Status, pasta al Pomodoro, and Redemption song

Can I be a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream?

I have been thinking about writing a post about status for a while but couldn’t find the right platform. This post has roots in how event companies decide who is given the privilege to speak on stage and have their voice (or the PR-approved voice of their company) heard. My thoughts have since broadened to consider who we listen to and respond to on email, social media, and wider mainstream communication channels.

While I wander through the industry, I often hear people complain about the quality of speakers at major global events. “I would rather hear from a junior employee, talking about challenges, and strategies around real-world problems, than sit through another ‘global head of X at some bank’ or major tech company,” said one such chum a few years ago. It’s an interesting comment. However, I dare anyone working on a big event or conference to try and convince the powers that be (not to mention the companies persuaded to sponsor and buy exhibit space) that ‘Jane Smith, junior developer, aged 23’ would make a better panel participant than ‘John Smith, global head, aged 42’ at the same bank. (Yes, the gendered ID is deliberate)

Two weeks into my stint at The Banker, fresh with my FT.com email address, Goldman Sachs called me back for only the second time in my entire career. Had I suddenly become a better, more extraordinary journalist now that my desk was inside Bracken House in London? Many hardworking, outstanding journalists inside the Financial Times maintain and continue the status that the media organization enjoys. Back in 2021, with two weeks of employment under my belt, that FT status deemed my request worthy of a response from the lofty halls of Goldman Sachs. As pleased as I was with that response three years ago, I can’t help but delve deeper into the reasons.

The concept of who we listen to and how we scrutinise what they say is painfully illuminated whenever a successful and wealthy man (yes, it is always a man) makes a public statement or comment on social media.

It would be easy (and a bit basic) to examine the fanboys and followers who fall over themselves to lick at the ramblings of the world’s richest man on a social media network I previously spent a lot of time on. But I was intrigued by this post, on LinkedIn this week.

Now, the lovely Dave Wallace is indeed a lovely and smart guy. This isn’t a go at him. However, I read the post by Sam Altman—he of ChatGPT fame—uploaded by Dave and then looked at the comments and thought…‘Wait a second...’

Dave simply calls this a ‘tweet’. But responses include the comments like “intriguing story” and a “good story.”

In a rush to comment on one of the most significant technological advancements of the 21st Century – artificial intelligence - and gain a spec of insight into those developments from a ‘very successful man’ who is at the centre of those projects, they failed to recognise a fundamental error in the initial ‘tweet.’

“near the singularity; unclear which side” is not a story. Trust me, I’ve sat through enough creative writing classes. A story has a plot, characters you can imagine, and a narrative. I am a massive fan of brevity, but that Altman post is a statement, not a story.

This makes me wonder why preface a perfectly fine ‘statement’ with the prompt “i always wanted to write a six-word story. here it is:” (Why do Silicon Valley types hate capital letters?) He could have just written ‘something I’ve been thinking of’ or ‘thought for the day’. But no, he specifically spelled out he was writing was a ‘story’ and almost dared the reader to question his output.

In the fraud world, thieves tend to make an initial, small, low-value transaction with your stolen details before cleaning out your bank account. The first withdrawal is a test – does the con work? Can they move on to complete the final crime?

We live in an age where facts, truth, scrutiny, and skepticism are under attack, and the very concept of nuance is treated as blasphemy. Was Altman toying with us, testing whether he could get a small error past an eager and unquestioning audience who would retweet anything he posted, whether it was a real nugget of insight or the first page of the Oxford English Dictionary? Or does he simply not understand what a story is?

Interestingly enough, ChatGPT agrees with me. Dave put the statement into the generative AI bot and got this response “it sounds like a prompt more than a fully formed story”.

Founder worship, great man idolisation, and trust in ‘status’ over ability or integrity is a silent virus that is slowly corroding real truth, value, and innovation. That’s a hill I will die on (in addition to the other hill, which is the 21st Century started in 2001 – fight me! Even the Christmas episode of Dr Who agrees with me)

So, as we head into 2025, question everything. If a wealthy and successful man says something that sounds off, call it out. These people are not gods; they are men, and all men are fallible. Millions in liquid assets will never change that.

And if you want to see more interesting people on stage at global events, make change with your marketing budgets. If not, stop complaining about having to sit through a six-person panel, full of ‘global heads at global banks’ reading off of pre-approved notes written by overworked corporate communications staff.

***

As I enter 2025, I aim to do two things. Write in order to think and see where the universe takes me. One of my favourite movie quotes is from John Candy in Trains, Planes and Automobiles. In the film he tells Steve Martin’s uptight marketing executive that he is a “twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream”.

However, I recently told my family this before we jetted to the US for the Christmas break. My son responded, “Mum, you have never been a twig on a mighty stream, just hand us the agenda, you wrote a month ago, for the next two weeks.”

Ye have little faith, my son. Bring on the year of the twig and wherever it may take me.

***

Meanwhile, I wanted to share two things that influenced me this week. No one lives in a bubble and while I write mostly about technology and banking, those narratives are often influenced – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly – by things outside the fintech bubble.

The New York Times Style Magazine published their Favorite Food Stories of 2024 at the end of last year. I was drawn to this story from May about tomatoes, Italy and pasta al Pomodoro.

My grandmother used to grow tomatoes – a leftover from the World War II-era ‘Victory Gardens’ people were encouraged to plant in the first half of the 20th Century. That smell of ripe, tomatoes on the vine is one that transports me back to my grandmother’s kitchen in Boston – seeds dripping down my chin as my brother and I chomp on the red fruit like an apple.

It made me remember how some of the most satisfying meals I have ever eaten have been a simple dish of pasta al Pomodoro. When asked what my ‘desert island dish’ would be, I would tempted to talk about rare prime rib or a slice of blueberry pie I once ate at the house of a friend of my mother’s. But as an example of knowing the difference between what we want and what we need – a clean bowl of perfectly cooked pasta, garlic, basil, olive oil, and good, fresh tomatoes always does it for me.

I tend to have Radio 4 on in the background as I work – so I often listen to programmes I wouldn’t normally tune into. This week saw the last in the series of Add to Playlist on BBC 4. The show played on the theme of ‘family’ and played a cover of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song by ‘popular classical’ family band the Kanneh-Masons. I’ve often avoided reggae because, as a white girl, I associate it with a certain type of Gen X American frat boy who thinks all the songs are about weed.

But this show reintroduced me to an old Bob Marley and the Wailers classic as well as a moving reinterpretation.

I left my first Substack post with a clip from night three of Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour in Edinburgh. I’m going to continue this trend of ending with a song. This time, there are two songs. Whatever your taste – these two versions, which moved me to tears a few days ago.

Enjoy

Thank you for reading my first Girl, Disruptive Substack post for 2025. I aim to post one every Wednesday, at the very least, from now on.