“Sneaker company Allbirds plans to pivot to A.I.”? Because same. But actually, the whiplash from seeing startups trying to pivot harder than Ross and Chandler getting their couch up a flight of stairs is so real. I mean, good for Allbirds (I guess?), but makes you wonder whether these brands realise that while sure, jumping on the latest bandwagon is fun, longevity comes from being known for doing one thing really, really well (not pivoting every time the wind blows). [Read more]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

(btw - If you’re already using Claude Code or Cowork daily, scroll on by bc this isn’t for you)

But if you’ve just dabbled in using AI, maybe you’re using ChatGPT to help you look up recipes, write basic emails, or attempt to diagnose that insect bite you just got, stay with me for a sec.

When it comes to AI, there’s a lot of “bro you’re so behind” messaging out there. When, in reality, within just a couple hours, you can learn how to use AI better than 95% of people you know. And this why we put together the Beginner’s Guide to Claude AI course.

It’s a 4-week cohort where you learn how to go from using AI as a glorified Google to getting it to actually help you with the sh*tty admin (life or work) you hate doing every day.

We kick off our second cohort on 22 June, so if you want to go from feeling behind to using AI to make your life better, this is for you 👇

This week, the company abruptly suspended its powerful new AI models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just days after their public release. The company pulled the plug after the US government raised massive national security concerns over a potential "jailbreaking" method that could allow hackers to bypass software restrictions.

Apparently, the UK’s AI Security Institute tested the model and found it could exploit cyber defences a terrifying 73% of the time. Anthropic itself previously bragged the tool was "too powerful to release". And it turns out they weren't just spinning marketing hype. Lord help us.

Meanwhile, if you are a basketball fan, you might want to change your passwords immediately. Fresh off the New York Knicks winning the NBA Finals, hackers from the notorious group ShinyHunters (responsible for an array of hacks over the last year) have published stolen Madison Square Garden data online.

Because MSG refused to pay a ransom, the hackers dumped a massive treasure trove of data. This contained customer emails and a list of “talent,” including former Knicks players and coaches. The files explicitly categorise former players, coaches, and celebrities into "Low Risk" or "High Risk" buckets alongside their home addresses and contact info. Winning the championship is great. But getting your personal data leaked online for anyone to download is a hell of a hangover.

Finally, for a bit of pure, unadulterated comedic relief: FIFA World Cup fever is taking over, well, everywhere. And it's led to one of the strangest celebrity interactions I’ve seen this year. YouTube megastar IShowSpeed livestreamed himself sitting in the stands at the Brazil vs. Morocco match. And he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was sitting next to the literal NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

After his chat erupted, Speed literally turned to Mamdani and asked, "Mayor? You the Mayor?". Speed shook his hand, but visibly had absolutely no clue who the man actually was. Honestly, a beautifully pure moment of head-empty streamer energy to balance out the cyber apocalypse.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

I stand before you, but a humble servant of the field, asking you to do something truly revolutionary: stay still for five fkn minutes.

Every single week, my feed is flooded with dramatic, text-heavy announcements declaring a new chapter. A founder realises their current niche is slightly competitive, so they pivot to Web3. Then they pivot to AI. Then they pivot to lifestyle branding.

Some professionals change their entire personal brand identity every six months based on whatever micro-trend dominated the algorithm that fiscal quarter.

It’s like we’ve turned the art of the pivot into a badge of honour. We treat it as synonymous with agility, bravery, and entrepreneurial spirit. But let’s call it what it actually is: strategic cowardice disguised as growth.

Silicon Valley taught us to idolise the pivot. We love the stories of companies that started as one thing and became another. But the modern social media landscape has warped this concept into a sort of chronic illness.

People aren't pivoting because their business model is fundamentally broken. They are pivoting because they are bored. They are pivoting because building something real takes time. And they also, potentially, seemingly, have the attention span of a caffeinated goldfish.

Launch ──> The Boring Middle ──> Consistency ──> Authority

The pivot plague, on the other hand, looks like:

Launch ──> The Boring Middle ──> Boredom/Panic ──> Pivot (Repeat)

When you pivot your brand or your business every time the wind changes, you aren't being agile. You are destroying your compounding interest.

Trust takes years to build but only one confusing rebrand to lose. When your audience, your clients, or your employees look at you and have no idea what your core mission is anymore, you don't have a dynamic business. You have an identity crisis with a logo.

The most successful brands on earth are often remarkably boring behind the scenes. They found their lane. They realised they were good at it. And they dug an impossibly deep moat around it through sheer, unglamorous repetition.

True brand equity is built in the boring middle, the period after the initial excitement of launching wears off, but before you become a household name. It’s the daily grind of delivering the exact same high quality, over and over again, until you own that space in the consumer's mind.

If you abandon ship the moment growth plateaus or a new trend emerges, you never allow that compounding effect to happen. You are permanently trapped in the starting gate, constantly introducing yourself to a confused crowd.

For the marketers and founders trying to navigate a hyper-distracted market, the ultimate competitive advantage isn't chasing the next shiny object. It’s doubling down on your core truth:

But reincarnation every six months is a sickness.

The next time you feel the itch to completely overhaul your business model, change your niche, or rebrand your LinkedIn profile, ask yourself a brutal question:

Is this a strategic necessity, or am I just looking for a dopamine hit because consistency feels heavy?

Find your hill. Stand on it. Let everyone else run around in circles until they pass out from exhaustion.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Just take this skit (at least we hope it is) from emergency service worker and TikToker Joni Swiontek, who in one video had some less-than-comforting dialogue with her patient strapped down in a stretcher:

"Am I gonna be okay?"

"Everything looks real good. Hypothetically, if you had one last thing to say to your family, what w…"

"What?!"

We've all been here, right? Not in the back of an ambulance on death's doorstep necessarily. But in that awkward position where it's morally correct to tell people everything's okay, even when there's no hiding that everything's going to sh*t.

Whether you're handling your first ever case as a lawyer or becoming a bigger road hazard than the bad weather, sometimes there's no masking how bad things are - but it's worth a shot, ain't it?

Take this sound, put the camera on yourself and lip-sync with the "Everything looks real good..." part of the dialogue (if you have a friend with you, have them lip-sync with the patient/victim's parts!).

Then, add on-screen text describing a time where you tried to alleviate the situation - even when the sh*ttiest of outcomes was inevitable.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - "the feeling of the teacher holding up your paper as an example"
❤How wholesome - Father & Son munch
😊Soooo satisfying - Marble music
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Crispy Bang Bang Chicken

Hey Kenji!

Getting your message right is going to come down to your brand positioning. How do you want your audience to see you? What makes you different from all the other businesses that do the same thing yours does? This can't just be that you have the "best" product because pretty much everyone thinks they're the best. It has to be some kind of value your audience can get behind. Once you know what this is, it will be your core message.

Then you need to figure out how you're going to get this across in your content, because this is the thing that your audience will be able to connect with. So focus on figuring out your positioning, then let your content stem from that!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.