Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. Three weeks ago, two cofounders launched Dia—a new AI-first browser (I'm loving it). They also move away from Arc, a beloved browser with millions of users and a passionate tech community. And it wasn't failing. So why kill it? The answer starts with a Sunday afternoon in January 2024. Miller was living in Paris, about to board a flight, when he casually tweeted...
3 days ago • 5 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. I've been working with several private equity firms lately, helping their portfolio companies clarify their messaging. What I keep hearing in strategy sessions is not “let’s improve our copy or fix our CRO” anymore. It's a big shift in how these companies need to position themselves. The trigger? Something called the Rule of 40. If you're not familiar, the Rule of 40...
10 days ago • 4 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. Most teams treat messaging like a moodboard. Disjointed. Decorative. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Each new landing page, sales deck, or onboarding email feels like starting from scratch. They’re mixing and matching taglines, rephrasing value props, rewriting what’s already been written—because they don’t have a system. They think they’re iterating, but...
17 days ago • 3 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. I recently received my voting cards from Italy. As an Italian living in the UK, this isn't unusual, but what struck me this time was how absurdly hard it was to understand what I was being asked to vote on. Here’s one of the ballots: And here’s a literal translation for your eyes to bleed on: “Do you want the repeal of Article 8 of Law 604 from July 15, 1966, titled...
24 days ago • 3 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. What if your next round of customer research didn’t involve a single customer? That’s the future being painted by a new wave of AI-native research platforms — ones that don’t just automate surveys or analyze reviews, but simulate entire societies of agents who think, talk, shop, and even complain like your customers. I read a piece this week from a16z about this...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. It’s 1959. Nine elite Soviet hikers. The Ural Mountains. Level three mountaineering test—the hardest there is. They were young, confident, and experienced. They set off with cameras, carefully mapped routes, and a plan. And they vanished. When the search party arrived days later, they found the group’s tent half-buried in snow. It had been slashed open from the...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. My dad wasn’t a marketer. But he understood resonance better than most CMOs I’ve met. He had this intuition, a way of knowing what would hit, whether it was a song, a story, or a moment. He never needed to justify it. He just felt it. And you felt it too when you were around him. Last week, he passed away. And as I’ve been sitting with the memories, the quiet gaps he...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. A client asked me a simple question before signing off on a new project: “But do you keep SEO in mind?” It’s a common one—usually asked right after I walk clients through the research and messaging process. And while it sounds tactical, what they’re really asking is: “Will this copy hold up when the SEO person reviews it?” SEO isn’t what it used to be. And as of this...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. "I don't like it. Can I get a refund?" The woman at the specialty coffee shop counter held her barely-touched pour-over with two fingers, as if it might contaminate her. The barista—a lanky guy with a meticulously trimmed beard and tattoos peeking from beneath his rolled sleeves—blinked twice. "Do you usually drink coffee?" he asked carefully. "Yes, of course," she...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. I'm writing this as I'm about to fly back from Edinburgh after attending Turing Fest 2025. Among many brilliant speakers discussing AI, one presentation particularly sparked my thinking: Sharon Zhou, PhD, Founder & CEO of Lamini (a developer platform focused on making AI not hallucinate). In her talk about fine-tuning AI models, Dr. Zhou showed how even AI agents can...
2 months ago • 2 min read