Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 2

Six Links That Make You Think #797

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Too Long; Didn’t Read – BBC Friday Night Comedy. “Part of my Saturday ritual is listening to BBC panel shows. Here’s one featuring comedian Olga Koch, who I didn’t know also has a PhD in human-computer interaction. Amidst the comedy, it’s also a genius observation of many profound truths about AI. Start at 5:30.” (Alistair for Hugh.) How To Make Doing Hard Things Easier Than Scrolling YouTube – Newel Of Knowledge – YouTube . “This should be mandatory in schools, and maybe for all of us. Best explanation of how to break the cycle I’ve seen.” (Alistair for Mitch).The Rise Of ‘Conspiracy Physics’ – Dan Kagan-Kans – The Wall Street Journal. “I wonder what will be left of Western society in 20 or 30 years?” (Hugh for Alistair). The Disorder Of Things: Politics And The Printing Press In The Early Reformation (1517-1526) – The Driftless Area Review . “I’m not sure if it makes things easier or harder to deal with, knowing that we’ve see all this before? If only there was a ‘History for Dummies Handbook: How to Stop Societal Collapse’.” (Hugh for Mitch).   One Of The Scariest Hackers I’ve Ever Met – Pablos Holman – Tim Ferris – YouTube . “I had never heard of Pablos Holman until he walked out on to the stage at Startup Festival a few years back and… well… he blew me away. I can’t say that I agreed with everything that he said (onstage and off), but I know one thing for certain: If Alistair is choosing someone to speak on that stage (and I had never heard of them), they are someone to pay attention to and follow. What followed his presentation was more than a handful of conversations backstage and in the hallways… and… I was just super-blown away by his work expereince and how he thinks (and he does think deeply) about how technology can help us and save us. I was thrilled to see that he sat down with Tim Ferriss for two plus hour to dig into his thinking and perspectives… on everything from how to think like a hacker and nuclear power to AI and how we can make better progress in our world. Well worth the time spent…” (Mitch for Alistair). Lilith Fair: The Story Behind The Iconic ’90S Music Festival – CBC Docs – YouTube . “I had not thought about Lilith Fair is quite some time. I was lucky enough to see this mega-tour of all-female artists several times over the few years it ran… and in looking back at the line-up and the culture of the time, I feel so lucky to have been an active music journalist when all of this was happening. Many of the artists were people I knew, many of them were rockstars that I was covering. This incredible (and new) documentary (free for all to watch) really captures a moment time that I both lived and worked through. I had a little bit of a bird’s eye view because Buffy Childerhose came up with the name of the festival and we were both working for the Montreal alternative weekly at the time (Hour) and I was also doing quite a bit of work covering other Nettwerk musicians (the company that managed Sarah McLachlan)… It’s all werid because it feels like yesterday and while it was happening it didn’t feel like culture was changing… getting old is weird…” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Logos Lie. Names Distract. Ideas Matter.

I read a new book recently that sent me spiralling.

It made me realize just how primitive… and primal we truly are.
Not just in abstract terms, but in the small, everyday ways we move through business.
Ways I’ve caught myself acting that, when I’m honest, don’t make a lot of sense.
When we’re unsure, we defer to the person with the biggest platform.
When we’re rushed, we grab the book with the blurbs from famous authors.
When we’re overwhelmed, we default to the logo… which could just be the brand that paid the most to be top of mind.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’ve trusted someone because of their status more than the logic they produce (on countless occasions).

It’s old wiring in a new world.

Status is the shortcut our brains love when the signal is noisy.
If someone has the mic and the followers, we lend them our attention.
We start doubting our own judgment if their perspective doesn’t match ours.
We treat proximity to stature as proof of substance.

And I do it too.

I’ve nodded along to half-baked ideas… not because the ideas were sharp, but because others (who I respect) were doing it.
I’ve second-guessed myself when someone with more “shine” pushed back.
I’ve relaxed into a strategy deck because it opened with a name that I trust.

Borrowed shine can blind you.

A product isn’t better because a famous founder is behind it.
A leader isn’t wiser because a conference puts them on the main stage.
A wealthy entrepreneur isn’t necessarily the one building the best products or services.
A “successful person” isn’t always that much smarter than you are.

But we believe it… we defer to it… and that’s the wrestle.

Because often the “who” lands more credibly than the “what.”
The person overshadows the product.
The sheen overshadows the evidence.

And here’s the part that I’ve been thinking more deeply about:

Does status equal greatness?
If you build, create, lead… this matters.
Because the temptation to chase those with status is everywhere.
And status looks different for all of us.

I’ve been trying to install a new reflex.

When a name makes me nod, I ask: Would I still nod if I didn’t know the name?
When a logo makes me want to buy, I ask: Would this product stand naked, without the brand behind it?
When the crowd claps, I ask: Am I hearing the idea… or the delivery?

For my own work, I try to flip the script:

Show the work… evidence beats aura.
Keep the receipts… process beats posture.
Play the long game… consistency beats accolades.

None of this is easy.

Because our brains love shortcuts.
But every shortcut has a toll… and too often, it’s paid in missed opportunities and mediocre picks that just had someone we know, like and trust behind it.

Oh, the book is Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World by Toby Stuart (and I loved it/can’t stop thinking about it).

Toby was my guest on this week’s Thinking With Mitch Joel Podcast. 
We dug into how status gets conferred (not declared), why “who” so often crowds out “what” and how we can build in a world that still acts in this very primal, tribal way.

So, the next time you’re nodding along, ask yourself: is it the work that’s moving me… or just the status of the person presenting it?

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Ambient Disassociation – The Social Media Collapse?

Maybe this is it? 

Maybe these are the last days of social media. 
Not because people are logging off in protest. 
Not because regulation finally caught up. 
But because the feeds themselves seem to be collapsing under the weight of their own junk.

We used to scroll because we were curious… because there was something human in the mix. 

Photos from friends… stories from people we knew… insight from people we respected. 
Jokes… news… updates… arguments. 
It was messy… but it was “ours.”

Now? The scroll feels different. 

The feeds aren’t powered by people… they’re powered by machines. 
The feeds show you what the tech wants you to see… you can’t even sort the feeds by the latest posts only from your direct connections anymore.
Content optimized for clicks… not connection. 
Headlines engineered for engagement… not meaning. 

And now AI floods the zone. 

Instant articles, instant comments, instant “influencers” that don’t exist. 
A never-ending slop of recycled text and bot chatter that looks like something… but feels like nothing.
Or… a human actually using the AI to do the heavy lifting (which just multiples the problem).

What has always been true remains true… 

More content doesn’t mean more connection. 
It means less. 
Instagram engagement is down. 
People are drowning in the flood, and instead of swimming… they’re quietly drifting away.

Some corners still hold out. 

Reddit, for example, where communities call out bots and protect the threads they care about. 
Subcultures within subcultures (and subreddits) fighting to keep the human pulse alive. 
But that takes work. 
And social media was never designed for work. 
It was designed for the frictionless… endless feed.

So here we are. 

I read the article, The Last Days Of Social Media on Noema this weekend (thanks to Hugh McGuire for picking it as one our Six Links That Make You Think this past week).
I can’t get the idea of “ambient disassociation” out of my head.
The scroll as anesthesia… a way to numb instead of engage… a way to feel time pass without ever really feeling.

This might not be the end of the internet (I really hope it’s not). 

It might not even be the end of networks. 
But it feels like the end of something.
Or… we’re all just too tired from it, so some will stick it out while others just shift attention elsewhere. 
Maybe it’s the end of believing that social media was ever really social?

What is the path forward?

The article argues that we, the users and creators, need to change. 
We need to ditch and stop caring about “likes” and “follows.” We need to ditch the notion that engagement matters. 
We need to ditch the idea that getting rid of AI slop will come from better algorithms.
We need to focus on actual presence… smaller and slower… and (most importantly) more human spaces.

That sounds more like the early 2000s to me.

Because if these really are the last days of social media… maybe that’s not an ending. 
Maybe that’s the beginning of the internet we actually wanted all along.

That same internet that connected me and you… and our ideas. 

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · Ambient Disassociation – The Social Media Collapse? – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Status… Humanity’s Most Powerful Invisible Force With Toby Stuart – This Week’s Thinking With Mitch Joel Conversation

Episode #1001 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast) is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Toby Stuart is a Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, where he directs the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the Institute for Business Innovation. Over his career, he has also taught at Harvard, Columbia, Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan, and he is recognized globally as one of the leading thinkers on entrepreneurship, networks and organizational strategy. Beyond academia, Toby sits on the boards of multiple technology companies, cofounded the Black Venture Institute, and serves as the founding Chairman of Workday’s AI Advisory Board. His latest book, Anointed – The Extraordinary Effects Of Social Status In A Winner-Take-Most World, examines the invisible hierarchies that govern so much of human life and why small advantages so often compound into massive outcomes. From why blurbs on books sway readers, to how neighborhoods or technologies become “the next big thing,” to the inequalities embedded in who gets credit for innovation, Anointed reveals how status shapes trust, opportunity and even our sense of self (I loved this book). Toby argues that status is both necessary – helping us navigate infinite choices in the modern world – and corrosive, creating inequality that is often disconnected from true merit. In our discussion, Toby unpacks the mechanics of anointment, the ways status rubs off through association and how technology, especially AI, might both entrench and disrupt these hierarchies. The conversation explores the paradox of meritocracy, the illusions of self-anointment in today’s digital culture and the future of work as AI accelerates change. If you’ve ever wondered why some ideas, people, or companies get chosen while others languish (or even how you go to where you are), this conversation will challenge you to see the hidden operating system behind everyday decisions. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Thinking With Mitch Joel here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose): #1001 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast).

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Status… Humanity’s Most Powerful Invisible Force With Toby Stuart – TWMJ #1001

Welcome to episode #1001 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Toby Stuart is a Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, where he directs the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the Institute for Business Innovation. Over his career, he has also taught at Harvard, Columbia, Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan, and he is recognized globally as one of the leading thinkers on entrepreneurship, networks and organizational strategy. Beyond academia, Toby sits on the boards of multiple technology companies, cofounded the Black Venture Institute, and serves as the founding Chairman of Workday’s AI Advisory Board. His latest book, Anointed – The Extraordinary Effects Of Social Status In A Winner-Take-Most World, examines the invisible hierarchies that govern so much of human life and why small advantages so often compound into massive outcomes. From why blurbs on books sway readers, to how neighborhoods or technologies become “the next big thing,” to the inequalities embedded in who gets credit for innovation, Anointed reveals how status shapes trust, opportunity and even our sense of self (I loved this book). Toby argues that status is both necessary – helping us navigate infinite choices in the modern world – and corrosive, creating inequality that is often disconnected from true merit. In our discussion, Toby unpacks the mechanics of anointment, the ways status rubs off through association and how technology, especially AI, might both entrench and disrupt these hierarchies. The conversation explores the paradox of meritocracy, the illusions of self-anointment in today’s digital culture and the future of work as AI accelerates change. If you’ve ever wondered why some ideas, people, or companies get chosen while others languish (or even how you go to where you are), this conversation will challenge you to see the hidden operating system behind everyday decisions. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 55:24.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Thinking With Mitch Joel.Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn.Check out ThinkersOne.Here is my conversation with Toby Stuart.Anointed – The Extraordinary Effects Of Social Status In A Winner-Take-Most World.Haas School of Business.Follow Toby on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) – Introduction to Toby Stuart.
(01:50) – Understanding Anointed and Social Status.
(04:40) – The Necessity and Corrosiveness of Status.
(08:54) – Blurbs, Status, and the Publishing Industry.
(12:40) – The Role of Association in Anointment.
(15:29) – Breaking into New Fields and Status Transfer.
(19:44) – Meritocracy and the Role of AI.
(27:12) – AI’s Impact on Status and Society.
(31:38) – The Impact of AI on Status and Credentials.
(34:46) – Evaluating Human Contribution in the Age of AI.
(39:17) – The Future of AI Regulation and Power Dynamics.
(45:29) – Self-Anointed Status in a Digital World.
(51:25) – Reflections on Status and Personal Growth.

Download the Podcast here: #1001 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Before you go… ThinkersOne gives you direct access to the experts shaping tomorrow’s conversations. Get their insights on leadership, AI, culture and innovation all delivered to your team before the rest of the world catches on. Ideal for your meetings, off-sites, and lunch & learns.

Six Links That Make You Think #796

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Emerson, AI, And The Force – Neal Stephenson – Substack. “Graphomane, Neal Stephenson‘s Substack, continues to delight. I wrote about AI and the Primer from his book, The Diamond Age, a while back; here, he takes his idea to task. Give two people the same resources, and one might thrive while another would squander the opportunity. Many of us have limitless resources, at least informationally: all the world’s tutorials, and a companion in our pockets. So why will some flourish and others wither? This is ultimately a piece about education, and relevant to your current interests, Hugh.” (Alistair for Hugh). 25 Years – Ben Yoskovitz – Focused Chaos . “My friend and Lean Analytics co-author Ben Yoskovitz wrote a heartfelt post on his blog, normally reserved for startup and innovation topics. It’s about his mother’s cognitive decline, and how few years we have left in lives that once stretched out endlessly before us. As Ben says, don’t waste time.” (Alistair for Mitch). The Last Days Of Social Media – James O’Sullivan – Noema . “If I could give one piece of advice to anyone it would be this: delete all your social media apps, and delete all your accounts.” (Hugh for Alistair). Unbundle The University – Yascha Mounk – Persuasion . “‘How did you go bankrupt?’… ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’ Seems like this is happening to institutions all around us.” (Hugh for Mitch).  Psychology Hacks Of The World’s Best Advertisers – Rory Sutherland – Chris Donnelly – YouTube . “I don’t like the title of this podcast… it seems link-baity and (sadly) it might turn off more people that it should. Listen, if you’re not already on the Rory Sutherland train, I am going to urge you to spend some time with this conversation. Rory is on fire (and there is some NSFW language along for the ride). Alistair, I can’t imagine you not loving most of what Rory has to say. Scratch beneath the surface of his ad exec title and you will uncover a wildy divergent thinker, polymath and brillaint sythesizer of what it both means to build a business today… how the markets dance… and how to avoid all of that nonsense to build something that really matters… this is pure gold and just evil enough for you… tell me what you think.” (Mitch for Alistair). Why Everyone Is Wrong About AI (Including You) – Benedict Evans – The Knowledge Project . “I’m a huge fan of Benedict Evans so (before I pass judgement), I’d love to hear what you think about his take on AI. For my dollar? I don’t think current usage and capabilities are the best way to decide whether this is a bubble or not. I’m also cautious not to be a market of one. With that, I didn’t connect with many of his perspectives on what AI can and can’t do and how it might impact work going forward. I am often talking about this idea that we are in ‘stasis’ when it comes to technological moments like this. We have a hard time projecting out what it could be, because we think it is at its limitations or the best it can be in this moment. I still think AI is still in its early stages (long before mass adoption) and well before Day One. And I am not sure why he has come to these conclusions… but I am open to being wrong and being persuaded by his perspectives.” (Mitch for Hugh). 

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

The Battle For Signal In The Noise

Lately I’ve been thinking less about “consumption” and more about “sensemaking.”

We’re swimming in infinite feeds, endless alerts, never-ending scrolls of information (often conjecture, lies and opinions with little regard for facts and sources). 
But what really matters is not how much we consume… it’s how we filter. 
How we choose what to keep, what to discard and what to transform into something meaningful.

Editing my conversation with Patrick Tanguay from Sentiers this week for Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast, I kept coming back to this…

Patrick is like me… he doesn’t just read. 
He builds a system. 
He reads, filters, archives, connects and then outputs. 
It’s not about hoarding knowledge… it’s about making sense of it.

That’s a subtle but essential distinction.

Because in this age of AI, consumption is no longer scarce. 
Machines can ingest everything… indiscriminately. 
Every book, every article, every paper, every post, every transcript. 
Infinite intake. 
But they don’t have taste… yet.
They don’t have judgment… yet.
They don’t have the quiet moment where you pause, stare out the window and realize: this one matters (and this may be the only thing these machines never get?).

Humans do this.

And that’s where I think most people stop too soon. 
They stop at reading. 
That’s only one-third of the equation. 
For me, the loop looks more like this: read, take notes while reading/take the time to reflect. 
But it can’t end there either. 
The last part is output. 
Doing something with it.

That might be as simple as sharing an idea on LinkedIn. 

Or it could become an entire podcast conversation, a slide in a keynote presentation, an article, or a segment for my weekly radio hit. 
I’m constantly thinking: Where can I best take what I just learned and turn it into a learning moment where we all get to grow together?

That’s the full arc. 

Reading… reflecting… sharing/outputting that which is worthy. 
Without that last step, all the highlights in your Kindle or notes in your Moleskine risk staying locked away. 
The real value emerges when those fragments are stitched back into culture, conversation and connection.
And if AI does eventually learn to mimic our sense of taste (reflecting our own patterns back to us) will we become better at filtering or simply more predictable?

It’s easy to forget that the value isn’t in the feed… it’s in the filter.

That’s what Patrick reminded me.
And it left me wondering…

In a world where AI can consume everything, will our edge come from how much we take in… or from how carefully we decide what’s worth passing on?

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

When Value Becomes A Trillion

Elon Musk might be on track to become the world’s first trillionaire.

But the headline isn’t the number.
The real story is the value behind it.
Because this isn’t just about Tesla stock or shareholder rewards.
It’s about the industries that innovate and shift (and get disrupted) when Musk delivers even part of what he promises.

Think about it:

Electric cars moved from fringe (with major car manufacturers actively ignoring the opportunity) to mainstream.Rockets didn’t just launch… they landed (and became an entire private industry).Satellites became low-orbit infrastructure blanketing the planet (access and connectivity changed).

Now the targets are wilder: 20 million Teslas a year, self-driving robo-taxis, humanoid robots and an AI-fueled grid of energy and compute.

If even half of that lands, what does it create (beyond the world’s first trillionaire)?
New jobs we don’t have names for yet.
New technologies we don’t yet imagine.
New ways to move, live, power and connect.

Yes, the money is astronomical… but so is the outcome.

A trillion-dollar net worth for an individual could just be shorthand for the scale of change. 
The moment when one company’s R&D budget rivals a nation’s… and entire sectors.
When automotive, transportation, aerospace, energy, AI, hardware, software and countless other industries get redefined.

And maybe that’s the real shift?

I too worry about wealth’s continuing path of being more and more limited to but a small few.
I too worry about whether society can function when wealth consolidates at this scale.
Because once you cross the trillion-dollar mark…
You’re not just rich… you’re infrastructure.

Do we want to live in a world where individuals accumulate that level of economic gravity?

Where the ability to move markets, industries (even governments) sits in the hands of one person?
Where Mars isn’t just a fantasy, but a privately managed project bankrolled by one person’s empire?
With that (and this is my personal opinion), it’s not the accumulation of wealth that matters most… it’s the acceleration of what that wealth unlocks.

Picture this… 

Fleets of autonomous vehicles reducing urban congestion and helping our climate. 
Factories staffed not by humans replaced, but by humans reimagined… managing robot colleagues and optimizing AI-driven supply chains. 
Rural areas blanketed with low-cost internet that births new economies in places once ignored. 
Energy grids powered by solar and stored in batteries robust enough to make blackouts a relic of the past. 
Kids growing up dreaming not of corner offices, but of building companies that make humans multi-planetary or cure diseases right here at home with quantum-trained AI models.

That (to me) is what a trillionaire should represent. 

Not wealth… but a better path for civilization.
And yes… this could be the blueprint for a better world. 
But it could just as easily be the architecture for one person’s monopoly over humanity’s future.

So here’s my provocation…

What if a trillionaire isn’t just a symbol of excess… but a marker that society itself has leveled up?
What if the question isn’t “should we have trillionaires?”
But rather, “what new (and better) world will exist because we do?”

I’ll forever be the hopeful optimist… 

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · When Value Becomes A Trillion – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

From Six Pixels Of Separation To Thinking With Mitch Joel

One thousand.

It’s a big number.. it’s also a strange number.
When I started Six Pixels of Separation back in 2003, it wasn’t a brand.
It was a simple marketing blog… a way to put ideas out into the world while running the digital agency I had co-founded, Twist Image.

The name? It felt right for the moment.

Back then, the internet was still “other.”
Something you logged into.
Something that lived on a screen.
But we were connecting in ways we could have never imagined.
We were no longer six degrees of separation from people we didn’t know… we were all suddenly interconnected… six pixels of separation.

But names do something else: they hold you in a place and time.

Six Pixels grew.
It turned from a blog into one of the first voices for how media and culture were shifting towards digital.
It became the name of my first book (published in 2009).
It became a front row seat to conversations with some of the smartest people on the planet (when the podcast launched in 2006).
It also became my personal playground and studio… tracking my own shifts as a marketing agency executive… to business writer… keynote speaker… media person… to builder of what comes next.

And here we are.

We published episode #1000 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast this past Sunday.
That number stopped me in my tracks.
A milestone like that forces reflection.
Because the content has never been just about marketing… or technology.
It’s been about thinking.
About how to think better about complex topics in an ever-innovative world.
About how we navigate disruption, embrace change and find the patterns hiding under the noise.

So from now on, Six Pixels of Separation becomes Thinking with Mitch Joel.

This isn’t about abandoning the past.
It’s about aligning the signal with what’s already here.
Technology is no longer separate.
We don’t log into it.
We live inside of it.
The pixels are gone.

What remains is the work… the thinking… about what it means to be human in a world being remade by code, culture, and capital.

The podcast will continue.
The essays and articles will continue.
The conversations will continue.
But with a name that speaks more clearly to what we’ve been doing all along.

And yes, it also connects better to my business, ThinkersOne, and everything we are doing to help companies get first access to new ideas from the brightest experts out there.

ThinkersOne is my attempt to take this same idea (that the right thought at the right time can shift how we see everything) and make it accessible inside companies everywhere.
Personal, custom and actionable.
Not another keynote or video, but a spark that teams can actually use in the moments that matter.

In many ways, Thinking with Mitch Joel and ThinkersOne are two sides of the same coin.

One is public, open and ongoing.
The other is focused, intentional and designed for business.

Both are about one thing: elevating how we think… together.

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Patrick Tanguay On Paths To Better Thinking – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #1000 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Patrick Tanguay is a self-described generalist, synthesist and curator whose lifelong curiosity and love of reading have led him across multiple careers, and now shape one of the most thoughtful newsletters in the futures-thinking space. As the creator of Sentiers, a weekly “futures thinking observatory” (and one of my most favorite reads), Patrick spotlights signals of change across technology, society, and culture. He helps readers trace emergent paths instead of prescribing them. Alongside his writing, he designed and launched Station C, one of the first co-working spaces, co-founded the print magazine, The Alpine Review, and seeded communities like Creative Mornings and some of the earlier community get-togethers for the digital enthusiasts. For episode #1000, Patrick guides us through how he curates global currents of change, explores how platform design, sense-making systems and personal knowledge management influence our capacity to understand the future, and why the skills of generalists matter now more than ever. He walks us through why Sentiers became such a respected newsletter and how its architecture reinforces and expands his handwritten trail of ideas. Across the show we consider how to build a personal “observatory,” not just follow feed algorithms, how to connect seemingly disparate signals from AI to city futures, and why being able to notice what’s happening before everyone else is becoming more crucial… and more rare. This is an episode for curious minds, digital gardeners and anyone searching for clarity amid chaos. I hope that you will also take a couple of moments to listen to my opening monologue about my reflections on the past 1000 episodes (nearly 20 years), and what the future will hold for this show starting next week. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose):  #1000 – Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.