#234 Evolution of Marketplaces, AI & Radiologist, Marketing Stunts in AI Era, Quick Commerce, Everything is Television
Trader Joe’s Totes, Seismologist, Museum of Color, King of Blurbs and more
Hello,
This Friday, I said goodbye to this place. For the past 3 years and 261 days, I’ve spent my time thinking and learning about games, scale, profitability, and building culture. The destination turned out different from what I first imagined, but the journey was rich with learning and challenge.
A new chapter begins soon. I’m excited as ever about what’s to come. More on that in the coming week.
And now, here’s what’s on the menu today:
A quick primer on evolution of marketplaces with Five Eras of Marketplace Power Shift.
Work in Progress piece explaining Why AI isn’t Replacing Radiologist
Tom Orbach shares 5 crazy Marketing Stunts from the AI Era
Manish Singh explains the rise of Quick Commerce in India & China
Derek Thompson argues that Everything is Television
For those who loves their Totes, Articles of Interest is talking about Trader Joes Totes
Dan Heath tells us What It’s Like To Be: Seismologist
And some more fun things, as usual. A lot to cover, let’s get going.
🛍️ Five Eras of Marketplace Power Shifts
From Amazon and Instacart to homegrown players like Flipkart and Meesho, marketplace evolution has followed a clear pattern. Ad revenues and platform technology products now drive a big share of their topline and almost all of their profits. These companies have grown into giants that blend technology with vast physical infrastructure, powering transactions at unprecedented scale.
Susannah Shipton captures this idea beautifully in her short post Five Eras of Marketplace Power Shifts. It is crisp, well structured, and helps explain how these changes unfolded and what drove them.
And of course, no reflection on marketplaces feels complete without a look ahead. Susannah’s predictions offer plenty of food for thought.
🩻 Why AI isn’t Replacing Radiologist
Today, there are more than 700 FDA-cleared radiology AI models. That’s nearly three-fourths of all medical AI devices; no other medical test or workflow has drawn this much attention.
Radiology is a field optimized for human replacement, where digital inputs, pattern recognition tasks, and clear benchmarks predominate. In 2016, Geoffrey Hinton – computer scientist and Turing Award winner – declared that ‘people should stop training radiologists now’. If the most extreme predictions about the effect of AI on employment and wages were true, then radiology should be the canary in the coal mine.
But demand for human labor is higher than ever.
Yes, AI isn’t replacing radiologists. At least, not yet.
In her Works in Progress piece, Deena Mousa explains why. She shows how today’s AI models are limited by how they’re trained and used, while the human brain operates in far more complex and adaptive ways.
It’s a fantastic read, blending deep ideas with clear, engaging storytelling.
📢 Marketing Stunts from the AI Era
Tom Orbach’s Marketing Ideas newsletter often uncovers some of the smartest marketing stunts out there. What I like most are two things. First, he digs up hidden gems, not just the usual viral stuff. Second, he adds sharp insights on why each idea works—or doesn’t.
In a recent post, he shared five standout marketing ideas, and they’re genuinely fascinating. From an AI fish tank gone viral to physical gifts from OpenAI to a clever website footer, the range is wide and every idea deserves a closer look.
I’m not diving into the details here, but his main takeaway from the full set really stands out:
The best marketing makes people participants, not spectators.
Draw something. Open something. Click something. Risk something.
Stop explaining your product. Start making people play with it.
🛍️ Quick Commerce in India & China
Quick commerce has not only survived but thrived in India and China, even as much of the world has written off the model. In fact, India is doubling down on anything that promises speed and convenience. From horizontal players like Blinkit and Zepto to vertical quick commerce in fashion and food, and even quick service startups like Snabbit and Pronto, the country has clearly embraced the “quick” revolution.
In a short and sharp post, Manish Singh unpacks why India and China have managed to make this model not just viable but scalable. This snippet nails it:
India and China are the only countries where quick commerce is working at scale. Both markets have reached multi-billion-dollar categories. But the business models employed by quick commerce players in either nation have almost nothing to do with each other. India’s version is maturing into a distribution layer that sells attention first and items second. China’s version is functioning as a weapon inside platform wars designed to win sessions rather than profits. In India, some key buyers are brand managers carrying budgets and conversion targets. In China, the buyers are super-app strategists trying to keep users and merchants inside the fortress.
If you’re interested in this space, Manish’s piece is a must-read. He blends data and category insight into a story that’s both smart and easy to follow.
📺 Everything is Television
Whether the starting point is a student directory (Facebook), radio, or an AI image generator, the end point seems to be the same: a river of short-form video. In mathematics, the word “attractor” describes a state toward which a dynamic system tends to evolve. To take a classic example: Drop a marble into a bowl, and it will trace several loops around the bowl’s curves before settling to rest at the bottom. In the same way, water draining in a sink will ultimately form a spiral pattern around the drain. Complex systems often settle into recurring forms, if you give them enough time.
Television, Derek Thompson argues, is the attractor of all media.
This snippet from his piece Everything Is Television captures a truth we’re all living through. And by “we,” he means not just consumers, but creators, distributors, and everyone in between.
If the comparison to television feels stretched, his reasoning makes it click. It’s a sharp read that shines a light on something vital — how and where we spend our attention.
👜 Articles of Interest: Trader Joes Totes
Tote Bags, generally, have become odd, often contradictory symbols — for lifestyles, for aspirations, for patronage. They’ve been a sign of liberal goodness since The Strand Bookstore released its first edition in 1980, and it quickly became a status symbol that separated the real readers from the posers. When the New Yorker started offering a tote bag as a freebie in 2014, its ubiquity as the go-to subscriber gift was cemented. Totes became banners of lefty values (I read! I watch films! I donate to radio stations!), and as the bags’ materials got flimsier and flimsier, they increasingly served as little more than (literal) canvases for statements. Branded totes have the power to project our identities, interests, and political stances in overt ways that other accessories simply cannot. Tote bags have become messages when, ironically, they used to be a medium.
If that description doesn’t hook you, here’s the clincher: this is an Articles of Interest piece on Trader Joe’s Totes.
Holly Davies absolutely nails it. I love my totes (maybe not as much as Holly or the people she interviews), but they do bring both practical flexibility and a quiet sense of confidence.
Read this one as a reflection on culture and human behavior, if nothing else.
And if you’re into Totes, here’s one more gem from Stay Curious Archive: Our tote bags, ourselves
🌐 What It’s Like To Be: Seismologist
Dan Heath’s What It’s Like To Be has become my go-to podcast when I want something light yet deeply interesting. Dan’s choice of professions and the people he speaks with make every episode worth your time.
In a recent one, he explored what it’s like to be a Seismologist. Lucy Jones turned out to be a natural storyteller, making the whole conversation both fun and fascinating. One bit from that episode has really stayed with me.
Dan’s recaps and closing remarks are some of the best I’ve come across. He ties everything together beautifully and leaves you thinking beyond the obvious.
And I think I’ve found a sixth type of podcast host with him — a therapist. Dan helps his guests unpack what they know, nudging them gently as they open up. In the process, they share stories that might have stayed hidden if not for his thoughtful curiosity.
If you’re up for more, the episode about Pharmacy Tech is great too. Lots of interesting insights & stories packed in one short conversation.
✨ Everything else
How ThredUp resells 17 million garments every year. A short video about how the garment recycling industry works through different business models and smart solutions. The bit on the Indian subcontinent’s role in these global efforts is especially eye-opening.
Museum of Color: Stephanie Krzywonos explores the origins, histories, and cultural meanings of various iconic pigments and colors throughout human history. Many fascinating tales about how colors are not just materials, but vessels of memory, ceremony, power, and colonial legacy.
The King of Blurbs: You’ve seen them everywhere: on book covers, Amazon listings, and review pages. Short, sharp, and a little bit useful. Not a review. Just a sentence of praise. A tiny thing with a big punch.This piece dives into the fun origin story of the word blurb and the act itself. And it introduces one of the most prolific blurbers around: David Friedman.
Oh, and I couldn’t resist asking my friendly neighborhood LLM to write a Friedman-style blurb for this newsletter. Here’s what it came up with:
“Stay Curious is what happens when curiosity crashes a party and refuses to leave—Pritesh serves tangents hot, ideas weird, and delight mandatory. Open this, and your world grows quirkier.”
ICYMI, here is the link to last week’s post:
That’s all for this week, folks!
I hope I’ve earned the privilege of your time.
See you next Monday.
There is a wonderful note by better capital on future of market places . The link is given below
https://bettercapital.vc/companion-commerce/
I also believe market placesof future will be the trust layer between brands and consumer.. sharp assortment ( fewer choices ) but absolutely relevant for the target consumer .