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In 2021, Prada created Candy, an influencer designed to sell perfume. With an appearance rendered using then-state-of-the-art tools, Candys not-quite-real vibe felt straight out of the Silicon (Uncanny) Valley. It was peppy, but cartoonlike, and it was hard to see how Candy could sell perfume it could never smell. Since then, technologies have greatly improved. A brand can now render any persona with a product, create movies with that model persona animated in a realistic way, and show them demonstrating products. By creating their own influencers, brands can keep their advertising budgets down and generate profits. Its possible that the virtual influencers will come for even more human-influencer jobs as the financial opportunities continue to grow. Long before the internet, the idea of influencing existed as sales. People have sold things to others since currency began, and while it takes labor, time, and effort to persuade others to buy what one is selling, different types of techniques and tactics emerged over the years to varying degrees of success. The rise of social media channels such as Facebook, X, Pinterest, and especially Instagram, enabled broader reach for those unable to afford network advertising. As a result of this shift, brands began to outsource marketing to people using these models to share and demonstrate their products and services through brand partnerships. In a short time, the influencer industry has exploded in growth: The global influencer marketing platform market size is set to grow from around $23.6 billion this year to roughly $70.9 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. Influencing has become an aspirational profession for one in three people ages 18 to 30and for those who succeed, a substantial income awaits.Influencers are successful due to their relatability, charm, resonance, and the ways they represent a lifestyle or objects that others wish to emulate, replicate, or possess. Martha Stewart, an early influencer, started with books before harnessing television and print media to convince thousands that they could also realize the fantasy that she portrayed. Her partnerships with Target, Macys, QVC, and Kohler, brought her endorsements of products, tools, and decorations, into homes, creating a multichannel, multisensory impressionand earned her a $400 million fortune. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Brooke Shields may not invent what they sell, but they successfully promote products to their fans, building upon the parasocial (one-sided) relationships that fans project onto them. Influencing has gotten increasingly personal over time, with Influencers extending their reach to give us peeks into their homes and lives. But influencers can also be regular people with the attributes and willingness to invite their followers into their lives. Influencers with no celebrity status, but the ability to be persuasive salespeople for brands, are plentiful. Virtual influencers already exist with varying degrees of success and popularity, ranging from animated characters to realistically modeled personas. With the kind of money that is up for grabs, some businesses are creating AI personas or are considering applying these technologies to replace human influencers to maximize profits. Or will they? A sense of agency is what defines successful human influencers. We dont know what they are going to do, or how they are going to do itand that novelty is appealing. Part of what attracts us to influencers are their stories, their lived experiences, and their families. These, in turn, create a brand message that attracts endorsements and piques our interest. Without a story and background, an influencer’s sponsored post is just an ad similar to any other. There is, of course, a price to being an influencer. Megs Mahoney Dusil is the co-owner of the Purse Forum, a premier destination for handbag, jewelry, and brand communities. In The Price of Influence: When Your Life Becomes Your Brand, Dunsil reflects on 20 years of being influential, observing that for her, kids and tragedy were the highest performing topics for platform traffic. She describes the performative aspect of being an influencer as emotional labor in disguise, a tightrope of constant negotiation between the person you are and the persona you project. Good or bad, Dusils realization may pave the way for humans and AI to form influencer partnerships, where their demonstrations and emotional connections are combined with software tools and renderings to provide a quasi-real experience. Human influencers could keep their profits (and their privacy), by using software like Synthesia, Vidyard, Rephrase AI, Adobe Substance 3D, and others to generate facsimiles of themselves, without having to reveal all. They could also benefit from the cost savings of realistic software tools, too, saving money and time on travel by creating the environment they present in a home studio. Time will tell if virtual influencers will make a difference as to how we are persuaded. We already see influencers through mediated channels, so it wont be that different for us to have a window into the fantasy of a digitally realized influencer hearth, rather than their actual home. But will we be comfortable buying products sold to us by beings that arent real? We might. We already have been acclimated to fantasy advertising campaigns. This would just circle us back to celebrity territory where the parasocial relationships we have with the personas selling us things, are those one-sided ones that we project onto them, and are not real. As with most jobs lately, its likely that AI will come for influencers, but with some savvy vibe-coding, influencers may be able to retain their brand partnerships, privacy, and income.
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E-Commerce
To a certain point, cars are fantastic inventions making it easy to get to far-flung places, opening doors for new places to live or work or play. But there’s a tipping point when the built environment and our lives are arranged around motor vehicles where the benefits start to come undone. Building to prioritize space-hogging cars brings a long list of negative externalities. In Greek mythology, the god Dionysus granted King Midas his wish for the power to turn everything he touched to gold. Midas revels in the effortless wealthobjects, furniture, and even the ground beneath him turn to gold. The Midas touch was great right up until he wanted to eat or drink or just hug his daughter. Theres a King Midas aspect to motor vehicles, this technological gift that promised and delivered abundance until it became a curse. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Personal cars expanded opportunities like never before. Post-World War II America saw vehicle ownership explode from 25 million in 1945 to over 100 million by 1970. Having access to a family car made far-flung places viable for living, working, and playing, fueling a middle-class expansion across previously rural areas. An entire car-oriented ecosystem emerged. The promise of freedom and wealth held until cities and suburbs began optimizing for vehicle throughput instead of local access and mobility. When Everything Turns to Asphalt Like Midas discovering he couldn’t eat golden food, we’re discovering that car-dependent places can’t sustain the human activities they were meant to enable. The same infrastructure that promised connection now isolates. What began as freedom morphed into obligation. American cities now dedicate somewhere between one-third and one-half of their land area to streets, parking lots, and garages. In downtown Los Angeles, parking occupies more space than all the buildings combined. We’ve paved over so many of the destinations cars were supposed to help us reach. The economic costs of car dependency are brutal at the household level. Transportation often ranks as the second-largest expense after housing, consuming up to 30% of household income. The “drive until you qualify” phenomenon pushed families toward affordable suburban housing, only to burden them with commutes that devoured time and money. Car loan defaults have jumped 50% in the last 15 years, and in 2024, car repossessions hit the highest number since 2009. Meanwhile, the infrastructure itself demands constant funding. Roads, bridges, and parking structures deteriorate faster than municipalities can maintain them. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates a multi-trillion-dollar backlog in deferred transportation maintenance. Every lane-mile of road requires ongoing investment that property taxes in sprawling development patterns often can’t support. The Isolation Paradox Car dependence promised mobility but delivered immobility for anyone without a vehicle or unable to drive. Children lost independence because nothing is within walking or biking distance, and the elderly face isolation when they can no longer drive safely. People with disabilities, those who can’t afford vehicles, and those who simply prefer not to drive find themselves trapped in places without practical mobility alternatives. The distances themselves became barriers. When corner stores give way to big-box retailers miles away, when schools require driving rather than walking, when social spaces exist only as isolated destinations rather than chance encounters, community itself attenuates. Neighbors pass each other at 45 miles per hour on six-lane arterials rather than at 3 miles per hour on sidewalks. The “third places” that anchored community life (cafés, parks, plazas, etc.) disappeared into the car-oriented strip malls and shopping centers. The Health Toll The King Midas curse extends to our bodies. Vehicle-oriented development correlates strongly with obesity, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory illness. When walking becomes impractical and driving becomes mandatory, physical activity disappears from daily routines. Air pollution from vehicles contributes to asthma, especially in children living near major roadways. Traffic crashes kill 40,000 Americans annually, and injure hundreds of thousands more. Larger vehicles, faster vehicles, and inattentive driving create an increasingly deadly environment. Breaking the Curse King Midas eventually begged Dionysus to reverse his wish, washing away the golden touch. Like Midas, our situation is fixable. People are rediscovering that neighborhoods can be planned and designed at a human scale that welcomes motor vehicles without squashing the good life. Zoning reforms that allow mixed-use development are the single most important starting point. When someone can walk to a store, bike to work, or take transit to social activities, the car returns to being a useful tool rather than an iron requirement. But that only happens if a local government legalizes a variety of land uses in neighborhoods. Cars are fantastic inventions. The Midas predicament emerges when we optimize everything around them, when we mandate their use, and when we eliminate alternatives. A city where people can choose to drive, walk, bike, or take transit according to their needs is fundamentally different from one where driving is the only option. The Midas story ends with the king learning wisdom through suffering. Weve suffered quite a bit from the built environment. But even in real life, things can get better in the end. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
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Below, Jon Levy shares five key insights from his new book, Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius. Levy is a behavioral scientist. For the last 15 years, he has studied what makes leaders and teams succeed, working with everyone from Nobel laureates to Olympic captains and Fortune 500 executives. He is also the founder of The Influencers, a one-of-a-kind private dining club with thousands of members, many of whom are some of the worlds most respected leaders. Whats the big idea? Success isnt about raw talent or a single heroic leader. Its about how we align, focus, and unlock the resources within our teams. Intelligent teams create cultures that let people thrive together. Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Jon himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Why star talent fails Weve been taught that the surest way to win is to gather the most talented people. But stacking a team with stars doesnt guarantee success. In fact, it often undermines it. Take the 1980 U.S. Olympic basketball team. They were just college kids, facing NBA All-Stars in a series of exhibitions. On paper, the pros should have crushed them. Instead, the college players won four out of five games, including one by 31 points. The less talented team consistently defeated the stars. Business tells the same story. Quibi was a short-form streaming platform, led by Disneys Jeffrey Katzenberg and eBays Meg Whitman. It raised nearly $2 billion, but leadership was so insulated and overconfident that they ignored feedback. The company shut down within months. Or DaimlerChrysler. In 1998, Mercedess parent company merged with Chrysler in what was billed as the perfect match of German engineering and American scale. Instead, cultural clashes and competing egos derailed the merger, wiping out billions in value. Psychologists call this the too-much-talent problem. When too many stars are in the room, cooperation breaks down and performance collapses. Skill is just the ticket to play. What really matters is how people work together. Teams win not because they have the best individuals, but because they combine their efforts into something greater than the sum of their parts. 2. The myth of the perfect leader When we think of great leaders, we often imagine someone charismatic, visionary, maybe even larger than life. But the surprising truth is that there are no universal traits of leadership. For more than a decade, Ive hosted a series of dinners. The format is simple but unusual: 12 strangers come together to cook a meal, and until we sit down to eat, nobody is allowed to talk about their careers or even share their last names. When we sit to eat, people reveal they are Nobel laureates, astronauts, Olympic captains, CEOs, and Grammy-winning musicians. Over the years, Ive connected with some of the most accomplished leaders on the planet, and what strikes me is that there is no single personality profile that is common to all these leaders. Some are introverts who prefer quiet reflection. Others are outspoken and brash. Some are methodical planners, while others thrive in chaos. If its not about personality, what makes someone a leader? The answer, by definition, is that they have followers. Leaders give us the feeling of a new and better future. So, why do we follow? The answer isnt something as easy to pin down as vision or charisma. Instead, its an emotional response. Leaders give us the feeling of a new and better future. When we interact with them, they cause us to feel that tomorrow will be better than today. But there arent any specific skills that cause this. Maybe youre brilliant at solving problems under pressure, or maybe youre the person who can think at scale and move fast. Its not about being well-rounded, it’s about your unique super skill being enough for people to believe that with you, the future is worth pursuing. Find the strengths that make you effective and use them to create a vision that others want to join. Thats what real leadership looks like. 3. The three pillars of team intelligence In the early 2000s, Lego was in serious trouble. The company had expanded into video games, clothing, and even theme parks, but in the process, it lost sight of what made it special. Lego was drowning in debt and close to bankruptcy. Thats when they brought in Jrgen Vig Knudstorp, a former McKinsey consultant with a background in organizational behavior. Knudstorp didnt try to rescue Lego by chasing bold new ideas or hiring more star executives. Instead, he focused on building the conditions that allowed the teams they already had to succeed. What he put in place mirrors what I call the three pillars of team intelligence: Reasoning: Alignment around clear goals Knudstorp got everyone back to Legos core mission of inspiring creativity through play, not distracting side ventures. Attention: Knowing when to collaborate and when to focus Lego teams had to learn when to come together intensely on critical decisions, and when to step back so designers and engineers could innovate without constant interference. Resources: Unlocking and empowering the talent already inside the company Lego had world-class designers and engineers, but their best ideas were being buried under corporate bloat and scattered priorities. By elevating and focusing those creative resources, the company rediscovered the very expertise that had always been its greatest strength. Knudstorp sold off the theme parks, cut the side businesses that drained attention, and redirected investment back into the bricks. Most importantly, he gave designers and engineers the freedom to create again. That shift produced runaway successes like Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter, and Bionicle. By aligning goals, sharpening focus, and empowering internal talent, Knudstorp rebuilt Lego from the brink of collapse into the worlds most valuable toy company. Individual talent matters, but what really makes teams thrive are the systems that guide how people align, communicate, and unlock the resources they already have. 4. The super chicken problem If youve ever worked on a team full of high achievers, youve probably seen this play out. People compete for airtime, ideas clash, and collaboration takes a back seat to ego. The assumption is that more talent should always mean better results, but research shows the opposite is often true. Decades ago, biologist William Muir at Purdue University ran an experiment with chickens to test productivity. At the time, the most productive egg-laying chicken was the Dekalb XL. This was like the Ferrari of chickens. It could outlay anything, ut the focus on pure productivity during breeding led it to become violent. After all, the only way to become more productive at a certain point would be to peck other chickens to get their resources. Muir believed that you could have chickens that were very productive and humane. So, he took an average crossbred chicken, created 200 coops, and would have them work together in small groups to lay eggs. Those that laid the most eggs were rebred generation after generation. The assumption is that more talent should always mean better results, but research shows the opposite is often true. After six generations, Muir set up an experiment to see who was more productive: a coop of the super chickensthe Dekalb XLsor his kinder, gentler birds. Muirs kinder, gentler birds, bred both for prosocial behavior and productivity, beat the DeKalb XLs by a long shot. Mostly because, due to pecking each other to death, only three Dekalb XLs remained at the end of the experiment. When you stack a team entirely with stars, competition overwhelms cooperation. Studies in sports also show that teams overloaded with superstar players often underperform. The same holds true in business: Companies built around celebrity CEOs or elite hires often stumble because the team dynamic collapses under the weight of competing egos. Success is about creating conditions where people can thrive together and collaboration, trust, and shared purpose matter more than individual stardom. 5. The Miami Heat and the power of culture In 2010, the Miami Heat pulled off what looked like the greatest talent coup in NBA history. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Boshall superstarsjoined forces. At the announcement, LeBron famously promised multiple championships. But then, they lost. Raw talent wasnt enough. The Heat had assembled the crew, but they hadnt figured out how to make them work together as a team. That changed when Shane Battier joined the roster. To this day, it would be easy not to notice that he was on the team. Battier wasnt flashy, he didnt dominate the highlight reels, and his stats looked modest. But his teammates called him a no-stats all-star because he had a unique ability to elevate everyone elses game. Even in teams stacked with stars, its often the glue players, the ones who make everyone else better, who determine success. Battier studied opponents obsessively, knew when to set the perfect screen, and often took on the toughest defensive assignments. He was even nicknamed Lego, because when he was on the court, everyone else clicked into position. His presence allowed LeBron, Wade, and Bosh to maximize their talent, and the championships followed. Even in teams stacked with stars, its often the glue players, the ones who make everyone else better, who determine success. Dont just chase superstars. Value the people who connect the pieces, create trust, and turn potential into performance. Theyre the difference between a team that stumbles and one that builds a dynasty. Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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