In the make-shift podcast studio I have in my office, there’s a small paper note pinned to the wall.
It reads: “0,75x speed”.
It’s a reminder of some advice I got from my friend Magnus. Talk slightly slower, take your time, and don’t get ahead of those who are listening.
“0,75x speed” serves well as a metaphor, far beyond our podcast.
As AI enables us to do more – and faster – the emphasis is leaning heavily on output and efficiency. I get caught up in this myself sometimes too. Feeling productive is somewhat addictive. Listening to sped-up podcasts, getting summaries of books, letting the AI build projects for you while you are sleeping.
But what is “productive” in this sense? If it didn’t need to be done from the beginning, does doing it anyway still count?
Another way of thinking about this newly found efficiency is going in the opposite direction. What can you do, that the AI can’t? How you can shape a point of view that a large language model never could?
I would argue that books are not for summarizing. Even skimming them will give you more than an AI-generated summary. And travelling to places will offer a perspective no LLM will give you, however fast and precise it may become.
As the world seems to speed up, a way to manage it could be doing the opposite. Doing what only you can do – in the way only you can do it.
/Björn
Three cultural gems
Flesh – David Szalay
A book that doesn’t describe anything of what almost every other book in the fiction genre covers. No inner monologue, no thoughts. Just flesh. A fascinating read. And a Booker prize winner, which should be enough to make you curious.
Oops – Momo Boyd
This new song flirts with 2000s R&B but still feels contemporary. The whole setting – new album + Colors video – feels the making of a new star.
Trainjazz.com
This is what the internet was made for. Real-time data from subway trains in New York is translated to a piece of jazz that changes depending on the movement. And if you’re close to certain trains, their notes grow louder. A work of art.
Three conversations about the books of Silicon Valley
Together with (my friend and) historian David Larsson Heidenblad, I did a series of conversations centered around the ideas, knowledge and history of Silicon Valley. Starting with a variety of influential books, we went through what can be learned from them, how these ideas have been used in practice, and how you can use them yourself – without having to run a startup.
Click the links above to listen to the conversations, if you’re curious – and a full book list is here.
Originally published on Substack on April 26th, 2026.
