The Intelligence After Intelligence

Mutation, myth, and the architecture of meaning.

Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking at the House of Beautiful Business Open House, part of the ongoing #PolyOpportunity series in partnership with the Acosta Institute and The Holon Institute. Still glowing from their Tangier festival and looking ahead to the Istanbul Bootcamp next month, the House brought together a luminous group of minds to explore the evolving role of brands, marketing, and identity in an increasingly entangled world.

I shared the virtual stage with two brilliant forces:

Seth Matlins, Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network, former Global CMO of Live Nation, and one of the clearest, kindest voices in branding today.

Nayeema Raza, journalist, podcaster, and interviewer extraordinaire—whose work spans The New York Times to NPR, always asking the questions others shy away from.

The conversation roamed widely; from AI’s encroaching influence to the messy mechanics of authenticity in a post-truth era. But at the heart of it was a shared question:

What now?
If we can’t rely on logic alone, if the old tools of persuasion and positioning no longer serve - what do we build instead?

My talk was a starter-for-ten. A provocation. Not a polished map, but a navigational hunch. Not doomerism. Not blind techno-evangelism. Something stranger. Slower. Possibly more human.

We need new avenues of exploration.
A new cognitive layer.
New tools. New values.
New orientation systems for meaning inside chaos.

You’ll be missing the voiceover (sorry), but I hope this rough cut sparks something.
More soon.