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Welcome to the April edition of the Insider. Do you know someone who would enjoy the Insider? Forward this email to them, and they can subscribe here.

The analog revival

You might be aware that we’re living amidst an analog revival. Thirty-five millimeter film is making a comeback. Sales of cassette tapes are up. The Onion, which stopped publishing its print edition in 2013, is reviving its printing press. Some of it seems to be a rage against the LLM—that might be what’s behind these emerging “AI-free” labels. But there’s also a deeper recognition of what happens when we devote the fullness of our attention to one thing.

Consider the story of Christine Tyler Hill, an artist who took a job as a crossing guard in Burlington, Vermont (hours: M-F 7:30am-8:20am). Her goal was to find a new way to connect with her community. She started producing a mini-zine about what happens at her intersection. It’s called The Cloud Report. Hand-drawn. Eight pages. Printed on 67lb cardstock. Mailed with a proper stamp. “People really want physical things,” she said. “The response to it has been crazy.” At 2,000 subscribers and $14,000 in monthly revenue, she couldn’t keep up and had to temporarily pause subscriptions.

When the analog version of something makes its way to us and the end product—the home-cooked meal, the vinyl record, the small-batch print magazine, the set of polaroid photos—is so unmistakably the work of humans in offline habitats, our attentional quality changes. Attention has a way of growing in inverse proportion to how scalable something is. The more unscalable and ephemeral, the more our attention, flattened by the vertical scroll and dulled by the digital simulacra, can find us again.

What is work?

In February, the financial markets weathered the “SaaS-pocalypse.” If Claude could write software, was selling software dead? Two weeks later, a Substack article that imagined what would happen if AI led to mass unemployment caused the Dow Jones Industrial to lose 1.7% the next day. If AI could eliminate 50% of all white-collar entry-level jobs, would we be doomed?

Fear-mongering is in vogue. And speculating about AI’s impact on jobs is a badge of technoeconomic woke-ism. But even as news breaks that one person has built a $1.8 billion company with a team of (mostly) AI agents, it’s possible we’re overestimating AI’s impact on jobs because we’re misunderstanding the difference between surface value and real value.

Surface value is the value in a job or function that’s visible. For a hotel doorman, it’s the job of opening the door for guests. But real value comprises the full spectrum of tangible and intangible value that exists within that job. It’s a doorman hailing a taxi, recognizing regulars with a smile, offering hospitality that elevates the hotel’s status and brand, and serving as a sentry that boosts the safety of everyone inside.

The surface value of a piece of software might be its ability to link accounts, send messages, or pull data. But payroll software, for example, does more than manage payroll; it ensures compliance with state-level labor laws, it protects sensitive personal data with security protocols, and it gives a business owner the assurance that her people will get paid on time. AI can recreate parts of the software code, but customers are paying for more than just the code. They’re paying for an outcome, a feeling, and the ability to hold someone accountable.

Within minutes, you can spin up dozens of autonomous agents for a range of tasks and projects. But when they get stuck or don’t do it right, you’re still the one who’s on the hook. The surface value is the work; the real value is the accountability for the work done well. It’s like this clip from Seinfeld: “You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation.”

Are we in for more SaaS-pocalypses? More layoffs? It’s too soon to tell. But the predictions that will be the most inaccurate will conflate surface value with real value. They will confuse capability with accountability—mistaking something that can do the work for someone who can answer for it.

Finding yourself in the periphery

For the small business owner with aspirations for their business to grow beyond them, there’s a question that’s upstream of many others: where do you place yourself in the organization?

Get too operationally involved in the day-to-day, and you’re creating a crutch that delays the business’s ability to operate without you. Become too detached, and a different problem surfaces: the business might need your judgment as it finds its true north and hits its stride.

I’ve been grappling with this question at Future Forest. I started this business as a solopreneur. But now we have a wise and capable GM and a cadre of talented writers, editors, and email marketers. The machinery of newsletter excellence is in motion, and yet it’s still tempting to insert myself more than I should. Is it ego? Familiarity with the work? Impatience?

The advice handed out is full of phrases like “zone of genius,” “unique ability,” and “leverage.” But there is deeper work first: to confront your own sense of self-importance, to recognize the stories you tell yourself about yourself, and to locate your spot in a larger system, finding satisfaction in playing your part.

Should we work together?

Niche down, they say, and so we have. It turns out our newsletter service works best for boutique professional services firms—management consultants, executive coaches, tech implementation shops, accountants, and fractional executives like CFOs and CMOs.​

These are teams (of 1-10 people) that are selling their human expertise. Business development requires establishing credibility, building trust, and slowly nurturing prospects.

Producing a high-quality newsletter that cuts through the noise can do just that. If teams can commit to quality and consistency for the long term, an exceptional newsletter will pay for itself many times over.

If you know of any small professional services firms that could be a good fit, I’d love to hear about them. We pay bonuses to anyone who refers a new client.

​What I am reading

  • This article chronicles the life and stunning crime of a man who broke into jail. It’s a long read, but worth your time. The New Yorker.
  • There is no sacrifice without cost. I loved this article about how the ease of creation comes at its own price. Not Boring.
  • The philosopher C. Thi Nguyen studies why we play other people’s games and how metrics can make us miserable. This conversation with Derek Thompson was a delight. Plain English.
  • What salary is everyone making? New York Magazine profiled 60 New Yorkers about their salaries: what they make and how they make it. It’s a meditation on American ingenuity and industriousness. Pair with this article in The Wall Street Journal, which found that there are 430,000 American families worth more than $30 million.
  • This newsletter, from one of our clients, considers a 1944 CIA Field Manual on how to sabotage an organization. Kimberley’s takeaway is that many social sector organizations are unwittingly employing this playbook in how they operate internally. Kimberley Sherwood.
  • “Change is best understood by staying in the same place, and it takes a while before you really get to see and understand change. When you travel, you see differences, but not really change, so being in the same place is important for me.” This profile of the landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy slowed my heart rate and made me want to reconnect with the land. The New Yorker.

Something personal

We’re spending the month in New York City. We lugged more baggage than we have ever taken anywhere across the country and then up three flights of stairs to a studio in the West Village. It’s Emilio’s first time in the city, and it’s clear he’s got all the makings of a New Yorker: boundless energy, an under-his-breath growl, a toothy smile (current tooth count: 2), and the “ol’ blue eyes” of Sinatra.​

In the subway, at first, the roar of the trains startled him as we stood on the platform waiting for the 1 to take us uptown. He whipped his head around in the direction of the screeching brakes and looked up at me for reassurance. I smiled back, and then he relaxed and watched it zoom into the station. What a strange and loud thing.

On the street, he tries to catch the eye of passersby, smiling coquettishly as we wait to cross an intersection. Sometimes it takes me a few moments to realize he’s introduced himself to someone and they’re smiling back. In New York, tourists look up and New Yorkers look down. Emilio looks all over: tracking a dump truck as it lumbers across the street, offering his undivided attention to a beleaguered pigeon, admiring the electrical wiring between two buildings, considering the bark of a domesticated tree.

​Two nights ago, we went for an evening walk and bid the people of West Village goodnight. Inspired by Goodnight Moon, I thought wandering for a few blocks in hushed tones might have a soporific effect. But it was 7:30pm, and Emilio could sense that in the city that never sleeps, he might be destined for an earlier bedtime than most. He peered longingly into the French bistro on the corner. He attempted eye contact with those in line for gelato. He wiggled his legs in defiance. And then, before we could climb those stairs, his head began to bob and his eyelids grew heavy. Goodnight, New York.

~~~

Signed,

Banks

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