Category Pirates

Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate, This episode is about the most undervalued skill in the world right now: thinking. Not “consuming content” thinking. Not “I read a thread on X” thinking. Not “my algorithm told me what to believe” thinking. Real thinking. The kind where you sit with an idea long enough that it changes you. We call this Thinker’s High . Today, we’re talking about where...

Good CEOs obsess over the scoreboard. Great CEOs obsesses over how the game is played. That’s the difference between managing a P&L and creating a category. In this conversation, we sit down with Clint Carnell —a CEO who’s held the title six different times across 27 years. Not because he couldn’t make one company work. But because he mastered the category pattern that makes every company work. Mo...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe For 30 years, books have been one of the only products in the world that haven’t increased in price. A hardcover business book in 1997? $27. A hardcover business book today? $28. Meanwhile: Gas, meals, and movie tickets have doubled. College tuiti...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Most companies calculate TAM like accountants. But Category Designers? They size it like visionaries. Because belief beats spreadsheets. And when you combine both? That’s how you unlock The Trillion Dollar Future. In this audiobook, you’ll learn h...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Peter Drucker defined the 20th-century executive but he never imagined fleets of AI agents. The Agentic Executive is a bold redefinition of modern leadership.\ Not managing more people. Managing more agents. Because in the AI-first world, leverage...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe The education system isn’t broken. It’s just training people for a world that no longer exists. This audiobook names a reality most parents, teachers, and institutions feel—but struggle to say out loud: We’re teaching Native Digital students with...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Churn isn’t a retention problem. It’s a category problem. Most companies treat churn like a leak in the bucket: Lower the price. Add a discount. Send more emails. That doesn’t fix churn. It just attracts the wrong customers faster. This audiobook...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Great operators already know this in their bones: Complexity slows you down. Simplicity moves the market. When customers hesitate… When sales stall… When teams argue… When strategies drag… The problem is rarely effort. It’s friction. Simplicity is...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Recessions don’t kill businesses. Fighting for demand does. When the economy tightens, most companies panic. They discount. They compete harder. They spend more to make less. And that’s exactly why they lose. This audiobook makes a simple but cont...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe School taught you how to follow rules. This audiobook teaches you how to get paid. Most adults will tell you to: Get a “real” job. Work minimum wage. Wait your turn. Go to college. Figure it out later. That advice made sense in a world that no lon...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe A founder-level, no-spin look at how Category Pirates actually make decisions. Using data most companies would ignore, delete, or never think to collect. This isn’t a success story. It’s a below-deck audit. If you really believe in Category Design...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Very few companies are actually category creators. This mini-book isn’t here to inspire you. It’s here to score you. Using real data from the fastest-growing companies in the world, the Category Design Scorecard answers one uncomfortable question:...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Netflix doesn’t have a content problem. It has a category problem. Everyone thinks Netflix’s next move is obvious: More shows. More IP. More gaming. This mini-book argues something far more uncomfortable: Gaming isn’t Netflix’s future. Creators ar...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Great ideas don’t scale by accident. They scale because they’re engineered to. Part I showed you why most books fail before they’re written. This mini-book shows you how to design one that doesn’t. If Part I is the diagnosis, Part II is the bluepr...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Arrrrr! 🏴‍☠️ Welcome to a 🔒 founders-only edition 🔒 of Category Pirates. Each week, we share radically different ideas to help you design new and different categories. Founding subscribers can access the entire archive of 200+ mini-books and au...

If your career plan makes sense on paper, it’s probably holding you back. Legendary careers are built through side quests, curiosity, and the courage to follow signal. That’s how you end up somewhere interesting. In this episode, we turn the mic toward Bri Clark —the person who recently stepped into the role of Head of Operations for Category Pirates—to share how she thinks, how she works, and why...

It takes a ton of courage to tell one of the largest publishing houses on earth: “No thanks.” But Paul Millerd did exactly that on a call with Penguin. He built a different path for himself when writing and publishing The Pathless Path . One with sovereignty instead of gatekeepers. Ownership instead of permission. And pricing designed for value, not for volume. This Creator Capitalist podcast is a...

Ian Roberts spent his life becoming a creative. He built his career the Native Analog way, spending 25 years teaching painting workshops in Provence, France. He mastered the craft of composition and learned what makes a person come alive when they create. He’s also sold 60,000 copies of his book, Mastering Composition , a subject almost no one else had the courage to claim. Then, at an age when mo...

When a business spirals, it rarely happens because demand disappears. Often, it’s because the economics were rotten long before anyone noticed. Revenue masked it. ROAS disguised it. “Growth” rationalized it. And everyone inside the company is too siloed, rushed, or optimistic to ask the question that matters: Is this business creating or destroying value? The answer is directly connected to the co...

Walk into any boardroom today, and you’ll feel the quiet unease of leaders trying to make sense of artificial intelligence. Most companies are racing to adopt AI. But few are asking an important question: Who’s governing it? If CEOs will soon manage more AI agents than employees, governance becomes the single most important capability a company can build. Sue Barsamian helps businesses build towar...

Most companies see AI as a shortcut to efficiency. Fewer meetings. Fewer people. Fewer problems. But that’s an Obvious way to use AI. As the Head Coach of Outside In Leading and former HydraFacial Chief Talent Officer Deb Rodriguez explores the Non-Obvious application of AI: “If you’re only using AI to remove work, you’re missing the point. The future is about multiplying the people who create the...

When hundreds of companies were fighting for urban telecom towers, Melissa Andrews walked the other way. Instead of battling in the obvious market, she and her husband Tom went where almost no one was looking. The farm. Together, their first act was turning rooftops into telecom platforms when everyone else just saw buildings. That overlooked idea became a thriving business. But in 2019 they asked...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Super Consumers. Super Agents. Super Advantage. If you want to win in the AI era, don’t build for the average. Build for your supers. Then train your AI to think like them. In this mini-book, we reveal the future of category creation: AI Super Con...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Arrrrr! 🏴‍☠️ Welcome to a 🔒 founders-only edition 🔒 of Category Pirates. Each week, we share radically different ideas to help you design new and different categories. Founding subscribers can access the entire archive of 200+ mini-books and au...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.categorypirates.news/subscribe Most marketing is broken. Not because teams are dumb or products are weak, but because the playbook is stale. Peanut butter marketing (marketing spread evenly across every platform) creates noise, not momentum. That’s why Category Designers don’t...