This week’s newsletter is about useful opposites, counter-trends, and building things that go against the grain. From broken products that still work to bubbles that actually help, from ditching daily habits to building brand value with human authenticity, progress often comes from thinking differently and being authentic in what you do.
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At the Progressive Conference last week, Sam Altman responded to the story of an interviewer who mentioned that on a recent trip, nearly every hotel and restaurant he chose was discovered through GPT-5. None of these bookings go through OpenAI, and the company doesn't receive any revenue from them.
Ultraman acknowledged the disparity but didn't seem to mind. ChatGPT provides advice without bias, which is what builds trust, he said. If money needs to be spent promoting a worse hotel instead of a better hotel, that trust will disappear. But if it recommends the best options and charges a fixed commission without affecting the results, then it looks like a sustainable model to him.
He expects hotel and travel commissions to decrease. Once people ask AI to find the best hotel, agents may complete the booking with the lowest-charging service. Altman said this dynamic would allow “Margins have fallen sharply on most goods and services, including hotel bookings“
OpenAI still plans to support pre-ordering at some point, but Altman doesn't see it as a major business priority. This is not OpenAI's main profit area, nor is it the company's focus. His main focus is on breakthroughs such as curing disease, unleashing new scientific discoveries or building abundant clean energy. From this perspective, travel is just one of many real-world use cases they may eventually support, as it makes ChatGPT more useful in everyday life. Podcast – Sam Altman on Trust, Persuasion, and the Future of Artificial Intelligence
“The way to monetize the smartest model in the world is certainly not hotel bookings… I want to discover new science and figure out a way to monetize it” – Sam Altman
These less common words can offset the more popular words and often make more sense. A way to think more positively about work, stress, success, and other people.
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Pronoa: The opposite of paranoid. When you believe the world is conspiring against you
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jomo: Opposite of FOMO. Missed joy
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benign stress: Opposite of pain. Helpful stress can empower and motivate
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Mitt Floyd: The opposite of gloating. to feel happy because of the happiness of others (German)
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flâneur: Opposite of grinding. French term for a person who wanders, observes, or presents creatively
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Kintsugi: The opposite of perfectionism. The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold makes imperfections part of the story
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Ragom: Opposite of overdose. The Swedish philosophy is “just enough”, not too little and not too much
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Ubuntu: Opposite of individualism. African philosophy means “I exist because we exist”
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raw shellfish: The opposite of productivity for productivity's sake. Japan’s concept of purpose or raison d’être
Some things work even if they stop working.
A malfunctioning escalator can still be used as a staircase. An electric toothbrush is still a toothbrush. An e-bike with a dead battery is still a bike. They fail in ways that leave their core functionality intact.
This is a useful lens in product design: not just “what happens when it works,” but “what happens when it doesn't work.” Which parts are still valid? What do people pursue? What fallback becomes the default?
You'll see it on your travels, too. Maps apps with offline mode will still show your cached routes when you lose signal. A hotel key card with your room number on it can be helpful when you forget which room is yours. The itinerary in your email will still be loaded offline.
It also shows in customer service. When flights are canceled, partners go bankrupt, and travelers are stranded and under stress, these are important moments. At eDreams, some of our most loyal customers have emerged from travel nightmares simply because we showed up and had their support.
Designing for failure earns trust. People will remember when your product still works at the worst possible moment (dead battery, no signal, unfamiliar city, high voltage…). This resilience builds loyalty more than a hundred experiences in perfect conditions.
Everyone calls it a bubble. They may be right. In some places, the hype around AI is overblown, in other places, money is flowing so fast that many businesses chasing AI will fail. Ben Thompson's The benefits of bubbles A timely and thoughtful rebuttal to the current epidemic of AI bubble cynicism. Thompson believes that bubbles can be hugely productive when they involve transformative technology. They over-build capabilities, drive invention, install physical and cognitive infrastructure, and create mechanisms that help entire ecosystems grow. You can see it in railroads, fiber optic cables, and the early days of the Internet. Most of these bets have not paid off for investors, but they have paid off for society. Let’s be honest… most of the people shouting “Bubble!” are not the ones risking their own money. They (and we) will ultimately get the benefits: faster tools, cheaper computing, better infrastructure, and a front-row seat to the fireworks, all without investing a penny.
Thompson built on ideas from Carlotta Pérez (Technological Revolution and Financial Capital) the “installation phase” of a technology, when loss-making investments must be made to lay the foundation for a more productive future. He also learned from Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber's “Boom”, as they called these “Inflection point bubble”: A bubble that stimulates fundamental changes in an entire industry.
This AI cycle may follow a similar arc. Even if some investments fail, they are helping build capabilities in chips, energy, talent and ambition. They also start projects that are difficult to justify and might not have happened without FOMO and the bubble bubble. This includes deep infrastructure like fabs (where chips are made) and power generation, as well as entirely new chip architectures and AI-native startups pushing in every direction.
As Thompson writes, “Optimism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” You can’t achieve lasting change without a speculative boom along the way. Read + Ben Thompson
The bigger the trend, the greater the leverage to go against it. Being on the other side of a dominant shift can open up spaces that others have stopped focusing on, often with less competition and greater loyalty. Amid the constant emergence of artificial intelligence tools, virtual products, and automated hacks, Jonathan Courtney and Greg Isenberg (about business idea Podcast) talks about how face-to-face experiences can once again be a real advantage. They are not easily scalable and require more effort. That's what makes them stand out. People will remember them, trust them, and talk about them in the future.
Jonathan shared examples from his own business, such as launching a $15,000 in-person certification, renting an Italian village for a retreat, and hosting a high-priced summer camp with no taping, no live streaming, and no virtual pass. Just real people in a room. He explains how this limitation can be an attraction, delivering clear, hard-to-replicate offers in a format that people miss.
In the travel/hospitality industry, even if the core product is online, layering real-world presence into the offer can lead to surprises.
New data from Seer Interactive Showing a sharp drop in both organic and paid click-through rates (CTR) for queries that triggered Artificial Intelligence Overview (AIO). Compared with a year ago, organic click-through rates are down 61% and paid click-through rates are down 68%. Even without AI-outlined queries, click-through rates dropped between 25% and 41%.
Fewer people are clicking, and the way people search has changed. More people are getting their answers directly from an AI box, or skipping Google entirely in favor of ChatGPT, Reddit or a trusted brand.
The Artificial Intelligence Overview itself cites methods that are working now. Mentioned brands have a 91% higher paid click-through rate and a 35% higher organic click-through rate than unmentioned brands. The new moat is being cited, not just ranked.
(Methodology: 42 companies received 25 million organic impressions and 1 million paid impressions in 15 months.)
What most life advice is trying to tell you to do. This flipped it. Sam Parr (via my first million) lists 5 lifestyles miserable Life and what happens when you do the opposite
Parr's framework is smart: don't chase happiness. Just stop doing the things that make you miserable.
The airport has seen little change in decades; McKinsey’s “Next Normal” report Imagine what airports will look like in 2040. Some key points:
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Facial recognition replaces ID documents and boarding passes. Check-in and security
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Personalized signage guides you to your gate in your language and provides real-time updates.
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Flying taxi. The first mile of transportation could be a drone ride from your backyard directly to the runway.
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Robots handle baggage, refueling and runway operations behind the scenes, helping planes take off on time.
The airports of the future will be places where people want to meet, even if they don't fly – Vik Krishnan
According to my analysis in my article, Avi Meir, founder and CEO of Perk (formerly TravelPerk), is one of the most followed (and engaging) travel tech voices on LinkedIn. Previous Newsletters.
His latest post perfectly illustrates why: it sounds unmistakably human. Not a press release, not an LL.M., no posturing, no performative virtue. Just Avi…clear, direct, and human. That's why he's so effective. Personal authenticity also reinforces the values of the company he leads. Corporate branding is also strengthened when founders/executives appear as real people. People follow people. They remember how you made them feel.
This chart from a16z (from Stripe data) shows that US startups are growing much faster than their European and UK counterparts; nearly 1,400% since 2020, compared with about 600% in the EU and 500% in the UK. Even excluding AI startups, U.S. companies still lead by a wide margin. Around 2024, growth led by artificial intelligence will accelerate.
Stripe's Patrick Collison attributes the gap to faster U.S. technology adoption, less regulation, a larger domestic market and stronger consumer interest in new technologies. Whatever the combination, it will deliver results. American startups are building faster, larger and more volatile. Read+a16z
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Mauricio Prieto
