A Brutal Breakup, Being A Victim, AI Bigger Than China + India, Reject The Premise & Pirate (Scooby) Snacks
I Have A Dear Friend Going Through A Brutal Breakup.
And ChatGPT has been a legendary therapist.
(Read that three times)
🏴☠️
Being A Victim
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
— Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor/legendary author
Today (many) think being a victim is cool.
But.
When you adopt a victim mentality. You lose your power.
(Just ask Viktor.)
The oppressor / oppressed lens is now deeply embedded in the American psyche. The more oppressed you are, the more (and I’m using this word on purpose) entitled you are.
The more oppressed you are, the more righteous you are. The bigger victim you are, the more Scooby Snacks you get.
(“It’s not my fault. It’s the circumstances.Woe is me.”)
I called a family member a victim.
And got a (long) pissed-off email in response. They explained they were not a victim.
And stated that if I knew their background more, I’d understand. Why they are justified in being a victim.
In an email claiming they are not a victim, they made the case for why they are a victim. 🤔
This is how deep victim can be installed in a person.
Being a victim makes you powerless.
And you’re never powerless.
(Just ask Viktor.)
Now before someone pops off on me saying stuff like, “Lochhead, you’re being an asshole. Some people are really victimized”.
I know.
I’ve been victimized.
In a three am home invasion four (evil) sub-humans attacked, robbed, kidnapped and murdered a person I love.
As a result. I have a court appointed “victims advocate”.
If anyone can identify as a victim. It’s me.
(The California court system anointed me one.)
And.
I am no fucking a victim.
I am powerful.
Because I learned at a young age.
There is a difference between being victimized.
And being a victim.
(Thanks Viktor.)
🏴☠️
I know great people in tech getting laid-off.
I know impressive younger folks who can't get hired. There's more recession talk. Many are scared. In times of great uncertainty.
The greatest thing we can do is take control.
There’s a saying sailors, captains, and pirates rely on when the seas get rowdy:
HOLD FAST.
It means holding tight to the rigging to ride out a storm.
•You bear down.
•You fight back.
•You don’t let go or give up.
In a post AI world the (painful) truth is companies are hiring less.
(Because the value of humans in a post AI world is different.)
It's no longer about what you know.
It's about what value you can create.
In 2025 and beyond Creator Capitalists (person who makes & monetizes new value) win.
Today is a great day to take control.
Create with AI.
And.
Create something legendary.
🏴☠️
🏴☠️
🏴☠️
Every Legendary Business Started As A Dumb Idea. Until It Wasn’t.
In order to change the world, you have to reject the premise.
You can’t just blindly accept the world the way it is.
And it’s in your best interest to begin thinking about a new and different future as soon as possible.
Here’s how to reject the way it is to create the way it will be.
Rejecting the premise means rejecting “what has been true” about the past.
Thinking about “the past” is deeply rooted in the DNA of many entrepreneurs, investors, executives, academics, and strategists.
Harvard Business School students read ~500 case studies (about the past) during their two years of study.
Most management consulting firms give a detailed analysis of what worked yesterday. They explain the past.
Good to Great by Jim Collins is all about comparing similar companies (from the past).
Academics can’t publish without extensive research about the past. And any new information has to be rigorously peer-reviewed by other professors who are experts in the past.
None of these are accurate (or effective) definitions of truly strategic thinking.
The core issue is that 100% of what we’ve been taught is based on the past and doesn’t reflect a future where many things might change.
Every generation looks and laughs at prior generations and wonders, “How did those prior generations believe that? Look at what we didn’t know!”
Well, why would we assume future generations wouldn’t look at us the same way?
Rejecting the premise lets you create a different future.
No legendary entrepreneur, inventor, business leader, creator, or artist started their journey by accepting the premise.
Why did hotels sue Airbnb, calling them “illegal hotels”? Because Airbnb’s POV changed the premise.
How did Picasso become one of the most well-known and highly-valued artists of all time? Because he “quit” the game of Impressionism and “created” a new game called Cubism.
What made Cirque du Soleil a billion-dollar business with more than 4,000 employees performing shows in over 40 countries? Co-founders Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix were on a mission to create performative, acrobatic, animal-free theatre, NOT start a better circus.
The vast majority of people take whatever is placed in front of them and say, “I accept the premise.”
They start with the way it is, and aim to make the way it is “better” or “incrementally different.” Something exists. Then this new thing came along. And we’re going to apply the new thing to the old thing, and call the old thing new.
There is very little questioning about whether they are having the right conversation (context) to begin with.
As a result, a company’s (or creator’s) POV is unconsciously established, and every product, document, and decision that unfolds from there follows that POV — resulting in a lifetime of comparison.
But if history has taught us anything, it’s that exponential outcomes are produced by strategic, future-oriented thinkers who never fall into The Better Trap.
Rejecting the premise is the art of the possible.
It’s the process of considering “what could be true.”
What new mental model would have to be invented for this to work?
What if people moved from the way it is, to a new different way?
What if a new outcome (an outcome we haven’t considered before) was possible?
In 2008, the idea of Airbnb made no sense when evaluated through old mental models.
As a result, nearly every venture capitalist said, “No way. You can’t rent out your extra bedroom. That’s insane. Probably illegal. What if someone gets killed in their sleep, or raped? And you really think people are going to want to share a toilet with someone they’ve never met before?”
Only a very small handful of investors (including the world-class firm, Sequoia Capital) had the courage and mental awareness to ask a different question — a “thinking” question:
“What would need to be true for this idea to work?”
They realized that the idea of Airbnb didn’t make sense when evaluated through previously established mental models, but it did make sense through the lens of a new model.
In fact, it was likely a decade away from being completely acceptable — and thus, “worth the risk” (which helped Sequoia turn roughly $280 million invested over multiple rounds into more than $12 billion).
Every legendary business is a dumb idea — until it isn’t.
Instead of accepting the premise, we encourage you to ask a series of more thoughtful questions:
What new and different future can you invest in that would fundamentally change the trajectory of your category and business?
Is this a mission worthy of your potential?
Does it matter enough to you to spend 20 years doing it?
What’s the real outcome you want to drive?
How will that outcome make the world a different place?
Do you want to capture existing demand or create net-new demand?
Companies, entrepreneurs, and investors who reject the premise, proactively facilitate unconstrained creative discussions about the future, and are willing to strategize and build what doesn’t exist yet are the ones who escape the rat race of competition and enter the promised land of creation.
🏴☠️
The funny thing.
Marketing people (actually) think this "thinking" matters.
That's why Marketing leaders (often) sit at the kids table.
Maybe one day they will learn.
Marketing that does not produce revenue.
Is called arts and crafts.🎨
🏴☠️
Thanks for reading.
Shalom my Pirate friend,
👊🏴☠️🙏
Here come the dis-credits.
Pirate (scooby) Snacks ☠️
And Legal Warnings…..
All Different newsletters contain nuts 🐿
All rights perturbed.
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Category Pirates is our real newsletter.
People who subscribe on Substack get this Different newsletter first.
You should feel very little obligation to read from this point on.
Your time would be better spent watching re-runs of All In The Family.
Or taking your cat for a walk.
The creator of this newsletter may have been writing with a hang-over.
If you’re in the 60% of people looking to make a career change….We just launched the 1st Creator Capitalist course.
Stop trading time for money
Design a career around what makes you unique
And build financial freedom — on your terms
Get more creative.
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Everything is the way that it is, because someone (like you) changed the way that it was.
If you haven’t changed your mind lately.
How do you know you have one 🤔
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In the event of a water landing, this newsletter can be used as a floatation device.
Why men are shaving off their eyelashes
Thanks for hanging out.
🙏🏴☠️
Don’t forget to check out the (new) creator capitalist course.
This piece is a gut-wrenching yet necessary autopsy of our toxic relationship with AI—how we've oscillated between blind worship and victim mentality without ever demanding accountability. Your call to move beyond 'is AI good or evil?' to 'what does using this cost our humanity?' is the conversation starter we've been avoiding. A manifesto for technological self-respect.