Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 21

Will Facebook Become a Sad AI-Dominated Graveyard in the Coming Year?

Facebook announced they are going to get more aggressive with allowing AI-generated users and profiles on Facebook. In a move literally no one was asking for, they announced the shift and one of their senior AI execs at Facebook described their vision this way:

“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do. They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that’s where...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Infectious Generosity by Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson knows big ideas. As the head of TED, the global organization behind TED talks and TED X events, he has been witness to the backstory of more big ideas than most. His biggest is that humans are hardwired to be generous. Not that it’s easy to remember that in a world that seems colder than it actually is. Yet the stories he tells and examples he brings together offer a reminder that we all can give ourselves the grace to be our most generous selves and make a difference in the world...

How 2025 Could Become The Year of Reuse

Every time I would visit India growing up, one sight would fascinate me as we traveled the roads was the number of old Ambassador black taxis that continued to dominate the roads for five decades. The thing I didn’t know as a child but later learned was that the “secret” to their longevity was that the insides of the cars would be completely replaced over time. While the iconic car brand has since been discontinued, I couldn’t help thinking about it this week as a read about a luxury service des...

What We Can Learn From 2024 Most Hated Ads

The worst ads of the year, according to marketing publication The Drum, included Apple’s cringy ad showing the iPad literally crushing human creativity, Google showing how AI could help a seven year cheat her way through writing a fan letter to an Olympian, Jaguar’s controversial brand revamp, Bumble’s bumbling ad imploring their female users to hook up more often and several others. I had to agree with the assessments for the various ads/campaigns being terrible, but looking at the list there w...

6 Techniques to Find Anything That’s Lost or See What Others Miss

You know that moment when you misplace something, and it takes forever to find? It could be your keys or a handwritten to-do list or anything else that seemingly just disappeared into thin air. Maybe you never found it.

A piece from NPR this week collects six techniques that would be worth remembering to help you solve this very common human problem:

Identify what makes your missing object stand out in its environment.Think about likely scenarios of how and why your object might ...

Jamie Foxx and His Family Offer a Masterclass on How to Maintain Privacy

About eighteen months ago, actor and musician Jamie Foxx got sick. Like really sick. He was rushed to the hospital with “life threatening” injuries and fans plus the media alike all were left to pray and speculate about the mysterious cause of his illness.

Meanwhile, his family and friends kept quiet about it – refusing to share details and declining all interviews. Of course, the media and Internet filled the void with lots of baseless conspiracy theories (it was a hit job from Diddy!) Still...

The Biggest Question from the Influencer Suing Another Influencer for “Copying Her Vibe”

Two influencers meet at a fancy hotel in Austin to collaborate on some social media posts. That’s how the story started but it quickly goes bad as this “influencer vs influencer” article outlines from the NY Times. After experiencing frustration and a dip in her affiliate Amazon sales due (allegedly) to similar content from another influencer who “copied her vibe” the first one decided to sue.

The entire story may seem like a fight between two people you probably don’t care about over som...

4 Non-Obvious Upsides of the Big Omnicom + IPG Acquisition

This past week was panic-inducing across the advertising industry. Two of the “big four” agency holding companies intend to join forces to create the biggest ad agency in the world with over 100,000 employees and an estimated $25B in revenue. The part of the news causing the most fear across the industry probably boils down to one thing summed up in this sentence from multiple stories:

“Omnicom executives said they had “clearly identified opportunities” for $750 million in annual cost savings...

The Brilliant Entrepreneurial Lessons of a Plant Hacker Inventing New Flowers

To raise money to put himself through school and earn a biotechnology degree, Sebastian Cocioba would gather orchids that his local Home Depot had thrown out and apply a plant growth serum to bring them back to life so he could sell them back to the store. Later, he would buy used lab equipment in fire sales and resell it back to other labs for a profit. All this bio-hustling wasn’t just to earn some side cash … it’s a symbol of how Cocioba thinks.

His current work is inventing new smells...

New Study Finds Music Can Alter the Way We Feel About Our Memories

Imagine if the way you remember a moment from your past was dependent on the music you were listening to at the time. It turns out this may be exactly how our brains work to process memories. As a Fast Company article this week notes:

“When participants listened to emotionally charged music while recalling the neutral stories, they were more likely to incorporate new emotional elements into the story that matched the mood of the music. For example, neutral stories recalled with positive music...