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Cass Sunstein is a Harvard Law School professor and one of the most cited legal scholars in the world. He founded the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, served in the White House during the Obama Administration, received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, and has written dozens of books on topics ranging from behavioral science to constitutional law. Whats the big idea? Hidden forces shape our decisions all the timewhether that comes in the form of peer pressure, marketing strategy, or cultural norms. Manipulation is silent, pervasive, and dangerous. We need to find ways to protect ourselves from influences that guide our actions without giving us a fair shot at making deliberate choices. Below, Cass shares five key insights from his new book, Manipulation: What It Is, Why Its Bad, and What to Do About It. Listen to the audio versionread by Cass himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Manipulation undermines your freedom to choose. Manipulation isnt just persuasionits trickery that prevents people from exercising their capacity for deliberation. It might stir emotions, hide crucial information, or bury key terms in fine print so you cant make a truly informed choice. The danger lies in how it quietly strips away your agency, making you act without genuine reflection. 2. Sludge is manipulation by a thousand cuts. Sludge refers to needless barriersendless forms, hold times, or bureaucratic hoopsthat make it hard to get what you want or to escape a bad deal. Companies often make signing up effortless, but impose exhausting obstacles when you try to cancel or change terms. This easy in, hard out design is manipulation on steroids. 3. We need a right to not be manipulated. Societies already protect people from fraud and deception, but theres no legal safeguard against manipulation itself. Thats a problem because manipulation can waste your time, drain your money, and damage your well-being without breaking existing laws. Its time to create a clear, enforceable right that shields people from such exploitation. 4. The Barbie Problem: buying what we wish didnt exist. Some goods are bought not out of love, but because social norms make them feel unavoidable. Think of Barbies, cigarettes, certain social media platforms, or any items that most people purchase yet many privately wish would disappear altogether. Companies exploit social pressures to manipulate us into consumer choices that dont reflect our true preferences. Getting people to buy products they deplore or regret purchasing is a serious problem that we need to find a way to reduce. 5. Social norms can trap us. Once a product exists, refusing it can send an unwanted signal: in some communities, turning down a drink implies youre no fun; skipping a trendy app makes you seem out of the loop. To avoid that social penalty, we complyeven if wed be happier without the product entirely. This is manipulation by peer pressure, and is extremely hard to resist because of how certain choices signal specific social perceptions of you. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
As is the case for many founders, my journey began as a one-person show. I started Digital Voices, an influencer marketing agency that helps brands grow by pairing them with creators across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. With just a shoestring budget of $300 and a background in digital strategy, I launched the company with more ambition than certainty. Afterlong hours coupled with hustle and self-doubtit has now evolved into a multimillion-80-person operation spanning the globe. Here are five lessons about leadership I learned along the way. 1. Get comfortable with constant change Leadership today is defined by constant fluctuation. On a Monday, youre making long-term strategic decisions aimed at future-proofing the business. The next day, youre brainstorming creative ideas for a client campaign. All of this comes as you attempt to balance the businesss progress against your own personal journey. And thats before you even get to the impact that your actions or a throwaway comment have on your wider team. In order to grow, your business should be constantly changing. For example, weve built new technology that has completely changed peoples day-to-day work, changed roles, titles, teams, opened offices in the United States, and built a team in Costa Rica. One of my favorite business adages is, If your company doesnt feel like an entirely new business every 18 months, youre not scaling. Youre stagnating. This puts immense pressure on every leader. That relentless tension means that for real progress, you always have to feel out of your comfort zone. You need to spin multiple plateschecking that the aspects of the business you used to run are going smoothly, while feeling like a beginner at whatever obstacle youre throwing yourself at next. 2. Vulnerability is key Ive never met a leader whos gone their entire career without making mistakes. Neither have you. The perfect leader doesnt exist. It doesnt matter how many books youve read, coaches youve had, how much time or money youve invested in self-development, making mistakes is part of this game. The proximity to failure keeps most entrepreneurs motivated. The polished, superhero, all about the grind, idealized image of entrepreneurship is dead. People want to see the honest version of your struggles and humanity. Sharing your mistakes publicly isnt a sign of weakness; its an avenue towards building trust with your customers and employees. Try to resist the urge to receive every piece of negative feedback on your backfoot. Very rarely is it a personal attack or a character assassination. Think about it this way: Giving negative feedback and offering solutions is hard. It means your employees care enough to think about how your business can be better. Also, no one likes conflict or enjoys having hard conversations. They are risking discomfortand at times even their jobto give you insights. 3. Hire for fit The culture versus credentials debate: Weve all heard it, some of us have lived it. The truth is that the perfect on paper candidate will always turn your head. According to their resume, theyve got all the relevant experience, the certifications and qualifications, the recommendations… For all intents and purposes, theyre a shoo-in. And yet we should all recognize by now that credentials are only part of the puzzlea vital ingredient certainly, but not the whole pie. You need people who thrive in the uncertainty of a scale-up environment and who believe in what youre striving for and genuinely want to help drive your business forward. Not everyone will be capable of that level of engagement, or even want it. So dont let a resume with big brand names mask the fact that someone isnt the right fit from a culture perspective. Spend the time and hire slow. And then keep the trust of your team by firing fast if they arent the right fit. 4. Stay true to your values Be clear on what your cultural non-negotiables are in the business. Write yours down. Inform your team as they need to know what lens they should view decisions through. There will be times when protecting your bottom line will clash with your business’s purpose. Principles will cost you money. Ive been offered multiple seven-figure sums to market gambling or weight-loss brands. And while the business could have used that money, we turned it down. Why? Because were accountable to the businessand not just commercially, but culturally, too. Which means you need to be confident that the experience, grit, skills and team that got you this far, will continue to propel you forward. Im not saying dont edit your approach. Im saying be careful with the tweaks that cost you your principles and culture. Those decisions are nearly impossible to roll back. 5. Empower your employees Too many founders lean toward helicopter leadership. Its like the business version of helicopter parenting, a term used to describe the sort of parents who constantly hover round their kids, micromanaging every experience. While the business might have once been your baby, you cannot spin all the plates across all teams. For one, its not sustainable. For two, your employees will despise you for it. You need to create an environment where people are not afraid to put their hands up if something is going wrong. They need to trust that youll jump in and help them solve the problem, rather than play the blame game. Hard on the problem, easy on the person. This isnt about maintaining total control, its about achieving clarity and trust. The most impactful founders move beyond acting as a boss, and start acting as conductorsbringing out the best in their team for the collective benefit of everyone.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youre someone who sneaks off to the bathroom for a little phone time, you could be upping your odds of developing hemorrhoids. A recent survey suggests Americans spend two full days a year scrolling on the toilet. Now, new research shows that people who bring their phone to scroll social media are 46% more likely to get hemorrhoids than those who dont. Hemorrhoidsswollen veins in the lower rectum that can cause pain, itching, and bleedingare often linked to straining. But lingering on the toilet itself has now been identified as a bigger risk. Research published last week found phone users spend five times longer on the toilet, which increases pressure on anal tissue and raises the likelihood of haemorrhoids. About 54% of respondents reported reading the news, while 44% scrolled social media. Hemorrhoids affect about half of U.S. adults over 50, leading to nearly 4 million doctor or ER visits annually and more than $800 million in healthcare spending. While most cases resolve on their own, some require medical treatment or even surgery. The study, published in PLOS One, focused on participants over 45. But in a related study of college students, nearly all admitted to bringing their phones to the toilet. Of course, bathroom reading long predates smartphonesbut flipping through a shampoo bottle or toilet book rarely leads to the half-hour distractions common with Instagram or TikTok. How often have you finished your business, washed your hands, and then realized youve been sitting and scrolling for far longer than you intended? Researchers recommend leaving the phone outside the bathroom altogetheror, if thats unthinkable, limiting yourself to two TikToks at most. This study bolsters advice to people in general to leave the smartphones outside the bathroom and to try to spend no more than a few minutes to have a bowel movement, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center gastroenterologist Trisha Pasricha said in a statement. If it’s taking longer, ask yourself why. Was it because having a bowel movement was really so difficult, or was it because my focus was elsewhere?
Category:
E-Commerce
Trading app Robinhood Markets, mobile app monetization company AppLovin, and building company Emcor Group, will be added to the S&P 500 later this month, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Friday. Robinhood will replace Caesar’s Entertainment, AppLovin will take MarketAxess Holding’s spot, and Emcor will take Enphase Energy’s place. The changes take effect on September 22. The S&P 500 rebalances the index quarterly. No changes were made at the start of the most recent quarter in June. “The changes ensure each index is more representative of its market capitalization range. The companies being removed from the S&P SmallCap 600 are no longer representative of the small-cap market space,” the S&P Dow Jones Indices said. Robinhood shares up following S&P promotion In the minutes after the announcement, shares of Robinhood were up 7.2%, while AppLovin rose 7.8%, and Emcor, 2.7%. Strategy, a bitcoin company that was rumored to have possibly made the cut, was passed over. Its stock took a 2.5% dive following the announcement. The promotions come after Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev had expressed hope that the company could join the S&P 500 soon. Its a difficult thing to plan for, Tenev said at the companys annual shareholder meeting in June. I think its one of those things that hopefully happens. The S&P announcement could boost Robinhoods expansion toward becoming a one-stop banking service: In March, the company announced plans to launch Robinhood Banking, a service for its Gold members that would include perks like having cash delivered to you instead of having to go to the ATM. Taxi company Uber also got a boost: It has been promoted to the S&P 100, replacing Charter Communications, the S&P Dow Jones Indices announced.
Category:
E-Commerce
Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has agreed to pay a record-setting $1.5 billion to a group of book authors and publishers in order to settle a class action lawsuit. The payout is thought to be the largest in the history of U.S. copyright suits and could influence other cases where an AI company has been sued for copyright violations. This settlement sends a powerful message to AI companies and creators alike that taking copyrighted works from these pirate websites is wrong, Justin Nelson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. The suit, filed last year, was brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson over copyright infringement. They alleged that Anthropic used the authors’ copyrighted books to train its chatbot, Claude. Is AI training ‘fair use’? In June, a judge ruled that while Anthropic was allowed to train its AI model using books that it had acquired the copyright for under fair use rules, the startup had illegally acquired books via online libraries that contained bootleg copies of books. The judge concluded that the authors had cause for the case to proceed to a trial. That was slated to start in December. Now, according to a court filing on Friday, the startup has agreed to pay authors $3,000 for each of around 500,000 books it used to train its AI, plus interest. The company also agreed to destroy the datasets containing the allegedly pirated material. As best as we can tell, its the largest copyright recovery ever, Nelsons said, according to the Associated Press It is the first of its kind in the AI era, he added.“Today’s settlement, if approved, will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims. We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems, Anthropics deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement. What does this mean for other AI companies? The settlement may give other AI companies facing similar challenges to their use of copyrighted material to train their models pause. Back in June, the judge in this case affirmed that using books to train a large language model represented a transformative use of the workcrucial for fair usebut made a clear distinction if the books had been sourced illegally. Since chatbots exploded onto the scene in late 2022, authors have repeatedly expressed concern that the models that power them were trained using their works without permission. In 2023, The Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers, sent an open letter to the CEOs of prominent AI companies calling for them to get authors consent before using their’ works to train models. More than 15,000 authors signed the open letter; best-selling author Nora Roberts was among them. “If creators arent compensated fairly, they cant afford to create. If writers arent paid to write, they cant afford to write,” she said at the time. Anthropic is not the only AI startup at the center of a copyright case: OpenAI was sued in 2023 by more than a dozen authors for copyright infringement in the training of its large language modelsthe suit is still pending. And another suit brought by authors against Meta on similar grounds was dismissed earlier this year, but the judge did not weigh in on whether the companys use of copyrighted materials to train its AI was legal. The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing on Monday to review the settlement terms; he will need to approve it before it can go ahead.
Category:
E-Commerce
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