The non-obvious blog
Dedicated To Helping Readers
Be More Interesting Since 2004.
As Featured In:
Be More Interesting. Join over 25,000 readers and subscribe now!
21 2026 May
The Science Is In. AI Is Definitely Making You Dumber, If You Let It
This is a story that will surprise no one who reads my newsletter regularly, but what was surprising to me over the past few weeks...
Read Now20 2026 May
Meta’s Big Self-Inflicted Problem
This past week, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will be offering “completely private” encrypted chat for users. That sounds like great news. The problem is in the...
Read Now19 2026 May
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: China’s 90% Model by Dr. Ram Charan
The long-awaited US-China summit is finally happening after weeks of delay and so it’s a perfect time to bring this book up for you, which is an...
Read Now18 2026 May
The Future of Markups and Margins Will Be Harder to Justify
Inside a new retail concept store called The Markup Marche, the “exotic thirst-defying hydration vessel” is the flowery marketing language used to sell a humble coconut....
Read Now14 2026 May
Everything Looks Cooler with Age
At the recent Met Gala, one of the most non-obvious looks of the night came from rapper Bad Bunny who aged himself 53 years to show up...
Read Now13 2026 May
Forget “No Kings,” Maybe We Need More MODERN Kings (and Queens)
History has recorded many bad Kings. Kings that have plunged countries into war, prioritized their own glory, unleashed colonialism into the world. In America, the No...
Read Now12 2026 May
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Always Eat Left Handed by Rohit Bhargava
It’s graduation season and this month I have both boys graduating (one from high school and one from college), so it’s an exciting time. Several...
Read Now07 2026 May
This Bank You Haven’t Heard of May Offer a Blueprint to Winning the AI Race
Customers Bank describes itself as “banking built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs offering a wide range of banking products designed with entrepreneurs like you.” It’s a...
Read Now06 2026 May
The Best Sports Sponsorship of the Year Is All About Saving Your Nipples?
Here’s a metric that more marketers should use for judging a great sponsorship: it is something that no other brand could possibly do. This latest...
Read Now05 2026 May
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh
There is a shelf in my office stacked entirely with books about the history of the banana (and one about tulips). These sorts of books...
Read Now04 2026 May
How AI Analyzing Your Writing Style Might Kill Online Anonymity
When we used to talk about your digital identity, it was the sorts of personal information that are easily quantified like your date of birth...
Read Now30 2026 April
What We Can Learn from the Complex Legacy of Tim Cook
One of the biggest tech stories this month was related to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to step down after 15 years leading Apple into...
Read Now29 2026 April
What If the Biggest Threat to Human Thinking Isn’t AI?
Most conversations about the future threat to human reasoning start and end with artificial intelligence. That misses a big threat that’s finally getting more attention:...
Read Now