Mike Monroe

Since the beginning of time, the answer to “What do you do?” could be answered with one word.

Finance. Sales. Education.

But today, most jobs exist in liminal spaces:  Kind of like this but also not quite that.

It may have been fair to think that any explanation longer than a one-word, universally understood, job title was just an attempt to look

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The trouble with the internet, Mr. Williams says, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it tries to supply them.

Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.

For example: there are programs that allow customers to earn points for following a brand or for writing a product review. This sort of bribery usually attracts the least loyal - and least valuable - audience who is mostly interested in the positive transaction utility and has a low brand investment (once they claim a reward, they can unfollow the... See more

I genuinely believe that relationships with family and close friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple, but like any important investment, these relationships need consistent attention and care. But there are two forces that will be constantly working against this happening. First, you’ll be routinely tempted to... See more

The world is built by those who can think, but it is ran by those who can articulate.

The robot was quite good at copying my style, but much less good at writing anything meaningful. It could predict which words I would be most likely to use but it couldn’t make an original argument for me. Using the robot made me think a lot about the nature of writing and what goes in to its peculiar form of labor. AI tools fundamentally promise... See more

I worked in the Writing Center in college, and whenever a student came in with an essay, we were supposed to make sure it had two things: an argument (“thesis”) and a reason to make that argument (“motive”). Everybody understood what a “thesis” is, whether or not they actually had one. But nobody understood “motive”. If I asked a student why they... See more