Just Thoughts #7: Privilege, having babies, AI-newsletters and getting self-checked
I'm all over the place this week, from Nordic ways of living to DEIB book reviews, and self-reflection on harassment and discrimination.
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Among my experiences, I’ve worked with ad tech, onboarding the market's most socially and morally conscious talent. I worked for a company whose revenue at the time was purely driven by the Meta ecosystem. Smartly.io's first 100-200 employees could’ve decided to solve any problem in this world, but they decided to solve an issue within ad tech. Many individuals have since gone out to solve more environmentally and socio-economically positive challenges.
I always thought that ad tech was a necessary evil, and it’s doubtful it will be entirely eradicated. A development down the line may be a similar change the fossil fuel industry has had to start. It is facing a complete divestment from what is destroying the environment. Social Media will have to divest from its adverse social effects. The U.S. wants to ban TikTok based on national security concerns, whereas the Chinese have essentially banned certain functionality in the Chinese version of the app.
All this being said, and returning to Ted’s story, we see that many of the people working for the platforms decided to quit due to the moral dilemmas in addition to certain people in those giant corporations deciding to opt for the profits over the social responsibility. Here came the simple thought I had for those working within ad tech. If ad tech is a necessary evil, and if the business model entails being the trusted partner for every significant b2c brand in the world in terms of ad tech, I’d rather have people who embodied an average Smartlies morals when deciding for the industry's future.
Finally, discussing technology as the reason for the decline of humanities completely neglects technology's ability to connect. Events like Slush wouldn’t have become what they are without technology, allowing you to reach people and help them connect in person. The ability to stream music and create shared experiences is how karaoke company Singa incubated a Facebook group with tens of thousands of people who shared their singing with like-minded people and helped them find joy, even love, during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Technology will ever do only one thing: augment what is already there, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let’s do a better job of sharing the good. I believe that this is best done by staying curious, exploring the humanities in our preferred learning method, and gaining shared experiences with people who are different from us in whatever form they are different.
The highlight of the week: I got served and called out on my biases in my previous writing in Just Thoughts #4. For that, I am grateful.
I’ll discuss fertility rates this week as they’ve been in the local news lately. I have already left my thoughts on technology vs. humanity, and I’ll dive some more into technology, quickly reflecting on the new AI newsletters I like to read.
Finally, the DEIB learnings of the week were like “walking over eggshells,” to say the least, so I’ll share some reflections on my privileges and my stories of discrimination and harassment.
Headlines this week:
Having Babies.
AI Newsletters.
Getting served for my biased privilege.
My stories of harassment, discrimination, and bullying.
P.s. With the one vote in last week’s survey, I’ll be publishing on Monday’s.
Having Babies
Whatever global analysis of fertility rates you’re looking at, you’ll find that fertility rates have declined. I didn’t know the difference between “birth rate” and “fertility rate.” Birth rates only consider how many babies are born. In contrast, fertility rates consider other factors that influence whether a woman bears enough children to replace her and her partner (metric biased to assume a woman will only have one partner with whom she has children) upon death. Without considering migration, fertility rates must be at 2.1 for the population to grow. At least in Europe, there is no country above this rate, and in Finland, it’s currently less than 1.3.
I recently viewed an interview with Mikko “Miki” Kuusi (He’s going to be annoyed I use his given name; as much as he is annoyed, people call me “Niki” the few times we’ve shared a space) in rahapodi. Miki is the co-founder of both the world’s leading entrepreneurial event, Slush, and the co-founder of Wolt, which sold to Doordash for a few billion dollars some years ago.
The interview in question was titled “Miki Kuusi open” until someone must have told them Miki shares nothing personal and primarily talks about the Wolt story, so they’ve changed it to “Wolt’s story.” He doesn’t give many interviews, so a 1.5-hour-long discussion is a rare treat. I discussed this interview with a marketing CEO, who remarked, " Know your audience.” This episode was much more popular than the appearance with Timo & Jyri, the podcast that I’ve discussed in Just Thoughts #6. Wolt and the delivery business is notoriously one of the most capital-intensive exercises in the startup world.
Side note:
Before I digress from the headline here too much, I’m talking about Miki’s interview here because, after being caught off guard by the podcast hosts, says a few words about childbirth. He’d advocate for better income so people could have more children, among other more reasonable suggestions. When he dropped this, you know some reporter would go on a field trip with the statement as if the premise of both mentioned podcasts wouldn’t reek of local white male privilege as it is; that thought is highly biased.
Sure enough, you see Elina Lappalainen, the local startup journalist who’s been a proud follower of the scene for more than a decade, relatedly or unrelatedly, went looking for individuals and mentioned she knows people with many children who have the luxury of being able to pay for additional care, contrasting it to men in the countryside with only a few children because “they can’t afford” having children and pointing out that being “childless” is more common for men than it is for women in western, and especially Nordic countries.
This whole discussion and the points need to account for the global megatrend. Fertility rates are declining due to increased education and access to education. The correlation between education and fertility rates has been well-studied and documented decades ago. In my humble, but privileged (I already have two healthy children) opinion, this is a good thing. We are currently facing overpopulation as it is, and realistically in a country as highly educated as Finland you are not going to fix our socio-economic challenges of a rapidly aging population by trying to increase wealth to drive fertility rates.
What might save Finland are three things;
1) Build internationally successful companies, (and pay taxes in Finland) as stated by Miki and he’s leading by example. As the headline here is “Having babies” many founders like to say their company is a “baby”.
2) Attract foreign talent; with a talent I mean anyone passionate about what they do, have an intrinsic motivation for it, is enabled to pursue that goal (barriers are removed), and thus is likely to want to contribute to Finnish society. This will not happen if significant efforts in educating people on matters of DEIB start immediately, and resources are allocated accordingly. That is why I’ve chosen to do the work I do now, to help remove barriers in the field of DEIBm using my privileges to help.
3) Public Spending Effectivised. There are all too many projects that have cost the government ridiculous sums compared to the outcome. Spending needs to be done a lot smarter. Here our baltic friends in Estonia have been a lot better, with e-residencies and public health records built on the chain. They’ve also been more effective in executing point 1, as per capita they have more to show than the rest of the Nordic countries. With all this praise given I still challenge them to start paying attention to DEIB issues, starting with gender equality.
Finally, returning to the headline, our Finnish society for some middle-class, “I’ll do everything myself” and “highly independent” social culture thinks that childcare, as well as elderly care, is kind of “the government’s responsibility” or “someone else’s responsibility.” In other cultures, neighbors, the larger family, and other social circles all help with caregiving. You build communities. Buurtzorg in the Netherlands has famously solved elderly care with this ideology in mind. Furthermore, the “Blue Zones” and the life work of Dan Beuttner mention this being one key factor for natural longevity.
The point I’m trying to make is childcare, the same as elderly care in most parts of the world employs a philosophy of “It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to care for the elderly”. To “have more babies” doesn’t require more wealth in the socio-democratic country we live in, it requires a stronger emphasis on creating communities that provide social support. For the foreigners, we need to attract and retain, the elderly and those building families.
P.S. If you want “perspective” on having babies, an emotionally packed punch on racial issues and parenting, watch the first three episodes of “This is Us”. You can find the series at least on Disney+.
AI Newsletters
Thought of giving this headline some air, as I do follow and read a few publications. Here on Substack, I follow
for a review of what is happening on the science side of things. I like his summaries as I could never read the science articles he’s referencing and understand them in the way he explains them.Additionally, I’ve liked what
has written even if it’s sporadic, and the content isn’t consistent, I’ve found the content insightful to gain base-level understanding even if his suggested applications would need some product management work.Furthermore, is likely to be the leading voice on the subject, but for commercial updates, I keep opening GenAI.works LinkedIn newsletter as I just receive far fewer, better-summarized pings.
Finally, I follow alphasignal.ai for the bleeding-edge discussions, albeit I’d need to take 10-15 courses on AI to get to par with what all of this means. All I do know is that consulting work as we know it will drastically change within just a few years, as machines will render some services completely useless.
However, instead of joining the side of the players revolutionizing the work, I’m joining the side of the out-innovated to ensure the chasm is crossed. After all, I can imagine nothing scarier than a world augmented by biased AI where nobody understands how they are biased.
P.S. Just finished Poornima Luthra’s “The Art of Active Allyship” and she suggests saying “Machine Made”, as opposed to saying “Man Made”. For gender-neutral language. I kind of feel, that the correct switch should be “human-made”? With so much AI-generated stuff, it’s refreshing to know what is created by a human.
Getting served on my biased privilege
In Just Thoughts #4 I wrote about the harassment and discrimination report done within the Finnish startup ecosystem. I discussed it with a leading voice within the local field, as it seemed unclear what my intent was when writing my thoughts about it.
Mainly frustrated with the state of things and my privileged vantage point I suggested more input, as if one voice wouldn’t be enough or one story of harassment and discrimination wouldn’t be valuable in itself. Not to mention 500+ voices, including multiple accounts of harassment and discrimination.
I am grateful for this because I answered that survey and within it, I didn’t share my stories, even if I’ve experienced them. What I did call for in writing was a cross-examination of the practitioners in the field and I got exactly that even if I wouldn’t label myself as an expert in any way.
Why did I call for cross-examination? because the issue is too important and if you're pushing the envelope on the bleeding age of organizational science, academia would have you cross-examined and given someone to debate your findings.
I’m not trying to downplay practical experience, but in both good and bad there is a reason for academia imposing cross-examination. E.g. With the leading voices in the field of DEIB I can find one account where the advice is in direct contradiction with each other.
Poornima Luthra writes in her book “The Art of Active Allyship” that you should anonymize CVs to tackle organizational DEIB challenges and Lily Zheng in her book “DEI-deconstructed” states that anonymization is mall practice, advises against anonymization of CVs. I’m not going to state their reasons, but my biased interpretation is they are both right if you consider what maturity level organizations have in the questions of DEIB. The higher the maturity, the more bias-aware, and the less need for anonymity.
With three books read now within the field of DEIB, I’ve had a very scary realization. Out of all of the books I’ve read on strategy, organizational design, culture, and leadership. I have not read one within these subjects that includes or deliberately covers an aspect of DEIB. Not one. Imagine reading 30 to 50 books on leadership and covering a major in software project management, and I’ve not come across one mention of DEIB the way the likes of Poornima and Lily are writing about it.
It’s time something is done about it. With the notion of these sections in mind, and since I felt bad I didn’t cover the LGBTQAI+ community in my reflections in the latest post, of why DEIB work is important. I’d like to conclude this chapter with a list of articles Deidei’s TET worker put together the other week, accompanied by his thoughts.
Love is Love, and as someone who’s had to hide a love (albeit I’m cisgender and heterosexual), I have some compassion for many personal stories from the LGTBQ+ community. Additionally, I’m neurodivergent in the sense I have dyslexia, so the list of articles resonates with me.
LGBTQI rights
It teaches me about different genders and the issues they face. It has a lot of information like different genders, issues they face, gender affirmation, gender recognition, and protests.
Sexual orientation and gender identity
It teaches me about different sexualities, genders, and their struggles like being killed, abused, or bullied. It has a lot of information that's good just like the first one.
Top five struggles of the LGBTQ community that lead to addiction
The article teaches me about how trauma, family-related issues, bullying, depression, and anxiety in the lgbtq+ community can lead to addiction (to drugs or something). It talks a lot about addiction problems because of discrimination and doesn’t only talk about discrimination.
LQBTQ+ facts and figures
This article tells me the percentages of facts about discrimination. It talks about percentages and it could be pretty good for presentations.
The discrimination pushing LGBTQ workers to quit
This article tells me about LGBTQ people quitting jobs due to discrimination. It has a lot of good information about why LGBTQ people quit their jobs. Like for example religious beliefs that are homophobic.
Neurodivergent: Understanding signs, challenges, diagnosis, and misconceptions
It gives information about different neurodivergent “disorders” and misconceptions about neurodivergent people. It gives a lot of information that's good.
Faking autism (and other disorders)
This article talks about why young people have started faking having disorders.
It's good because so many young people are faking these things nowadays and it explains why (just for clout cause it's mostly done on the internet but probably in real life too.
Neurodiversity: unmasking the truth behind burnout
It talks about masking to appear “normal” to the rest of society. It tells how it's mentally draining to mask and pretend to be “normal” and the information on it is pretty good.
Neurodiversity: a societal challenge
The article talks about neurodiversity in the workplace. The article talks about societal problems and though there isn't a lot of information, the information there is good.
How Suspicion Feeds Stigma Against Neurodivergent People
The article talks about neurodivergent individuals being stigmatized. The article has information about being stigmatized (for example in workplaces). There is a lot of information on it.
P.S. I could have the Perplexity search engine run a query giving an AI-driven summary. However, this exercise, especially from a product development perspective shows you how a teen sees and perceives the content of the articles linked.
P.P.S. Will pay for Perplexity when you can run a Sora.ai, video explanation of your search result and prompt it to visualize it so that a child would understand. That’s next level teaching your kids about the world type of feature. Parents would never again have to answer the questions “Why?” or “What?”.
My stories of harassment, discrimination, and bullying
I’m a cis-gender heterosexual tall white blue eyed male, a Swedish-speaking Finn, born and raised in a middle-class highly educated family in the suburbs of the capital city of Finland, Helsinki. Additionally, I’m a son of an immigrant, who is a son of immigrants. My sir-name is of Croatian (former Yugoslavia) origin, due to my grandfather and my grandmother being American. They started a family in Brazil where my father was born and raised. Hence, I spoke four languages before the age of five.
I’m telling you this as I’m my heritage makes me incredibly privileged and I’m grateful for being as lucky as I am to have been born where I was, to the parents I have. For that, I am truly grateful. Whatever stories I tell in this chapter are to make a point, not try to gather pity or sympathy.
I’m currently divorced, have a new partner, and share custody of two children with their biological mother. The kids spend every other week at our house and every other at their mother’s. I’m an entrepreneur by trade, but currently completely broke, without the ability to cover my costs of living without support from my partner, parents, and family. Something I’m very embarrassed about and hard for me to talk about.
Before sharing any stories of harassment and discrimination. Let’s start with being honest about the fact I’m privileged and start with that end of the spectrum. I have a family-inherited lake house which I hold very dear and spend a lot of time at. I have parents who are alive and whom I can call on for support, and I have friends who can help if I’m in need.
I can sit in the local cafe with my kids, surrounded by the most nationalist middle-aged men who are getting drunk on a Saturday and they’ll wish me and my kids a happy spring. My presence alone, not drinking, with kids, might even inspire them to not drink that day. Opposed to someone who doesn’t look like them or speak their language. If they share a space with such individuals their presence might provoke aggression, with appearance alone.
I can take my kids to daycare and trust that they are well taken care of, and I can take them to school for free and I’ll know they’ll receive one of the best education in the world. My eldest who is a boy will take for granted everything is to be shared as equal with his younger sister and they will never understand what it is to go without food.
I never get asked where I’m from based on my looks, and if I’d lived during the second world war the Nazis would’ve liked to try to clone me. I live in a country that just had a democratic presidential election with the last two candidates being minority representatives and the winner being part of the same linguistic minority as myself.
I can demand public services to serve in my mother tongue, even if only <7% of the nation’s population has it listed as such. I can get my master’s education in this language and not only is it for free, but I’ve also gotten financial support for that education from my government.
Most individuals in leadership positions throughout corporate history look like me and in the presence of others, people rarely dismiss me. They naturally assume I’m a leader in the room I’m in. The society I grew up in is naturally biased to provide me with opportunity. You get the point.
My grandfather from my mother’s side always wanted boys, he got two girls. As his first grandchild, he gave me attention, his wisdom, and everything he wanted to give his offspring. I didn’t realize this positive attention until he died in my early adulthood. That I was a receiver of all the positive bias. I’m personalizing the point.
With this in mind, I’ll give you the other end of the spectrum. At a young age I always kept, girls and women as close friends. I’ve been bullied for it in high school. I’ve chosen a profession that is female-dominant (HR & People practices) and has been passed opportunities because male-dominant leadership teams look for diversity.
I’ve been groped by gay men, thinking I might be interested as I’m kind to them and want to hang around. I’ve been suggested to make voice porn by women because I have a sexy voice in a professional context. I’ve been inappropriately touched by women in professional settings. I’ve been made fun of because I can’t spell correctly, even if that is mainly due to my dyslexia.
I’ve been belittled by my female manager and a male superior has said I shouldn’t boast about my accomplishments in a company all hands after a beyond-successful project that I went above and beyond to make happen. My directness and honest opinion have been bucketed as arrogance when the minority woman doing the same gets labeled courageous.
My basketball coach thought my lack of progression was due to a lack of commitment, and was surprised when he found out I was working twice as hard as he thought I was. Many have thought what I achieved has been a factor of luck, of not putting in the work, to a point I’ve thought why even bother?
When going through mental health issues and mental disorders during my divorce I’ve been gaslighted by my partner. I’ve been belittled because of the notion that if one is good at something, that should equal wealth, or getting rich.
In contrast, I can tell you stories about a younger me who has cheated on his partner, harassed women by asking if they want to have sex, and been part of bullying others at school. I’m no saint, and I’ve apologized and atone for my wrongdoings.
All of this I’m able to share, discuss, and engage directly. However, what I’m most sorry about is all the times I’ve been quiet when I should’ve said something. When I should’ve intervened, but didn’t.
I can handle myself, choose to be aware of my privileges and biases, and live through whatever others put me through. Serve the sentences people think I should serve for what I’ve done. What keeps me talking badly to myself is not standing up for others as many times as I could, when I’ve failed to provide the support they needed. As the problem in this world is not the oblivious, it’s the silence. It’s the non-action.
Ignorance is a choice, so it’s not an excuse and can be worked on. However, knowledge without action feels like a moral crime. At least for me.
Apologies, this got a bit heavy and bleak. Not my best combination of writing, but an honest one. If there is something you liked or something that made you mad, please DM me or leave a comment. I’m open for discussion and welcome it!
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