out, which was about a year before I started podcasting. Then, I inhaled Reply All when it launched, and despite its later troubles, was genuinely moved by its final episode. I lapped up Blumberg's earnest interviews with entrepreneurs on Without Fail. I even had the privilege of interviewing Blumberg during a course I taught at CreativeLive.

I followed Gimlet's acquisition by Spotify with interest (and a healthy dose of skepticism). The bumpy ride that they've had since then was utterly predictable. Though, like Pillsbury, I find the news that Gimlet is no more—at least in any recognizable sense—quite upsetting.

This short dispatch is about podcasting and the podcast industry—but really, it's about why we shouldn't judge success—or run companies—using the logic of Wall Street.

Footnotes:

• "RIP Gimlet" in The Squeeze by Skye Pillsbury
• "Spotify to Layoff 200 Employees in Podcast Strategy Shift" by Amanda Holpuch, New York Times
• Startup by Alex Blumberg & Gimlet Media (Excerpts from Season 1, Episodes 1, 2, and 4)
• Reply All by Alex Goldman, Emmanuel Dsotzi, PJ Vogt, and Gimlet Media 
• Without Fail by Alex Blumberg & Gimlet Media
• "Podcast Companies, Once Walking on Air, Feel the Strain of Gravity" by Reggie Ugwu, New York Times
• "A U.F.O. Podcast Zooms Past the Competition" by Reggie Ugwu, New York Times
• "Crooked Media Hires Vice’s Lucinda Treat as First CEO, Gets Funding From George Soros’ Investment Firm" by Todd Spangler, Variety
• "'You Paid WHAT?!' Or, How Echo Chambers Distort Prices and the Way We Think" by Tara McMullin

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Every episode is also published in essay form at: taramcmullin.substack.com

I’m about to write the most journalistic thing I’ve ever written: I received a tip.

I wish I could say it was an “anonymous tip” because that sounds even more journalistic. But it wasn’t anonymous, though I won’t say who it was. Anyhow, my source told me about a small business owner—someone who sells online courses and does quite well—paying an outrageous sum for a fairly standard service.

This, of course, was not an isolated incident. I didn't really need a tip. I know all about this kind of thing. Wildly inflated prices grace all manner of products and services within the creator economy, coaching industry, and "online business" space in general.

‘What’s going on?’ my source wanted to know. ‘How do people get caught paying so far above market rate? And why do people charge prices so out of whack with the market?’ I totally paraphrased all that. Here's what my source really asked about: "the gaslighting inflationary online pricing bubble."

In this episode, I endeavor to get to the bottom of the Gaslighting Inflationary Pricing Bubble Online—GIPBO. I discover that it's not so much an economic problem (although that's part of the story). It's an epistemological one.

Footnotes:

• "Hostile Epistemology" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "Neoclassical Economics" on Investopedia
• "The Epistemic Seduction of Markets" by Lisa Herzog in The Raven
• "Escape the Echo Chamber" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "The Art of Rent" by David Harvey

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Welcome to the 3rd edition of This is Not Advice, my advice column that’s not an advice column for paid subscribers of What Works. 

This week, I am tackling a question that came up during last week’s workshop on media ecosystems (link to replay below!) and that my husband Sean asked me just this morning. It also came up a number of times during a workshop on audio essays that I taught earlier this year.

So I’m going to assume this is something that a lot of folks struggle with—myself included on a regular basis.

Here’s the gist:

This episode is an excerpt from my full column! To upgrade your subscription and read or listen to the full episode, click here!

Today's episode is all about trust and responsibility—and how those qualities impact the cost of doing business and the work that's required for any company to be successful. And specifically, it's about something I'm calling the Trust-Profit Paradox. Simply put, you can't build trust and optimize for profit at the same time.

After losing my ish listening to The Verge's Nilay Patel stump Airbnb's Brian Chesky with a question about AI-generated images on the Decoder podcast, I started to think about the responsibility that companies like Airbnb have (or, rather, avoid). From there, my research took me to some truly unexpected places—like into mainstream management theory.

Footnotes:

• "The Pope Francis Puffer Photo Was Real In Our Hearts" by Eileen Cartter on GQ
• "'I can't make products just for 41-year-old tech founders': Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is taking it back to basics" on Decoder with Nilay Patel (audio & transcript available)
• "The Delusion of Profit" by Peter Drucker in Wall Street Journal
• "Cost of Capital" on the Harvard Business School blog
• "If you're getting ripped off, it's not surprising" featuring Niko Matouschek at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern
• "The Age of Customer Capitalism" by Roger Martin in Harvard Business Review
• "'Is Substack Notes a Twitter clone?': We asked CEO Chris Best" on Decoder with Nilay Patel

Join me for a workshop called "Tending Your Media Ecosystem" on Wednesday, May 31st at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT—exclusively for paid subscribers to What Works. Get started for just $7/month!

What are we really talking about when we talk about our hopes and fears about AI?

It's us. We're the problem.

Actually, we're not the problem—we're more like the solution. But that's less mimetic.

Sure, this is yet another pod hitting your feed with a take on AI. I'll assure you, though: this episode isn't really AI. There's no fear-mongering or cute suggestions for prompts. It's a bit of a meditation on the very human parts of our relationship with technology. And it's probably one of the most hopeful pieces I've put together in a few years!
 
***

Anyhow, today's episode is the second edition of This is Not Advice, a "not advice" column for paying subscribers of What Works. This is the final public edition, so if you'd like to keep getting a dose of "not advice" from me every other week, plus submit your own topics and questions, and support independent analysis of the future of work, business, and leadership, go taramcmullin.substack.com/subscribe and chip in just $7/month.

I'm also hosting a workshop on May 31 for paying subscribers called Tending Your Media Ecosystem. I'll share how what I read, watch, and listen to becomes what I write, produce, and post.

Footnotes:

• Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Deja Q"
• Grammarly's new AI Assistant
• "Did clickbait kill BuzzFeed and the digital media era?" on Offline with Jon Favreau
• "Readers Aren't Flocking to Chatbot Novels Just Yet" in Counter Craft by Lincoln Michel
• "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins" on Folding Ideas with Dan Olson
• "Dingus of the Week: Pivoting to Robots" in Men Yell at Me by Lyz Lenz

Every new episode is also published in essay form! Click here to read.

• (00:00) - This is Not Advice: What We Really Talk About When We Talk About AI