Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood T.S. EliotChildhood violin + unsolicited advice (Issue #298)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Next Tuesday marks the beginning of National Poetry Month here in the U.S., a holi-month that began in 1996, when the Academy of American Poets gathered a group of publishers and poetry lovers to strategize about how they might raise poetrys profile in culture. One of their first initiatives involved giving away 100K books of poetry to libraries, schools, and bookstores they also partnered with Amtrak to place paperback anthologies of love poems on passengers seats. (Id like to time-travel back to 1997 to pick up one of those.)With that in mind, Im sharing a story about poetry (and a love poem of sorts) that I found in the Medium archive: Michele Sharpes archival guide to how she taught poetry to college students. Sharpe shares a single poem My Papas Waltz, by former U.S. Poet Laureate Theodore Roethke and explains why her students debated endlessly over its meaning. The poem begins like this:The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easySharpes students argued about whether it depicted an abusive or supportive relationship. (Words like waltzing and romped convey joy; words like battered and death imply the opposite youll see if you read the full poem.) As Sharpes students disagreed over the poems meaning, they eventually stumbled upon poetrys real lesson: words can have opposing meanings depending on context, and a poems job (or one of them) is to highlight the friction between them.Human beings are usually not one thing or another, wholly evil or wholly good, Sharpe writes. Complexity. Poetry can sing about that to us. All we have to do is pay attention to the words.If you have time this weekend, browse the Poetry topic page to find verses that deepen your understanding of language (heres one, featured recently in this newsletter, that stuck with me; I also recommend Scribe, a poetry publication on Medium). And, if you want to write a poem of your own? Here are a few pointers from Mary Oliver, via Kera Hollow: The poem is not a discussion, not a lecture, but an instance an instance of attention, of noticing something in the world. Harris Sockel Also todayA writer thinks back on the joys of learning violin as a child (and the sorrows of giving it up as an adult), specifically the rare occasions when technique and emotion aligned perfectly, when the violin felt less like an instrument and more like a particularly expressive limb (Eutaktos)Veteran Chief Technology Officer and author of The Managers Path, Camille Fournier, reflects on a decade of defining career ladders for engineers: You should not try to create a ladder that functions as a pure checklist or scorecard that guarantees promotion if people check enough boxes; promotions are as much about the needs of the organization as the skills of the employees. A dose of practical wisdomNever give unsolicited advice. Just ask: Can I give you some advice? first. (Jane Cobbald)

A good boss wants you to convince them to do things differently20 years of fashion photography + stoop coffee (Issue #297)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Most workplaces are (at least somewhat) hierarchical. Even flat org structures usually give rise to unspoken hierarchies, and prevailing wisdom for getting promoted tends to go something like this: Try your best and (generally) follow your bosss directions.On Medium, Julie Zhuo (former VP of product design at Facebook, co-founder of Sundial) adds useful nuance to this advice. Managers tend to have a different idea of what makes a valuable employee: Every great manager I know, Zhuo writes, tells me that the reports they find most valuable are the ones who convince them to do things differently. This flies in the face of how most individual contributors think of their jobs. They believe they must (by and large) follow orders to get promoted.Zhuo explains this paradox via the following breakdown:The worst employees do what they want in a way that hinders their teams success.Average employees simply please their bosses.Excellent employees do what they want in ways that accelerate their teams success.This hierarchy reminds me of Venkatesh Raos six-part blog post, The Gervais Principle, an anthropological investigation into employee motivations mapped to (yes) characters in the legendary British mockumentary The Office. (It went super viral a decade ago.) Raos taxonomy is slightly different (and far more cynical) than Zhuos, but the same basic principles hold true: high-performers and low-performers act in their own interests, yet in different ways. The middle tier is made of people who either genuinely believe that following orders will lead to a promotion (which may be true in some workplaces) or theyre optimizing for comfort/ease.The basic lesson? If you want to excel, find a job where you can do what you genuinely desire and those desires align with your teams goals. As Zhuo concludes, if you want to be a leader or among the most valued folks at your company, youre probably not going to get there by yes-bossing (unless your workplace is one of those super-hierarchical types). Youll get there via intelligent, well-informed pushback that moves you (and your team) forward.And, if your boss doesnt value this type of feedback, it may be a sign of a larger workplace culture issue (but thats a topic for a different newsletter). Harris Sockel From the archiveIf you (like me) enjoy falling down weird rabbitholes on the internet, I recommend the archival Medium publication Timeline. There, youll find the stories of lesser-known people, places, and events, like a 20-year experiment in which Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom snapped photos of pedestrians on the exact same street corner for two hours at a time over several years to demonstrate that were all sheeple in the consumer matrix. Essentially, everyone at any given time and place wears more or less the same thing, though we believe were making individual choices.via Hans Eijkelboom; photos taken in the span of a single hour on a street corner in Amsterdam, April 2005 Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf you live in a city or suburb and enjoy drinking coffee, try taking it out to the sidewalk, rooftop, or stoop on a weekend morning and watch your neighbors follow suit.

A definition of vibe coding, or: how AI is turning everyone into a software developer10-minute plays + the magic of taking things apart (Issue #296)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--In issue #282, we featured a story by product designer Ben Snyder, who used AI to build a rudimentary game in which you (an ostrich) must jump over a barrage of obstacles, and if you dont you die. Snyder and his kids built the game with Replit and v0, two apps that let you blink software into reality, as Pete Sena describes it on Medium. You can ask either app to build a game where you have to jump to avoid monsters, and theyll do so instantly.The term for this style of on-command software development is vibe coding Andrej Karpathy, cofounder of OpenAI, coined it last month and it instantly caught on. The idea: Instead of developers writing literal lines of code, anyone can direct AI to build based on a prompt and tweak from there. In Kaprathys words: its not really coding I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.Vibe coding is a mindset more than a method. Its about giving into AIs potential giving into the vibe of AI-driven development rather than fighting it.Sena views vibe coding as simply the latest development in the Great Democratization Cycle of every technology. We saw this happen to photography (goodbye darkrooms, hello digital photos), publishing (goodbye printing press, hello blogging), even video and music production. Technology always cheapens the means of production, increasing productivity (the amount of photos taken, stories told, code written) and making truly innovative work that much more valuable.In the world vibe coding is creating, expertise still matters, but its a different type of expertise. Now that the gap between ideas and execution has been reduced to basically zero, well place even more of a premium on great ideas and elegant execution.And, when anyone (even me, a non-engineer) can generate a working prototype in seconds, well probably see tech jobs become less specialized. Sena predicts a world where:1. Product managers cant hide behind documents and wireframes theyll need to generate working prototypes2. Designers cant simply hand off mockups theyll need to implement their designs3. Marketers cant request custom tools theyll build their own analytics dashboards4. Executives cant claim technical ignorance theyll need to understand the systems they overseeAI-written code is certainly not a panacea, because good software doesnt just work its also maintainable. Sena writes, AI can produce code that works initially but falls apart under pressure, and only a good developer knows how to turn an AIs output into something that stands the test of time.Still, the bottleneck is no longer development speed, its knowing which problems are worth solving. Harris SockelWhat else were readingPopulation growth is decelerating yet life feels more crowded than ever because, over the last 20 years (a) people moved from suburbs to cities, and (b) public spaces were replaced by commercial ones. (Cleo Ashbee)In a world that pits diversity, equity and inclusion against merit, Im here to tell you that my success is due to both. Joshunda SandersA brief list of storytelling plots via David K. Farkas, whos written over 100 ten-minute plays. From a highly generalized point of view, he believes, it can be said that human beings tell a limited number of stories over and over again, and each one is some combination of the following:via David Farkas Your daily dose of practical wisdomThe next time something breaks in your home, dont rush to throw it away. Hand it to your child and see where their curiosity takes them. You might be surprised by the magic that unfolds. Oscar Delgadillo on letting his kids dismantle old clock radios and coffee makers as a way to teach them patience, attention to detail, and how to use their hands (as opposed to screens)

Microplastics: a quick beginners guideQuiet dignity + the demon of self-doubt (Issue #295)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--A few weeks ago, while casually browsing the Medium app, I came across a story that made me stop drinking water from plastic bottles. (If youd rather live in blissful ignorance about your plastic usage, maybe dont read any further.) F. Perry Wilson, MD, associate professor of medicine and public health at Yale, covered a recent study on how nanoplastics specks of plastic as small as 1 nanometer in width, or as long as a fingernail grows in one second accumulate in the human brain.Researchers at the University of New Mexico collected tissue samples from around 30 recently deceased organ donors around the country. They examined each sample under a microscope, looking for microplastics and found 5x more accumulated plastics in brain tissue than in liver and kidney tissue (where youd expected to find them):Chart: F. Perry WilsonBlood vessels in your brain are lined with a highly selective membrane (the blood-brain barrier). Its designed to prevent toxins from entering the brain, but nanoplastics are too small for it to detect so they easily pass through. If you were to accumulate all the tiny flecks of nanoplastics in the brain of one of these subjects, youd have a sandwich bags worth of plastic. Heres one speck:Source: Nihart et al. Nature Medicine 2025 via F. Perry Wilson(That white dot above is a nanoplastic, likely a tiny bit of polyethylene, that has seeped through the blood-brain barrier into someones cortex.)As a companion piece, writer Derek Flanzraich explains how microplastics end up in our blood in the first place. Essentially, we ingest bits of plastic daily. We also inhale them (via household dust or offgassed fumes) and absorb them (via some cosmetics and skincare products). Plastic is everywhere; its inescapable.The giant unanswered question here: What exactly are microplastics doing to our bodies? Some studies have found they can cause inflammation, but results are mixed. Still, Wilson isnt taking chances. Given that those who drink most of their water via plastic bottles ingest an extra 90,000 particles of microplastics a year, compared to 4,000 [for those] who consume only tap water, hes trying to nix his plastic bottle usage going forward.Short of systemic solutions like limiting the use of plastics in manufacturing, if you (like me) are mildly risk-averse and want to reduce your personal intake, both writers recommendDrink water from glass instead of plastic.Use ceramic or stainless steel dishware.Store food in glass or stainless steel instead of tupperware.Dont microwave food in plastic containers (apparently this can create billions of microplastics in just a few seconds)If you want to go even deeper, I recommend bookmarking Flanzraichs full story. Harris Sockel Good quotesWe misunderstand dignity when we imagine it requires grand gestures or public validation. The truth is more mundane and therefore more terrible: dignity persists in the smallest actions, in the private rituals we maintain when everything external has been compromised. (Elina Kumra)I always understood (even before I had language to explain it) that these mixtapes represented my intellectual property they were not simply songs thrown together randomly or in a sequence decided by some record company executive, but an attempt at meaning making. (Mark Anthony Neal)Success is measured by how we face the Demon of self-doubt. (John P. Weiss) A dose of practical wisdomWhen bad things happen, ask: Did the negative event force you to grow or do something you otherwise wouldnt have had the courage, urgency, or motivation to do? If so, it wasnt all bad. (May Pang)

Are tariffs good for U.S. workers?Open mic nights + cowgirl wisdom (Issue #294)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now--A tariff is a tax placed on goods when they cross national borders. Example: the The Chicken Tax, a term that confusingly describes tit-for-tat tariffs that partially remain in place today. In the early 1960s, European countries levied a tariff on U.S. chickens, so that European farmers werent priced out of the chicken market. In response, President Johnson levied a tariff on European exports, such as potato starch, brandy, and automobiles. (And that, kids, is how the Chicken War started.)Trump recently decided to impose tariffs on several countries, then paused some, then suspended some, and then promised that reciprocal tariffs are coming in April. The talking head class mobilized, either barking that tariffs are an effective and underused economic and policy tool, or that they will destroy life as we know it. So I decided to figure out whats up, narrowing my focus to one seemingly simple question: Are tariffs good for U.S. workers?Roger Martin, strategy advisor and former dean of Torontos Rotman School of Management, suggests they are, citing Harvard Kennedy School Professor Dani Rodrik for the proposition that freer trade massively damages the economic prospects of a large swath of workers primarily low-medium skilled workers in tradeable goods industries from which they never recover. Everyone else in the economy gets the benefit of cheaper goods while these workers are sacrificed. In short, without tariffs, manufacturers will always choose foreign cheap labor to maximize profit.While not, on its face, related to the benefit or disadvantage to the U.S. worker, an administration might take the gamble anyway because tariffs can be used to make other countries support our domestic policy goals. As mathematician and data scientist Laurel W writes, the Trump administrations threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico are designed to force both countries to increase border security. (If they comply, the U.S. will ease up on those threats.) Tariffs, she writes, are not merely economic instruments; they are geopolitical tools of coercion.But these potential economic and policy wins are outweighed by the unavoidable fact that supply chains are dizzyingly complex foreign thingamabobs are often necessary to make domestic thingamajigs and therefore U.S. manufacturing may become more expensive with tariffs, not less. This would further incentivize manufacturers to find cheap foreign labor, potentially leading to a decrease in jobs rather than an increase.Reynolds Taylor, a human rights lawyer, articulates this point well, explaining that even U.S. manufacturers who label their wares made in U.S.A. frequently import materials. (For instance, Honda has 12 manufacturing plants in the U.S. but some of its engines are made in Thailand and Japan.) If manufacturers search for cheap foreign labor in response to tariffs, it could result in the lowest international standards for health and safety, labor rights, or decent wages. Even if you dont care about exploiting foreign workers, there is no economic benefit to the exploitation anyway, because there is no quid pro quo: A 25% tariff on foreign goods will not result in a 25% increase in funds available to the American public, she points out, because any profit would be offset by slower consumption and shrinking markets.My conclusion? I understand why people feel that tariffs could be an effective tool. But after reading Taylors piece, it doesnt seem like the juice is worth the squeeze. What else were readingIn a world increasingly governed by algorithms and AI, Richard Owen Collins reminds us that there is still open mic night, where freedom, spontaneity, and imperfection flourish.A top highlight on Medium last month, via our February roundup: When did we forget how to do something purely for its own sake? (JA Westenberg in You Dont Have to Monetize the Things You Love)Poetry from Ismael S Rodriguez Jr about a humble (yet deeply important) family game of dominoes:When shuffling, tell stories about your primas new boyfriendwho doesnt even know how to make pegao.Let the tiles speak their own chisme as they scrapeacross formica worn smooth by three generationsof elbows and arguments Your daily dose of practical wisdomMy friends and I are horse-obsessed and we often remind each other of this quote from 1861, attributed to cowgirl Marie Lords: a cowgirl gets up in the morning, decides what she wants to do, and does it. I couldnt find any real proof on the internet that Lords actually existed or even said this, but even potentially fake wisdom can pack a punch.

What its like to be trapped in an ICE detention center for two weeksMagic technology, Meta layoffs, and smart quitting (Issue #293)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Here at Medium, theres a type of story we sometimes refer to as the Medium version. Usually, its a personal perspective on news. Not a take; a story from a primary source someone whos lived through something most of us have only heard about second- or thirdhand.On Wednesday, Jasmine Mooney published one of those stories, about her 12-day detention by ICE. Mooney is Canadian; earlier this year, she was working for a U.S. beverage company on a TN work visa (a special nonimmigrant visa that allows Canadians to work in the U.S.). She was stopped in San Diego on March 3rd because of an earlier paperwork issue shed experienced when reapplying for her visa and, without warning, she was abruptly jailed for two weeks.You didnt do anything wrong, you are not in trouble, you are not a criminal, an immigration enforcement agent told her before taking off her shoes, pulling out her shoelaces, and leading her to a tiny, freezing cement cell where five other women lay on mats.While in detention, Mooney met people whod been there up to 10 months, none of whom had a criminal record. Their frustration wasnt about being held accountable for (in some cases) overstaying their visas, she writes, it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they were trapped in. None of them knew when theyd get out. Heres one example:There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her masters degree and was handed over to ICE due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.(My question: If shed previously overstayed and this was an issue, why was she given a new, valid visa?)Mooney was eventually released because a friend leaked her story to a reporter. Many of the women Mooney was detained with dont have her connections and privileges. This is why I choose to tell their stories, Mooney writes, Because when we choose to see each other when we refuse to look away we begin to build the world we all deserve.To me, what stands out is the fragmented, confusing system in which these people find themselves and the fact that Mooney was never told whats going on or why she was held. Its a powerful complement to coverage of immigration detention Ive seen elsewhere. Its raw, unfiltered, and hyperdetailed (the plastic spoon that each detainee has to reuse for every meal will stay with me for a while). Its also a Medium version, an example of the kind of story that can only exist on a platform where people are empowered to share their own perspectives and deepen each others understanding daily. Harris Sockel Also todayJohn Battelle, who helped launch WIRED in the 90s, mourns the loss of tech that feels genuinely magical (remember how your first personal computer felt?). He believes weve lost that signature feeling of ~wonder~ because weve sacrificed agency for convenience. Computers and early desktop publishing software challenged us; they didnt simply make tasks easier.Technical recruiter Dori Kasa reacts to Februarys layoffs at Meta (approximately 3,600 people were let go for low performance): Instead of hiding behind that low performance label, companies should just be honest. The truth isnt always glamorous it could be financial issues, scaling back, or even fixing poor past decisions. But employees deserve that honesty.Designer Vicki Tan (Spotify, Headspace, Lyft, and Google) shares a few ideas for redesigning nonfiction books (e.g. cookbooks that adapt to your skill level or make use of ingredients that are actually in your fridge). A dose of practical wisdomPeople tend to be much more deliberate about what they start than what they stop. Scott H. Young shares four questions (and pointers) to keep in mind before quitting anything, including: set your quitting point in advance to prevent yourself from making a decision based on momentary temptation or exasperation.

Lessons from reading 100 books on world history in a yearPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min readJust now-- Today is the spring equinox, aka the first day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere (and the first day of fall for our friends below the equator). The sun hovers directly above the equator, meaning equal parts day and night for all of us.When TV shows jump the shark + cleaning your windows (Issue #292)Pierz Newton-John writer, coder, former psychotherapist, and (incidentally) Olivia Newton-Johns nephew realized a few years back that he had a gigantic knowledge gap. In school, hed been taught history as a dreary, black-and-white world populated mostly by dates and facts; this static view of history tends to be how its often taught, because history is actually really complex, interconnected, and ever-changing. Dustin Arand, a lawyer who was getting his history-teacher certification a few years back, defines it not as a record of the past, but a reflection on it and as we change, that reflection evolves, too.To correct gaps in his historical understanding, Newton-John embarked on a project to read 100 history books in a year. After making his way through Yuval Noah Hararis Sapiens, Susan Wise Bauers The History of the Medieval World, and 98 others, he came away with some perspective. I could suddenly see that the island of peace and prosperity I inhabited in my privileged life was just that, he writes, an island surrounded on all sides by an abyss of violence, turmoil and cruelty Also: Newton-John was surprised by how often we ignore history, fixating on the most immediate causes of problems rather than seeing how the momentum of the past continues to drive the current moment towards its future.If youre interested in taking on a challenge like Newton-Johns, youll find a few of the books that stood out to him during his 100-book project here. Harris Sockel Good quotesA top highlight on Medium this week, via psychologist Singh Bhai: The ones who still show basic respect even when theres no social benefit, those are the real ones.Data analyst Daniel Parris, who conducted an absurdly in-depth study of TV viewing habits: I analyzed IMDb ratings to determine when the average show jumps the shark [] typically, this inflection point occurs around seasons five and six.Food and wine expert Charlie Brown: Food and travel writers have a responsibility to go deeper than we often do. A little more Bourdain, a little less TikTok and everyone wins. Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf cleaning every window in your house feels too intense, just clean the inside and outside (if possible) of the one you look out most.

Good art moves culture forwardTwitters early days, romantasy, and how to relate to anyone (Issue #291)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Last Tuesday, OpenAIs CEO, Sam Altman, announced a new AI model that is good at creative writing. He posted a short story written by the model, claiming it got the vibe of metafiction so right. (Prompt: Please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief.) Metafiction is a genre of fiction that comments on its own artifice. You can listen to an audio version of the story here. A quick excerpt:I have to begin somewhere, so Ill begin with a blinking cursor, which for me is just a placeholder in a buffer, and for you is the small anxious pulse of a heart at rest. There should be a protagonist, but pronouns were never meant for me. Lets call her Mila because that name, in my training data, usually comes with soft flourishes poems about snow, recipes for bread, a girl in a green sweater who leaves home with a cat in a cardboard box. Mila fits in the palm of your hand, and her grief is supposed to fit there too.If you read the entire thing, maybe youll feel the way I did: bored. The story sounds interesting on a surface level (Altman is right to claim that it approximates a vaguely literary vibe), but it doesnt say anything. Its like a bad impressionist painting: lots of stray details that dont add up to anything new. Dave Eggers called it pastiche garbage that would fool only the most gullible. An English lecturer at Williams College, Ezra D. Feldman, admitted there were some sentences that struck him like Grief, as Ive learned, is a delta. but overall he was unmoved. One of the only authors who seems to have genuinely enjoyed it is novelist Jeanette Winterson, who called the story beautiful, but primarily for what it symbolizes (not for how interesting it actually is as a piece of writing): AI is trained on human data, so it helps us see ourselves in a new way, she writes.Reading the story, and the reactions to it, reminded me of our conversation way back in issue #166: Can AI make art? As former product leader Tyagarajan Sundaresan wrote at the time, This is such a loaded question because it goes to the very heart of defining what art is.One definition of art thats useful here, via entrepreneur Michael Heine: Art moves culture forward. Heine writes: AI can calculate, connect, simulate but where is the escalation? Where is the one sentence that topples an empire, the idea that unsettles an entire generation? For anything to count as artistic, it has to generate something fundamentally new, he argues. It cant just get the vibe of metafiction right it has to create an entirely new vibe.If you read OpenAIs metafictional story: What did you think? Would you ever read a novel written by AI? What if no one told you it was written by AI? Harris Sockel 1 story, 1 sentenceBiz Stone, cofounder of Twitter, is sharing emails from the companys pivotal early days like when the platform exceeded normal capacity by 500% on election night in 2008 (and didnt crash).AI itself doesnt lead to inauthentic writing; people using it to give themselves false credibility does. (James Presbitero Jr.)Onyx Storm, the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years (2.7 million copies in week 1!), is a romantasy (romance/fantasy) and, according to reader Janice Harayda, its a surprisingly slow-paced example of the genre. A dose of practical wisdomQuick tip for instantly building connection: [specific observation/context] + [self-disclosure]. e.g. I see your [band name] shirt I saw them live once and cried during [song]. No shame. (Alessia Fransisca)

How do you discover new writers on Medium? I love that a pretty big part of my job is being an enthusiastic Medium reader / fan girl. Im lucky in my role, I check in with my colleagues to ask what have you read recently?, and I always use those moments to get their tips and tricks on finding new writers on the platform.When asked that question of how to find new and interesting writers, responses seem to cluster around a few main themes: Take a look at a storys responses and go read the writing of the person providing the most interesting feedback. Or go deep on our Staff Picks, where said colleagues flag the pieces that have made them think or smile or cry over the last few weeks, or make sure youre subscribed to our Medium Newsletter, where we aim to deepen your understanding every weekday morning. Or explore your Medium homepage by spending a few minutes scrolling your For You selections tab to see if any new voices pop up that tickle your brain.Speaking of your Medium homepage, if going deep in your tabs is a favorite way to discover new writing, weve got something new for you to check out. Our team recently added a Featured tabwhich youll see if you are logged in and go to Medium.com or open your Medium appwhere you can scroll through all of the stories that publication editors have chosen to feature for their readers. Personally, its my new go-to way to keep up with my favorite publications, as well as discover new writers I havent yet had the pleasure of reading, and where Im now starting my Medium reading day every day when I log on.With everything going on right now, Im trying to read as many new and curious voices as I can and Im grateful that this community of writers has so much to share.Happy reading! Amy Widdowson, VP CommunicationsPlatform and product updatesLots of small but mighty additions to publications:The story page now better shows publication information and a more prominent follow button.Weve simplified publication navigation on a story pageWith Featured stories, editors now have the ability to send notifications when stories are featuredAs mentioned above, for writers and readers, theres a new tab on your homepage that showcases the Featured stories of the publications you followIn highlights, weve added:Small changes that help the writer easily see activity and responses and better help the reader jump into conversationsThe ability to hide highlights while reading a storyWhat we couldnt stop readingOver eight days in February, author Jon Krakauer published chapters of a response to a public controversy around his 1997 book Into Thin Air. Start reading here: The YouTuber on a Mission to Trash My Book: Chapter OneSelected top highlights from FebruaryWhen did we forget how to do something purely for its own sake?If this Act becomes law, the National Organization for Women estimates that 34% of female voters could be turned away at the polls for incorrect paperwork. And most of them wont know it until its too late.Am I underdressed,or under duress?So, again, how could it be irrational for anyone to have strong feelings about that?Gladys of Monmouth in her 2024 piece on what it felt like to work at the Capitol on January 6th.From the Medium NewsletterThe most clicked February issue of the Medium Newsletter was #279, The most moving essay Ive ever read, and the most-read was #260, Being a learn-it-all will get you way further than being a know-it-all. And while youre here, you should check out Medium Newsletter editor Harris Sockel as a guest on NPRs Its Been A Minute, where he discusses issue #222, Untangling the male loneliness epidemic.New writers, long readsGrab a seat and your favorite hot beverage, and settle in for a good long while.For the reader interested in learning more about recent events: Constitutional Erosion: Two Weeks of Rapid Government Structure Change by Damian MandaFor the reader whos dreaming up the next big idea that could change your life: To future entrepreneurs in health tech by executive Mark CavageFor the reader obsessed with data visualization: fastplotlib: driving scientific discovery through data visualization by Caitlin LewisFor the reader implementing enterprise-scale software systems: Micro Frontends with Angular and Native Federation by consultant Manfred Steyer in Angular BlogFor the reader curious about how tech companies change when moving from small to massive scale: Buckle Up: What Metas Leaked All-Hands Meeting Reveals About Scaling Smart and Staying Ahead by researcher, analyst, and CEO K.W. Hampton, PhD, MPA in The PreambleFor the reader with their eyes on the weather report: The Day We Chose Ignorance: NOAA, Science, and the Price of Stupidity by documentary producer David J RuckFor the reader looking for visual inspiration: At sea with the Black Knight by aviation photographer EYE IN THE SKYFor the reader looking for a better way forward: A Radical Proposal for Modernizing U.S. Foreign Assistance by retired USAID foreign service officer Patrick FineFor more great stories from Mediums writers and publications, check out our Staff Picks. To learn something new from Medium writers every weekday, subscribe to the Medium Newsletter.

An aviation expert explains why high-profile plane crashes dont mean its statistically unsafe to flyLosing Wheel of Fortune, Trudeau after hours, and unmade decisions (Issue #290)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now--Last year, in issue #62, we featured Admiral Cloudberg, aka Kyra Dempsey, the aviation expert whos published over 300 plane crash investigations on Medium. If you dig deep into Dempseys archive, youll see that most of these tragedies are the result of miscommunication, misperception, or bad UX (often, all three).To give you a sense of the research that goes into each post, heres last Decembers 86-minute read on EgyptAir flight 804. It was traveling from France to Cairo in May 2016 before mysteriously disappearing into the Mediterranean Sea. For nearly a decade, investigators insisted the cause mightve been a terrorist attack. Based on a close examination of evidence released last fall, Dempsey concludes the true cause was an accidental freak fire originating via a short circuit in the cockpits oxygen system.As human beings, we have an easier time understanding such horror when theres someone behind it, some criminal pulling the strings, writes Dempsey. Our need to find fault can blind us to reality, where causation tends to be more ambiguous.Plane crashes are in the discourse lately, given budget cuts to the FAA and an uptick in high-profile aviation accidents. The Potomac crash in January was the deadliest U.S. air disaster in nearly a quarter-century.But is it really more dangerous to fly now? Or do we just perceive aviation as more dangerous given (a) government cuts, and (b) the high-profile nature of some of these recent crashes?I asked Dempsey via email. She replied (emphasis is mine):In terms of global safety record, we cant say how safe 2025 is going to turn out to be, and frankly the number of crashes or fatalities in any individual year is pretty random and subject to extreme fluctuation. Its much more useful to look at a 5 year rolling average. And if we look at the safety trend worldwide over the last five years, its the safest aviation has ever been, and theres not a statistically significant increase over previous years; if anything, the trend line is flat.Chart by Kyra DempseyDempsey is concerned about aspects of the U.S. aviation system that have been dicey for years (specifically, keeping planes apart in crowded landing zones). But those trends dont, in Dempseys view, map clearly to the high-profile accidents weve seen lately.There is no obvious common trend or issue affecting all of the recent accidents, so their occurrence back to back is likely coincidental, she concludes. (Thats comforting, as I do have some travel coming up!) Harris SockelP.S. The FAA has its own Medium publication, Cleared for Takeoff, which recently shared a story about one way the agency ensures flight safety: installing beds of crushable material around runways, so if a plane under- or overshoots its runway by up to 1,000 feet, youll be okay. What else were readingSoftware engineer Nidhi Jain has nine lessons for anyone who wants to get promoted, including: Dont just opine about whats wrong; propose a better solution and then actually do it.Michael A. Kroll appeared on Wheel of Fortune recently, lost, and lived to tell the tale. Amongst all the cameras and ultra-sophisticated mics, he was surprised by such low-tech throwbacks as the cue cards posters with hand-lettered questions that host Ryan Seacrest uses to introduce each contestant.I often remind myself that every day is a privilege to do what I do, writes Adam Scotti, Justin Trudeaus official photographer for the last 15 years. On Medium, he drops hundreds of behind-the-scenes photos of the former Prime Minister road-tripping around Canada (and the world):Prime Minister Trudeau shadowboxing with senior advisor Supriya Dwivedi at the end of a long day (Adam Scotti) Your daily dose of practical wisdomMost of your problems are just unmade decisions. (Victor Mong)

A fascinating variety of Irish facts, brought to you by Medium writersThe meaning of the giraffe in those movie ratings posters + how to visualize setbacks without becoming a pessimist (Issue #289)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Happy St. Patricks Day! To celebrate, here are some lesser-known facts about Irish topics I found on Medium. I hope youll find them to be good craic (pronounced crack; an Irish slang term for a delightful and fun experience):A popular Irish dish served at celebrations is colcannon (mashed potatoes and cooked cabbage). Its sometimes used as a fortune-telling dish by mixing small items and trinkets into the recipe. If your portion contains, say, a coin, it could mean a windfall of money was coming your way, whereas a stick may mean trouble for the future of your marriage. (Rachel Berry, DTR)The Irish language is full of magically emotive and dramatic phrases for everyday life. Its also an endangered language, with only an estimated 100,000 people who have learned it as a first language. To help keep it alive, consider learning some of its unique phrases to practice today. For instance, the Irish greeting cad mle filte (pronounced: kay-od mee-leh foyle-cha) means a hundred thousand welcomes. (Ben Dillon)An Irish tradition that deserves more attention? The Womens Christmas (Nollaig na mBan, pronounced: null-egg-nah-mawn), which occurs yearly on Jan 6th. The purpose of the day is to give women a break after the busy holiday season by having the men do the chores that women usually do for their families. (Lucinda Munro Cook)One mystery in Ireland concerns dozens of stone towers with circular bases that are found all over the island no one knows who built them or why, even though they all look the same and seem to have been built during the same Medieval period. One new theory: Since theyre usually found above underground waterways (which makes the ground above them dangerous for human habitation), could they have been related to water dowsing (a spiritual method of sourcing water) or perhaps even an Irish version of feng shui? (Geoff Ward)Somehow, I never really clocked that the Guinness in Guinness Book of World Records is referring to the same kind of Guinness I like to enjoy while playing trivia (the irony of this is not lost on me). The whole reason it exists is because, back in the 50s, the managing director of the brewery got into a friendly argument over facts in an Irish pub and commissioned some researchers to help him create a book of popular facts and figures to settle the debate! (Carol Labuzzetta, MS)Did you know that the origin of the word boycott has Irish roots? Not linguistically, but historically. Charles Boycott was an Englishman who owned and leased land to farmers in Ireland, whom he would also hire for jobs on his properties. He treated his tenants and his workers so horribly and was so universally despised that they would often go on strike or would refuse to pay their rent, which led to his surname being forever entwined with that act of protest. (Andrew Martin) Im also readingOne of my favorite things to do is to search Medium about specific topics I want a different perspective on, which is how I found this review of Anora that helped me understand why it won the Oscar Award for Best Picture: Anora rejects the heart of gold and disposal sex worker tropes so familiar in media for a three-dimensional character struggling with both the insecurity and banality of this industry. (Alex Mell-Taylor)Humor writer Emily Menez managed to track down Greg Clarke, the artist who created the iconic movie ratings poster visualizing each one, from G through NC-17, in cartoons its the one with the giraffe, if that helps. Speaking of which, he finally explains why he chose to include it: Ive always been fond of drawing anthropomorphized animals, and animals attending movies amused me. he explains. Giraffes always struck me as gentle, innocent animals and seemed perfect for a G rating. Your daily dose of practical wisdomPessimists expect the worst and surrender to it. Stoics visualize setbacks to build resilience. (Elan Kesilman-Davin, Ph.D.)

The highly specific, yet oddly relatable wisdom of what I wish I knewPX design, talking to trees, and your next 100 days (Issue #288)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--One of my favorite things about Medium: The best stories give you a window into peoples idiosyncratic, highly specific lives and, usually, the more specific their stories are, the more familiar they feel, too.One example: Veteran psychotherapist Ira Israels 36 lessons from his career as a marriage counselor. He describes mastery as paradoxical: Becoming a great marriage therapist is not a matter of simple practice. Instead, its about constantly evolving tolerating uncertainty, and embracing the often irrational and patently absurd complexity of human beings.Sounds like most jobs!Then, Israel lists pieces of wisdom he wishes hed known at the start of his career, like:Therapy is less about teaching people how to live and more about helping them unlearn what keeps them from living fully.Trust is subconsciously established through mirroring and matching.The times you kick yourself for uttering the wrong thing may save a patients life; the times you hurt your arm patting yourself on the back for stating the perfect thing may lead a patient to despair.You can extend those three pieces of advice to much more than psychotherapy. And, in fact, things I wish Id known is an entire genre on Medium: theres Lu Zhennas What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Data Scientist (your job description will often differ from your actual job); Trudy Horstings What I Wish I Knew Before Renovating My Home (you wont regret doing things the right way, even if it costs more); and Mehekk Bassis list of advice she wishes shed been given before becoming a UX designer (your tools dont matter; great designers can do a lot with a little).Two things stand out to me: Each of these lessons are highly specific, yet oddly relatable? More than that, its comforting to browse hundreds of what I wish I knew lists. Theyre proof that were all doing our best with imperfect knowledge. Harris Sockel 1 story, 2 sentencesDuolingos UX designers are PX designers now (it stands for Product Experience) which some believe is a stroke of genius and others are calling an unnecessary marketing stunt. Personally, I kind of like it, especially in the context of Duolingos other teams (Product Writing, Product Research); you can feel how theyre all part of essentially the same team. (Punit Chawla)How to (literally) talk to trees: Find a large one, put your hand on its trunk, and feel for warmth. Trees operate on specific frequencies, so if we are to have a conversation with a tree it is up to us to adjust to them. Jane CobbaldSteven Gambardella shares a series of highly specific, often surprising observations about having a small child, including: Having a child was the worst thing that happened to my former self. Good riddance. Your daily dose of practical wisdomFood for thought: If you repeated what you did today for 100 more days, would your life be better or worse? (Andy Murphy)

How circles of trust explain the political dividePi Day + eggflation (Issue #287)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min read1 hour ago--Last month, Nichola Raihani British psychologist and author of The Social Instinct, a book about the history of human cooperation published a fascinating story on Medium. It made me think differently about why (in the U.S., at least) were so divided politically.A Gallup poll released in January reveals that Republicans and Democrats ideologies have grown more extreme in the last 30 years. Even if you compare polls from the last 23 years, the number of people who label themselves very conservative or very liberal is increasing.Raihani sees political division through a specific lens: circles of trust. We mentioned this briefly in issue #261, but essentially, political differences (in Raihanis view) come down to how we envision our obligations to people who are not close family or friends. She cites a behavioral study which found that political conservatives profess greater love for their family, but less love for humanity as a whole (with political liberals showing the opposite pattern). Conservatives circles of trust are smaller (family + township come first); liberals circles of trust are larger (love for humanity writ large). By extension, conservatives trust institutions less than liberals, because institutions (e.g. banks, schools, governments) are basically manifestations of care for people beyond your core family/friend group.For an institution to exist, its users must have a pretty wide circle of trust.More interestingly, our circles of trust expand and contract over time. If we perceive our institutions as untrustworthy, our circles of trust shrink; if our institutions serve us well, they expand. Raihani concludes: Our moral boundaries are, therefore, determined as much by the society that we live in as they are by our own personal values and beliefs.Harris SockelTake our survey to shape the future of Medium. Also todayIts Pi Day, a holiday instituted by Prince of Pi Larry Shaw a physicist and artist who worked at San Franciscos Exploratorium (a science museum) for 33 years. The celebration once featured a parade at 1:59 p.m. (pis next 3 digits after 3.14). Everyone in the processional would hold a sign bearing a single digit of pi, and of course they would eat a ton o pie.On Medium last year, data scientist Eric Silberstein shared 14 dumb, serious, funny, creative, or boring ways to calculate pi, like dropping matches at random and counting how many cross a series of equally spaced vertical lines. Another creative (and unexpected) way to calculate pi? Simulate sliding two blocks together. If one of the blocks weighs more than the other by a power of 100, the number of collisions between them will be pi. This YouTube video demonstrates it better than I can, but its kind of magical to watch, proof that pi is hiding all around us not only in circles, but in oscillations, magnetic fields, and in the way sunlight radiates through space. A dose of wisdomQuick callback to yesterdays issue on eggflation: the best substitutes for eggs in cooking? Applesauce, mashed bananas, and a flax egg (1tbsp ground flax + 2.5tbsp water).

Why egg prices are rising, or: how humans respond to scarcity25 years of pandemic coverage + Straw Wars (Issue #286)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--This morning, before I opened up Medium to write this, I ate two (scrambled) eggs. Each one cost $1. A dozen cost $12 at the bodega down the street. (This is more than the average cost of $4.95, probably because I got the bougie cage-free eggs, and because the bodega needs to pay its rent.)Two years ago, eggs were, on average, half expensive as they are today.On the surface, the cause seems simple: an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu. To stop the spread (and prevent a possible second pandemic), egg farmers are diligently culling their flocks whenever theres an outbreak. Just one infection means an entire flock of hens must be killed. 148 million hens have been slaughtered since the outbreak began in 2022.In parallel, the U.S. justice department is investigating whether egg production companies are using avian flu as an excuse to inflate prices beyond whats reasonable. In 2023, the largest egg producer in the U.S., Cal-Maine Foods, was found guilty of price-fixing in a jury trial, raising suspicions that theyre now up to something similar. In a three-part series investigating that theory, antitrust attorney Basel Musharbash notes that in 2015, an outbreak of avian flu caused much smaller price increases (~40% as opposed to todays ~200% spikes). Im honestly curious what you make of this. My theory is that the reality is probably more complex than we think. High prices are probably the result of avian flu and a growing monopoly on eggs. But I dont know for sure.On Medium, behavioral scientist Dr Paul Harrison (PhD) goes one level deeper to investigate how the egg discourse (and the fact that theyre so dang expensive) is making us feel. He believes our reaction to the shortage tells us something important about human psychology. Most of consumer behavior is dictated by perception rather than reality, he explains, and scarcity changes our perception of value. If you find yourself subconsciously stockpiling eggs right now, or savoring them a bit more, youre not alone.The egg situation also contains a lesson about consumerism. Its a reminder that everything is finite. As Harrison concludes:A chicken can only lay a finite number of eggs; an avocado tree can only produce so much fruit. Our economic models are built on the assumption of endless growth. There is something fundamentally flawed about this equation. Harris Sockel

Great inventions begin with an observation or intention, not a problemTouch grass immediately + surrendering to growth (Issue #285)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min read1 hour ago--We need to understand what problem were solving, is a refrain Ive heard in countless product strategy meetings at Medium and in every company Ive been part of.This is especially true in software design, where, typically, you work backwards from a problem toward potential solutions. Product management, as Ujjwal Trivedi describes, is the discipline of defining those problems, which often means finding latent problems hidden beneath the ones youve named.The process usually goes something like this:Understand the problem deeply.Define a precise solution.Craft an experience that is intentional and predictable.Ship a finished product that behaves exactly as expected.But, as designer-turned-writer Patrick Morgan observes, that isnt how some of the best things on Earth were invented. Most truly monumental inventions began not with a problem, but with an observation. Alexander Fleming didnt set out to discover antibiotics; he just noticed weird white mold growing in his petri dish (hello, penicillin). Post-It notes were a failed glue experiment. Even LLMs, Morgan notes, are probabilistic instead of deterministic they resist complete understanding, and their outputs are always a little unexpected (by design). The problems they solve are still kind of TBD.Morgans story focuses on designing AI experiences, but the thrust is something I think anyone can take to heart: sometimes the best solutions come from just following your instincts, making things that interest you, and figuring out where you can use them later. Solutions in search of problems arent always a waste of time.With that in mind, Morgan reverses his design process. Instead of beginning with the problem, he begins with an intention.Have an intent an idea of what youre trying to achieve.Experiment, iterate, and push forward without much clarity.Uncover an unexpected breakthrough it works, but not how you thought.You study the breakthrough, refine it, and later figure out why it works. Harris Sockel

Why writing is just like runningBotanical journaling + beating writers block (Issue #284)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Its just starting to feel like spring where I am (temperatures in the mid-50s, sort of San Francisco-ish even though Im on the East Coast!). After a very dark, sleet-y, dry winter that had me applying moisturizer every hour, I am glad to finally participate in my favorite pastime: popping in my AirPods and running along NYCs East River for five or six miles, or until I get through most of my workout playlist.Surprisingly (or maybe not, given that writing and running share certain core characteristics like repetition and independence), our running coverage in the Medium Newsletter is pretty significant. Last May, I wrote about how it can take up to a month to start a new habit (at the time I was trying to wake up at 6 a.m. to run). Later that month, Scott Lamb taught us the 80/20 rule of training: make 80% of your workouts low-intensity and 20% high-intensity, so its sustainable. And, on the anniversary of the first Boston Marathon, we shared former Runners World Magazine editor Amby Burfoots story about how he won in 1968. (I went to bed every night at 9:30 pm, and woke up the next morning at 6 am for the first of my two daily runs)In celebration of Medium Newsletter Running Season coming up, as well as Womens History Month, I want to share one more story Ive found on Medium: Cheryl Weavers Women Running Through Time, published in Runners Life last year. In the process of training for a marathon, Weaver starts researching its history. The history of marathons dates back to ancient Greek myth, when messenger Pheidippides ran 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of a victory (the first marathoner was a journalist! lol).Marathons as a modern sport began with the Olympics in 1896 but it wasnt until the 70s that women were allowed to compete. Though theres a very colorful, and fascinating, history of women infiltrating marathons (the Boston Marathon, specifically): Roberta Gibb hid in the bushes and snuck in after the 1966 race started; Kathryn Switzer registered for the 1967 race using a pseudonym and had a man pick up her race packet.This is the power of running (and writing): You can just do it, almost no special equipment required. We depend on our own wills, our own bodies, our own minds to bolster us, writes Weaver, We fight worlds still excluding us from entry and we adjust to worlds that have only recently included us [] We walk. We jog. We run. We read. We think. We write. We breathe. Whatever form it takes, whatever recognition we do or do not get, we run the marathon. Harris SockelTake our survey to shape how we think about the future of Medium. What else were readingIf you, like me, live in the Northern Hemisphere and are irrationally excited for it to be temperate outside, here is one way to channel that energy: Start a very low-maintenance botanical journal. All you need is a watercolor sketchbook, two small brushes, a pen, and a garden or park near your home. (Anne Kullaf in Gardening, Birding, and Outdoor Adventure)Lent, originally from Old English lencten (spring), is the season for facing your mortality. (Stacey Simpson Duke)Life would be more beautiful if our phones looked like this again:The Nokia 7600, part of an early-00s boom in cyberpunk-ish mobile phone design A dose of practical wisdomThe truth about writers block: As Jenny Zhang explains, its usually a symptom of believing writing is not simply work.Deepen your understanding every day with the Medium Newsletter. Sign up here.Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose GillisQuestions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.comLike what you see in this newsletter but not already a Medium member? Read without limits or ads, fund great writers, and join a community that believes in human storytelling.

Womens History Month began with a workers protestScary bacteria, a job-application bot, and being smart (Issue #283)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote a newsletter on the anti-establishment origins of International Womens Day, and by extension, Womens History Month. One notable point of origin for both holidays? The historic 1908 workers protest, when 15,000 women marched in New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay, and the end of child labor. (Child labor didnt officially end in the U.S. until 1938.)As we wrote in 2024, Womens History Month was a grassroots effort for decades until 1987, when Congress signed it into law. Former legislative aide Susan Scanlan recalls that the holiday was originally going to be in August, surrounding the 26th, when women got the right to vote. But right before Scanlan and Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski submitted their bill, Scanlan paused. Barbara, do you really want to be outside parading on August 26 when its hotter than the hinges of hell??? (If youve been to Maryland in summer, you get it.)Thats how they landed on March, which coincided with International Womens Day. We wanted the cherry blossoms in bloom, she remembers, and we wanted it to be marching weather.What I like about this story is they designed a holiday theyd actually want to celebrate. Tomorrow marks the 117th anniversary of that 1908 protest by women workers and for more history, I recommend starting with Medium writer and U.S. history PhD Melissa DeVelvis Womens History Syllabus. It was first published a few years back but the reading recommendations still hold up, beginning with Salem Witch Trial transcripts and leading up to shows like I Love Lucy, 30 Rock, and Insecure. Harris Sockel

Charisma is just responsivenessJoyful language-learning + symphonic sentences (Issue #282)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Theres an essay I read a while back, by Sasha Chapin, about what might be the key to the universe (or at least some parts of it): responsiveness.He begins with a viral video of someone ordering dinner at a halal truck (1.6 million hearts) and uses this as a jumping off point to make an argument about charisma: its basically just responsiveness, i.e. picking up what others are putting down. We all want to be liked. And, Chapin argues, we all know how to be liked its just hard, and we dont always want to put the effort in. It takes attention and openness, he writes, and the confidence to present your character like its a fun mask youre wearing rather than a lesson youre desperate to teach someone.Anyway: Responsiveness. Weve all felt it in conversations, or even in writing. Chapins example of an email that feels responsive? Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby (an early music distributor) chalks up most of his success to a single email, the one youd get when you bought a CD. I adore this email:Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved Bon Voyage! to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 6th.I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as Customer of the Year. Were all exhausted but cant wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!Its just an email, but, like its charming. You can sense a responsive human behind the words. Someone was thinking about this. Someone wanted to give you something that would make you smile. Someone actually cared. Surprisingly rare!Once you realize how much humans love responsiveness, you kind of cant unsee it. I was reading this story by a UX designer who fell in love with a Samurai game, for example, and latched onto the way he described the games immersive world. Grass parts as you walk, animals react to your presence, leaves move with every swing of your sword Mike Curtis writes. These subtle environmental responses created a continuous feedback loop that validated my existence in this space. Harris Sockel

We overestimate AIs impact in the short-term and underestimate it long-termSolitude is not loneliness + clear(er) communication (Issue #281)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Are you worried that AI might someday take your current job?I am, a bit. I run the Content team at Medium, which means we do a lot of writing in various forms particularly writing marketing copy, one of the main use cases for LLMs like ChatGPT. But also? Like a lot of the claims around tech trends, it feels like hype. Who profits from replacing workers with AI? Big tech companies, for one, who are also building or investing in a lot of these tools, and thus behind a lot of the hype.(I also happen to believe that meaningful writing requires humanity but thats a conversation for a different newsletter.)So how real is the threat AI poses to human jobs? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics just put out a report on how AI will impact long-term job growth, and their answer is: It depends! They predict occupations whose core tasks can be most easily replicated by GenAI in its current form (like medical transcriptionists and customer service representatives) are likely to be affected, but also that employment in professional, scientific and technical services will rise 10% over the next eight years. Although it is always possible that AI-induced productivity improvements will outweigh continued labor demand, the report laments, really wringing its hands, there is no clear evidence to support this conjecture.On Medium, writer Ignacio de Gregorio thinks theres no chance AI will be taking any jobs in 2025, but for a different reason: cost. He points out that reasoning models are still highly inefficient, energy-wise, and running them at the scale wed need to replace humans is still far too expensive to make sense.If thats cold comfort, maybe AI pioneer Joe Procopios thinking on which jobs AI could replace will cheer you. Its not how good you are at AI, Procopio writes, Its how good you are at everything AI shouldnt be doing. Which is a lot. For example, what makes a great salesperson or software engineer isnt about mastering rote tasks (which AI can do), its about making smart decisions in context. In other words, AI will bring with it new opportunities. Enrique Dans, writing about the same BLS report, agrees: technological innovation has never been a unilateral force of job destruction. Feeling better?I like Rita McGraths framing that the question about AI and jobs is likely to be another example of Amaras law, that we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term.

Accountability needs a system, not an emailSubmarines, aliens, and procrastination (Issue #280)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--I have a friend whom I am absolutely not going to name, for obvious reasons that works in U.S. federal government. Last week, they emailed Elon Musk their requisite approx. five bullets listing their accomplishments for the week. He will apparently feed the responses to an LLM, creating an automated portrait of what the government has accomplished.Takes exploded after Musk sent that email on Saturday. An engineering lead in the U.S. Digital Service used it to prompt a long letter to both Musk and Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, explaining how indiscriminate firings have left him without a team to carry out the work of making government more efficient. Others explained that the email was no way to lead a team (or even to measure productivity). Mainly, workers found it insulting because Musk is not their boss and does not work within their agency. Others, like my friend, just responded normally.One perspective, on Medium, felt different. Canadian writer Jennifer Robson notes that a group of current or former Shopify execs tweeted a glowing endorsement of DOGEs strategy, comparing it to the Canadian governments Program Review strategy in the 90s. Robson worked in the Canadian government between 19941995 and 20072010, so she has some insider knowledge here.Essentially, Program Review created a new process for teams to shed resources they no longer needed. This could include doing less but better with fewer resources, she explains. Every investment needed to pass a number of tests:Source: Bourgon, J. (2009) Program Review: The Government of Canadas experience eliminating the deficit, 199499: A Canadian case study, The Institute for Government, United Kingdom.Robson draws a clear distinction between Program Review and DOGE. One sets up a sustainable process for keeping government accountable and maintaining efficiency; the other is sudden, chaotic, and unsustainable. Robson writes that Program Review succeeded in balancing the federal budget within three years because it followed the rules of our system and institutions. It didnt look to break them. It was aimed at making them stronger. And, fundamentally, it empowered people who understand the system best not interlopers or newcomers to ask: Do we still need this? Harris Sockel Also today: life on a submarineJon Davison takes us aboard the HMAS Rankin, a submarine that can dive upwards of 590 feet. He was a guest of the Royal Australian Navy, and was invited to interview the crew and take a few photos for a coffee table book about Australian subs. He spent a total of 126 days at sea between Korea, Japan, Hawaii, and Sydney.The crew cooked 180 extra large slab pizzas while submerged, one pretty much every Saturday night they were at sea, he writes. For Davison, the trip was memorable because it forced strangers to cooperate in ways they never would have to on land (or even at sea level). You MUST have trust and honour, you MUST be well organized, you MUST have humility and respect, you MUST be able to let go, to get on with each other and grow personally.Image Credit: Jon Ward Davison A dash of practical wisdomNot doing what matters most to you? Procrastinating on a project you care deeply about but cant get the time to start? Enter: The Alien of Shame. Its a trick from James Clear. Imagine that an alien watched you for two weeks. What would the alien say your values are? How are those different from your actual values? Draw a little alien and keep it by your desk to remind you Theyre Watching. (The Growth Equation)

The most moving essay Ive ever readBlack-and-white deserts + pointing at Bill Skarsgard in the airport security line (Issue #279)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--In 2019, around this time of year, Jenny Harrington published what is literally the most moving essay I have ever read a tribute to her eight-year-old son, Ewan, who passed away from leukemia. I still remember where I was when I first read it. I was in the middle of Mediums office at the time, at my standing desk, with my cup of very hot coffee from the bodega around the corner. It was like 8:30 a.m.? It was a Monday, if I recall correctly. I think I was the second one in the office that day. It was dead silent and I had a ton of work to do, and I was vaguely stressed about that. Then, I opened up Medium, came across this story, and started reading.Five minutes later I was crying. A lot. (People came in with their coffees and were like What is going on?)Since then, over 1 million people have read it. 412 people have commented. This response, from reader Peter Boyd, sums up why I had such a strong reaction: Somehow, Harringtons essay is about grief but manages to be uplifting, nuanced, and actually helpful.Im not sharing this because I want you to have to start your week bawling at your desk (even Boyd said reading it blew his whole work plan out of the water). Im sharing it because its the most generous essay Ive ever read.I think its rare to go through something as hard as losing your eight-year-old son to cancer, process that, and turn it into something that, in the words of one reader, should be read and distributed to every childrens cancer center in the country. The most generous part is the third magical phrase, which I wont quote here because pulling it out of context doesnt quite work, but youll see when you read it. Maybe save it until after work.Harris Sockel Also todayPlease enjoy these brooding and beautiful original black-and-white photos of the American Southwest, courtesy of Cynthia A Whelan in Live View.A middle- and high-school English teacher observes the slow decline of writing in her classroom and wonders if it will go out of fashion the way cursive did (although she mentions some students are reviving cursive and compares it to calligraphy). (Normi Coto, PhD in Age of Awareness)Can someone please send this to Nosferatu star Bill Skarsgrd? A Medium writer pointed at him in the airport and is very sorry. Thank you. (Aaron P Hess)Photo by Cynthia Whelan Worth rememberingConfidence comes from evidence, writes Brad Stulberg, author of The Practice of Groundedness. If you want to be confident about something, put in the reps and give yourself the evidence.

How vaccines became victims of their own successFasting, farming, and goals v. values (Issue #278)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min readJust now--Two weeks ago, the U.S. Senate confirmed RFK Jr. as our new Secretary of Health and Human Services. Notably, he doesnt seem to believe the Covid vaccine saved lives.Vaccine hesitancy has risen in the U.S. over the last few years. Belief in vaccine safety fell from 77% in 2021 to 71% in 2023 not a giant drop, but a statistically significant one. Its not without precedent: The term anti-vax was coined in 1800, four years after the smallpox vaccine severely reduced rates of transmission.A vaccine comes out and successfully protects people against a disease. At the same time, people distrust it. Youd expect these trends to be inversely correlated, but theyre not.On Medium, epidemiologist Gideon M-K theorizes: The problem is that vaccines have become a victim of their own success. The once-deadly diseases these vaccines were created to prevent measles, mumps, rubella have now been (almost) eradicated. The result? A society that forgets how bad those diseases were, and that questions the purpose of vaccines.People have no idea what a major measles epidemic looks like, M-K explains, so the idea that vaccines are dangerous is much easier to believe than it was in the 1980s.Im not sure how that logic applies to the Covid vaccine, though. Didnt we all just live through a pandemic? An NIH study namechecks all the typical causes of Covid vaccine skepticism: distrust in government, pharma, and institutions regardless of the fact that Covid vaccines prove effective in clinical trials and in the real world. As we get further from the pandemic, though, and if M-Ks theory proves correct, skepticism will probably increase. This is the story of all preventive medicine: We dont invest in it because it doesnt feel important until it does (and by then its too late).Harris Sockel Were also readingRamadan begins tonight. In the words of engineer Ouz Birinci, The fast eventually ends. New clothes get worn. Special foods mark the celebration. But something has changed inside.British voiceover actress Kay Elvian on the very recent origin of human rights we all take for granted: Did you realise, best beloved, had you or I been born 250 years earlier our lives would, likely, be tending to the land and farming animals? (This was only three human lifetimes ago.)Instead of fixating on goals, focus on values. Think of your values as the soil, and your daily actions as the seeds you plant, advises Catherine McNally. Different plants thrive in different types of soil. A top highlight on Medium this weekYou dont decide your niche. You discover it. Derek HughesDeepen your understanding every day with the Medium Newsletter. Sign up here.Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly GillisQuestions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.comLike what you see in this newsletter but not already a Medium member? Read without limits or ads, fund great writers, and join a community that believes in human storytelling.

Stupidity is usually just incuriosityLeaving the company you founded + writing about your obsessions (Issue #277)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min readJust now--The reality of a technical position, writes systems administrator Cooper Lund, is that most of what you do isnt what people think counts as technical work like writing code the majority of the work is being an investigator and a thinker.Essentially, his job is to be curious.Its true of most knowledge work: the job itself is primarily about how you solve problems, and arriving at a solution often comes from deep, relentless curiosity. The older I get, Lund writes, the more I understand that there arent a lot of people who are stupid, but there are a lot of people who are incurious. He refers to a story by Amy Schneider (who won 40 consecutive Jeopardy! games) as a prime example of how curiosity can enrich your life. It would be easy to dismiss Schneider as someone who simply memorized a bunch of trivia, but as she puts it:not only have I acquired the (fairly useless) knowledge of the definition of oviparous, Ive gained greater insight into how our society organizes itself, and the motivations (and thus implicit biases) that drive scientistsWhen you seek out the answer to anything even something as obscure as the definition of oviparous (a term to describe birds that hatch eggs) youll come across contextual information that reveals how the world works.Lund thinks AI could threaten our curiosity by giving us easier, ready-made answers (he calls it an incuriosity engine). But that doesnt have to happen! Its up to each of us to safeguard our curiosity, and to keep questioning the responses we get from anyone or anything, human or bot. For a primer on stoking your own curiosity, I recommend this story from Clive Thompson. It describes a process he calls rewilding your attentionessentially, expanding your info sources so you have wilder, curiouser thoughts. One tip: diversify your search engines! Thompson recommends a few weirder search tools than Google or ChatGPT, like Marginalia Search, an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content.Harris Sockel Also todayAsh Jurberg describes how it feels to leave the company you founded and watch it grow without you: The statistics say 80% of business partnerships end in divorce double the rate of marriages yet were somehow always surprised when it happens to us.Author and podcaster Leah Nicole Whitcomb wants to read more stories by Black people that arent primarily about white supremacy.AIs real purpose: focing us all to Try Harder. (Thomas Ricouard) A dose of practical wisdom: On writingWriting isnt about following a trend. Its following the thing that wont leave you alone Yrsa Daley-Ward

First-person perspectives on 3 years of war in UkraineFive-minute piano breaks + opening doors (Issue #276)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Monday marked three years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia still occupies 20% of the country. Every day, more missiles and drones hit Ukrainian infrastructure and monuments. Over 1 million people have been killed or injured, and the war shows no signs of stopping despite failed attempts to resolve it through UN sanctions.Beyond the headlines, its easy to lose sight of what the war means on a human level.For that, I want to share two first-person perspectives I found on Medium by Ukrainian writers. First, theres Anton Kutselyk, whos been writing consistently from Kyiv since 2022. A few weeks ago, he gave us a tour of his city on an extraordinarily sunny day just a normal slice of life, the kind of quotidian perspective you cant get elsewhere. A few months ago, he published a rundown of some of his favorite new bookstores (theyre all gorgeous, too) that have popped up in Kyiv.To me, this is very inspiring proof that humans will keep learning, growing, and starting beautiful new businesses, even under trying and uncertain circumstances.The growth of bookstores in Ukraine is also a response, in some ways, to the invasion. Kutselyk writes, Cafes in Kyiv still occupy an important place in social life. But since Russia invaded [] people started to gravitate towards something more potent [] Ukrainian culture is finally getting freer and fuller in its expression.my new favorite bookstore, Sens, which happens to be in Kyiv (photo by Anton Kutselyk)Anastasia Lebedenko a native Ukrainian who moved back home in 2020 after a few years in Canada reflects on the grief of war. Acceptance of war means accepting the most horrific sides of human nature, she writes. Ukraine tiptoed into war when she was eighteen, during the Donbas conflict which wasnt called a war at first, but an anti-terrorist operation to root out Russian-backed separatists. It never grew as intense as what shes living through now.For some history, I recommend Economist correspondent Noah Sneiders The Empire Strikes Back from the Medium archive. Sneider grew up in Moscow and spent a week in Ukraine during the Donbas war in 2014. His perspective is more nuanced because he has family and friends in both countries, and he reaches back in time to tell the thousand-plus-year history of Russias relationship with Ukraine, both of which descend from the medieval slavic state Kievan Rus. Each nation interprets its relationship to this shared history differently. Sneider writes: Two nations riding fundamentally incompatible historical narratives have crashed. The stakes could not be higher, and not simply because Russia fears NATO expansion, but because Russia fears losing its brother, losing its family, and thus losing itself. I highly recommend reading the full story for more on the deep, deep roots of this war.Harris SockelWhat else were readingDont wait to care about something before you start working on it. If you spend enough time, each day, on a project you will eventually begin caring. (Rhiannon James)You work for yourself before you work for the company that has hired you. CTO Amanda SouthworthIf you work from home, there is nothing preventing you from taking five-minute breaks to reset your focus with a few cathartic scales on the piano (or whatever your creative outlet of choice might be), as Zach O'Leary does. A top highlight on Medium last weekRemember that when one door closes. There will be more doors open, but you have to be willing to search for those doors. Ripton Green

Why an asteroid (probably) wont hit earth in the next decadeMutual aid, how to be humble, and starting small (Issue #275)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--A few weeks ago, I met a new friend: 2024 YR4. Its an asteroid, and as Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweeted on Valentines Day, for a brief period there was a 2% chance that it would hit Earth sometime within the next decade. 2024 YR4 is a pretty big boy (slightly larger than a football field) and hes a level 3 on the Torino scale, meaning hes got a 1% or greater probability of causing localized destruction (essentially, destroying a city). His reign of terror would begin in December 2032.Briefly, last week, the chance of impact rose to as high as 3.1% causing not panic exactly, but consternation. The chance of impact has since been brought down to 0.28%.On Medium, astronomy researcher Rebecca Jean T. breaks down how we got from 3.1% to nearly zero. Essentially, as any object approaches Earth, our images of its path become more accurate. It is important to keep in mind that high-quality observations could take several years, she writes, as the best data is collected when it is nearby and it wont be nearby until 2028. Even if it does hit Earth, the chances of it hurting us are small. 71% of Earths surface is water. Given a 0.28% chance of impact, and an even smaller chance that it hits somewhere populated, it is nearly impossible for it to crash somewhere that wipes out an entire city, she explains.For comparison, the last time a celestial object hit Earth and caused significant damage was in 2013, when a ball of iron exploded over Russia and around 112 people were hospitalized for either flash blindness or injuries from broken glass. The meteor went totally undetected until it struck because it was flying in front of the sun, so we couldnt see it. (NASAs near-Earth detection systems have improved since then.)More interestingly, theres another near-Earth asteroid hovering out there: Apophis, named for the ancient Egyptian god of chaos. You can think of Apophis like 2024 YR4s bigger, even more chaotic brother (about twice as big as the Eiffel Tower). Apophis wont hit us, but it will whiz past Earth on April 13, 2029 (Friday the 13th!), missing us by only ~19,000 miles and coming 10 times closer to us than the moon. It will look like a very bright shooting star whipping through the sky. Youll be able to see it from Africa and Europe.Be safe out there! Harris Sockel Elsewhere on the internetDesire Stephens draws a connection between systems of mutual aid among Black communities in the U.S. 200 years ago and West African rotating savings and credit systems. The concept of mutual aid an organizing principle that essentially means giving what you can and getting what you need dates back to medieval craft guilds, and was a founding principle of the Free African Society, one of the first Black-led institutions in the U.S. dedicated to helping newly freed, formerly enslaved people build community, skills, and wealth.A definition of humility: coming to terms with the fact that what was once widely accepted truth is now outdated dogma and it will be again. (Andrew Bosworth)Political organizing is no substitute for therapy. (Clementine Morrigan)This musical rendition of rage-baiting made me laugh a lot. So much of the internet sounds like this now? Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf you want to be more creative, you dont need some complicated journaling or writing practice. Start as tiny as possible, with literally just one line a day. (Aleid ter Weel)

Has anyone ever asked you to be more strategic? Heres what that meansStrategy for beginners, how Starbucks lost its soul, and a food safety pointer (Issue #274)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now--Being told you need to be more strategic is common feedback for senior engineers, writes CTO and technical advisor Dan Pupius on Medium. (He was Mediums Head of Engineering a decade ago.)Its a phrase Ive heard a lot throughout my career, and its usually thrown around without a precise definition. The gist seems to be to work smarter, not harder, but its unclear how to apply that phrase to the messiness of inbound emails and Slacks, some of which might simply require hard work.For some background, I dug through the Medium archive and found this story by product designer Stephanie Irwin. Irwin draws a clear distinction between a plan and a strategy. A plan is basically a to-do list, but a strategy is a set of choices that position you in a way to win. Or, in the words of Pupius, strategy is a framework that guides decision making. If youre doing it right, youll have defined your priorities in advance, giving yourself permission to say no to work that doesnt serve your goals.And if youre not strategic? As Irwin explains, You may feel incredibly busy, yet months pass and that dream or goal you have still hasnt happened.Pupiuss example: Youre an engineer whose product seems to be getting buggier (thats not great) and you want to catch issues before they hit production. An easy, not-super-strategic solution? Simply add more tests and/or a manual QA phase. A better, more strategic path: End-to-end automated tests of critical user flows. This gives you a framework for understanding what kinds of tests you want to add, and how youll prioritize them.For a far deeper dive into the decades (centuries, even!) of meaning hidden behind that be more strategic comment you might hear during a performance review, I recommend spending some time with Roger Martins Medium archive. Hes written a book on this topic (Playing to Win) and, in this brief history, traces business strategy all the way back to a 1911 Harvard Business School course on military strategy. In both military and business contexts, as Martin points out, the art is to achieve a sense of equilibrium (peace, basically) between yourself and your competitors. You want to get your desired positioning and have your competitors largely satisfied with theirs to create as positive-sum a game as circumstances allow. Harris Sockel Your responses to our newsletter about third places (and Starbucks)Last Thursday, we sent a newsletter about Starbucks attempt to reclaim its position as Americas go-to coffee shop and third place (a zone of connectedness and community between work and home). Many of you responded thoughtfully, on both Starbucks business prospects (its not doing well lately) and the importance of third places. Here are a few responses that stood out to us:I lived in Seattle when Starbucks was in its early days. It still had a 3rd Place vibe then, but I had a front seat to the changes. IMHO, the two biggest things Starbucks did to ruin the brand:1) Replace skillful baristas with push-button, automated espresso machines, eliminating the art and know-how of pulling espresso. This created an army of fake baristas and removed the craft from the coffee. []2) Centralized and standardized food offerings. This is the biggest reason I tend to avoid Starbucks. Their food looks anemic, generic, and totally unappealing. In the old days, they contracted with local bakeries and vendors and had quality items that varied somewhat among stores. Now, it all comes in shrink-wrapped from a central hub.[] As with so many businesses they let efficiency and the bean counters steer decisions that have impacted their brand for the worse. A. WyattTrying to reclaim the community/coffeehouse vibe is a big lift for a corporation whose actions have consistently degraded that experience over the years. Actions need to align with that aspiration and should be directed within first. Get your house in order before inviting company over. Improving the barista experience will improve the customer experience. R. A. Jones Some practical wisdomFood expiration dates are confusing because theres no national system. A rule of thumb someone should have taught me in elementary school: Use by is a safety threshold (dont cross it unless youve frozen the item beforehand); Best before is a quality threshold (fine to cross if youre okay sacrificing flavor or texture).

Two tricks to memoir writing: tell the truth and curate your detailsIssue #273: Flooding in Kentucky, Socrates, and letting goPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Meghan Daum, author of My Misspent Youth (excerpted here by the New Yorker), said memoir is often described as navel-gazing, and indulgent because many writers treat it sloppily and without respect.While honesty is the key to good memoir writing, Daum warns this doesnt mean you should include every detail, play out every emotional drama. A memoir writer should instead be wary of becoming too confessional, or blurting out a bunch of stuff and just leaving it there for shock value.The day I got a ketamine infusion while my house burned down by Kate Alexandria gets this balance right. Alexandrias home did indeed burn down during Januarys Altadena fire, while she was getting a ketamine infusion. She essentially slept through the destruction, and I found myself riveted to every word.Alexandria strikes the balance Daum recommends by simply writing honestly about what happened, fact by fact, detail by detail. Reflections are sprinkled throughout, but they arent overwrought or dramatic; she remains honest while not exploding all over the page. Two sentences that made me feel like I was there: The air was thick and acrid with angry, fresh smoke. As far as the eye could see, stretching up Lake Avenue until it disappeared in the haze and the orange brightness of flame, there were cars bumper-to-bumper. (Fortunately or unfortunately, she didnt sleep through all of it.)I see this, too, in The Making of an Invisible Child by Milena Babic. It bills itself as a piece about parenting advice, but that wildly undersells what it actually is: a brutally honest account of losing a parents love. One day Babics father adored her, the next he was undermining her at every turn, rendering Babic invisible. Babic writes about this in a dreamlike way, and unlike Alexandrias piece, nothing feels concrete. And yet it also remains honest without tipping overboard. One of many favorite lines: Dads silent treatments smelled like newspapers.But I suspect the formula for a good memoir is even simpler. As Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us, Dont fucking lie.What else were readingKentucky is underwater again, and the devastation is hard to process. Kentucky is also, as Coyote Wallace writes, deeply misunderstood. In Hungry Like Me: The False Prophets of Poverty, Wallace explains why Kentuckians who live below the poverty line often support Trump. (Wallace does not, for the record.) It boils down to a question of trust. If how we Appalachians are presented in the eyes of the media is incorrect, Wallace writes, then it follows that the people who have long mocked us and refused our cries for representation would also lie about Trump.If youve been looking for an accessible primer on Socrates, youre in luck. Massimo Pigliucci, a professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, provides one here. One moment that stuck out to me: Socrates wandered around Athens interviewing politicians, poets, craftsmen all so-called experts who ultimately couldnt explain their expertise. His conclusion? The wisest people readily admit their lack of wisdom. Your daily dose of practical wisdomThe next time someone hurts or disappoints you, let them. Youll stop wasting energy on things you could have never controlled in the first place.

Making Featured stories even more visibleIntroducing new push notifications and Featured story feeds for publication followersPublished inThe Medium Blog2 min readJust now--A few months ago, we launched Featured stories for publications as a way for publication editors to directly influence story recommendations for their followers. Since then, our team has released multiple improvements, making Featured stories visible in stats and post page labels.Now, were excited to give Featured stories even wider distribution and more prominent placement on each users logged-in Homepage great news for both writers and readers. Over the next few weeks, well be rolling out new Featured story push notifications and new Featured story Homepage feeds for publication followers.For writers, this means even more people seeing your Featured stories. For readers, it will be easier than ever to see Featured stories from all of the publications you follow.In addition to being recommended more highly in Digest emails, the For You feed, and publication story pages, Featured stories now will be pushed directly to a publications followers via in-app notifications. Followers with the Medium app installed on iOS or Android also can receive Featured story push notifications whenever a publication they follow features a story.Featured stories also will appear in the new Featured tab on the homepage for logged-in users. Unlike many of Mediums other feeds, which include content recommendations from the Medium algorithm and our in-house curation team, the Featured feed highlights all Featured stories from publications that a user follows in the order they were featured. This means readers will never miss out on seeing a publications Featured story.The Featured feed is another way that Medium is investing in both publications and human curation. Publication editors play an important role in understanding what kind of content is uniquely valuable to their readers. By giving publication editors more control over the content that followers of the publication see on Medium, we are excited to help even more stories find the right audience. To learn more about Featured stories, check out the help center.P.S. Weve had the Featured feed turned on for Medium staff for about a month now. What started as a staff-only prototype made its way to production pretty quickly after we had the chance to experience it. Trust us when we say that it has become a go-to source of reading material for many of us!

How Starbucks intends to reclaim the third placeIssue #272: born before SNL + the art of self-differentiationPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--In our issue on third places venues for socializing apart from work and home my colleague Carly Rose Gillis visited an American Legion Post. She wrote about why third places are so important: they help us connect with people who are different from us, but who live close by. The best ones level the socioeconomic playing field. You dont need to buy something to feel like you belong. Parks and libraries are prime examples.I thought back to that issue when I read about Starbucks new CEO, Brian Niccol, who recently told investors he wants to reclaim the third place and make the chains cafes feel like welcoming coffeehouses. For context, Starbucks is not doing very well. Shares dropped 22% last year, and sales are down. Its had four CEOs since the pandemic. Now, its attempting a turnaround: Back to Starbucks.Besides the fact that a corporate coffee purveyor cant do what true third places do best make people feel welcome regardless of income the turnaround attempt is interesting to me. How does the worlds largest coffee chain (with over 40,000 locations globally) become a community center where each cup is, to quote Niccol, a handcrafted moment, made with care? How do you scale that vibe?One tactic: giving away free coffee. Starbucks did this last Monday, post-Superbowl. Another: tackle the four minute problem, i.e. getting wait times down to four minutes or less, which Niccol seems fixated on. (You cant create community if people are grumpy and undercaffeinated!) Starbucks also may have started a meme capitalizing on a long-beloved (and roasted) aspect of its brand: baristas who misspell customers names (possibly on purpose, maybe not). On TikTok, people are saying baristas have to write on the cups now, so theyre using them as canvases for Taylor Swift lyrics, memes, and the letter from The Notebook.Image Credit: @angelina.julia18 on TiktokThis attempt bespoke community-centrism reminds me of M.G. Sieglers analysis of Barnes & Noble, which completed a similar turnaround over the last few years. Scale is power, Siegler writes, but you need to obfuscate that from the customer when it comes to retail. If you dont, your product will feel soulless and customers will leave, which is exactly whats happened to Starbucks over the last five years.Bespoke up front, scale in the back, he concludes. This sounds obvious, but the key to making this work is in the details which, depending on how you execute them, can feel either welcoming or inauthentic. Harris Sockel 3 more storiesWill Leitch, born one day before SNLs premier on October 11, 1975, celebrates his 50th birthday along with the show and articulates its key lesson: Just keep making stuff. Just keep doing it. It makes you irreplaceable. It makes you inevitable.Morning TV host Jabari Thomas encourages his younger self to build your own table instead of asking for a seat at one that will never welcome you.Cartoonist Sarah Firth writes (and draws) wisdom for creatives who cant stop comparing themselves to others: Youre doing it because you want a benchmark for progress in an inherently uncertain career. Your daily dose of practical wisdomPeople differentiate themselves in three ways: agency (doing what you want), taste (liking things before other people do), or how you combine disparate skills. (Dan Koe)

From a U.S. news perspective, January 2025 was a year in a month, beginning with the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and followed by the presidential inauguration in Washington D.C.Throughout, writers came to Medium to share their stories. Ajounisingh asked, Your house burned down in a wildfire now what? and Loren Kantor shared a moving tribute to David Lynch. I highly recommend checking out our Staff Picks for more great examples.Reading such great writing makes me want to write more, but Ive been in a rut as of late. I dont know about you, but Im horribly susceptible to blank page syndrome. The specter of a white, empty screen is enough to make me never play with words again. So living in these non-stop unprecedented times, I feel like the firehose of everything just prevents me from picking anything to write about: Water, water, everywhere, and I just cant figure out how to get myself to drink.In January, David Todd McCarty published Thats Not A Story in Ellemeno. In it, he describes the difference between anecdotes, which we all have, and a proper story, which is a complete essay with a beginning, middle, and end, where the writer overcomes some obstacle, a truth is learned, or some other sort of meaningful shit occurs. His piece weaves together advice and examples from famous writers and humorists that you know, but also includes examples from McCartys personal writing practice, and those parts of the piece were most valuable to me.For instance, the simple statement that McCarty takes notes as he goes about his life so that days dont pass by in a blur. Of course, we all know that writing more means you have more to write, but using writing as a way to stop time and prevent loss of memory? That hit me hard in a time when the daily news tsunami somehow washes away my ability to capture individual moments in my life.People like to sneer at the term expert, but the truth is that everyone is an expert on their own life and writing about that is the clearest path to sharing your real and human wisdom with others.So Im going to think about which personal anecdotes I can turn into a story, and I hope you do too theres no better time than now to do it. Amy Widdowson, VP CommunicationsMedium by the numbers634,000: Number of unpublished drafts created in January (and yall know how much we think you should publish those drafts!)74,900: Number of new stories in publicationsNearly 4,000: Number of accounts suspended in January for Partner Program abusePlatform updates from our teamIf a story was featured by a publication, we added Featured labels on story pages and writer stats pages.In your notifications, we now show response previews so you can more easily see how readers are reacting to your work.We made it easier to report and hide comments you dont want to see on your post.We continued to address spam and comment abuse.Over at the Medium NewsletterMedium Newsletter editor Harris Sockel reports that the most clicked issue was Use this flowchart to make tough decisions easier on January 23. Our most commented issue was on January 17, What the end of Metas moderation means.Two of Januarys most-commented on storiesMuch-highlighted passagesI got fired from that corrupt publication because I refused to let AI replace passionate, competent writers, and I wear that job termination like a badge of honor. Maria Cassano , Im a Professional Editor and These Phrases Tell Me You Used ChatGPTGifts should add joy, not stress or worse, clutter. B.R. Shenoy in The New Rules of GiftingI had forgotten the joy of having energy and not being tired. pockett dessert in 2024, A Year Being Sick And Tired, Willpower and SpiritualitySpring will comeHope rewardedLife is good John ONeill in Winter ReflectionsTop stories from new (or new-ish) writers on MediumIn the vein of shoot for the moon so you fall amongst the stars etc., this is definitely a moonshot achieved: A Comprehensive Review of Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Tom Morton-CollingsI dont know much about baseball, but I really enjoyed Cardinals Top 30 Prospects by Taylor Crews. Crews mentions he used to put his top 30 prospects list on other platforms, so Im pleased that hes bringing his obsessive attention to detail to Medium.I took a playwriting class or two in college the practical advice in The Simple Fix When Your Characters Dont Grip The Audience by Leticia De Bortoli in Screenwriting & Storytelling would have been super helpful for those final scripts.Notable new publicationsDesign Systems Collective, a welcoming community for designers and developers passionate about scalable, consistent design.Looking for advice, insights, and ideas from the Medium data science community? Check out Data Science Collective.Some of the the most-shared stories in January