ITK Sunday | April 16

Happy Sunday.

Here’s today’s ITK Sunday.

To be ITK, know this:?

Most AI fear is future fear?Robin Hanson

Eight things to know about large language models?Samuel R. Bowman?

+ 1. LLMs predictably get more capable with increasing investment, even without targeted innovation.

+ 2. Many important LLM behaviors emerge unpredictably as a byproduct of increasing investment.

+ 3. LLMs often appear to learn and use representations of the outside world.

+ 4. There are no reliable techniques for steering the behavior of LLMs.

+ 5. Experts are not yet able to interpret the inner workings of LLMs.

+ 6. Human performance on a task isn’t an upper bound on LLM performance.

+ 7. LLMs need not express the values of their creators nor the values encoded in web text.

+ 8. Brief interactions with LLMs are often misleading.

Design and the future of work?Lee Duncan

+ The future of work is defined by the growing trend of remote work, flexible schedules, and digital collaboration.

+ According to a report by Upwork, 41.8% of the American workforce is projected to be working remotely by 2025. As a result, the way we work is changing, and it is essential to adapt to this change to stay relevant in the workforce.

Restaurant revolution: California’s entrepreneurial spirit remains alive in an innovative, immigrant-led food culture—but Sacramento threatens to snuff it out.?Joel Kotkin

+ California may be best known for its innovations in computers and entertainment, but it has long been on the leading edge of food trends. The epicenter of the farmers’ market and organic food industries, the state produces 40 percent of America’s organic food.?

+ Many ethnic culinary trends, from Mexican to Korean barbecue to sushi, spread to the rest of the US from California, which also incubated popular chains like McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Cheesecake Factory, Marie Callender’s, and Taco Bell.?

+ George Geary, a chef and food writer in Southern California, told the New York Times: “Everyone looks at California for trendsetting in a lot of ways. If it makes it here, it’ll make it anywhere.”

+ The state is home to the largest online delivery companies: Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates. This extension of car culture has further established a food culture in suburbia and the exurbs, where people continue to relocate.

+ Between 2010 and 2020, the suburbs and exurbs of the major metropolitan areas gained 2 million net residents, while the urban core counties lost 2.7 million. Since 2015, large metropolitan areas have been losing residents to smaller cities and, by 2022, to more rural areas as well.

+ Critically, more than 90 percent of all growth in suburbia over the past decade came from groups other than white non-Hispanics. In California, the trend is even stronger, with Latinos and Asians dominating growth in suburbs and exurbs.

+ Many urban planners and new urbanists dislike mini-malls, but to a new generation of food entrepreneurs, the malls’ easy parking and generally lower costs make them what Houston architect Tim Cisneros calls “the immigrant’s friend.”

+ Orange County, once home of generally bland WASP food and standard taco restaurants, last year won 31 Michelin designations, offering everything from sushi joints to inventive new Mexican places, as well as a host of European and fusion spots.

+ “This is not suburbanization but localization,” argues Shaheen Sadeghi, the visionary developer of the Packing District and numerous “anti-mall” complexes—essentially open-air shopping areas with local businesses—throughout Southern California. “Suburbia is no longer bland,” he notes.

+ Nationally, minorities represent 30 percent of all business owners, but they account for 41 percent of restaurant owners. Asians, for instance, own 19 percent of restaurants, compared with 8 percent of all small businesses. These trends are even more pronounced in California, where minorities own roughly 60 percent of all restaurants, with Asians owning more than one-third and Hispanics nearly a quarter.

Golden arch-itects: How 2 marketing dynamos reinvigorated McDonald's for Gen Z: Old McDonald's? Not anymore, thanks to CMOs Morgan Flatley and Tariq Hassan.?AdWeek

+ McDonald’s logo is one of the most familiar symbols on earth, recognized by more people around the world than the Christian cross. At 68, the fast-food brand is still one of the most valuable advertisers too, with Kantar putting its worth at $196.5 billion.

+ A leaked 2016 internal memo suggested just 20% of millennials had tried a Big Mac. Elsewhere, data from financial firm Piper Sandler showed that teens were defecting to rivals Chick-fil-A, Chipotle and Dunkin’.

+ Both Hassan and Flatley—the company’s dynamic marketing duo—are laser-focused on reasserting McDonald’s status as an iconic brand, one that’s culturally relevant across continents and generations.?

+ The recipe they’re cooking up features a sprinkling of star power and insights rooted in fan truths, as well as a more cohesive internal approach to marketing—held together with a smart data and digital strategy.?

+ “fan truths”: the moments, memories and real-life experiences that make McDonald’s relevant to individuals.?

+ “We’ve shifted our logic of being a brand that speaks brand-to-fan to one that speaks fan-to-fan,” Hassan said. Every single piece of communication McDonald’s puts out in the US is derived from a physical book containing these vignettes, which is maintained by W+K, before being reflected in McDonald’s creative.??

+ “When you attach the brand to other fans, whether they’re celebrities, cultural figures or designers, they breathe new life into it, yet they still manage to retain much of what is so special about McDonald’s”

+ “We didn’t invent the menu hack—it was alive and well on TikTok—but we just decided to lean in, in a simple way and create a unique experience for fans,” Hassan said, noting that each food item was packaged separately so people had to “build” their own McDonald’s meal.

+ Hassan is the first to admit that the word “culture” has become overused by marketers. But for McDonald’s, the term starts with something very simple: the menu.

+ The brand spends time going on what Hassan described as “food safaris” around different markets to get a feel for trends and what customers want and create new classics.?

+ “Marketing needs to have a strong seat at the CX table to talk about the role of the consumer,” she said. “That is what the future is going to look like for McDonald’s.”

Air taxi, please! Can urban air mobility get off the ground??Several EVTOL providers are poised to offer emission-free urban air travel, but they have some significant infrastructure challenges to overcome before they can realize this electric dream.?Paul Sillers

+ Despite these complexities, a brave new world of electrified UAM appears to be gradually taking shape. McKinsey’s Center for Future Mobility has found that of the 25 largest mainstream aerospace manufacturers and suppliers, 72% and 64% respectively are engaged in future air mobility technologies.

+ Agile infrastructure solutions will therefore be key. In April 2022, UK firm Urban-Air Port demonstrated Air One, a prototype vertiport in Coventry. The installation featured all the elements of an airport – check-in, security, retail and food areas, along with operational infrastructure for air traffic control, charging and maintenance – all within a tiny footprint.

+ Electric planes and urban air mobility are a complementary service. It’s all about the intermodal connectivity of one’s journey.

+ Japan Airlines recently revealed plans to procure 50 Vertical Aerospace VA-X4 EVTOLs from leasing company Avolon. This “represents an important step towards the implementation of air taxis at Osaka Kansai EXPO in 2025”, says the airline’s managing executive officer, Tomohiro Nishihata. The agreement, he adds, “lays out the pathway towards achieving the air mobility revolution in Japan.”

+ Delta Air Line, meanwhile, has invested $60m in air-taxi startup Joby Aviation. It’s part of a deal to offer home-to-airport services using Joby’s all-electric 200mph aircraft, starting in Los Angeles and New York.

+ The momentum behind electric planes and airports, then, is significant. But it’s worth remembering that it takes a lot more than that to get an idea off the ground.?

Chicago is one kind of town?Tim Ferguson

US demographics: Largest 5-year cohorts and ten most common ages in 2022?Calculated Risk

+ In 2022, the top 6 cohorts were under 45 (the Boomers are fading away), and by 2030 the top 10 cohorts will be the youngest 10 cohorts.

We are on the cusp of a Democrat class war: After 2024, divisions within the party may tear it apart.?Joel Kotkin

+ The recent sparring between Starbucks’s longtime CEO Howard Schultz and Senator Bernie Sanders reflects a conflict within the Democratic Party that is likely to get far more intense in the years ahead.

+ Schultz is finding out the hard way that liberal intentions are not enough to prevent his employees from seeking better wages and conditions. This dilemma mirrors that of his gentry progressive allies, who represent the Democrats’ increasingly affluent, well-educated base. They are now primary funders of the party and it is their agenda that has come to achieve dominance.

+ The Democratic merger between the corporate Left and traditional Leftism is clearly unnatural.?

+ People like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez do not distinguish between good billionaires and bad ones, but instead believe that billionaires should not exist at all.?

Taking a stand on social issues: The role of authentic purpose: Is your company’s public stance on social issues reflected by its behavior? If not, the road ahead will be bumpy.?Rachel Ruttan

+ Research underscores the importance of authenticity judgments for brands and corporate image.

+ A related category involves the perception that a corporation is co-opting a social movement once that movement reaches perceptions of acceptability by the majority of the public.

+ he success of communicating stated values hinges on perceptions of alignment with the organization’s lived values.

+ People are skeptical of neutrality—both in individuals and organizations.

+ Active collaboration with stakeholders is particularly useful when attempting to engage with issues relevant to social movements or specific subcultures.

+ Given the rising demands for companies to take a stance on socio-political issues, along with the documented risks of doing so, leaders are right to think carefully about how to engage.

+ Given ‘who you are,’ what stance makes the most sense for you? And is this stance consistent with your lived values?

+ Next, ruthlessly critique the authenticity of how your stance is communicated, reflecting on whether you’ve obtained perspectives versus assumed them, involved those closest to the issue, and are willing to put resources towards the issue. Rest assured: If you aren’t tough on yourselves, the public will be.

Better together: Ecosystems hold huge business potential and represent a promising way to tackle big societal problems. Let’s start getting ecosystems right.?S+B

+ "[Companies] often make poor decisions about which role they should play. Too often, they assume they should be in the driver’s seat as an ecosystem orchestrator but underestimate the time and resources needed. Or they focus on building a solution that is feasible but not desirable to either customers or partners. In their blithe expectation that everyone will flock to their solutions, they confuse ecosystems with egosystems." -- Michael G. Jacobides, Professor of Strategy, London Business School

+ A team at the Macquarie Business School in Australia surveyed 800 managers working in ecosystems in innovation hubs in Sydney and Silicon Valley and found that generous systems—in which partners share information and resources more openly—appear to generate more competitive advantage (measured by degrees of innovativeness, efficiency, quality, and responsiveness) than those in less generous systems.

Leading from the heart?Fred Wilson

+ A leader can be the most brilliant product person, strategist, entrepreneur, and business builder, but if they cannot get people to follow them, trust them, and care for them, they will not be an effective leader.

+ More transparency, more vulnerability, and more honesty is the winning formula and when you are choosing between the two, choose these things.

+ If you are struggling to build the level of trust you want with the team in your company, try a little more transparency, vulnerability, and honesty in your communication style. It will pay dividends.

A new approach to building your personal brand?Jill Avery + Rachel Greenwald

+ Creating your personal brand is an intentional, strategic practice in which you craft and express your own value proposition, and it involves seven steps

+ (1) Define your purpose by exploring your mission, passion, and strengths, and thinking about whom you want to make a difference to and how.?

+ (2) Audit your personal brand equity by cataloging your credentials, doing a self-assessment, and researching how other people view you.?

+ (3) Construct your personal narrative by identifying memorable, resonant stories that will best convey your brand.?

+ (4) Embody your brand by paying attention to the message you’re sending in every social interaction.?

+ (5) Communicate your brand through speeches, social media, the press, and other channels.?

+ (6) Socialize your brand by getting influential people to share your stories.?

+ (7) Reevaluate and adjust your brand by doing an annual audit to find deficits to fix and strengths to build on.

My world has shrunk to my bed: The new, narrower perimeters mean no more chemotherapy, no more radiotherapy.?Jeremy Clarke

How did??become our default sex symbol??A variety of fruits have long been used to convey eroticism, but in their emoji form, one seems to have won out.?NYT Style Magazine

+ Last year, the eggplant was the 165th most popular emoji (out of 1,549 measured) in the United States, and the highest ranking culinary ingredient, as reported by the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit organization that regulates standards for digital text.?

+ In the food and beverage category, only birthday cake (No. 25), a cup of coffee (No. 124), beer steins (No. 140) and clinking champagne flutes (No. 155) surpass it.?

+ Still, the eggplant is a relative newcomer as botanical sex symbols go, perhaps because it is not properly phallic across species; it has been catapulted to stardom only in emoji form.

‘The Possibility of Life’ review: Aliens in our image: As scientists pursue the question of life on other planets, they draw on a rich history of otherworldly, imaginary creatures.?WSJ

+ Green’s book, alive with the color and drama of science fiction as well as scientific fact, helps us grasp that process of imagining—its limits and its greater purpose. The possibility of life on another planet, writes the author, gives us “a context, a foil, a richer way of understanding ourselves.”

+?When we think of alien beings, what we are really doing is trying to understand life on Earth and its “different kinds of people. When we invent alien languages, we learn more about the human brain. When we dream of a benevolent visitation, we’re telling a story of what we think we need.”

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc?

Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal

Caracal produces ITK Daily.

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