Rishad Tobaccowala

Helping leaders see, think and feel differently so they can grow their company, their teams and themselves. Substack (Free):

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

A bouquet of wisdom.

A summary of a conversation with Jim McCann the founder and chairman of 1-800-Flowers

https://t.co/ngFUjBRzdh

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Making meetings suck less

https://t.co/ZwusAPvoQo

[Deedy @deedydas]

Read Kyle Kingsbury’s 32 page critique of AI: “The Future of Everything is Lies.”

It is a polemic, cynical and disagreeable piece to many in tech, but felt by most outside of it. It highlights the many problems we will need to solve as AI percolates through society.

Must read.

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

"Guide Yourself By The Stars And Not The Passing Ships"

David Kenny on leadership and Unbossing.

A must read and must listen.

https://t.co/y3AM0LvH6j

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns.

Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, says it is “quite plausible that the modern digital media environment has had profound effects on society that have led to a decline in romantic coupling”.

Indeed, Hudson and Moscoso-Boedo’s thesis that the key factor is less time spent socialising in person is supported by evidence from dozens of countries. In South Korea young adult in-person socialising has halved in 20 years.

[NTD+ @NTDPlus_]

We won’t all have jobs in the future—but we’ll all have work?

@rishad explains what that means and how that shift is already underway.

“They began to say, ‘I like my work, but I don’t necessarily like my job.’” That realization, Tobaccowala says, made him understand that work and jobs were starting to separate.

“While that was happening, a large number of people, when they were at home, started doing side gigs and side hustles because nobody was watching.”

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Today I published the 300th edition of the " The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past" which is FREE and read by 32,000 leaders.

For this issue I had ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini do an analysis and distillation of 6 years of writing.

https://t.co/2JugfkGLuq

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Another AI key to our future strategies

Asymmetrical Interconnectedness

Filled with analysis and charts to help your firm and you prepare for next

https://t.co/mtGMM3ZhTM

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Anxious about your career?

Take a read of my latest post

Reducing Career Anxiety

10 minutes that may change your point of view while providing you with tools and techniques and much more to ensure you have agency over your career and not agents or aging or any other thing.

https://t.co/AU5290O5te

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Three Keys To Engagement

Employee Engagement is hitting an all time low

Solving it is not training or bringing in consultants.

Its being more human and requires no budget or permission.

Try:

Curiosity. Empathy. Generosity.

Read the entire piece here...its free.

https://t.co/uce0Mbz3U5

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

This week on my Substack a guest post by David Armano @armano on Silicon and Soul and why instead of being the smartest or most powerful or grandest person in a room we just might want to be the most human person in the room.

Today in order to thrive in the age of AI this might just be the ticket.

Also this week I introduce "One Single Thing" which is the single most impactful thing I saw or read the previous week. This week I feature a short video that will likely change the way you live your life.
Read the entire piece and access the video here

It is completely free....no subscription...no ads...no data harvesting...just writing and thinking imbibed by 32,000 leaders every Sunday

https://t.co/X4kViYaPlC

[Ernesto 'Conejo' Martelli @ernestomartelli]

Días atrás hubo una interesante pero más alarmista tapa en @TheAtlantic
La distinción entre trabajo, empleo y tareas la señaló con precisión esta semana @rishad en The Future Doesnt Fit in the Containers of the Past. Es el auto de este libro:

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

10 learnings from Reed Hastings the Co-founder of Netflix on Unbossing a new podcast I co-host.

1. Team not Family.

Companies are teams and not families.

As in sports every employee needs to be skilled to retain their position. To stay in a team one must be at top of one’s game and competitive. Players can be asked to leave a team but one cannot be cast out of families.

2. “Best Selves” not “Whole Selves”.

Nobody is looking for employees to bring their whole self to work, warts and all. People should bring their best selves.

3.”Radical Candor” should not mean just radical .

Reed believes that Netflix may have come off as too competitive a culture from the outside in the early days. Radical by itself is just plain mean.

4. Fear is a double edged sword: Fine in moderation but bad in excess.

The fear of being beaten by Blockbuster or falling behind on streaming to Hulu or not understanding the nuances of local cultures kept Netflix perpetually improving. But this did not stop them from taking big risks of original programming and global expansion.

5. Market product fit is a combination of competitive strategy, timing and trends.

Netflix rode the growth of e-commerce but kept away from Amazon categories, while benefitting from DVD’s which were easy to mail replacing VHS. Find a trend, keep away from a big competitor and align with a technology shift.

6. Sometime one can be too early.

One of the big mistakes that led to a 70 percent stock price drop was the Netflix decision to focus on streaming by spinning off the DVD business. It was the right idea but 3 years too early.

7. Maniacal focus while adjusting to environment are key.

Netflix focussed on every aspect of operational excellence on mailing DVD’s then they switched their focus to streaming and then to globalization

8. AI is bigger, broader and faster than all that has come before.

As a board member of Anthropic and one who has seen previous technology shifts, Reed believes that AI is going to be much more impactful than the technologies that have come before and will have a far broader impact on humanity than just the current productivity tools. AI will also move much faster than most people assume.

9. Luck is far more central to people’s success than it appears.

Reed believes a great deal of his success was due to luck. While things worked out very well financially for Reed he recommends that people should focus on what they like doing and what they believe gives them joy vs defining themselves or fixating on financial outcomes.

10. No Rules.

Reed suggests that we are in a world of reinvention and it is time for no rules.
and in a a book called No Rules Rules he notes

Be radically honest.

And never, ever try to please your boss. (The ultimate Unbossing move!)

Listen to Reed on Unbossing:

Apple: https://t.co/ujidjuLLad

Spotify: https://t.co/tLjEtM3gaq

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

In partnership with iHeart Media and Bubbler Media I have a new podcast called Unbossing

My first guest Reed Hastings of Netflix

https://t.co/wbUsKc0iWn

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

From Eric Peters excellent weekend newsletter...

“The distribution of power is crumbling,” said Sparks. investor, entrepreneur, iconoclast. “Nothing is defensible. The Houthi thing was a warning,” he continued.

“Our latest technologies empower individuals and small bands of marauders. A few AI programmers create something overnight that eviscerates a business that took 40yrs to build.” People see it clearly in software, but they don’t see it in everything. “You used to need a million-man army to win a war.” Not anymore. “You used to need 20k programmers to dominate a market.” Now it takes seven brilliant programmers and Claude.

“This shift is so profound, the consequences are extreme. People don’t yet realize what that means for the world, far beyond tech,” said Sparks. “Even the physical world is becoming easier to disrupt. To lift 3mm barrels a day from the ground requires an army like Exxon, but what good is all that oil if you can’t move it.” Hormuz. Suez. “In a decade we’ll look back and connect the Ukraine and Iran wars. This is the most important conflict in 5,000 years. How war is being waged is evolving at an utterly unprecedented pace, creating all sorts of non-linear potentialities,” said Sparks.

“The utilization of laptops, AI, and drones has created a true dystopia.” We ran this theater for years in Ukraine. “The Iranians come along and get attacked by the Americans, and their view is that if you’re going to take us down, we’re going to take you down – they have a fatalistic culture.” Suicide bombers, literally. “In Ukraine they take out $5mm tanks with $3k drones. It’s the parable of the Hormuz Strait. And how many drones do you now need to close a global chokepoint?” Not many. “You just need to cause chaos. This is the form of nihilism I fear most.

The small will become disproportionately more powerful over the coming decade.” Those with the least to lose will emerge as the most dangerous. “And the drones will play a central part. They will become cyber viruses manifested in the physical world.”

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

Jobs are a silly phase that work is going through

We have reached peak full time jobs but not peak work or opportunity

We are seeing an age of debossification with the fall of managers and the rise of leaders

The majority of employees in a company in 2029 will be agentic and fractionalized employees....

AI first and Talent anywhere companies are generating 2.5 million of revenue per employee

Much more in the link below

https://t.co/hgDbkxZd5E

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

The 4 Ps of Spicy Thinking

Perspectives
Provocations
Points of View
Plans of Action

The full post here:

https://t.co/bGz3x2ivOK

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

“In 1997, the web had no business model, and no one knew why a server would talk to a stranger. Open protocols and a clever hack called advertising figured it out, and civilization went digital. In 2026, that hack is dying. Open protocols and a 28-year-old status code are about to replace it.”

Worth a read

https://t.co/ajtFqYTNou

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

On the Ritual of Writing
https://t.co/GgsMTWAzOb

[Rishad Tobaccowala @rishad]

We are living in a world of aliens and replicants. And we are humans.

Staying Human in an Age of AI

From a keynote to 2000 Enterprise Architects and other business leaders and technologists at an SAP event at their US Headquarters.

https://t.co/lCpa6uTo6t