Bestselling author and journalist Jo Piazza is best known as the host of the Under the Influence podcast, which boasts over 25 million downloads. Piazza is the author of the upcoming thriller Everyone is Lying to You, which dissects the rise of ‘trad wife’ influencers and the multi-billion-dollar industry built on selling idealized domesticity.

Drawing on her background in investigative journalism, which has covered everyone from Donald Trump to mommy bloggers, Piazza reveals how traditional values have become the latest form of performance marketing.

• "Everyone is lying to you. They're creating a magazine; they're creating a TV show. Most of this is not their real life. When you look at it like it's actually media and not a glimpse into someone's window, I think then you can let go of some of the guilt and the shame, but you're still going to buy the shit." - Jo Piazza [10:40]
• "The funniest thing about trad wives is they're encouraging all of these women to quit their jobs and rely on a man. I'm like, where are all these rich men that just want to make enough money to support a family? The average male income is something around $60,000 and the average American household spends $70,000. So the math does not add up in this equation." - Jo Piazza [19:12]
• "You can now rent entire houses for your influencer content. You can rent out a house with the beautiful kitchen and the pristine countertops. You can even rent a bathroom that's beautiful for your get-ready-with-me routine. And then [you can] shoot all of your content in it for one day. It's not your actual freaking house, but no one knows that." - Jo Piazza [13:31]
• "We're all brands. We're all trying to create something online. I'm very honest about this. I want people to buy my damn books. And so that means I have to post on social media." - Jo Piazza [26:35]

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Organizations love to optimize—but often forget what, or who, they’re optimizing for. When teams are built around internal structures rather than customer outcomes, even the best strategies become slow to adapt.

Author and data analyst Neil Hoyne and Pini Yakuel explore how behavioral rigidity, not technical limitations, holds most companies back. Drawing from principles in Neil Hoyne’s book, Converted, they argue for a shift toward systems that favor adaptability, exploration, and proximity to the customer. Because in a world shaped by AI, the real competitive edge is not just speed—it’s staying meaningfully connected to the people you serve.

1. When roles become identities, organizations lose flexibility. Over-specialization makes it harder for teams to respond to evolving customer needs.
2. Behavioral defaults—not tech—often slow teams down. Loyalty to familiar workflows or team structures can block innovation, even when tools are available.
3. AI works best when aligned with real customer strategy. It’s not a shortcut or a strategy in itself—it’s a multiplier for what actually matters.
4. Customer-centricity requires outcome-driven teams. Structuring around internal functions, rather than external impact, leads to misaligned incentives.
5. Small shifts in ownership create big changes in experience. Empowering teams to work across silos—even partially—brings them closer to the customer, and closer to results.

• [00:13:50] “Marketing teams don’t just bake bread—they are bread. It’s not just what they do; it’s who they’ve become. So when the shift happens—when the customer wants cupcakes instead—they miss it entirely. Because they weren’t watching the customer. They were defending the bread.” – Neil Hoyne
• [00:21:13] “If your strategy is ‘use AI better than the competition,’ you don’t have a strategy.” – Neil Hoyne
• [00:25:46] “Accelerate what already works. Tactics are multipliers, not miracles.” – Pini
• [00:46:47] “Positionless isn’t binary. Can you let a team own 10% of something, start to finish?” – Pini Yakuel
• [00:51:39] “We’ve gone too far into specialization. It’s time to bring back the craftsman.” – Neil Hoyne

• Learn more about Optimove’s platforms
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Join us for a live session from The Whalies in LA with Bryan Cano, Head of Marketing at True Classic, on a recent meteoric rise to an $850M valuation. Bryan reveals how True Classic is democratizing AI adoption across their organization by turning every employee into a technology architect and maintaining human empathy that drives authentic brand connection. We explore how tactical innovation serves a grander vision: transforming from a men's apparel company into a cultural force that builds confidence and community for decades.

Maybe AI Can Make Us More Human

Key takeaways:

• AI democratization beats top-down mandates: True Classic's most successful AI implementations emerged organically from employees identifying their own repetitive tasks, then building weekend solutions that eliminated Monday-morning drudgery
• The three-pillar AI framework: An approach that includes Generative (content creation), Operational (workflow automation), and Insights (proactive business intelligence) provides a comprehensive structure for organizational AI adoption
• Century-scale vision transcends tactics: Brands seeking longevity must graduate from channel arbitrage to culture creation. By moving beyond riding existing cultural waves to generating entirely new categories, they can win and keep customers for years
• Empathy becomes a competitive advantage: As AI handles data analysis, human intuition and emotional intelligence become the irreplaceable differentiators in brand strategy and customer connection
• [00:17:20] “AI isn’t going to eliminate our jobs. It’s going to push our brains to the absolute limits. We’ll have to use our imagination more than we ever have.” – Brian Lange
• [00:17:49] “It’s going to make us more empathetic… As marketers, we’ve obsessed over the data. AI lets us return to thinking about the customer—their life stage, their needs, their emotions.” – Bryan Cano
• [00:27:09] “Just how Apple made technology accessible, we want to do the same for style and confidence. We want it to be effortless.” – Bryan Cano

Associated Links:

• Learn more about True Classic
• Learn more about Triple Whale
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