Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 4

The Swedish Perfume That You Pay for with Your Time in Nature

Deep in the Småland woods of Sweden, there is a “forest-based perfumery” where perfume brand Koyia invites customers to “pay” by spending 599 seconds being still in nature instead of paying 599 Swedish kroner to buy the perfume. It’s a powerful statement and unique idea that’s quickly going viral, and there are several reasons why it works:

“Because the consumer must give something finite and deeply personal — their time — the perfume feels earned. This creates stronger attachment and loyalty...

Why the Podcast Company Making 5000 Episodes of AI-Slop a Week May Be Good News

Yesterday I listened to a podcast called Garden featuring Nigel Thistledown, a self-described “garden enthusiast, botanical provocateur and occasional mediator of bird-plant disputes.” The podcast is one of thousands of AI-generated shows being produced by a company called Inception Point whose CEO Jeanine Wright believes that “in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI, and we are the company that’s bringing those people to life.” Her soundbite that inspired plenty of outrage o...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Some of the stories in this book are hard to read. And you’ll probably be glad that you’re not facing any of the situations that the victims featured had to live through. What makes this illuminating book about shame stand out, though, is how deep the author goes to truly try and understand the stories of people who had to go through some of the worst moments you might imagine. You could read these and think that a few of them deserved what they got … or that no one deserves this sort of public ...

An Insider Perspective on What Happened to Silicon Valley

One of the long reads from this month’s WIRED magazine offers an insider account to the shift that’s happened within Silicon Valley and particularly to the ideals of the now billionaires who were foundational in creating the technology fueling our world today. You may know some of the pieces of this history already, but seeing the evolution of the last three decades mapped out in a single article made me think this week.

“Essentially, the big tech companies became The Phone Company—pernicious...

The New Science of the Trend Towards Grey Divorces

Couples that get divorced later in life when their children are already adults was once a rarely studied field—particularly the effects on those adult children and their relationships with one or both parents. In the past decade, as rates for these so-called “twilight divorces” or “grey divorces” have steadily grown, many scientists have been studying the effects on family dynamics and made some interesting discoveries.

“Today, roughly 36% of people getting divorced are 50 and older, compared...

The Tuna Cans Film Festival: A Perfect Throwback Marketing Strategy?

Would you make a movie about a can of tuna? Inspired by the Cannes Film Festival, Bumble Bee launched the Tuna Cans Film Festival – a search for the best storyteller and short film depicting tuna in some way with a cash prize of $25,000. If this idea seems familiar, it may be because this strategy of brands hosting a consumer generated ad contest was hugely popular years ago. Doritos famously ran a decade long campaign to show the winning consumer generated ad from their “Crash the Super Bowl” c...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Design for a Radically Changing World by Diane Hoskins and Andy Cohen

The offices (or coffee shops) we work in, bridges we drive across, and temples we pray in were all imagined, designed, and built by architects. Could knowing more about how these places are built lead us to a greater understanding of the way we work and live? This book aims to answer this question. I profiled this book back when I was writing about books for Inc magazine. At that time, I wrote this review:

“The core belief the authors introduce is that most problems in the world can be solved...

The Clever Secret Message Behind South Park’s Delayed Episode

There was a new episode scheduled for South Park on Comedy Central last night. It never aired. When the announcement was made, it came alongside this apology from the show creators:

“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done. This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time.”

I don’t recall ever hearing something like this from any other television show ever. The mixup comes on the heels of the show getting a wave of publicity for their season open...

The Future of Agriculture Is Peak Farmland + Growing Reforestation

Today, about half of the world’s land is used for farming. In the future, it could be far less–even as food production increases. As technology improves, we can grow more food on less land. This is leading to what some experts are describing as a “peak farmland” moment where large areas are reforesting, wild animals are returning and we’re turning the clock backwards. It’s not just technology-driven efficiency that is leading to this trend though:

We have also replaced some land-hungry crops ...

The Long-Awaited AI Copyright Payday May Soon Arrive

For years now, publishers in all categories of media have been fighting a battle with AI firms to be compensated for their content that was used to train large language models. This week there was a big media headline about Anthropic ​agreeing to a $1.5B settlement​ to pay book publishers and authors for titles that were illegally used to train AI models. Publishing industry insiders are hoping this may start a wave of similar settlements from other AI companies. There are some nuances behind th...