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Damns Given: Nick Richtsmeier

Damns Given: Nick Richtsmeier

We've spent a generation obsessing about efficiency only to realize the inefficiencies were load-bearing. For ventures to thrive they are going to have to rediscover the business of trust.

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Podcast

Misdefining "trust" and the cost of wasted attention

Misdefining "trust" and the cost of wasted attention

Trust seems like it's about defining right and wrong, but it isn't. It's a nervous system response. We distrust social media platforms because our bodies read them as unsafe, and then the tech is designed to override that "unsafe" response. And leaders have to shift their focus in response
Getting to the root of brain rot: the business consequences of an anti-thinking life

Getting to the root of brain rot: the business consequences of an anti-thinking life

The costs of the attention economy aren't just personal: when a culture stops thinking, stops tolerating friction, and outsources its judgment to machines, the business consequences are real - and they're only beginning to show up.
Stop Playing the Refs

Stop Playing the Refs

We are not nearly as vulnerable as we feel. Most of what we fear isn’t real; it’s rehearsed by algorithms and adrenaline. We still have agency — just not in the places we’ve been told to look.
The Mass Decline of Digital Marketing and What It's Gonna Cost

The Mass Decline of Digital Marketing and What It's Gonna Cost

Podcast Ep. 116: We live in a post-trust, post-authenticity world. Tactics continue to fail. Corrosive cultural forces are reshaping trust, commerce, and identity, scrambling what it even means to “market” something. Now for the good news...
"We weren't built for this" with Alexandra Pasi, PhD

"We weren't built for this" with Alexandra Pasi, PhD

Podcast Ep: 115: What if the reason work—and life—feels so off is because the very mediums we communicate through are bending us into shapes we didn’t choose? AI founder and mathemetician Lexi Pasi asks the big questions.

Newsletters

Mar 17
Misdefining "trust" and the cost of wasted attention

Misdefining "trust" and the cost of wasted attention

Trust seems like it's about defining right and wrong, but it isn't. It's a nervous system response. We distrust social media platforms because our bodies read them as unsafe, and then the tech is designed to override that "unsafe" response. And leaders have to shift their focus in response
9 min read
Mar 09
Can credibility beat the algorithm? Sure it can. Here's how.

Can credibility beat the algorithm? Sure it can. Here's how.

If you’re in the business of building real trust—premium, custodial, collaborative trust—can you actually win in this environment? Can credibility beat the algorithm? Yes. But not by playing the algorithm’s game.
9 min read
Mar 02
Getting to the root of brain rot: the business consequences of an anti-thinking life

Getting to the root of brain rot: the business consequences of an anti-thinking life

The costs of the attention economy aren't just personal: when a culture stops thinking, stops tolerating friction, and outsources its judgment to machines, the business consequences are real - and they're only beginning to show up.
4 min read
Jan 15
Everything is gambling now

Everything is gambling now

The data-driven revolution has produced a self-induced digital Dark Age, where we're fumbling around having to build ventures, communities, and institutions with almost no clear idea what happens next.
7 min read
Dec 19
The 2025 Good List

The 2025 Good List

2025 will go down in history as the year online firmly lost touch with human reality. For this reason and many others, I have so much hope.
11 min read
Nov 21
"BETTER!" is never better AKA the problem of POV

"BETTER!" is never better AKA the problem of POV

We need you to stop wondering what everyone else is doing. You know what they are doing: They are mass producing artificiality in the hopes of getting machines to do the work for them.
10 min read
Nov 03
Stop Playing the Refs

Stop Playing the Refs

We are not nearly as vulnerable as we feel. Most of what we fear isn’t real; it’s rehearsed by algorithms and adrenaline. We still have agency — just not in the places we’ve been told to look.
4 min read
Oct 09
Marketing truth in a lie factory

Marketing truth in a lie factory

The gap between digital and reality is now an unmanageable chasm. If it's online, there's a very real chance it's not real. And that changes everything.
6 min read
Oct 09
The Mass Decline of Digital Marketing and What It's Gonna Cost

The Mass Decline of Digital Marketing and What It's Gonna Cost

Podcast Ep. 116: We live in a post-trust, post-authenticity world. Tactics continue to fail. Corrosive cultural forces are reshaping trust, commerce, and identity, scrambling what it even means to “market” something. Now for the good news...
1 min read
Sep 25
You'll like me better up close.

You'll like me better up close.

Edition 133 — OR — The ongoing struggle to care about what matters Central to my work—across strategic growth for ventures,
8 min read
Sep 23
"We weren't built for this" with Alexandra Pasi, PhD

"We weren't built for this" with Alexandra Pasi, PhD

Podcast Ep: 115: What if the reason work—and life—feels so off is because the very mediums we communicate through are bending us into shapes we didn’t choose? AI founder and mathemetician Lexi Pasi asks the big questions.
1 min read
Sep 19
The peace terms between execs and marketing

The peace terms between execs and marketing

Marketing makes markets, or it's a game we play with websites, words, and pretty pictures. The language and values gap between most marketers and executive suites is real, and we're long overdue to sign the ceasefire and find common ground.
8 min read

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