Curation

Today, buying products online has never been easier. Convenience is at an all-time high, and consumers have more options than ever before. It seems, once again, that there is nowhere else we need to go. And yet, this is precisely the problem.

In today’s oversaturated world, we need curators to help us separate signal from noise. Gladwell told us... See more

Over the past year, working on a book on curation, I have interviewed more than 30 curators—art and conference curators, creative directors, Instagram influencers, radio hosts, coders, and genetic engineers—and all agreed that saying no is at the core of the curatorial ethos . Saying no defines what matters.

less noise, more depth. Less content, more context.

Because in a world where everything is available, the real value is knowing what actually matters.

The critical distinction is that today's gatekeepers derive authority not from institutional power but from demonstrated discernment. Cultural capital now flows to those who can navigate overwhelming abundance with skill and intention.

For brands, archives serve a parallel function: heritage as intellectual capital. Referencing your own past demonstrates institutional depth, creative continuity, and legitimacy that new brands cannot manufacture. In a world of conglomerate acquisitions and proliferating labels, archives prove you were there first. And that you still matter today.

The curator relationship operates at a fundamentally different psychological level than advertising. An algorithm might know you like blue Oxford shirts, but a tastemaker knows why a particular blue Oxford matters in a lineage of blue Oxfords. This contextual knowing, placing objects in historical and cultural frameworks rather than recommendation... See more

The problem - and the reason the Vibe Coding Paradox comes up - is because we live in an age where it is possible to hack our way to attention without having to do the hard work needed to build trust.

With that, we misunderstand attention as value. But without trust, it really isn’t.

In an age of mass production, curation and taste matter more.

AI... See more

as the amount of slop increases — whether human or AI generated — the difficulty in finding the right stuff to read is only increasing

It’s how you build with the same pieces that everyone else has; this is what makes you unique.