The Argonautic: 0024
This week: AI knocks over the "website = sun" model, Picasso-style pricing flips the clock, B players get their overdue trophy, and a canceled boat rental shows how surprises beat refunds. Plus one three-word test that kills nine out of ten meetings.
AI Is the New Front Door 🚪
Your homepage just became a search result inside someone else's conversation. John Jantsch makes it plain: AI chatbots and Google's Overviews now curate what prospects see—often never clicking through. If your best thinking is locked in dense paragraphs, you're invisible.
Re-tool the recipe: headers, Q&A snippets, quick-hit definitions. Publish a branded mini-GPT or one-pager prompt library. The new game isn't driving traffic; it's getting quoted where traffic never existed.
A firm that turns "Browse my site" into "Ask the AI that already read me" wins the only click still available—cite me. Results beat pageviews.
- Ram Charan Ask if you're "using AI to run or to reinvent the business."
- Lisa Nirell Users now prompt for the "truest story"—your PR page is irrelevant without credible footprints.
- Sara Canaday AI can align KPIs and stress-test scenarios—tasks that actually move the needle.
Price Like Picasso 🖼️
Woman balks at Picasso's $5,000 napkin sketch. He replies: "It took my entire life." Sybil Stershic retells the legend as the best 10-word crash course in value pricing. Clients don't wire money for hours—they wire money for outcomes you can uniquely deliver.
Bury the hourly rate. Uncouple revenue from the clock, not from impact.
BIG IDEA
Your price tag should reflect the distance between the problem and the prize, not the minutes you spend describing it.
- Jonathan Stark Define the upside in their language—then attach a price to that.
- Michael Katz "The longer you wait to discuss money, the more they'll hand you."
- Sybil Stershic comment a user notes: experience bought me fractions of my lifetime, not hours on a desk.
The Invisible MVP: B-Players
"Rockstars" grab headlines; "bandmates" keep the lights on. David Burkus explains: a reliable corps of B players prevents every high note from collapsing into chaos. They don't chase raises—they chase mastery of the role they love.
Build dual tracks: grow people in the job, not just out of it.
WHY IT MATTERS
If you only spotlight climbers, you lose the keepers who anchor knowledge and culture.
- One commenter: "I'd rather be a steady B than an out-of-depth A."
- Another: "They keep the lights on when the A's jump stages."
- A third: "They're the scaffolding that lets the A's take flight."
The 7-Word Meeting Test 📧
One question burns nine out of ten gatherings: "If no one attended, would the work still happen?" Any outcome that survives silence belongs on Slack, in a Loom, or via shared doc. The saved calendar hours finance deep work that compounds.
BIG IDEA
Cancel one meeting this week and recycle the hour into a revenue act still pending. That's compound interest no spreadsheet will compute.
Service Recovery > Original Service
Reynolds once dinged a boat rental $15 for a late return. The owner waived the fee and refunded the whole $250 booking. Marc Gordon relays the math: one delighted tweet = referrals worth 20× the refund.
Calibration checklist: Inconvenience severity, lifetime value, authenticity of apology.
WHY IT MATTERS
A smart overcompensation is a paid ad with a pulse; reputational goodwill can't be bought later.
- Wil Reynolds Great service urges him "to step my game up."
- John Young Forfeit the argument; you gain the relationship.
- Add lifetime value to the overcompensation formula, per a comment on Gordon's post.
Leadership Like Jet Maintenance ✈️
Karl Sakas sat next to a logistics pro who described predictive maintenance: swap the part just before the failure, not at generic intervals. The analogy writes itself: replace star employees before burnout, rewrite partnership docs before bitterness seeds.
Stress-test today or scramble tomorrow.
WHY IT MATTERS
For a lean firm, one unattended gap can cancel the quarter; predictive stress tests turn crises into bullet points.
- David C. BakerSpell out the exact way to split and value the firm while everyone's still smiling.
- A commenter notes client check-ins: onboarding pain detected early saves the relationship.
- Sakas adds leaders hoarding perks create "cultural debt" that is paid later in departures.
The AI Hiring Death Spiral 🌀
Endless polished CVs generated by AI met by endless filters sorted by AI. Wil Reynolds labels it "job-market DoS." The fix: skip the PDF parade—substitute paid micro-projects, brief Loom answers, or referrals verified by past coworkers rather than keyword bots.
WHY IT MATTERS
Your next hire will be measured not by superior prompting, but by their real-time solution to yesterday's biggest SOW. Test that, not the resume.
- Recruiter in the thread now rankings portfolios over bullet lists.
- Hire for prompt writing talent? You may miss the actual skill.
- Best filter today: "I worked with them at X—ask me anything."
