Tech Messaging: Fluff, Guff & Same Old Word Soup

I analysed the website home page of 25 start-ups, 25 mid-sized tech firms, 25 enterprise software companies and 25 IT services firms to see how tech companies explain who they are, what they do and why they matter? What I found was that tech companies suffer from ‘sameness’. Is this a problem? And if so, should you do something about it in an era where AI slop is turning ‘sameness’ into commercial risk. I invite you to read my analysis and download the research report, access below.

^{CHITTER CHATTER}

The Workday Ends. Fight to Stay Employable Begins.

If you think 8 hours of work a day proves your value, you’d be wrong. With hiring of traditional engineering roles flat or declined, many tech workers are spending their free time after work upskilling on AI. Mass layoffs in the US and to some degree in Australia are likely driving this after-hours activity, with Business Insider reporting that “an Ernst & Young survey of more than 1,000 US desk workers across six industries conducted last year, found that 85% were learning how to use AI outside of work.” While a bunch of people are racing home to master the technology that might eventually replace them, the next generation isn’t that enthusiastic. Gen Z students are booing AI executives because they fear there won’t be jobs for them. Welcome to the future of work. Job insecurity for all.

Not Good News

Inside the Elite’s Very Lame Secret Club

Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, political powerbroker and Silicon Valley’s most committed student of how civilisation might end, is in the news again. It’s bad enough that last year he delivered private lectures about the Antichrist, Armageddon and AI, now comes news of Dialog, the secretive network Thiel co-founded for politicians, technology executives, financiers, academics and people with close links to the military and intelligence worlds.

A leaked 2026 registration list reportedly contains 222 names. But the interesting part is not that some of the world’s richest and most influential people meet behind closed doors. It’s what they reportedly discuss once inside. Sessions at Dialog gatherings have included titles such as ‘Navigating WWIII’, ‘Build-a-Cult’ and ‘How’s Your Sex Life?’ The organisation also appears to offer an elite matchmaking function. Apparently, planning for the collapse of civilisation need not interfere with your dating life.

There is, however, one small problem. A group built partly around privacy and discretion reportedly left sensitive member information and website credentials exposed online. The people preparing for World War III forgot to password-protect the guest list. While ordinary workers spend their evenings learning AI to avoid becoming unemployed, the people with actual power are privately discussing global war, cult construction, sexual fulfilment and which other rich people might be useful to know.

Nothing to worry about.

Tech Fails

“AI Might Be Wrong” Is Not a Legal Defence

Europe: Google’s AI Overviews falsely linked two German publishers to scams, subscription fraud and questionable business practices. The cited sources didn’t make those allegations but Google’s AI had combined unrelated information and generated new defamatory claims. Google argued that AI Overviews warns users that mistakes are possible and information should be checked. A German court was unimpressed. It ruled that Google could be held responsible because the tool creates new statements using technology Google designed and operates. It ordered Google to remove much of the material and pay 80% of the legal costs. Fallout? A dangerous new concept has been introduced into the AI industry: Accountability. Ha! Sounds good to me.

^SUBTEXT

The Waffle: “AI is more than a nothing burger, but it’s less than the total transformation of our society.” — Peter Thiel, June 2025

Translation:
Something is happening. Possibly even something important. But not so important that I’m prepared to say exactly what.

A condition affecting wealthy tech obsessives who believe they can outsmart death, manipulate markets and redesign civilisation, but are terrified nobody will love them for themselves. Symptoms: secret retreats, longevity regimes and private jets to invitation-only dinners with other megalomaniacs. Side effects: emotional malnutrition, compulsive networking and lonely nights counting their billions lying under organic linen sheets. Cure: stop treating human connection like a merger. Talk to people without requesting their net worth, genetic profile or strategic usefulness.

Agent Washing: The practice of taking an ordinary chatbot, automated workflow or AI assistant, renaming it an ‘agent’ and hoping nobody asks whether it can actually act independently.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

Unhinged Reality TV Show

Have you heard of Fishtank'? It’s a reality TV show that makes Big Brother look positively boring and tame? Here’s the basics: Contestants live for weeks inside a “fully monitored smart house” packed with cameras, microphones and speakers. Almost every room is broadcast live, unedited, 24 hours a day. Viewers choose which surveillance feed to watch, effectively editing their own version of the show. They can also pay to interfere. Messages typed online blast through speakers inside the house in real time. Viewers vote on challenges and send contestants rewards, advantages or targeted abuse, sometimes while they’re trying to sleep. The contestants respond by fighting, stripping, screaming slurs, throwing urine, attempting to smear excrement and completing challenges involving humiliation and physical pain. I read the Wired piece about this ‘social experiment’ with equal parts fascination and horror. Is technology exposing the unravelling of civility or feeding it?

Dear Dr Comms
I’m the personal assistant to an insane tech billionaire who organises secret meetings with rich and powerful people. Yesterday, I accidentally emailed the agenda for his next shin ding to someone outside of the cabal list. It includes sessions on manipulating markets, influencing governments, surviving the apocalypse and finding true love. I’m worried my boss won’t just fire me. He’ll, you know… I’ve packed a bag and am currently hiding at a petrol station somewhere outside of ‘Dodge’. How do I escape before my evil boss’s private security thugs hunt me down? Yours, The Cabal Agenda Leaker

Dear Agenda Leaker
What a pickle! Let’s see how the specialists can help:

🚛 Lorry Driver:
“Hide inside a truck carrying canned beans. Billionaire survivalists avoid carbohydrates, so nobody will inspect it. Head north and answer only to ‘Lonely Lapdog’.”

🏠 Real Estate Agent:
“Meet me at the corner of Market and George Street with $50,000 in cash. I’ll give you a list of vacant houses where you can hide for six-12 months. By then, your crazy ex-boss will be distracted with organising a big wedding to his long-time AI hologram girlfriend.”

🏚️ Budget Motel Manager:
“Check into Room 67 under the name Harry. The Wi-Fi is dead, the cameras stopped working in 2014 and nobody wealthy has entered since the minibar lost its sparkling water.”

Management Finds its Footing

^{BIN THIS…}

Otherwise people might think you’re inferring that some departments used to be filled with stupid people, but now with AI, everyone can be smarter.

Tech Messaging: Fluff, Guff & Same Old Word Soup

I analysed the website home page of 25 start-ups, 25 mid-sized tech firms, 25 enterprise software companies and 25 IT services firms to see how tech companies explain who they are, what they do and why they matter? What I found was that tech companies suffer from ‘sameness’. Is this a problem? And if so, should you do something about it in an era where AI slop is turning ‘sameness’ into commercial risk. I invite you to read my analysis and download the research report, access below.

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

You can also subscribe to my other newsletter, Lead Different, for a serious take on strategic communications in B2B tech.