What Works

A critique of short-form clip culture and how clips get scraped from long-form work. A look at conflicting takes on whether clips outperform full shows. A warning about comparing incompatible metrics like views, concurrent viewers, and unique reach. A call to dig beneath visible numbers with iceberg metrics and systems-thinking to avoid misleading conclusions.

A deep look at burnout and what busyness really means in work and life. Scenes from an ER show illuminate how systems, incentives, and staffing create chronic overload. Practical distinctions between situational chaos and structural strain come up. Short strategies and social approaches for responding to persistent busyness are highlighted.

A probing labor story about prestige restaurants, unpaid internships, and hidden kitchen work. It spotlights allegations of physical and psychological abuse at a celebrated restaurant and the protests that followed. The conversation traces brigade hierarchies, militarized kitchen culture, and how prestige masks exploitation. It closes by weighing accountability, ethical internships, and small democratic changes at work.

They unpack models of small-business identity, from technicians and managers to visionaries and integrators. They examine how those archetypes shape coaching, platforms, and gendered assumptions. They analyze newsroom layoffs and what organizations provide that independents often lack. They reframe “going solo” as juggling multiple roles and consider how to design ventures around real needs.

A candid case study of how a messy creative process produced a sharp essay. Rapid raw drafting and ruthless rewriting get contrasted with audience-focused reframing. The story follows a surprising tech moment that sparked problem-finding and a shift to systems-thinking. It explores how projects drift toward low performance and why exposing messy thinking can strengthen ideas.

A host wrestles with learning Final Cut Pro and the weird confusion of similar-but-different tools. They compare moving between platforms like WordPress and Squarespace and explain why adult learning feels demoralizing. Practical tactics come up: using a real project, breaking skills into small problem units, iterating, and celebrating tiny wins to build confidence.

Short surprises that force you to rethink assumptions about ads, business models, and how systems work. A parent-child chat turns into a lesson on venture capital and why companies make baffling choices. Naming emotions like schadenfreude helps make confusion feel normal. The conversation shows how sharing mental models and collaborative sensemaking makes unexpected moments clearer and compelling.

Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, historian of U.S. higher education and host of the American Campus Podcast, explores how colleges connect to work and the economy. She discusses neoliberalism’s reshaping of campuses, the rise of adjunct and gig labor, culture-war pressures on academic freedom, and alternatives to the traditional university. Short, sharp conversations about institutional change and the future of learning.

A reflective look at grief for the selves we once imagined. A discussion of forgiveness reframed as a tool for political and personal renewal. How unlearning requires dismantling old narratives before rebuilding. Exploration of how speculative future selves form from childhood dreams and life choices. An invitation to mourn past expectations to make space for new directions.

How often do you revisit old work? Do you have systems for circling back to what you've created in the past to see how you could improve upon it or take it in a new direction? In this episode, I consider the practice of circling back through Mckenzie Wark's theory of "hacking." And I explain why my latest project, Blank Slate, is a hack and how it came to be.Footnotes:Read the essay version of this episode.Learn more about rethinking your small business status quo with Blank Slate."Broken Links" by Tara McMullin on What WorksCapital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? by Mckenzie WarkHow to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell"Make Something Heavy." by Anu AtluruCasey Newton on The Vergecast (31:50) explaining his creative system ★ Support this podcast ★