Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 2

The Perfect Sandwich Making Guide (and Why People Ignore Press Releases)

This is a press release I just read which got me thinking: Kroger Crafts the Perfect Sandwich Making Guide

The release included a powerful reminder from one of their Vice Presidents of something that “every meal is an opportunity for creativity and enjoyment.” I like sandwiches, so I was immediately hooked. Especially after they promised that there would be “endless possibilities in every bite.” After all, who doesn’t want that sort of optimism in a sandwich?

So, I dived into their perfect...

The Future Will Include AI For Dynamic Pricing … Here’s What Could Happen Next

Here are two stories from this week that don’t seem to be related to one another. The first is about Delta ​testing AI for dynamic pricing​ in specific situations. The other is about Amazon ​acquiring a company that makes a wearable listening device​ that always captures your conversation. When you put them together, you can start to get a good sense of where dynamic pricing controlled by algorithms is likely to go. Here’s a scenario:

You are having a conversation about a trip you need to tak...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Up the Organization by Robert Townsend

Up the Organization was published in the mid-seventies, which technically makes it just about as old as I am. The lessons, though, are actually timeless and the book stands apart for an idea that was well ahead of its time … and feels relevant for now too. In case you don’t know Robert Townsend, he was the visionary CEO that helped Avis pioneer their iconic “We’re Number Two. We Try Harder.” advertising campaign that is widely recognized as one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all t...

How AI Is Exposing the Idiocy of Influencer Marketing

Recently, an AI generated influencer went viral at Wimbledon. She wasn’t the first, but there was a ​firestorm of stories about how she is the latest symbol of the believability crisis we find ourselves in​. As one executive from Getty Images explained:

“People are used to seeing curated, almost perfect images from human influencers, achieved through extensive editing, filters and professional photography. Zelu, being entirely AI-generated, naturally embodies this idealised flawless skin, per...

The U.S. Postal Service Turns 250—So Let’s Celebrate the Innovations They Have Given the World

For over 100 years in the early days of the U.S. Postal Service, the way mail would get sent from small towns involved a crazy method of railway mail clerks attaching pouches to a moving train as it slowed and went through each town. That’s just one of the fascinating stories you can read about this week as the U.S. Post Office gets set to ​celebrate their 250th anniversary​ this Saturday.

From helping get commercial aviation off the ground (literally) to inventing the ZIP code system that di...

The Coming GLP-1 Buying Shift That’s Causing Brands to Panic

The big story of GLP-1 medications has routinely been about weight loss, obesity and expanded usages beyond its original classification as a way to manage diabetes. A key element of how they work is to reduce cravings and impulsive choices when it comes to food. ​More recent data is starting to emerge​ that these effects may not only affect the way people buy and consume food. As Retail Prophet founder Doug Stephens puts it:

“You could almost look at the entire consumer market and say that an...

How One Longtime Brand Fan Is Bringing Back the Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is back!​ Appealing to grown-up geeks and younger technophiles alike, the computer aims to offer a “simpler, distraction-free computing experience” and suggests that a great potential usage is to teach kids BASIC coding and how computers really work while leaning into the brand’s heritage and history:

Honouring the past. Innovating the future. We’ve been sleeping for 30 years. Please excuse us. Now we’re back, you know we had to start with the best-selling desktop computer of...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell

Broadly, magical thinking describes the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect external events. Mythologizing the world as an attempt to “make sense” of it is a unique and curious human habit.

If you have ever felt like the world is filled with people who are actively deluding themselves into believing whatever they want … this latest book from Wordslut author and linguist Amanda Montell offers some insight on why that seems to happen so often today and what any of us might do to unde...

The Booming Business of Being a Witch—Selling Spells on Etsy

There was a time when not being a witch was a good survival strategy. Apparently those times have changed. According to ​a new piece from Chavie Lieber for the WSJ​, there are a growing number of metaphysical entrepreneurs (also known as “Etsy Witches”) promising services to cast spells for all sorts of things, from good weather on a wedding day to ensuring one sports team dominates another on game day. What’s the appeal of witches and who would pay for this sort of service?

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Witchcraft an...

7 Tips for Making Your Website Non-Obvious (and Interesting)

Updating a website is one of my least favorite things to do as an entrepreneur. It just takes so much time. But if you’ve ever had to do it, you’ll understand the moment that I’m having right now.

The new ​www.rohitbhargava.com​ website just launched and so I really can’t help starting this week’s newsletter by sharing it with all of you! Aside from spending months just refreshing the design, there are a few non-obvious strategies and guiding principles we used for the content on this new sit...