Hello, dear readers!

United is my favorite airline. After amassing almost 1.5 millions miles, I have always found it markedly better than American Airlines (which I have to fly more since moving to Dallas). So this criticism comes from a place of love…

What is United CEO Scott Kirby thinking? 

With oil prices rocketing and customer wallets looking increasingly empty, United is doubling down on its massive premiumization play. Whether this high-stakes gamble will pay off in the cutthroat rivalry with Delta is the question of the decade for the airline sector. Scroll down for a full analysis. 

I also explore the seven leadership practices that turn standard groups into “Superteams.” According to psychologist Ron Friedman, the secret to elite performance is simple: Superteams out-learn their competitors. Check out the seven practices below.

This issue features the usual bunch of AI Insights and recommendations for the week's podcasts, books, shows, charts, and tweets, followed by a final chuckle.

Let’s get going.

Industry Highlights: United bets on premium

For decades, the airline industry has operated on a simple premise: flying is a commodity. You competed on price, you crammed in as many seats as possible, and you hoped the price of oil remained stable before your next quarterly earnings call. But under the hood of United Airlines, a philosophical shift is currently being flight-tested.

United CEO Scott Kirby is turning away from the traditional model of being a bus in the sky. Instead, it is doubling down on a premium identity that resembles a high-end tech ecosystem with wings. Looking at this strategy in the context of the current climate, the question remains whether this (expensive) pivot toward luxury can survive a world that is increasingly volatile.

The premium arms race

To understand where United is heading, look at its main rival, Delta. For years, Delta has been the gold standard for premium domestic travel, boasting higher profit margins and a more loyal corporate base. United’s current strategy is a well-funded attempt to catch up and eventually overtake that position.

United has poured billions into a structural overhaul of the passenger experience. While competitors like American Airlines have been slower to retrofit older planes with seatback screens, United has gone all-in. The company ordered hundreds of new Boeing and Airbus jets equipped with high-definition entertainment, oversized overhead bins, and dedicated power outlets for every seat.

These upgrades are designed to fuel the broader ecosystem. The more perks United offers, the more enticing its credit cards become to consumers. In the modern airline business, loyalty programs are the primary drivers of cash flow. United’s MileagePlus program generated over $5 billion in 2019, and that number continues to grow. By building better lounges and more intuitive apps, United is locking in the high-spending traveler who treats their airline choice like a lifestyle commitment.

Surviving the geopolitical climate

The timing of this luxury push is bold, considering the current geopolitical climate. With the ongoing war in Iran pushing oil prices ever upwards, the industry is entering a period of extreme financial pressure. Kirby has described this situation as like being “in the gravity of a black hole.”

In this landscape, United’s strategy is built on the survival of the fittest. The bet suggests that while budget carriers like Spirit and Frontier are hemorrhaging cash and facing potential liquidation, the legacy carriers can use their premium revenue to weather the storm. United has already started cutting back on less lucrative regional routes to protect its margins and focusing on high-traffic international hubs. 

Turf war at O’Hare

Perhaps the most visible battlefield for United’s next chapter is Chicago’s O’Hare. United and American are currently locked in a brutal competition at the hub, with both airlines aggressively adding flights to crowd out the other. United has publicly estimated that American lost hundreds of millions at the airport last year. This suggests that the premium-heavy model might be better suited to handle the high costs of a major hub than a more commodity-focused approach.

The flight path ahead

United’s next move relies as much on technology as it does on turbofans. The rollout of Starlink Wi-Fi across the entire fleet and the introduction of Relax Row, which allows economy passengers to transform seats into a flat bed, shows an airline trying to innovate its way out of the commodity trap.

The strategy carries significant risk. Massive aircraft orders and lounge expansions require immense capital, and there is little room for error in a high-cost and high-interest-rate world. For now, United is betting that the future belongs to the airline that can convince travelers to pay for the experience rather than just the transportation. Whether this gamble pays off or becomes an expensive lesson in hubris will define the industry’s trajectory for the rest of the decade.

What do you think? Is the average flyer really crying out for a more premium experience? Or do people just want low-cost and reliability?

The Future of Work: 7 Ways to Build A Superteam

In the spring of 2022, the Oklahoma City Thunder sat at the bottom of the NBA standings. Just three seasons later, they became the youngest roster ever to secure a number-one seed and a championship. While most observers credited raw talent, psychologist Ron Friedman argues the real driver was something more scientific: a commitment to rapid, collective learning.

In his new book, Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams, Friedman reveals that the highest-performing groups possess a unique edge: they out-learn their competition. Drawing on a study of over 6,000 knowledge workers, Friedman identifies seven research-backed practices that turn standard groups into elite units.

1. Run more experiments

Superteams evolve by trying new things, even during winning streaks. Friedman’s research shows these teams experiment nearly 50% more than average peers. Most teams stop asking questions once they find a workable solution, but superteams treat success as a baseline for the next trial. Leaders of these teams make it safe to fail and are three times more likely to reward intelligent risks.

2. Make curiosity contagious

The know-it-all boss is unlikely to manage a high-performing team. Superteam leaders are 33% more likely to admit when they lack information. This intellectual humility builds psychological safety, allowing the rest of the team to admit their own gaps. When a leader says they are not sure and suggests finding out together, they transform learning from an individual burden into a team effort.

3. Ask the stalling question

Meetings often turn into theater where everyone pretends everything is under control. Superteams break this cycle by asking: "What are you stuck on?" This simple prompt normalizes challenges and turns individual hurdles into shared problems. At Microsoft, for example, this is formalized through Scrum meetings where the focus remains on what is blocking progress rather than just what was done.

4. Get back in the trenches

There is a massive difference between micromanaging and "Founder Mode." Friedman found that the best leaders remain involved once a strategy is set. They stay close to the work to model standards and spot roadblocks in real time. Working shoulder to shoulder with the team actually lowers leader stress because it replaces reactive firefighting with proactive visibility.

5. Frame feedback as support

90% of workers in Superteams say feedback motivates them rather than demoralizes them. The secret is keeping the brain in learning mode. When a mistake happens, elite leaders treat it as useful data rather than a personal failing. By lowering the emotional tension, they ensure the team stays curious when the stakes are highest.

6. Support personal growth

Supporting an employee’s side hustle can actually boost their engagement at their day job. Superteam leaders view personal growth as a net positive even if it does not directly benefit the company. People who stretch themselves creatively outside of work bring that expanded capacity back to the office.

7. Lead with meaning

Metrics tell you where you are, but meaning tells you why you are going there. Superteam leaders are 59% more effective at connecting daily tasks to a larger mission. That sense of purpose can ensure the whole team moves forward together even when the numbers do not go your way.

To me, these seven practices read like common sense, yet they remain strikingly rare in the wild. If organizations actually treated growth as a collective experiment rather than a managerial chore, we might finally see a reversal in the global decline in employee engagement.

AI Insights

• Musk warns in court against a “Terminator outcome”: Elon Musk’s $130 billion legal assault on OpenAI has reached the courtroom, with the Tesla CEO testifying that the pivot to a for-profit structure was a "betrayal" of its founding humanitarian mission. While Musk paints himself as the guardian of AI safety, OpenAI’s defense has been more pointed, characterizing the suit as a move by a regretful competitor to derail a rival’s upcoming blockbuster IPO.

• Google signs Pentagon deal: Google has officially joined OpenAI and xAI in signing a classified deal with the Department of War to provide AI models for sensitive military use. While the contract explicitly prohibits autonomous weapons without human oversight (there’s that “Terminator outcome” again), it grants the government broad authority for "any lawful purpose," effectively stripping away the standard commercial guardrails that typically govern these tools.

• “Talkie” AI model trained only on text published before 1931: A chat-bot that talks like F. Scott Fitzgerald? Where do I sign? Researchers Nick Levine, David Duvenaud, and Alec Radford have debuted Talkie, a 13B parameter model trained exclusively on text published before 1931. By intentionally stripping away the internet and every piece of modern data, the team is testing whether AI can "think" when its worldview is frozen in the early 20th century. The researchers used historical etiquette manuals and cookbooks to define its persona, resulting in a model that is "cut from a different cloth" than the homogenous, internet-trained assistants we use today.

The Supply Aside

📕 Read - Apple: The First 50 Years

David Pogue marks Apple’s half century milestone with a definitive retrospective on the company that defined modern consumer electronics. This is a study of a culture that prioritized subversive design and obsessively tight control over its manufacturing ecosystem. Pogue leverages interviews with over 150 insiders, from Steve Wozniak to Jony Ive, to dismantle long-standing corporate myths while documenting the transition from a scruffy startup to the most valuable entity on the planet. 

The narrative tracks the shift from Steve Jobs’s era of creative rebellion to Tim Cook’s mastery of global scale and supply chain dominance. Pogue also explores the instructive failures like the Apple III and MobileMe, proving that even the most disciplined companies experience friction when moving too fast.

What Else I’m Reading

• Employees forced to use phone pouches: Companies are increasingly reaching for lockable pouches to separate employees from their phone screens, a tactic usually reserved for the middle school classroom. While leadership justifies the move as a boost for data security and "culture," some see this as a step toward treating grown professionals like distracted teenagers who can't be trusted to manage their own focus.

• Why you should volunteer for the next business trip: With corporate travel budgets shrinking, the road trip is becoming a rare commodity for junior staff. This article argues that the savvy career move for up-and-comers is to lobby for those open seats. Hitting the road offers an education by osmosis that Zoom cannot replicate, placing younger professionals in the rooms where deals are cut and reputations are built.

• Pepsi turnaround: After years of playing second fiddle to Coca-Cola, Pepsi is attempting a turnaround by mimicking its rival’s lean strategy. Facing pressure from activist investors and the rise of weight-loss drugs, the company is trimming its sprawling snack portfolio and considering outsourcing its domestic bottling.

📺 Watch - Fifty Years with Ryan Petersen

In this interview, Flexport founder Ryan Petersen dismisses the common obsession with "chauffeur knowledge" (surface level trends) in favor of a deeper look at why the U.S. continues to lag behind Rotterdam in maritime tech. He offers a blunt assessment of the structural hurdles facing global logistics, from the 11% of ocean trade currently mired in customs fraud to the organizational inertia that famously sank DHL’s billion dollar IBM project. The discussion moves beyond freight to address the broader economic landscape, including the "overproduction of elites" and the high pay in traditionally low-status roles. Petersen remains a skeptic of the AI-driven "one-person company," calling it a pointless exercise that ignores the reality of how scale functions in the physical world.

👂 Listen - The Knowledge Project: Greg Brockman

Did you know about the “Phoenix project” at OpenAI? In this rare first person account, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman breaks down the internal mechanics of the world’s most influential AI lab. This is a tactical breakdown of how a decade long technical plan survived a 72 hour leadership implosion.

Brockman details the transition from a pure nonprofit to a capped profit entity, a move necessitated by the sheer scale of compute required to move beyond simple prediction. The conversation pivots into the chaos of November 2023, revealing how a backup company, internally dubbed "Phoenix," was designed at Sam Altman’s house within hours of their ousting. Ilya Sutskever’s eventual reversal served as the pivot point that preserved the company's talent density.

An interesting podcast episode, particularly in the context of the current court battle between Musk and OpenAI.

🧠 Think: CEOs are the new media

OpenAI just spent hundreds of millions buying a tech bro podcast. Sam Altman decided that instead of managing the narrative, he would rather own the room where it gets shaped.

He is not alone. The modern CEO no longer limits themselves to polished statements and earnings calls. Tech founders, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, and even accounting firms are pumping out podcasts, newsletters, videos, and long-form takes.

Part of this is smart. Direct access beats filtered coverage every time. Why let someone else explain your business when you can speak directly to customers, investors, employees, and policymakers? But there is a risk. The more leaders talk, the more we see. Sometimes that builds trust. Sometimes it reveals ego, oddness, or a worldview that could use a little editing.

The future of corporate influence may not be press releases. It may be whoever owns the microphone.

Charts of the Week

…And a stunning picture of Earth, taken by the Artemis mission.

Quote of the Week

Tweet of the Week

The Final Chuckle

Thanks so much for reading. I’d love to know what you think about this issue and how I can make it more useful to you. If you have suggestions or topics you want to see me address, email me at [email protected]!

-- Naseem