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Matty Matheson is a star and producer on the award-winning shoe The Bear, a massive YouTube personality, best-selling cookbook author, restaurateur, entrepreneur, and more. No one will ever confuse him with the ShamWow guy, but thats exactly what Matheson is going for in a new brand campaign from outdoor oven brand Gozney. The extremely fitted blue shirt is all part of an infomercial vibe concocted by Matheson and the Gozney creative team. I found that shirt on eBay, says Matheson. Because I just felt like I needed to wear a stupid shirt, like the ShamWow guy or something. Its also part of the brands first paid media advertising push for a new campaign called Cook Different. And perhaps the crown jewel of it all is a signature Matty Matheson edition of Gozneys new Tread portable outdoor oven that drops June 18. Since 2021, Gozney has grown from $25 million in revenue to nearly $100 million last yeardespite the outdoor pizza oven market exploding over COVID-19 and since contracting. Gozney has strategically used design and content to differentiate itself, and build a healthy brand identity. Key to the brands success is the relationships it has built with chefs and personalities like Matheson. With Cook Different, Gozney is out to prove it. Meeting Matty Tom Gozney founded his company in 2010 as the Stone Bake Oven Company, producing custom-built commercial pizza ovens for the U.K. market. But in 2016, with the launch of the Roccbox oven, Gozney shifted its focus to everyday people. He knew that if he could convince chefs of the portable outdoor oven’s value, then the home kitchen heroes would follow. So he began building relationships with influential U.K. chefs. One of them was Lee Tiernan, owner of Black Axe Mangal. Tiernan was trying out Gozneys Roccbox oven, and was among a few who spread the world to Matheson in Canada. Several my friends in England that are chefs were like, yo, there’s this fucking oven that’s sick, you should check it out, says Matheson. I got one. We used it. It’s sick. I loved it. And then Tom brought me over to England and we just hit it off. Gozney was a fan of Mathesons based on his work with Vice, so was keen to get him an oven. Soon after, Matheson was posting clips of himself using it, not even as a paid ambassador. It was so brand elevating for us at the time, says Gozney. Matty was a subcultural figurehead through Munchies and Vice and all of that stuff. Since then, Matheson has been involved in other Gozney content, but also a sounding board behind the scenes on new and potential ambassadors. Gozney says that it’s one of the companys longest relationships and a standard-bearer for what they aim for overall. I didn’t want to build an outdoor cooking brand. I wanted to build something culturally relevant, says Gozney. And I was always fundamentally focused on, who are the people that we’re going to interact with? Even if someone has 10 times the followers, but they’re not culturally right for the brand, we just won’t fuck with them. And Matty is just the epitome of what were looking for. Theyve been working together for so long that when the idea for a signature oven came up, Gozney says there was really only one choice. Mattys obviously got an incredible way about him from a brand perspective, and we wanted to lean into collaborations, says Gozney. And it just felt like the right move for us to start with these Matty campaigns. Hes been the leading, most passionate brand partner and friend for so many years, it just felt fitting. It would feel like I was cheating on him if I did it with anyone else. [Photo: Gozney] Enter the Tread This is only the companys third signature product. Both Tom Gozney and Brad Leone have had limited signature Roccbox designs. The Tread is a new oven, designed for being as portable as possible. It weighs in at less than 30 pounds, fits 12-inch pizzas and cast iron pans, can hit 950 degrees Fahrenheit in 15 minutes, and features a stand with adjustable legs, a built-in level, and a roof rack cutting board. The growth trajectory of the company, combined with a new product, presented an opportunity for the brand to lean a bit more into its relationship with Matheson. The limited edition Matty x Tread oven is bright orange, featuring illustrations by Matty’s longtime artist, Christopher Wilson, engraved onto its stainless steel exterior. It looks a bit like a Stars Wars droid that just happens to cook pizza. In a good way. Theres also a capsule collection of customized placement peels and other merch. This was just one of those perfect opportunities to kind of just put a little bit of my character into this perfect thing they’ve developed, says Matheson. I’m not some pizza master. It makes amazing pizzas, but I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so I think it’s a perfect outdoor oven. The blaze orange is so iconic. [Photo: Gozney] Retaining heat The videos were shot on a sound stage in Salt Lake City and Matheson says the process was pretty loose. It’s this thing where they came with a really good idea, and we just started riffing back and forth, he says. It was all just really collaborative. Their team knows me, they understand my wheelhouse, and they wanted to do something fun. So we had a basic outline and then we just had fun with it. Jonathan Kantor, Gozney’s chief revenue and marketing officer says he was aiming for something like a cross between HexClad and Liquid Death. The former effectively leverages its partnership with Gordon Ramsay, while the latter creates hilarious content that plays with our cultural relationship with brands and advertising. The concept of Cook Different is about elevating Matty’s presence within Gozney, along with our background with professional chefs and commercial ovens, and doing a brand campaign that’s more about captivating eyeballs and telling a story versus more direct response, transactional marketing. Gozney is investing in more traditional paid media for this campaign than ever before, specifically on connected TV, and will have a shared billboard in Times Square. At the same time, it continues to invest in longer form content, like its ongoing YouTube series Pizza with Frank, starring Frank Pinello. Pinello is the founder of Brooklyn pizzeria Best Pizza, and is about to start his second full season of the Gozney-backed show. It’s completely entertainment storytelling, says Kantor. These episodes get 500,000 to a million views a piece, and there’s not a single paid media dollar behind them. So we’re thinking about who shows up in content, who shows up on our own channels, and how we can tell stories around it. In a world flooded with collabs, Matheson says the longevity and real connection between them is what makes this collaboration different, and he hopes it shows in the content and the product. We’ve been both doing this thing since the beginning, says Matheson. With other brands, it’s a job, it’s how we pay the bills. It’s how I’m able to continue my YouTube and continue a lot of things. Sometimes a brand just wants you for this one thing. No problem. But this is very different. “Gozney has been holding on to a lot of the people that have been there since the beginning, and I think that really shows the importance of true alignment, that is really special and really organic. We have a genuine, good relationship. Some brands are like that. Some aren’t, says Matheson.
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E-Commerce
Nepal’s capital Kathmandu is one of the most polluted cities in the world. But its also one of the fastest-growing markets for EVs: Nepals electric cars now outsell new fossil-fueled vehicles. In the U.S., around 9% of new cars sold last year were electric. In Nepal, that number was around 65%. Theres been a really remarkable transformation in the uptake of electric vehicles, says David Sislen, the World Bank country director for Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Only five years ago, EVs made up a tiny fraction of new car sales in Nepal. Three-wheeled mini-buses, a popular vehicle in the country, were also mostly gas. For those vehicles now, the adoption rate went from less than 1% to 83%, Sislen says. There was one main reason for the change. So many public policy challenges are complicated and nuanced and hard to understand, but this one is the opposite, he says. Its incredibly simple. In July of 2021, the government radically dropped the import duties and excise taxes on electric vehicles. You make it cheaper, and suddenly people will adopt them. (The country has recently slightly increased taxes on EVs, likely because it was missing the revenue. But electric vehicles are still a better bargain.) After someone owns an EV, its also cheaper to operate than a gas or diesel vehicle. Thats true anywhere, but especially in Nepal, where fuel is imported and expensive. Charging an EV could be a tenth of the cost of refueling another vehicle, or even less. The models that are availablefrom companies like Chinas BYD and Indias Tataare also desirable. (Tesla also recently started selling cars in Nepal, though Chinese alternatives are more affordable and arguably even better-performing.) “You see electric vehicles every day, all day long,” says Sislen. “It feels like it’s half of what’s on the road. And the number of [electric] dealerships is amazing.” Nepal was an early adopter of electric three-wheeled vehicles, known locally as tempos. The first wave of hundreds of electric tempos, funded by USAID and manufactured locally, rolled out in the Kathmandu Valley in the 1990s. But by the turn of the century, government policy helped kill the early industry by cutting import taxes on gas microbuses. Now, modern electric tempos are quickly growing again. Charging can still be a challenge, though charging infrastructure is also quickly growing, along with alternatives like battery swapping. We want to deploy technology to make the entire journey seamless, says Deepak Raunier, an entrepreneur who is working on a network of battery-swapping stations for two-wheeler and three-wheeler EVs throughout the region. Kathmandu is also beginning to roll out a fleet of larger electric buses. Last year, Satja Yayatat, a coop bus service that serves the city, added 40 new electric buses and a large new charging station, and it now plans to add another 100. The buses cost around 33 times less to charge than fueling a bus with diesel, although the upfront cost is higher. The charging essentially runs on clean electricity, since most of the country’s energy comes from hydropower. “That makes this even more impactfulyou’re not charging your vehicles with coal-fired power,” says Sislen. “You’re charging them with green energy.” Nepal’s climate goals under the Paris agreement include getting to 90% adoption of EVs for private four-wheeled vehicles by 2030. Though with just 0.027% of global emissions, climate isn’t the biggest reason for the country to actinstead, it’s air pollution. Kathmandu’s geography, surrounded by mountains, traps pollutants. Climate change is leading to more drought in the winter, meaning less rain to help clear the air. Pollution comes from a variety of sources, including wildfires (also increasing because of climate change), and outdated boilers at factories, which the World Bank is pushing to help replace. But transportation is another key factor. And with fewer vehicles belching black exhaust on roads in Kathmandu, the city will be a healthier place to live.
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E-Commerce
For decades, the one-on-one meeting has been a sacred ritual of managerial life. Its the office equivalent of a treadmill session: repetitive, well-intentioned, and mostly endured out of guilt. Conventional wisdom says every manager should have regular 1:1s with their direct reports to build trust, boost engagement, and drive performance. However, as work evolveswith a faster pace, flatter structures, hybrid and asynchronous communication, AI tools that manage tasks more efficiently than most humans ever willits worth asking: Do we still need all these 1:1s? A Brief History In the early 20th century, Frederick Taylor’s influential Scientific Management (1911) introduced the idea of optimizing work through detailed observation and individual instruction. While strictly not 1:1 meetings in a modern sense, this era laid the groundwork for formal manager-employee check-ins, focused almost exclusively on productivity and control. Similarly, military hierarchies institutionalized briefings and debriefingsstructured one-on-one conversations that inspired corporate management systems, especially during and after WWII. Think of it as command-and-control performance reviews, with little space for career development or psychological safety. After WWII, workplace psychology gained prominence. The famous Hawthorne Studies showed that individual attention improved morale and productivity. This era birthed the “manager as coach” concept, which has recently reemerged in the form of Herminia Ibarras leader as coach. In 1960, Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y reframed employees as intrinsically motivated individuals rather than passive workers. In this context, 1:1 meetings began to evolve into opportunities for feedback, mentorship, and development, especially in management training programs pioneered by companies like GE, IBM, and Procter & Gamble. With the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the knowledge economy, especially in tech and consulting, the nature of workand therefore managementchanged. As workers were paid more for thinking than doing, interpersonal communication became a management imperative. By the early 1980s, books like Andy Groves High Output Management popularized 1:1s as tools for alignment, coaching, and decision-making. Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, explicitly advocated for weekly 1:1s as a way to catch small issues before they became large ones, and to ensure both parties shared the same context. His model influenced Silicon Valley and remains widely cited in tech. Meetings Without Meaning Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist and author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, compellingly illustrates that while 1:1s can be powerful tools for enhancing employee engagement and satisfaction, they often become counterproductive and misused. Rogelberg identifies several common pitfalls that can render 1:1 meetings ineffective: Manager-Dominated Conversations: When managers monopolize the discussion, speaking more than they listen, or focus solely on task lists, it undermines the meeting’s purpose. Rogelberg notes that such practices serve the manager’s needs rather than supporting the employee’s development. Lack of Personal Engagement: Effective 1:1s should address both tactical and personal aspects of an employee’s role. Neglecting the personal dimension can lead to missed opportunities for deeper connection and support. Over-Frequency Leading to Micromanagement: Holding these meetings too often can make employees feel micromanaged. Rogelberg suggests a biweekly cadence of 25 to 50 minutes to balance oversight with autonomy Productivity Tax Too often, 1:1s are where status updates are mumbled, calendars are synced, and passive-aggressive comments are politely ignored. They are, in short, a productivity tax, one which alas is often not properly quantified or accounted for. Harvard Business Schools Ashley Whillans reckons the typical knowledge worker spends over 20 hours a week on meetings. The problem is not the 1:1 itself. Its how, why, and how often its done. Managers cling to weekly 1:1s out of habit or guilt, not strategy. In some orgs, these meetings are confused with therapy; in others, with micromanagement. And worse still, many managers show up to 1:1s with no agenda, no questions, and no curiositya surefire way to destroy psychological safety. As a matter of fact, most 1:1s are ineffective. Recent research suggests that 70% of meetings hinder employees from completing their tasks, leading to decreased productivity. Despite a 20% reduction in average meeting length during the pandemic, the number of meetings attended by workers increased by 13.5%, exacerbating the issue. To be sure, not all 1:1s are created equal. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is treating all 1:1s the same. Effective managers treat 1:1s like tools in a leadership tool kitused with intention, tailored to the task. Importantly, good management is not about treating everyone the same, but as they deserve and would like be treated. In that sense, it would be foolish to assume that everyone is equally interested in 1:1 meetings, or benefits from the same kind or type of meetings. Why AI Makes 1:1s Redundant In an age where Slack pings, shared docs, performance dashboards, and real-time feedback tools bombard us with continuous signals, the weekly or biweekly 1:1 starts to feel like a nostalgic ritualless essential leadership practice, more management cosplay. The workplace has become asynchronous, distributed, and data-rich. Managers can monitor performance in real-time through productivity aalytics. Employee sentiment can be gauged with pulse surveys and engagement tools. Peer feedback, 360 reviews, personality assessments, and even mood indicators from collaboration software give you more insight than a 30-minute Zoom ever could. And unlike human memory, these systems dont forget, distort, or sugarcoat. Even the emotional dimension of 1:1sthe human check-inis being digitized. AI tools like Microsoft Copilot or Reclaim.ai can summarize conversations, flag coaching opportunities, and recommend follow-ups before youve even had your morning coffee. Platforms can infer burnout risk from calendar density or written tone. Want to know who feels neglected or disengaged? Ask the algorithm, not your gut. The very technologies designed to enhance 1:1s are replacing the need for them. Just as calculators made mental math optional, AI makes manual managerial check-ins look like horse-drawn meetings in an era of hyperloops. Less ritual, more relevance That doesnt mean we dont need feedback, coaching, or empathy. But it does mean the format of the traditional 1:1calendarized, synchronous, performativemay be overdue for rethinking. In a world of always-on data and generative simulations, the manager who insists on a standing weekly check-in may look less diligent and more . . . analog. So, what replaces them? Perhaps a mosaic of micro-interactions, data-driven nudges, and intentional (not habitual) human moments. In other words, less ritual, more relevance. As generative AI matures and avatars become indistinguishable from their human counterparts, we may not need to show up to 1:1s at all. Instead, well delegate them to our digital twinshyperrealistic, fine-tuned, emotion-simulating versions of ourselves, trained on our past performance reviews, Slack tone, and leadership competencies. Imagine logging into Zoom and seeing your bosss AI twin nodding empathetically at your AI twin, while both exchange perfectly polite updates and preapproved feedback. The meeting ends, the logs are summarized, and the human versions skim the transcripts over lunch, ideally while doing something more usefullike actual work. This isnt as far-fetched as it sounds. Companies like Synthesia and Soul Machines are already building digital avatars that can hold unscripted conversations. Microsoft and Meta are investing in personal AI agents that will schedule, negotiate, and even attend meetings on your behalf. In a world of 60% scheduling excess and skyrocketing manager-to-report ratios, letting your digital clone handle routine 1:1s might feel less dystopian and more like time management. The only question is: when both participants are AI, will the meeting be more productiveor just faster at getting nowhere? Requiem for the 1:1 The one-on-one meeting, once a cornerstone of modern management, now teeters on the edge of obsolescencea charming relic from an analog era, repurposed but rarely rethought. What began as a well-intended vehicle for alignment, coaching, and connection has too often devolved into a managerial placebo: comforting, habitual, and questionably effective. The demands of todays workplacefaster, flatter, and far more fluidsimply dont align with the lumbering cadence of standing check-ins. In a world where performance is visible in real-time, where emotional states are algorithmically inferred, and where digital twins can carry out conversations better than most middle managers, the weekly 1:1 risks becoming the corporate equivalent of sending a faxquaint, unnecessary, and performed mostly by those resistant to better alternatives. This doesnt mean we should abandon human connection or stop developing talent. It means rethinking how and when its best delivered. Great managers will still check inbut with intention, not obligation. Theyll coach, not calendar. And the smartest ones will know when to step aside and let technology take the busywork out of empathy. The future of leadership may still (hopefully) be personalbut it wont always be synchronous, sentimental, or stuck in a recurring Zoom slot.
Category:
E-Commerce
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