Upstream #230
marching š„š¤, bucks āļø, dance šŖ©, biohack š§¬, with you š„°.
Well. How the hell are you holding up? God alive. Will it ever stop. Srsly. Is there an end to this interminable wetness? Sun visited briefly for a glorious trot up a hill. Then drip drip drip. More of the same. They say the north wind made the Vikings. What in the christ will this make of us? Busy month. Hope youāre doing ok. Right. Letās go.
"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. Thatās how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen
culture // marching š„š¤
On top of the weather, and the suffocating Polycene (making us feel trapped), thereās the relentless de-humanising march of AI. Sigh. Look at popular AI fake singer Sienna Rose with 1m monthly streams. Or this from a 2 line prompt. Or AI written romantic fiction. Or armies of AI UGC characters for ads at a click. And on, and on. Freya India wrote a great piece on the importance of being human. How āwhen so few seem interested in being a person, isnāt that the best time to be one?ā. How "it feels as if everyone has this agreeableness now too, this neutered way of seeing the world. Nobody wants to be distinctive, nobody wants to risk disapproval". Young people, are blunting themselves and their beliefs. Outsourcing their thinking before they've even lived. But the bigger issues is the "danger of becoming like bots, automated and standardised". Itās why Jessie Buckleyās Golden Globe speech, shaky, imperfect, but wonderfully human, was great. Why Dwayne Johnsonās inspiration in The Smashing Machine matters. Why the Knights of the Seven Kingdoms, particularly this, resonates (honour and valour are so deeply human). Or why traditional Chinese Lute making feels magnetic. Because messy human stuff matters. Because sometimes the long way is the best way. Sometimes itās not about product or answer, but process and journey. Ana Handley wrote about this too, responding to this piece about AI reducing 50% of white collar work. The race is on it said. Panic now. But as Ana wrote āI keep coming back to: What race? Who said weāre racing? What are we racing toward?ā. Yes, itās all happening. Yes, itās important. But donāt forget, humans live in this world. And youāre one of them.
brands // bucks āļø
I love stories about smart people, diagnosing problems, making good decisions, and transforming a business. It always seems obvious, and itās almost always about simplification. Brian Niccol got paid $96 million for his first four months as Starbucks new CEO. A lot. Thenā¦he fixed things. With brutal simplification. His predecessor had a strategy called āTriple Shot Reinvention with Two Pumps.ā When asked about it, he said āI donāt know what that means.ā He replaced it with three words: āBack to Starbucks.ā The old mission statement: āWith every cup, with every conversation, with every communityāwe nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.ā, was returned to Earth with: āA welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas.ā It focusses on his strategy. He cut 30% of the menu, killed discounts, brought back handwritten names on cups, restored condiment bars, reintroduced ceramic mugs, removed the extra charge for non-dairy milk, and introduced the Green Apron Serviceāthe largest operating standards investment in Starbucksā 54-year history. In Jan, Starbucks beat estimates. Sales rose 4%, transactions by 3% (the first growth in eight quarters), and revenue rose by 6%. The late great ad legend Jeremy Bullmore once said āWhy is a good insight like a refrigerator? Because the moment you look into it, a light comes onā. Same for strategy. āBack to Starbucksā turns lights on, and reveals a path forward. Love it.
creativity // dance šŖ©
When the wind of change blew, did you to build walls, or windmills? This interview with famous fashion photographer and image maker Nick Knight and his collaborator stylist Simon Foxton, was all about windmills. They reflect on collaboration, the pursuit of originality, and why AI isn't a threat, but the most intoxicatingly liberating new medium for visual expression. Look at Simon's amazing work with AI and srsly, wouldnāt this be cool. And Nickās work here. Phwoarr. Nick talks about how āthat dance between control and surrender is where the magic happensā. And how āthe prompt itself becomes a creative act. Itās a linguistic skill as much as a visual one and itās greatly enriched by a strong knowledge of art historyā. Simon says how āover time, it has learned my aesthetic preferences. It now anticipates my taste, becoming an extension of my own visual instinctsā. And Nick says āwhat you see in Simonās AI work is, at its heart, the same decision-making sensibility that has guided him throughout his career. Unmistakably hisā. Retaining your own creative mark, bringing your own taste, and dancing with the technology. In their time, a single editorial might require a month of prep, a month to shoot, and another month in post. Now, itās a button push. Dance baby dance.
technology // biohack š§¬
Have you got a Chinese Peptide dealer? Itās a thing now in the valley. Peptides, best known as the P in GLP-1s (Ozempic and Wegovy), regulate hormones and reduce inflammation. Biohackers, who want to improve their bodyās performance and live longer, are experimenting. Theyāre trying ones for healing injuries by stimulating new blood vessel growth, oxytocin for improving eye contact, epitalon for sleep and retatrutide for everything from appetite suppression to increased focus. And buying them directly from factories in China. Mad, but itās part of the growing, rapidly evolving space of bio engineering and generative biololgy. Amy Webb shared a hugely interesting deck on the era of living intelligence and the technological super cycle in pharmaceuticals. Itās eye opening. From the self driving lab, with automated robotic platforms and Large Action Models, where R&D is an always on, autonomous manufacturing engine. to advanced sensors, invisible data collection via wearables, ingestible and nanobots. To generative biology, using computation to design biological components that donāt exist in nature. Or organic or organoid intelligence, using lab grown brain cells to create biological computers. Generative biology (GenBio), the convergence of Biology with Data architecture and AI engineering, turning biology into a programmable engineering discipline is exploding. ensen Huang of Nvidia said ādigital biology is the next revolution for AI". AI is already close to producing genuinely new scientific knowledge. Watch this space.
five random (ish) things:
The Edelman Trust Barometer š.
Heh. Anti depressant or Tolkien character š¤.
Emergence - Systems thinking šøļø.
It aināt that kinda movie kid š¤£.
Winter Olympics luge it š·.
Listening // with you š„°
Given the āspecialā weekend, who better to sign off this issue than Durand Jones and the Indications, who also have a new album out. A little bit of sunshine in your life. Enjoy the weekend you beautiful lovebirds.