At Uber in the early days, there were two types of marketers. And only one survived.

“Theater marketers” made beautiful videos. Emotional, high-gloss stories that executives loved. They were showcased at all-hands, praised by leadership, shared on social and retweeted (mostly by the team) constantly.

“Engine marketers” worked on CRM and analytics. Digging over and over again into segments finding folks to engage and reengage with. Unchurning the churned. The work wasn’t flashy and barely garnered applause.

And then, at some point, budgets tightened. The data marketers got more resources, more headcount, more senior roles. And most of the video marketers left. The ones who stayed learned to measure their work.

Theater Marketing vs. Engine Marketing.

Why Theater Wins Early

I’ll admit - theater marketing has unfair advantages:

1. It’s instantly consumable - a 60-second video beats a multi-touch attribution model

2. It tugs your heart strings - beautiful campaigns evoke all sorts of emotions in you, and that’s powerful

3. Shareable - you can post it on socials, show the board, play at offsites etc etc (great for promotion too)

4. Looks like “real marketing” - to outsiders, video is marketing, data is back office

5. Culturally celebrated - creative awards (aka Cannes Lions) get attention, incremental lift does not.

So when you’re in high growth mode, everything looks like it works. Launch a video the same week you open three cities and the CEO does a podcast. It’s impossible to know what drove the spike.

Engine marketing

Engine Marketing is invisible, complex, and unglamorous. But it:

1. Compounds - campaigns end, systems run forever

2. Scales - theater scales with budget, engines scale with leverage

3. Survives scrutiny - when the CFO asks for ROI, only Engine has an answer

At Uber, this became clear when organic growth slowed. Attribution improved. Engines like CRM, lifecycle, and referral carried the business. Theater was impossible to quantify.

The Career Arc

Theater marketers rise fast early, their work is visible and associated with brand moments. But there’s usually a ceiling.

Engine marketers grind longer in mid-level roles. Then they become indispensable. When budgets tighten, they’re the ones keeping the machine running.

Don’t get me wrong, theater is important - it builds brand, it evokes emotions and creates associations. And people don’t talk about it enough, but it’s great for employee morale too. But theater folks need to learn measurement and attribution (or at least metrics that your team/ company care about) to grow internally.

Engine marketers need to craft narrative and earn buy-in. Your data is only as good as your ability to make people care about it. Storytelling is how you show your work works, especially during good times when no one’s asking hard questions yet.

Most marketers are naturally one or the other. If you’re senior enough, you know self-reflection unlocks growth. Figure out which kind of marketer you are, then build strength in the other. The ones who last learn to do both.

For CMOs: build teams with both, but deliberately celebrate engine work. It rarely gets the spotlight it deserves. Push theater marketers to measure their impact. The prize is full-funnel campaigns where creative and data reinforce each other

Until next time,

Shrikala

No surprises here - my husband and I have a deeply shared life - we work in the same industry, and share the same zip code, share a kid and have most of our conversations with each other. Last week, I mentioned a name that’s been everywhere in my professional world - podcasts, newsletters, conference lineups. He looked at me blankly. “Who?”

This isn’t about him being out of touch or me being too online. It’s about something stranger: we now live in a world where two people with overlapping lives can inhabit completely separate information universes. The algorithm connecting us has also mastered the art of division by a thousand cuts (of clips of course)

okay but you’re a millennial - what about the younger generation(s)?

I spoke recently with someone in university who said something that surprised me: “My whole life growing up has been online, so there’s a certain fatigue associated with being chronically online. and I didn’t find any of my closest friends online.”

As someone who was exposed to the world of internet etc in high school (and overused MSN messenger) this was surprising to me! Think about that. The generation that was supposed to prove the internet could build genuine community is instead proving something time-tested: the deepest friendships still form offline.

echo chambers? more like echo planets

Here’s an experiment: pick any specific community. say, women who love SNL. You can map them confidently. They’re probably listening to Las Culturistas or A Good Hang (or Armchair expert). several different podcasts but the same set of speakers. They’re following the same handful of comedy writers on IG. They have opinions about how a certain city should be governed, amongst other things. Now try this for another community: religious parents, moms to young toddlers etc etc.

Now ask those same people about the latest AI model release. Or ask the tech podcast listeners about which comedian just got their Netflix special. The overlap is vanishingly thin.

So we’re now catering to distinct universes with their own stars, their own lingua franca, their own authorities. And the gaps between them are widening. You can traverse your entire professional life inside one universe and never brush against another. Culture is not as shared as we think it is anymore.

Does that make us divided? or disconnected?

The easy narrative is that we’re more divided than ever. But I think that’s not quite right. Division requires awareness of the other side, tension, conflict. What we have is quieter and stranger: disconnection.

Sometimes people simply don’t know (and don’t care) that the other lines exist. This might actually be less volatile than true division. but i’d argue it’s also more atomizing. At least in a fight, both sides acknowledge a shared reality they’re arguing about…

Secret societies are forming

When public digital spaces become performative, or unsafe: people retreat. Some retreat into isolation and some into intentional privacy.

All around us, small groups are forming. Sometimes friend groups, sometimes professional networks, sometimes the friends you make at work. They’re group chats with unspoken membership criteria. private slacks where the real conversations happen. Dinner parties where people actually say what they think. WhatsApp chats and voice notes that would never survive as public posts.

These are the new secret societies. No robes, no handshakes, no initiation rites. Just a shared understanding: this is where we can actually talk.

The irony is exquisite but understandable. Trust has become the scarcest resource in an attention economy. Saying something publicly now feels like shouting into a stadium where half the crowd is recording and the other half has noise-canceling headphones.

What we’re losing (and finding)

1. Professional opportunities flow through private channels. The “right” connections matter more than they have in decades. If you’re not in the room (or the group chat) you don’t even know what you’re missing.

2. The shared reality that societies rely on is fracturing into a thousand bespoke realities, each convinced of its own coherence.

3. Maybe this is also a correction. Maybe the idea that we could (or should) maintain weak ties with thousands of people was always unsustainable. Maybe humans evolved to operate in groups of 150 because that’s actually the scale at which trust and nuance can function.

Since my husband couldn’t recognize any of the names I brought up, I tried to educate him and basically got a kind version of “no thanks.” And that’s the present reality, my friends — A recognition that your mental bandwidth is finite, that your attention is precious, that you get to choose which universe you inhabit. And crucially, you trust your offline crew to tell you if something from their world actually matters to yours.

That feels like something we can actually work with.

After a whirlwind 2.5 weeks in India, I'm back in San Francisco. I also survived two 21-hour flights (with a 3-year-old). I read books, stared at the safety video until I could recite it, watched a movie or four, and obsessively tracked our tiny plane icon across the map (don’t tell me you haven’t done that!)

When I got home, jet-lagged, I casually asked my husband if he wanted to watch something. But even before I suggested it I realized both of us couldn't even look at a screen. But guess what? I could still pick up a book.

Why did I feel this way? I look at a screen for work, for play (and I also read on my phone). But this feeling was my brain telling me something important about the future of content. And as marketers, we better listen.

What comes after video?

I think we can all agree that we're living in a world where video is at its peak. TikTok. YouTube Shorts. Instagram Reels. LinkedIn video posts (wasn't on my bingo card but here we are). Everyone's fighting for those precious seconds of attention with flashy cuts and trending sounds. It feels like we're about to hit a wall.

AI is about to flood the market with perfect videos. That perfect ad, the perfect ASMR video, the perfect street style interviews. Veo can already create Hollywood-quality clips from text prompts. In 18 months, every brand will have access to AI that can pump out engaging video content at scale.

Your competitor's AI will make videos just as good as yours. Maybe better. And they'll make thousands of them. So where do humans fit in? For me, the answer is in that post-flight moment when I couldn't bear to look at another screen but still wanted to read a book.

We'll go back to craving the things only humans can give us: depth, perspective, and the luxury of going slow.

When everything is optimized for quick hits and viral moments, the rare long-form piece that lets you think becomes so precious. When every video is perfectly edited for maximum engagement, the thoughtful essay that doesn't try to manipulate your attention becomes a refuge.

The coming content divide

We're heading toward a two-tier content world:

Ultra-Fast, AI-Optimized Content

• Breaking news, hot takes, viral moments

• Perfect thumbnails and hooks generated at scale

• Helps people make sense of right here and right now

• High volume, short lifespan (sometimes less than a few hours)

Timeless, Human-Crafted Deep Dives

• Thoughtful perspectives only humans can provide

• Content people return to months or years later

• Builds genuine connection and trust

• Low volume, long lifespan

The middle ground gets wiped out by AI.

How content will evolve

Stage 1: Human-AI Collaboration (today) - Humans create content, AI assists with optimization and distribution.

Stage 2: AI Content Explosion (next 2-3 years) - AI creates content, humans assist with curation and quality control. Humans still consume it.

Stage 3: The Great Sorting (next 5-7 years?) - AI creates content for other AI systems and humans prefer human-made content.

And the return of neutral legacy media

As we move through these stages, we're going to see the unexpected resurrection of neutral, fact-based journalism. Every piece of content right now is designed to trigger maximum engagement through outrage or controversy, so straightforward reporting will feel like a spa day for our minds.

Sooo…how should *you* think about content?

Most marketers rightfully obsess over the fast lane. You chase viral moments, optimize for engagement, and measure success in impressions and clicks.

The slow lane is where brands are actually built. It's where trust develops, where expertise gets established, where people form the kind of connection that turns them into customers. Think about the brands and people you actually trust. They probably have both: the timely communications that keep them relevant, and the deeper takes that made you respect their point of view in the first place.

TL;DR - Stop trying to make everything viral. Some ideas deserve the space to breathe, to develop, to be absorbed slowly. That's how some of the best things are made.

The Split

Fast content: React to trends, share hot takes, join conversations happening right now. Video-first, and videos, fast.

Slow content: Build your thesis, establish expertise, create the foundational pieces people return to. Here's what this looks like practically:

• Invest in formats that can't be replicated by AI. Your unique perspective, your industry insights, your personal experience can't be prompt-engineered.

• Create content that respects attention instead of stealing it. Long-form newsletters, thoughtful blog posts, even well-crafted email sequences that unfold over time.

• Think like a publisher. Publishers understand that some content is meant to deeply connect with hundreds of the right people, not reach millions.

For the AI tier: Use it for speed and scale. Breaking news responses, product announcements, social media reactions, video clips. Accept that this content is disposable.

For the human tier: Invest in voices and stories only your brand can tell. Create content that gets better with time, not worse.

The brands that understand this divide early will own their categories. The future is about making better videos and understanding when to make videos at all.

(just like I reached for that book after 17 hours of screens).

Until next time,

Shrikala

We're living through the strangest linguistic moment. Everyone's terrified of sounding like AI, going through their own writing for telltale signs of ChatGPT fingerprints. The excessive em dashes—like this one. The "not this, but that" framing. The dreaded "here's the thing" opener that makes people cringe and immediately suspicious.

We have always used these constructions. We've always reached for emphasis, contrast, and conversational bridges. The only difference now is that we've become hyperaware of them, dissecting every LinkedIn post (and rolling our eyes at most of them).

Children's book author Divya Anand captured this perfectly when she lamented how ChatGPT has essentially "ruined" em dashes for writers—a punctuation mark that's crucial for authors but now feels tainted by AI association.

Overcorrection Wars

In response to this AI anxiety, I’m seeing a fascinating overcorrection unfold. People are deliberately making their writing more "human" by doing exactly what they think AI wouldn't do: abandoning proper capitalization, letting typos slide, making everything sound aggressively casual and personal. It's linguistic performance art. We're all method actors playing the role of "definitely not a robot."

And soon, this performative humanity will become the new normal. What started as deliberate imperfection is evolving into a genuine communication style. Today's intentional typo is tomorrow's standard grammar.

The Green Owl Effect

Remember when Duolingo went unhinged on social media (and it worked out for them?). Suddenly every brand discovered they could be sassy, threatening, and weirdly personal with returns in tow.

We're seeing the same pattern with "human-style" writing: what begins as a distinctive approach quickly becomes industry standard. Companies will conduct "authenticity audits" of their content, and the irony is delicious: we're systematizing spontaneity, creating templates for being untemplate-like. Marketing budgets dropped to 7.7% of revenue last year partly because nobody can agree on what authentic even means anymore.

When AI Actually Helps

For those of us who grew up in multilingual households but operate primarily in English, ChatGPT isn't the enemy, it's a lifeline. It helps bridge the gap when you know exactly what you want to say but can't quite find the English phrasing that captures your multilingual thoughts. It's like having a patient language exchange partner who never judges your grammar experiments.

The tool becomes less about replacing human creativity and more about unlocking it. It's scaffolding for complex ideas, a way to translate internal logic into external clarity. For many writers, especially those navigating language as immigrants or global citizens, AI offers freedom rather than replacement.

There is a big distinction to make: outsourcing writing is fine, but outsourcing thinking is dangerous territory. AI can help you find the right words for your ideas, polish your phrasing, or structure your arguments, but the ideas themselves need to stay yours. I'm all for AI making our writing clearer and more effective, but when we start letting it generate our actual thoughts and perspectives? Everything starts to look the same (and therefore becomes completely forgettable).

What's Next: The Psychology of Trust

The trust landscape is shifting in fascinating ways. Here are the psychological trends I'm watching:

• The Bot Detector Blues: Audiences are developing pattern recognition for artificial communication. They can spot the too-perfect grammar, the slightly off emotional beats, the formulaic structures (and doubt your writing even if it's 100% human). This creates a new cognitive load where people are constantly scanning for authenticity markers.

• The Humanity Olympics: As AI gets better at mimicking human quirks, humans develop new behavioral signals to prove their authenticity. Intentional typos and casual grammar become psychological peacocking for the digital age.

• The Honesty Hack: People are more tolerant of AI use when it's explicitly stated, but less forgiving when they discover hidden usage. The cover-up feels worse than the original act—classic deception psychology.

• Fake Fatigue Relief: Brands that openly embrace AI tools actually reduce audience stress. When everything feels potentially fake, honest disclosure provides psychological relief.

• The Uncanny Valley Revenge: We're entering a phase where "too good" writing triggers suspicion. Polished prose now carries the burden of proof—is this human excellence or algorithmic perfection? The irony is delicious: we're punishing good writing because it might be artificial.

What This Means for Your Content

These psychological shifts have real implications for how we create and consume content:

Email campaigns will need to balance polish with personality: too perfect feels robotic, too casual feels unprofessional. What’s the sweet spot?

Research reports face the uncanny valley problem: comprehensive data and flawless formatting now trigger AI suspicion. Adding human commentary and acknowledging limitations becomes crucial for credibility.

Advertising campaigns experiment with transparency disclaimers ("AI helped us write this") and find that audiences respond better than expected. Honesty about tools becomes a competitive advantage.

Blog posts (like this one) benefit from personal touches: family references, cultural context, individual quirks that serve as authenticity anchors in an increasingly artificial landscape.

The most beautifully human thing about this entire mess? We're all improvising together, making it up as we go, trying to stay human in the process.

Until next time,

Shrikala

Four days. That's all it took to go from "wouldn't it be funny if..." conversation with my husband to a fully functional AI palm reading app live on the internet.

And here's the kicker: I'm not a coder. At all. My entire programming background consists of some HTML from a school course and SQL from my Uber days. That's it.

When non-coders can build anything

My initial inspiration was babyboo.dev – the AI coloring generator tool my husband and I built. My role was primarily product marketer and website designer, but seeing my husband (who is also a non-coder) code inspired me to give this a go.

I've been enjoying what I call "vibe coding" way more than I should. You know that feeling when you're building something purely because it sounds fun, not because you need to justify it to stakeholders or write a business plan? That's exactly what happened here.

But talking to my brother (who is a computer science engineer) about it, I realized calling it "coding" feels almost wrong. To me, it's more like having a conversation with AI about what you want to exist, and then watching it materialize.

Thanks to a (VERY) long flight to India and some weekend hours, I made FateLines – a website that analyzes your palm to give you an AI-generated palm reading. Yes, really.

(Also side note/hot take on the astrology × AI crossover: it hasn't happened yet, and when it does, it's going to be massive. Why? You've got a multi-billion-dollar astrology market that's still largely analog, and you've got AI getting eerily good at personalization, storytelling, and (pseudo) prediction. It feels inevitable.)

How It Works

The concept is simple: upload a photo of your palm, get an AI-generated reading about your personality, relationships, and future. Is it scientifically accurate? Seriously questionable. Is it surprisingly engaging? Absolutely.

The whole thing took shape way faster than I expected, mostly because I wasn't actually writing code in the traditional sense. I was describing what I wanted, troubleshooting errors by copying and pasting them into Claude, and iterating based on AI suggestions. My "stack" was less about technical expertise, and more about using tools that can simplify the complex for me:

• Claude & ChatGPT-4o-mini for the AI magic

• VS Code for development

• Render for deployment

• most important - the husband for quality checks and troubleshooting

That's it.

The University Nostalgia Hit

Part of me wished I was back in university while building this. Ah, to be young and see the world as your playground again...

But here's what hit me: one thing's clear – building something is no longer the blocker. I went from idea to deployed application in four days, mostly solo, using tools that feel almost like having a team of expert developers at my fingertips. The technical barriers that used to take months to overcome no longer exist.

So if building isn't the constraint anymore, what is?

The Death of Traditional Excuses

The old barriers are crumbling:

• "I don't know how to code" – Neither did I, apparently that doesn't matter anymore

• "I don't have a computer science degree" – My marketing background was more useful (understanding user behavior, market dynamics, problem-solving frameworks)

• "I need to learn frameworks and languages" – I still don't really know what React is lol

The New Bottlenecks

In my opinion, the real constraints now are:

• Having interesting ideas worth building

• Actually starting (the activation energy problem)

• Knowing what to build that people want

• Distribution and getting people to care

The Future Feels Different

The question isn't "can this be built?" anymore. It's "should this be built?" and "will anyone care?"

That's a MUCH more interesting problem to solve!

We're entering an era where curiosity and domain knowledge matter more than technical skills. Your weird, niche idea that you thought would take months to validate? You can probably test it in days.

and nothing’s stopping you :)

Until next time,

Shrikala