Field Notes

01

2026-08-06

11 min read

The Banner Is Not the Advertisement: A Taxonomy Note on Enclosed Attention

In December we said the cabin was a private space. In July we put a banner in it. This memo explains, at the definitional layer, why both of those remain true.

There is exactly one room in a customer's life where the door is not a realistic option at seventy miles per hour. A memo on the surface audit that found it, the architecture that reached it, and the vocabulary that keeps it defensible.

02

2026-07-26

12 min read

Decanting the Halo: Trust as an Acquirable, Depletable Asset in the Wellness Portfolio

You cannot build trust at a conglomerate's cost of capital. You can only buy it, pre-aged, from someone who spent twenty years earning it at a shelf — and then spend it down.

A portfolio memo on the one asset class in supplements that no amount of marketing spend can originate — only acquire. What it costs, and why the label should never mention that we now own it.

03

2026-07-18

11 min read

Involuntary Daily Active Users: A Framework for Post-Consent Adoption

Persuasion doesn't scale. The default does. A reference architecture for shipping the assistant your users keep asking how to turn off.

This quarter, one company's AI assistant achieved something no adoption funnel in history has achieved: one hundred percent penetration. A study of how, and of the beautiful, load-bearing absence at the center of it — the off switch that was never shipped.

04

2026-04-20

9 min read

Notes from the Afternoon: On the Industrialization of a Counterculture

The plant was the product. The platform is the product now. I want to tell you, gently, what we did — and what Dutchie, the most valuable cannabis-commerce company of the decade, now does, annually, on the last Sunday afternoon in April.

It is 4:20 in the afternoon as I write this. There is a particular cultural weight to this hour on this date, and I want to honor it by being honest about what we — the practitioners of this industry — have done to the plant, and to the people who believed the plant was a refusal.

05

2026-04-18

13 min read

The Offline Access Memorandum: A Documentary Retrospective

Three practice leads at EnshitifAi sat for talking-head interviews about the Walmart, Chipotle, and Starbucks engagements. We turned the cameras off when we should have.

I was hired to produce a three-minute hype reel for our annual kickoff. I ended up with eleven hours of footage my editor is calling — off the record — 'the most on-voice piece of internal communications we have ever shot, and the single thing we can never ever publish.' I am publishing it anyway.

06

2026-04-18

12 min read

Bending Spoons: The Masterclass in Portfolio Resolution

How a Milan-based mobile-app shop quietly became the most efficient layoff vendor in tech — and why every beloved brand in your bookmark bar should be worried

When the Italian firm enters your software company's data room, you have six months to a year. The employees have less. I want to take you through what they have done, and I want to be honest with you about how I feel about it.

07

2024-12-01

11 min read

Ticketmaster: A Masterclass in Monopolistic Extraction

How to charge $500 in fees for a $95 ticket and make fans blame Taylor Swift

When forty state attorneys general and the federal government bring a joint antitrust action against a single company, you have either done something very wrong or something very right. From an extraction perspective, Ticketmaster chose the latter. I want to tell you why I admire it.

08

2024-07-08

10 min read

The Subscription Economy Playbook: Converting Ownership Into Endless Revenue

Why sell something once when you can sell it infinitely?

The old economy was about selling products. The new economy is about selling access to products you used to sell. The next economy? Selling access to features of products you used to include for free.

09

2024-05-14

7 min read

Dark Patterns Are Just UX Optimization (A Reframe)

Rebranding manipulation as 'conversion-focused design'

The term 'dark patterns' is so negative. We prefer 'persuasive design architecture' or 'conversion-optimized user journeys.' Same thing, better PR.