When I was an analyst, my job working with senior executives in companies was clear-cut. I would use my knowledge of their markets to develop advice for them, parachute into their companies, present my ideas, and answer their questions. Then I would leave. Implementation was their problem. I was extremely honest and often blunt, but…
Newsletter 89: Why charm, competence, and respect aren’t just good for business, but are a way of life. Plus Shopify won’t hire for what AI can do better; suing Trump to preserve libraries, Amazon recaps books with AI, plus three people to follow and three books to read. Charm, Competence, Respect How in heck was…
I was startled to read this quote in The Athletic (part of the New York Times) from a federal judge overseeing an antitrust case regarding the NCAA and college sports conferences: [U.S. District Court Judge Claudia] Wilken raised several questions related to the objections, but she also expressed optimism for eventual approval if those questions…
Newsletter 87. While life is an unending battle against chaos, chaos is where all creativity comes from. Plus, Meta rips off every author on the planet, AI “insights” are anything but, three people to follow and three books to read. Chaos in perspective Do you love chaos? Of course not. No one wants to be…
My company WOBS continues successfully in 2025, ten years after I started it. Many things about what I do have changed, but others have remained constant. I thought it might be instructive to describe my journey as a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter. Fundamental principles When I started, I had a clear idea of what…
Ten years ago, WOBS was born. WOBS LLC is the name of my company. The first blog post on bernoff.com (which at that time was called withoutbullshit.com) was ten years ago. Today I’ll talk about how I went from a senior executive at a respected research company to to a 56-year-old freelancer with dreams to…
Yes. For the most part, my clients are my friends. This philosophy goes against most people’s advice. We freelancers are told that we have to maintain a professional distance. That we have to ask for money, which you don’t do with friends. That we might even have to our your clients — or they might…
Nonfiction writers need to tell the truth in a captivating way. Fiction writers just need to be captivating. At first glance, it seems like there are more constraints on nonfiction. After all, fiction writers can just “make stuff up,” while nonfiction writers are constrained by what actually happened. There are actually more constraints on fiction…
If you ask my doctors what is important about me, they are likely to say something like this: Josh is an obese 66-year-old man with essential hypertension, sleep apnea, vitreous detachment in both eyes, and history of prostate cancer. Why so negative? If you ask anybody else I interact with, they start with the positive….