ON_Discourse is where C-suite leaders, investors, and innovators come together to challenge assumptions, sharpen ideas, and drive transformation through discourse.
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NEWSLETTER
The AI you don't see is the AI that's winning.
The most valuable AI on the market is invisible infrastructure, not intelligent conversation. It is the kind of AI that modifies behavior without trying to change a user’s mind. Think about that distinction for a moment: a digital experience that can change your behavior without talking to you about it.
PODCAST
Episode #028
ChatGPT recently launched Pulse, a feature that reads everything you do, repackages your work back to you, as if you are the subject of a daily newsroom. It's like taking notes that talk back, or having someone present your own thoughts better than you could. Is this useful or just another feed we'll forget about in three weeks.
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NEWSLETTER
UX was not designed for AI.
UX design on AI tools is uncomfortable work. It is weird and disorienting, and you sound crazy when you dig into it. It means interrogating some of the most accepted design conventions on the web with philosophical-seeming questions about the difference between a comment and a chat. The exploration yields more questions than answers, but if you follow the rabbit all the way down, you might invent a new interaction model.
PODCAST
Episode #027
The AI revolution promised to transform everything. Instead, we got chatbots that sound smart but deliver work that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, but turns out to be a goose. This episode digs into why the agentic AI hype hasn't delivered transformative experiences, and what's really holding back the next phase of human-computer interaction.
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NEWSLETTER
Do you even know what you’re trying to do?
All of this bubble talk is revealing the uncomfortable truth: AI won’t remove the need for intent. Every shortcut the tools offer throws the real question back at you: what exactly are you trying to accomplish?
PODCAST
Episode #026
Andrew Rosen’s ESPN vs. NYT breakdown is generating headlines, not because it’s about sports or news, but because it’s about institutions facing disruption. This episode doesn’t just recap his argument, it asks a harder question: What does it look like when legacy brands adjust too slowly to seismic shifts in distribution, personalization, and participation?
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NEWSLETTER
Fast is fun but slow is transformational.
We need to know when to slow down. Not to reject vibe coding, but to admit what it’s actually good for: opening doors, not walking through them. The next wave of builders will be the ones who know the difference.
PODCAST
Episode #025
Toby, Dan, and Chmiel set out to decode vibe coding but end up in a more urgent conversation about thinking. What happens when our tools get smarter, but our minds get lazier? Who wins in the battle between machine automation and human inspiration?
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NEWSLETTER
Knowledge is people.
The breakdown of Gartner’s business model assumes its value came from the reports it published. But that’s always been a convenient misunderstanding. The real value came from the people behind those reports: the analysts who tracked markets for decades, the executives who shaped the trends, the practitioners whose stories and struggles filled in the gaps.
PODCAST
Episode #024
Toby, Dan, and Chmiel dig into the implosion of Gartner’s market cap, and what it reveals about the future of knowledge work. The conversation starts with a provocative question: if the business of certifying value no longer creates value, what’s next?
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NEWSLETTER
Your posts are not helping you.
I recently heard a theory that stuck with me. We’re not posting to build a reputation. We’re posting to prove we’re still alive.
PODCAST
Episode #023
Toby, Dan, and Chmiel examine LinkedIn’s strange grip on our professional lives. What starts as a confession, Toby admitting to opening the app 30 times a day, turns into a bigger question: is LinkedIn a tool, a feed, or just another dopamine trap? Together, they unpack why the platform feels indispensable yet indistinguishable from TikTok or Instagram, and what that says about the state of “professional” culture online.
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NEWSLETTER
On second thought… not this week
This week, under the blazing August sun, I’m switching my focus and provoking you about a 1952 French play written by an Irish playwright. A play, like a certain technological revolution, that refuses to resolve itself or make any material sense.
NEWSLETTER
What if the next era of the internet was built for care, not speed?
Care, in this context, is not sentimentality. It is the discipline of deciding what matters before deciding how to make it. It is attention and risk and presence in the process. It is the opposite of autopilot.
PODCAST
Episode #022
Chmiel sits down with ON_Discourse members Natalie Monbiot and Craig Elimeliah for a sharp dive into AI’s hidden cost: the erosion of human cognition. Natalie, founder of Virtual Human Economy, shares research showing how over-reliance on LLMs can short-circuit learning, while Craig, Chief Creative Officer at Code and Theory, explores how design choices can either feed (or fight) that decline. Together, they unpack why today’s AI interfaces make it too easy to bypass thinking, and how reimagined UX could keep humans in the loop without slowing progress.
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NEWSLETTER
The next leap in AI will come from design.
The problem with AI isn’t the ambition as much as the language we use to describe it. It’s all fog, no form. And when the language is that fuzzy, design has nothing to grab onto.
PODCAST
Episode #021
Toby and Chmiel continue last week’s conversation on human ingenuity with a founder who’s putting it to the test. Katherine von Jan (KVJ to those who know her) joins the pod to talk about her new venture, Tough Day, and its mission to unlock the best of human potential in an AI-saturated workplace. As a longtime ON_Discourse member and former Salesforce exec turned startup founder, KVJ has a sharp perspective on where AI helps, where it hurts, and why the future of work depends on not automating away what makes us human.
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