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Nick Richtsmeier

"Adopt or die."

"Adopt or die."

"Inevitable" is not neutral. It’s ideological. It’s permissioned, a gate made and kept for those who will step in line and pay the long-gestating price of simply going with the flow. And it’s one of the most effective tools of marketing ever invented.

25 Tantilizing Truths about Doing Business in the 21st Century (So Far)

25 Tantilizing Truths about Doing Business in the 21st Century (So Far)

The biggest challenge you face is understanding your current position and the assumptions you're making. Orientation is everything.

How to design your own demise + midyear book recs

How to design your own demise + midyear book recs

Even if you don't care about Elon, Tesla, or X, Ms. Yaccarino's exit from X is a Rorschach test for all of our leadership. Anyone who is trying to build in this post-trust system will find something of themselves in this story, and some of it might not feel so good.

First Date Marriage Proposals

First Date Marriage Proposals

Most firms are so accustomed to getting married out of the gate that they're still shocked when customers aren't interested in the proposal. You have to fundamentally alter the sales process if you want to make it to the altar.

How to Escape a Venomous Web

How to Escape a Venomous Web

Everything you're spending time, energy, attention, or money on on the Internet should be driven by specific boundaries. It's to stop being Silicon Valley's lunch.

Stop Educating Your Prospects

Stop Educating Your Prospects

The initial dream of the internet was a sharing of information. Too bad that's over. This essay is about eating my own cooking, serving it to you, and doing what's necessary now.

We make zombies here.

We make zombies here.

We’ve built a system that rewards surface-level performance and punishes depth, propping up dead companies with borrowed time and fake metrics. If you want to make something alive, you have to risk being real.