What Works Tara McMullin

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!


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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.


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There's a sort of inside joke in the online business space of coaches, creators, and service providers. Or maybe, at this point, it's an "outside joke?"
Q: What's the surest way to make more money as a creator or small business owner?
A: Teach other people how to make money as a creator or small business owner.
Hilarious, right? Anyhow, this isn't some weird quirk of extremely online people. It's something huge companies do, too. Douglas Rushkoff calls it "going meta." You can see it in the stock market, in automakers, and—yes—at Meta. In this quick Dispatch, I take a look at how "going meta" changes work, both for self-employed and traditionally employed folks. And, I consider how we might do things differently.
Footnotes:


Survival of the Richest, by Douglas Rushkoff

Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff
"What a Meta For?" by Douglas Rushkoff on Medium
Kyla Scanlon's tweet
"How Ford Makes Money" on Investopedia


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“This cancerous economic principle means that executives and venture capitalists have abandoned the concept of value within a business. Through decades of corporate greed, production has become almost entirely separated from capital, meaning that executives (and higher-ups) are no longer able to understand the nature of the businesses they are growing.”— Ed Zitron, “Absentee Capitalism”
This might sound weird—but most companies today aren’t in the business it appears they’re in. Netflix isn’t really in the content business. Facebook isn’t in the social media business. Etsy isn’t in the handmade marketplace business. Instead, companies are in the growth business. 

And this impacts all of us, tying how we work not to the production of valuable products and services but to the potential for capital growth. Even for independent workers and small businesses, the capital growth game sets the rules and obstacles for the game we play.

Today’s episode is about gaming the system—how the game we play dictates the decisions we make and the actions we perform. After all, you have to know what game you’re playing to know how to win. And you also need to decide whether that’s the game you want to play.

Footnotes:


Games: The Art of Agency by C. Thi Nguyen
“Bent but Not Broken: The History of the Rules” via NFL Operations
CBS Sports: “Results of 2023 Rule Change Proposals”
MSNBC: “BuzzFeed News to shut down”
“Absentee Capitalism” by Ed Zitron
"Amazon's Trickle-Down Monopoly" by Moira Weigel
“The Valuable Business of Maintenance Work” by Tara McMullin

What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin
Support independent research and analysis about the future of work and business by becoming a paid subscriber of What Works! For just $7 per month, you help make my work possible. Click here to pledge your support!


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Today’s quick episode is a sample of something I’m creating for paid subscribers to What Works. I’m calling it my “This is Not Advice” column. Or, TINA for short. Not to be confused with TINA a la “there is no alternative”—if you know, you know.

Paid subscribers not only receive this subscriber-directed content, but they also have the chance to, well, direct the content! When you’re a paid subscriber, you can write in with a question, topic, or observation that you’d like my take on—some added context here and some sideways observations there. 

If you like today’s episode and want to get more of it, go to read.explorewhatworks.com and become a paid subscriber for just $7/month! 
***Today's Question:
What else can I do to grow my [audience, platform, brand, list, etc.]?
To me, this isn’t only a question for independent workers and small business owners—although it’s especially salient for that group. It’s also a question that points to a bigger trend in work in general. And that trend is the way all workers are now encouraged to be entrepreneurs of themselves. This is evident in the portfolio career model, the lessons about personal branding, and what Micki McGee has called the ‘belabored self,’ that is, constant work on perfecting oneself to fit the market.
This question has become quite fraught over the last 9 months or so. When I would have once been able to begrudgingly prescribe a series of actions on various social media platforms or construct a content strategy designed to attract new readers/listeners/viewers, the media landscape has become, to borrow Cory Doctorow’s term, enshittified. Thanks to enshittification, none of the legacy platforms are viable candidates for a concerted strategy. And splitting one’s effort across multiple platforms is just watering down already ineffective action.
Listen to hear my answer! Or find the written version at read.explorewhatworks.com
Footnotes:

Become a paid subscriber to What Works for just $7 per month!
"The Enshittification of TikTok" by Cory Doctorow on Wired

Micki McGee on the "belabored self"
"How Audience-Building is Not the Same as Finding Clients" by Tara McMullin

Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han

Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman
"Why Creating Remarkable Work Matters" by Tara McMullin
"Revisiting Remarkable Content to Explore Digital Ecology" by Tara McMullin


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What does a bad movie from 1992, loss aversion, Steinbeck, pizza, farm animals, and the founder of a software company have in common? Well, you’ll find them all in this episode.

This episode will take you places. I don’t want to spoil it. So suffice it to say, this episode is all about questioning why we act the way we do when it comes to how we scale up (and scale down) our dreams. 

Footnotes:

Learn more about Nathalie Lussier and AccessAlly

Far and Away (1992 film)
Oklahoma land rush of 1893
“A primer on the 30s” by John Steinbeck
More about loss aversion

2002 pizza study

Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han
Check out Nathalie & Robin’s farm on YouTube

What Works by Tara McMullin
Support the research, journalism, and analysis that goes into What Works by becoming a paid subscriber for just $7 per month. You'll get access to bonus content and help me continue to do this work (instead of, ya know, selling you stuff). 


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