Critique #3: Originality (Part II)
November 20, 2025
Summary
Critique #3 returned to ORIGINALITY, this time shifting from definition to cost. The question in the room felt heavier: if originality creates advantage, why does it show up so rarely? Marty introduced the ROBOT CURVE, describing the steady movement of work from creative to routine to automated. Knowledge has become abundant. AI can synthesize patterns and summarize what already exists. What remains human is imagination, judgment, and the ability to sense consequence. That requires effort, and it resists convenience.
People shared stories about fear—in companies, on teams, and within themselves. Leaders ask for bold moves and then look for precedent. Teams seek belonging while wanting to stand out. Clients look for certainty. The room ID’d familiar habits: choosing the obvious idea, assembling solutions from the shelf, polishing instead of risking. Originality began to feel less like a creative flourish and more like a choice to stay with discomfort a little longer. The session left a quiet invitation hanging in the air: what kind of struggle are we willing to accept in order to remain necessary?
Selected Quotes
No applause culture
“We’re not here to tear each other down, but we’re not going to just blindly applaud whatever’s put out on the table.”
Explanation is currency
“That’s how we can tell serious people from unserious people in this space — because they’re able to explain the how and the why of it.”
The robot curve
“Technology always wants to make things cheaper. And as it makes things cheaper, it lowers the value of them.”
People optimizing themselves into irrelevance:
“Anybody who’s striving towards computerizing their work is actually pushing themselves down to the bottom.”
That’s the point
“The only thing that can’t be copied is originality.”
The CEO reenactment
“Who else is doing this?”
“No one.”
“Oh, no one — that’s bad.”
Challenging comfort
“Are you scared? Does your idea scare you? No? Then you’re not even near it.”
On false leadership
“You can’t be a leader by following the leader.”
Disruption theater
“Everyone wants to watch a bar fight, but nobody wants to be in one.”
On executive illusion
“They want to say they’re disruptive.”
On selling originality
“Don’t ever try to sell originality. The CEO doesn’t care about that.”
On CEO survival instinct
“The CEO, above all, does not want to have a huge failure on his hands — not on his watch.”
On belonging vs originality
“I fear that [originality] will keep me from belonging. I’m often sort of an outsider or different than the group think… and I pride myself on that. So it’s this weird tension.”
On usefulness over ego
“It’s better to be helpful than to be right.”
On fear bias
“All humans are more sensitive to failure than they are to success.”
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