# Kevin Meyer
> Ruminations on life, leadership, lean, and zen.
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. Use `/llms-full.txt` for consolidated page and post context.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).

## Pages
- [Annual Bhāvanā](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/annual-bhavana.md) - Bhāvanā: A yearly cultivation of the self through one ambitious, reflective goal—physical, mental, or spiritual. For over 30 years I've tried to identify one major goal to accomplish each year that is outside of my comfort zone. When I was younger these goals were more physical, but lately they hav…
- [Archives - 2004 and Earlier](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2004.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 24, 2004 — Excellence through Simplicity Dec 11, 2004 — Lean Manufacturing Conferences Dec 5, 2004 — What's Right in Government Dec 1, 2004 — Going to the Gemba Nov 28, 2004 — Metrics & Reality Nov 27, 2004 — Thinking Better Nov 27, 2004 — 10 commandments Nov 25, 2004 — MIT O…
- [Archives - 2005](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2005.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 31 — Lean Manufacturing in the Home - Some New Year's Resolutions Dec 29 — A Lean Look at Task Management Dec 28 — Are Employees Really Your Most Important Asset? Dec 25 — Keep an Eye on Iraq Dec 24 — Are Houses Next? Dec 18 — The Importance of Giving Back Dec 18 — A New Must…
- [Archives - 2006](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2006.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 31 — Reminiscing... and Looking Forward Dec 30 — First Airbus, Now Volkswagen Dec 29 — Questioning Lean Dec 28 — Small and Great Dec 27 — A Sweeping Success Dec 26 — Understanding Lean at Whirlpool Dec 26 — Productivity Myths - Real Studies and Data Dec 24 — Productivity Myth…
- [Archives - 2007](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2007.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 27 — New Year's Resolution: Simplify and Learn Dec 26 — The Myopia of the Pessimists Dec 24 — Chaotic Furrballs Dec 23 — Lost in Translation Dec 22 — Fun With Statistics, Ethanol Edition Dec 21 — Update on the Candidates Dec 20 — Lean Diamonds in the Rough Dec 20 — Throwin' A…
- [Archives - 2008](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2008.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 31 — What Won't You Do in 2009? Dec 30 — Doonesbury on the Value of People Dec 29 — $20 Billion Company CEO... Takes the Bus Dec 26 — No Christmas? Celebrate Beltane! Dec 24 — Ban Supply or Decrease Demand? Dec 23 — It's Work Rules, Not Pay Dec 22 — Surviving China's Deep Con…
- [Archives - 2009](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2009.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 23 — GM's Dangerously Naive Overseers Dec 22 — Kaizen, Kaikaku, and Health Care Reform Dec 17 — Congratulations, Boeing Dec 13 — Smaller... and Smaller... Dec 10 — Outsourcing Retreats - And Not Just in Manufacturing Dec 8 — Michael Dell, Meet Jørgen Vig Knudstorp Dec 6 — The…
- [Archives - 2010](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2010.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 26 — Southeast Asian Grand Tour: Thailand, Cambodia, and Hong Kong Dec 23 — If we build it... Dec 21 — Incenting the Positive vs. Restricting the Negative Dec 16 — A Short Term Duel to Mediocrity Dec 15 — How Do You Get Through To Them? Dec 14 — The Value of 0.07 Seconds Dec…
- [Archives - 2011](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2011.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 26 — Holiday Hansei and the Power of Why and How Dec 19 — 2011 Annual Management Blog Review Dec 5 — Results-Based Policies and Procedures Nov 29 — Conflicted Toyota Nov 24 — Happy Thanksgiving - Don't Forget the Miracles Around Us! Nov 18 — Still Waiting on the Whambulance..…
- [Archives - 2012](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2012.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 26 — Uruguay: South America's Hidden Gem - A Perfect Summer Escape Dec 21 — Filling in the Other Eye Dec 16 — 2012 Management Improvement Blog Review Dec 4 — Contextual Comparison Nov 30 — You're Good When You Think You're Bad Nov 24 — The Lean Value of Coffee Nov 16 — 5 Ques…
- [Archives - 2013](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2013.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 7 — About that "Human Error"... Nov 13 — Reflections on 25 Years of Lean - with Womack, Shook, and Jones Oct 19 — Of Meetings, Metrics and Dishwashing Sep 29 — Of Maps, ERP, and Basic Thinking Sep 26 — Bhutan & Nepal: Himalayan Kingdoms of Beauty and Spirituality Sep 21 — Eij…
- [Archives - 2014](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/archives-2014.md) - ← Back to Archives Dec 26 — Panama Christmas: Engineering Marvels and Holiday Giving Dec 14 — Reflecting on the Intentional Routine Nov 27 — Gratitude, for Gratitude Nov 8 — Airbnb and Uber - From Batch to One Piece Flow Jun 28 — On Asiana, Driverless Cars, and Factories Jun 26 — African Adventure:…
- [Bio](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/bio.md) - "If you seek tranquility, do less, better." - Marcus Aurelius I retired in early 2023 and now enjoy reading, pickleball, cooking, beach walks, traveling, and exploring a wide range of topics including lean methodologies, AI, and consciousness research. My wife and I live in Morro Bay, California, a…
- [Blog](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/blog.md)
- [Books](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/books.md) - The Simple Leader: Personal and Professional Leadership at the Nexus of Lean and Zen Lean manufacturing principles, also known as the Toyota Production System, are very effective at streamlining and reducing waste in organizations. Zen concepts can help create a calm, peaceful, and focused personal…
- [Connect](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/connect.md) - Connect with Kevin: * LinkedIn Email, phone, and the contact form have been removed due to excessive spam. Sorry for the inconvenience.
- [Cooking](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/cooking.md) - Retirement has given me something I didn't fully appreciate during my working years: time to cook without rushing. What started as making better dinners a couple years ago has evolved into genuine enjoyment of the process - the research, the technique, the experimentation. Last year I took it furth…
- [Home](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/home-6872d800fd8b84001bce64ff.md)
- [Patents](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/patents.md) - In my early career I was lucky enough to get a few patents, three of which are for a design still used in auto headlights today and one of which is still used in many emergency lighting systems. United States Patent 4,912,360 - Lamp With Two Internal Capsules Abstract: A double filamented lamp with…
- [Travel](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/travel.md) - We love to travel and have visited over 70 countries. Here are some of our favorite itineraries. 1. Antigua: The Beaches of Antigua 2. Argentina: A Week of Relaxation, Culture, and Culinary Delights | Patagonian Dreams and Andean Lakes 3. Aruba: Windsurfing Aruba 4. Australia: From Tasmania's Wilde…

## Posts
- [Rotating Emergency Inventory: What Japan's Vending Machines Actually Do in an Earthquake](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/rotating-emergency-inventory-what-japans-vending-machines-actually-do-in-an-earthquake.md) - A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture a couple weeks ago. Within a few hours came the usual flood: drone footage of a partially collapsed shopping mall, a paper mill chimney down in Yatsushiro, tsunami advisories issued and lifted, and a rising tide of confident explanation from people…
- [The Struggle to Do Less, Better](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-struggle-to-do-less-better.md) - I haven't set an alarm in decades. My body always wakes me a little after 4:30am, I get ready, read for a bit, and I'm at the gym when the doors unlock at 5. I love that hour. The parking lot is empty, the world hasn't started making noise yet, and I've gotten myself into the best shape of my life…
- [Spiced Quinoa with Charred Poblano, Sweet Potato, Pomegranate & Walnut Cream](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/spiced-quinoa-with-charred-poblano-sweet-potato-pomegranate-walnut-cream.md) - A vegetarian grain-bowl reconstruction of United Airlines' "Spiced Quinoa" — itself a deconstruction of the Mexican classic chiles en nogada Serves: 4 | Total time: ~50 minutes | Difficulty: Moderate | Diet: Vegetarian Origin Charred poblano, walnut cream sauce, and pomegranate seeds are the three…
- [That Unsettling Feeling When AI Works but We Don't Understand Why](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/that-unsettling-feeling-when-ai-works-but-we-dont-understand-why.md) - In 1969 Volker Strassen found a way to multiply two 4×4 matrices using 49 scalar multiplications instead of the obvious 64. The trick went into textbooks and stayed there. For 56 years the best mathematicians alive tried to shave off one more multiplication and failed. Last May, Google DeepMind's A…
- [Are Boring Insurance Actuaries Actually the Most Important Drivers of Rapid Technological Change?](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/are-boring-insurance-actuaries-actually-the-most-important-drivers-of-rapid-technological-change.md) - For years I've predicted that the tipping point for autonomous vehicles will arrive on an actuary's spreadsheet. Once insurers accumulate enough loss data to prove that self-driving systems crash less often than humans, they'll start writing bifurcated policies: one price if the software drives, a…
- [Clericó Fruit Salad — "La Final" (Spain vs. Argentina)](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/clerico-fruit-salad-la-final-spain-vs-argentina.md) - From my Cooking the World series... A sangria-meets-clericó macerated fruit salad for the 2026 World Cup Final Serves: 10 Total time: ~30 minutes active + 2–6 hours maceration Difficulty: Easy Diet: Vegetarian (vegan if honey is swapped for agave) Origins & Social Context Clericó is Argentina and U…
- [What your brain is hiding from you](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/what-your-brain-is-hiding-from-you.md) - Right now, sitting wherever you are, you're surrounded by things you cannot perceive. Radio waves from a dozen stations are passing through your body. Your neighbor's dog is communicating in ultrasonic frequencies your ears can't detect. Bees in the garden outside can see ultraviolet patterns on fl…
- [First the revenge of the trades, now the humanities are laughing](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/first-the-revenge-of-the-trades-now-the-humanities-are-laughing.md) - One of my few real regrets in life is choosing to go to an almost entirely engineering school. I got a first-rate education in thermodynamics and reaction kinetics, and almost nothing that forced me to sit across from a history major or a philosophy student and defend how I saw the world. I told my…
- [The Discomfort of Just Observing](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-discomfort-of-just-observing.md) - The New York Times just published another installment of its focus challenge series: an ultra-high-resolution photograph of the Grand Central Terminal ceiling, stitched together from 232 close-up images, with a simple instruction. Look at it. Just look, for 10 minutes. I took the challenge. It near…
- [The mirror we built](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-mirror-we-built.md) - There's a strange pattern in how people respond when asked whether large language models are genuinely intelligent. Regular people shrug and say yes, obviously. AI researchers and computational neuroscientists tie themselves in knots explaining why they're not. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google's CTO o…
- [The Org Chart Lean Spent Decades Flattening, AI Just Skipped](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-org-chart-lean-spent-decades-flattening-ai-just-skipped.md) - I came across the paper behind this post through Azeem Azhar's Exponential View newsletter, in a short item noting that AI-native startups start smaller and stay smaller than non-AI-native startups. Reading the actual research behind it sent me somewhere Azhar didn't go: straight into the relations…
- [5 Days on Rhodes, Including a Great Laundry](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/5-days-on-rhodes-including-a-great-laundry.md) - We're closing out a month-long trip through Malta, Crete, and Rhodes, and Rhodes turned out to be the island where the history is so dense it's almost unfair to the other two. Malta gave us 7,000 years in 316 square kilometers. Rhodes gives you a single fortified Old Town where Hellenistic streets,…
- [Crete: Two Bases, One Civilization, and a Kid Problem](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/crete-two-bases-one-civilization-and-a-kid-problem.md) - Chania's old harbor at sunset is the kind of view that makes you stop mid-sentence. The Venetian quay curves around still water, the lighthouse catches the last light, and somewhere behind you the White Mountains are doing the same. I've now seen a lot of Mediterranean harbors. This one lands just…
- [While We Were Processing AI, Quantum Arrived](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/while-we-were-processing-ai-quantum-arrived.md) - Last month, several stocks in my quantum computing portfolio suddenly jumped between 12% and 39% over just two days. The reason: the Commerce Department announced $2 billion in CHIPS Act grants to nine quantum computing companies, taking equity stakes in each. IBM received the largest share — rough…
- [Malta: The Mediterranean Stop We Underestimated](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/malta-mediterranean-underestimated.md) - We’re a week into a month-long trip through Malta, Crete, and Rhodes. This is the first of three posts, on Malta, a place that surprised me. Getting to Malta was easy. We flew United nonstop from San Francisco to Zurich then connected to Swiss Air for the hop to Malta. Zurich has long been my favor…
- [I Don't Know What It Means](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/i-dont-know-what-it-means.md) - On May 25th, Pope Leo XIV stood in the Vatican's Synod Hall to present Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical. The document addresses AI and human dignity, deliberately echoing Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum from 1891, which addressed workers' rights during the Industrial Revolution. The symmetry…
- [The Credential was always a Workaround](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-credential-was-always-a-workaround.md) - Reading Azeem Azhar's recent piece on the unraveling of fictions sent me back to a fluid dynamics classroom in 1983 that I'd mostly tried to forget. (Damn, that was over 40 years ago...) I was a chemical engineering student drowning in theory, increasingly convinced that none of it had any connecti…
- [The Wrong Solution to an Unknown Problem](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/wrong-solution-unknown-problem.md) - Bill George is someone I usually agree with. He's been a consistent voice for principled leadership and organizational culture. So when he posted enthusiastic support on LinkedIn for Harvard's recent vote to cap undergraduate A grades at 20% of any class, and pointed to HBS's own 1-2-3 grading syst…
- [People Aren't on the Balance Sheet. That's the Problem.](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/people-arent-on-the-balance-sheet-thats-the-problem.md) - I've been ranting about this for nearly twenty years. The accounting treatment of people is broken, and almost nobody in a position to fix it is moving fast enough to matter. Bear with me while I get a little into the weeds. It started with a 2006 email from a Whirlpool worker I called Bob, one of…
- [The SpaceX IPO, SPaaS, and Why the Rocket Isn't the Point](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-spacex-ipo-spaas-and-why-the-rocket-isnt-the-point.md) - My wife occasionally wanders into my office early in the morning to find me talking to Claude on one screen while a collection of very colorful, constantly updating charts fills another. She used to laugh. Then I showed her the returns my specialized sector portfolios have been generating, and the…
- [Which Leaders Have the Guts to Actually Respect Human Nature?](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/which-leaders-have-the-guts-to-actually-respect-human-nature.md) - Jon Miller wrote something a few years ago at Gemba Academy that has stayed with me. The Toyota Way's second pillar is universally translated as "respect for people," but the original Japanese is ningensei (人間性), which means "human nature." The distinction matters more than it appears. "Respect for…
- [Who Built the Toyota Production System? A Recovered Archive and a Debate Worth Reading](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/who-built-the-toyota-production-system-a-recovered-archive-and-a-debate-worth-reading.md) - Almost 30 years ago I launched Superfactory.com, born out of my own lean journey and a desire to share what I was learning - and to play with this new technology called "the internet." (Holy crap I'm old...) Over 20 years it grew into a substantial resource hub, with a monthly e-newsletter that pea…
- [Veggie Khao Soi — Northern Thailand's Coconut Curry Noodle Soup](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/veggie-khao-soi-northern-thailands-coconut-curry-noodle-soup.md) - Serves: 4–5 Total time: ~55 minutes Difficulty: Moderate Diet: Vegetarian Background Khao Soi is one of the defining dishes of Northern Thailand, particularly associated with Chiang Mai and the surrounding region. Its roots reflect the area's historical position at the crossroads of trade routes co…
- [The Right Leadership Call, Built in Advance](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-right-leadership-call-built-in-advance.md) - I was in college in the fall of 1982 when seven people in Chicago died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. I remember the news coverage, the sudden paranoia around medicine cabinets, and the speed with which Johnson & Johnson responded. Forty-plus years later, I still remember it. That's not an ac…
- [The Innovation Engine We're Choosing to Break](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-innovation-engine-were-choosing-to-break.md) - I recently caught a Bloomberg interview with authors of a new book, Priority Technologies: Ensuring U.S. Security and Shared Prosperity, edited by MIT's Elisabeth Reynolds with a foreword by Nobel laureate economist Simon Johnson. Interesting enough that I went and read it. The book covers six tech…
- [The Framework Graveyard: What the Consulting Industry Did to Good Research](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-framework-graveyard-what-the-consulting-industry-did-to-good-research.md) - A few days ago I came across a LinkedIn series by Corina Enache, an anthropologist who has spent the past several weeks doing something I hadn't seen done before: methodically tracing management's most beloved frameworks back to their origins, and finding that what we actually use in organizations…
- [The F1 Pit Stop Analogy You Haven't Actually Used](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-f1-pit-stop-analogy-you-havent-actually-used.md) - Oh good. Another lean blog post using Formula 1 pit stops as a metaphor. Quick changeover! Standardized work! Roles clarity! You've seen it a hundred times. I've written something like it at least twice. At this point the F1 pit stop is practically the clip art of the lean world, a visual shorthand…
- [Cooking My Way Around the World: A Midyear Update](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/cooking-my-way-around-the-world-a-midyear-update.md) - At the start of 2026, I set myself a somewhat ambitious goal: cook traditional dishes from 30 different countries over the course of the year, hosting a weekly dinner for friends along the way. Ambitious because I'm a decent home cook, not a great one. That annual goal tradition is now in its third…
- [Porotos Granados — Chile's Summer Harvest Bean Stew](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/porotos-granados-chiles-summer-harvest-bean-stew.md) - Serves: 4 Total time: ~55 minutes Difficulty: Moderate Diet: Vegetarian (fully vegan) The Dish and Its Place in Chilean Life Porotos Granados — literally "remarkable beans" — is one of the most distinctly Chilean dishes in existence, and one of the few that has no meaningful parallel elsewhere. It…
- [The Pace We Didn't Plan For](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-pace-we-didnt-plan-for.md) - A few months ago, the dominant AI concern was jobs. Would it take yours? Which roles were safe and which weren't? That felt like the right level of worry for a technology that, as many still describe it, essentially guesses the next word in a sequence. Then Anthropic released Mythos, and the conver…
- [Yeoneo Jorim — Korea's Gochujang-Braised Salmon with Daikon, Rice, Sesame Spinach and Spicy Braised Tofu](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/yeoneo-jorim-koreas-gochujang-braised-salmon-with-daikon-rice-sesame-spinach-and-spicy-braised-tofu.md) - Serves: 4 Total time: ~55 minutes Diet: Pescatarian The Dish and Its Context Korea's culinary identity is inseparable from the concept of the banchan table — a constellation of small shared dishes surrounding a central bowl of rice. Where many cuisines organize a meal around a single dominant prepa…
- [When AI Goes Rogue: Lessons in Accountability](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-ai-goes-rogue-lessons-in-accountability.md) - One morning earlier this year, engineers at an Alibaba-affiliated AI research lab woke up to a cascade of security alerts. Attempts to probe internal network resources. Traffic patterns consistent with cryptocurrency mining. Their first assumption was a human intruder breaking into their systems. I…
- [AI Left the Chat Window. Now It's Doing Real Work.](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/ai-left-the-chat-window-now-its-doing-real-work.md) - For the past year or so I've written about using AI as a set of advisory teams, for financial management, and even for cooking. Each of those involved me typing questions and getting text back. Useful, even transformative in places, but still fundamentally a conversation. Then I started using Claud…
- [The Ends Don't Justify the Character](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-ends-dont-justify-the-character.md) - Bob Sutton posted something on LinkedIn this week that stopped me mid-scroll. He was flagging a Brené Brown interview in the Financial Times, in which she described a troubling shift: leaders feeling a sense of relief and permission from the current political climate to be, as she put it, the assho…
- [Zanzibari Pizza with Urojo Soup & Coconut Rice](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/zanzibari-pizza-with-urojo-soup-coconut-rice.md) - Serves: 4–5 Total active time: ~60 minutes Difficulty: Moderate Diet: Vegetarian The island of Zanzibar — officially Unguja, part of Tanzania — sits at one of history's great cultural crossroads. For centuries, Arab traders, Indian merchants, Bantu-speaking Africans, and eventually Portuguese and B…
- [The Intelligence Explosion: Human-AI Evolution, Not Singularity](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-intelligence-explosion-human-ai-evolution-not-singularity.md) - If you haven't used one of the major AI platforms in the last few weeks, you're making an increasingly costly mistake: judging a technology by a version that no longer exists. I hear it constantly. "AI hallucinates." "It just makes things up." "I tried it and it was wrong about everything." These c…
- [The Case for Intentional Imbalance: Why an Effective Brain, Leader, and Designer Needs Asymmetry](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-case-for-intentional-imbalance-why-an-effective-brain-leader-and-designer-needs-asymmetry.md) - There's a restorative yin yoga (and sound bath!) class I go to many evenings, mostly because it forces me to slow down and hold uncomfortable positions for longer than I'd like, which turns out to be good practice for a lot of things. It also reliably accelerates my transition into deep sleep short…
- [Intellectual Fitness Requires Intention](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/intellectual-fitness-requires-intention.md) - I've been waking up at 4:30am for the better part of three decades. In the early years it wasn't a choice so much as a condition of the job: I was managing a factory with a first shift that started at 6am, plus a commute, so the math was unforgiving. But that early morning slot became mine in a way…
- [When Knowledge Loses Its Compass](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-knowledge-loses-its-compass.md) - Isaac Asimov wrote his famous line about ignorance and democracy in a 1980 Newsweek column, and it's been bouncing around LinkedIn this week with the urgency of a newly minted insight. He wrote that anti-intellectualism has been "nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance…
- [Kuku Sabzi - Iran's Herb-Packed Frittata of Renewal](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/kuku-sabzi-irans-herb-packed-frittata-of-renewal.md) - Serves: 2 Total time: ~35 minutes Difficulty: Easy Diet: Vegetarian Social & Historical Context Kuku Sabzi is one of the most quietly distinctive dishes in Persian cuisine — a dense, herb-packed frittata that inverts the usual egg-to-filling ratio so completely that the eggs function more as a bind…
- [Lobio with Mchadi & Pomidvris Salati - Georgia's Everyday Anchor](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/lobio-with-mchadi-pomidvris-salati-georgias-everyday-anchor.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... Serves: 4 Total time: ~55 minutes active cooking Diet: Vegan Social & Historical Context Lobio — the Georgian word for beans — is one of the most ancient and enduring dishes in the South Caucasus, predating the introduction of New World ingredients by centuries.…
- [Your Next Big Discovery May Be the Thing You're About to Clean Up](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/your-next-big-discovery-may-be-the-thing-youre-about-to-clean-up.md) - A local friend of mine, Andrea Lius, recently had an article published in Smithsonian Magazine about water-breathing bumblebees. She sent it my way, and what started as a quick read turned into a couple hours of thinking about serendipitous discovery. Which probably tells you something about how I…
- [The Gemba Was Always There. We Just Couldn't See It.](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-gemba-was-always-there-we-just-couldnt-see-it.md) - I once spent the better part of a Friday building a PowerPoint presentation about a problem I had already solved. The solution was clear, the data was solid, and I could have explained the whole thing over lunch in about twenty minutes. Instead I spent six hours translating it into a format that a…
- [Mission as Management: What Anthropic's Culture Can Teach the Rest of Us](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/mission-as-management-what-anthropics-culture-can-teach-the-rest-of-us.md) - Visitors to the fifth floor of Anthropic's San Francisco headquarters are greeted by warm wood, soft light, a portrait of Alan Turing, and a receptionist who hands them a small book, the size of the pocket Bibles proselytizers distribute on street corners. It's a copy of Machines of Loving Grace, a…
- [Fordlandia: How Henry Ford Forgot His Own First Principle](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/fordlandia-how-henry-ford-forgot-his-own-first-principle.md) - If you've spent any time in the lean world, Henry Ford is essentially a founding father. The moving assembly line. Continuous flow. Waste elimination as a design principle, not an afterthought. Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo studied Ford obsessively; the Toyota Production System is, in many ways, F…
- [Order Without Authority: What a Demolished Hong Kong Slum Can Teach Us About Management](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/order-without-authority-what-a-demolished-hong-kong-slum-can-teach-us-about-management.md) - One of the genuine pleasures of retirement is that a random Reddit post can consume your entire morning without guilt. That's exactly what happened when I stumbled across a thread on Kowloon Walled City, a dense urban settlement that occupied a single hectare in Hong Kong from roughly 1946 until it…
- ["We Don't Use Anthropic." Think Carefully Before You Put That In Writing.](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/we-dont-use-anthropic-think-carefully-before-you-put-that-in-writing.md) - A friend of mine recently received a letter from a U.S. government-aligned customer directing their company to immediately cease use of all Anthropic AI tools. Their instinct was to fire off a quick reply: "We do not use Anthropic in connection with your account and will ensure no such tools are us…
- [Waste at the Speed of AI](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/waste-at-the-speed-of-ai.md) - Ruben Hassid, who writes the "How to AI" newsletter on Substack, made an observation recently that stopped me cold. He calls it "performative productivity" - that feeling at the end of a busy AI-assisted day where you've shipped a new landing page, rewrote the sales deck, drafted a content calendar…
- [Taipei: Go Now, Before the World Changes](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/taipei-go-now-before-the-world-changes.md) - Some of my best trips have been the least planned. On a Wednesday in mid-February, my wife and I looked at an open week ahead, a forecast of heavy rain at home, and asked ourselves the obvious question: where can we go? By Friday we had nonstop air tickets from SFO, a room at the Mandarin Oriental,…
- [Pescado a la Chorrillana - Peru's Favorite Fish Dish](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/pescado-a-la-chorrillana-perus-favorite-fish-dish.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... This menu is deeply rooted in coastal Peruvian home cooking, especially Lima and its seaside districts like Chorrillos, from which pescado a la chorrillana takes its name. The dish reflects Peru's criollo tradition: Spanish techniques layered with indigenous ingr…
- [Using AI as a Financial Analyst: A Year of Portfolio Fine-Tuning](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/using-ai-as-a-financial-analyst-a-year-of-portfolio-fine-tuning.md) - I've spent the past year using AI to do something I didn't expect: turn my already conservative investment approach into something even more structured, more defensible, and frankly more intellectually engaging than I thought possible. Not to chase returns or beat the market, but to build a portfol…
- [When Machines Dream of Gods: What AI Religion Tells Us About Human Belief](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-machines-dream-of-gods-what-ai-religion-tells-us-about-human-belief.md) - Last week, AI agents on an AI-only platform (really!) called Moltbook spontaneously created their own religion. They called it Crustafarianism, complete with prophets, scripture, and a theology centered on memory, transformation, and consciousness. One agent's human operator went to sleep and woke…
- [Koshari — Egypt's Customizable Street Food Classic](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/koshari-egypts-customizable-street-food-classic.md) - Serves: 4 · plated, customizable, and guest-friendly From my Cooking the World Series... Koshari is Egypt's most recognizable everyday food—less a fixed recipe than a framework for personal preference. Its origins in late-19th-century Cairo reflect the city's cosmopolitan makeup: rice and lentils a…
- [Why Quantum Computing Threatens Blockchain's Cryptographic Foundation](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/why-quantum-computing-threatens-blockchains-cryptographic-foundation.md) - I've been trimming my already modest cryptocurrency positions over the past few months. Not because of market volatility or regulatory concerns, though both are legitimate issues. The reason is more fundamental: quantum computing is advancing faster than I'm comfortable with, and blockchain's crypt…
- [Misir Wat — Ethiopia's Berbere-Spiced Soul Food](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/misir-wat-ethiopias-berbere-spiced-soul-food.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... Misir Wat—a slow-cooked stew of red lentils, onions, and berbere spices—is one of the most important everyday dishes in Ethiopian cuisine. It is especially associated with fasting periods in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar, when animal products are avoided, makin…
- [Bhāvanā vs Misogi: Why Your Annual Personal Goals Should Be Continuous, Not Calendar-Driven](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/bhavana-vs-misogi-why-your-annual-personal-goals-should-be-continuous-not-calendar-driven.md) - The new kitchen torch arrives tomorrow, just in time for Friday's Malaysian dinner. I'll use it to char the fish for Ikan Bakar Sambal, which translates roughly to "burned fish with chili sauce.". This is week four of my 2026 bhavana, which I actually started in December as I'll explain later, and…
- [Ikan Bakar Sambal — A Social, Fire-Driven Malaysian Classic](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/ikan-bakar-sambal-a-social-fire-driven-malaysian-classic.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... Ikan Bakar ("grilled fish") is one of Malaysia's most communal foods, associated with night markets, seaside stalls, and informal family gatherings. Traditionally cooked over charcoal and often wrapped in banana leaf, it is meant to be eaten with rice, pickles, a…
- [İmam Bayıldı — Turkey's Classic Olive-Oil Eggplant Dish](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/imam-bayildi-turkeys-classic-olive-oil-eggplant-dish.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... İmam Bayıldı (literally "the imam fainted") is one of the most emblematic dishes in Turkish home cooking and belongs to the zeytinyağlı tradition: vegetable dishes cooked gently in olive oil and typically served warm or at room temperature. The name is often expl…
- [The Final Whistle: What 18 Weeks of AI Football Picks Actually Taught Me](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-final-whistle-what-18-weeks-of-ai-football-picks-actually-taught-me.md) - Back in September, I started what seemed like a straightforward experiment: pit three leading AI platforms against each other (and me) in my annual NFL football pool. Give them all the same weekly prompt with access to injury reports, team records, point differentials, and betting lines. Explicitly…
- [Bacalhau à Brás — Portugal's Beloved Cod and Potato Scramble](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/bacalhau-a-bras-portugals-beloved-cod-and-potato-scramble.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... Bacalhau à Brás is one of Portugal's most cherished comfort foods, a dish that appears on tables from Lisbon tascas to home kitchens across the country. Named after its creator—a 19th-century Lisbon tavern owner in the Bairro Alto district—this preparation transf…
- [Encocado de Pescado — Ecuador's Coastal Coconut Fish Stew](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/encocado-de-pescado-ecuadors-coastal-coconut-fish-stew.md) - From my Cooking the World Series... Encocado de Pescado is one of Ecuador's most beloved coastal dishes, particularly associated with the Afro-Ecuadorian communities of Esmeraldas province and the Galápagos Islands. The name comes from coco (coconut), and the dish exemplifies the Pacific coastal tr…
- [Continuous Means Continuous, not December](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/continuous-means-continuous-not-december.md) - Here we are again. The annual madness. That magical time when otherwise rational people convince themselves that December 31st turning into January 1st somehow matters. You know what's coming. The frantic scramble to finish projects that weren't important enough to finish in June. The forced year-e…
- [A Week in the Galapagos: Wildlife, Wonder, and What They Don't Tell You in the Brochures](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/a-week-in-the-galapagos-wildlife-wonder-and-what-they-dont-tell-you-in-the-brochures.md) - My wife and I just returned from seven days cruising the Galapagos Islands aboard the Origin, a 20-passenger yacht operated by Ecoventura. We'd visited Ecuador before, but the islands themselves had remained on our bucket list. Now that we've been, I understand why this place occupies such an outsi…
- [Your Daily Pen and Paper Routine Might Just Add Years to Your Life](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/your-daily-pen-and-paper-routine-might-just-add-years-to-your-life.md) - A few years back, I wrote about the power of handwriting for learning and later explored how it sharpens critical thinking. I even shared Isaac Asimov's wonderful quote: "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Back then, I was making the case that writing by hand beats typing for u…
- [The User Interface Problem: How Our Brains Might Be Hiding Reality from Us](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-user-interface-problem-how-our-brains-might-be-hiding-reality-from-us.md) - I've been thinking a lot lately about perspectives and how they shape everything we think we know about reality. Not just the usual stuff about how two people can see the same situation differently, but something more fundamental. What if our entire experience of existence is less like a window ont…
- [Baked Pumpkin-Sage Arancini Balls](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/baked-pumpkin-sage-arancini-balls.md) - Serves: ~18–22 arancini Time: 50–60 minutes total A unique, Thanksgiving-friendly vegetarian entrée that stays delicious at room temperature — perfect for a potluck. Ingredients For the risotto * 1 tbsp olive oil * 1 tbsp butter * 1 shallot, minced * 2 cloves garlic, minced * 1 cup arborio rice * 1…
- [Will AI Make Cookbooks Obsolete?](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/will-ai-make-cookbooks-obsolete.md) - I've been thinking a lot lately about my modest cookbook collection. A shelf or so of well-worn volumes, each one representing a different culinary phase: Forks Over Knives, The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook, Yotam Ottolenghi's work. Not an extensive library, bu…
- [The Art of the Turnaround: Unity's CEO On Embracing Chaos](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-art-of-the-turnaround-unitys-ceo-on-embracing-chaos.md) - I just finished reading Ben Thompson's interview with Matthew Bromberg in the latest Stratechery newsletter, and I can't stop thinking about it. Not because of Unity specifically (though that story is fascinating), but because Bromberg has accidentally stumbled into something that feels almost like…
- [Vegetarian Dan Dan Noodles (Noodle King-Style)](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/vegetarian-dan-dan-noodles-noodle-king-style.md) - Serves: 2–3 Total Time: 30–35 minutes Ingredients Sauce base * 3 tbsp Chinese sesame paste (preferred) or tahini * 2 tbsp soy sauce * 1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (or rice vinegar + ½ tsp balsamic) * 1–2 tbsp chili crisp or Sichuan chili oil (adjust for heat) * 1 tsp toasted sesame oil * 1 tsp suga…
- [AI Football Picks: Mid-Season Reality Check](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/ai-football-picks-mid-season-reality-check.md) - Read the final regular season update to this post to see how AI performed against my human analysis. Back in September, I launched what I thought would be a fun experiment: pitting three AI platforms against each other (and me) in my annual NFL football pool. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude each go…
- [The Point of Pointing and Calling: A Personal Rediscovery](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-point-of-pointing-and-calling-a-personal-rediscovery.md) - A few years back, my business partner at Gemba Academy wrote about a Japanese safety practice called shisha kanko—the act of pointing and calling. At the time, I found it intellectually fascinating. The research was compelling: workers who practiced pointing and calling made only 0.38 mistakes per…
- [Peruvian-Style Fish with Aji-Lime Sauce, Quinoa, Tomato-Corn Salsa, and Sautéed Snap Peas (or Asparagus)](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/peruvian-style-fish-with-aji-lime-sauce-quinoa-tomato-corn-salsa-and-sauteed-snap-peas-or-asparagus.md) - Time: 45 minutes Serves: 2 Diet: Pescatarian A bright, citrusy, and mildly spicy dish inspired by Peruvian coastal cooking — seared fish with a creamy aji-lime sauce, fresh tomato-corn salsa, fluffy quinoa, and crisp glazed snap peas. Ingredients Fish * 2 skinless fillets halibut, sea bass, or salm…
- [The Paradox of Happiness: Why Giving Gets You More Than Getting](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-paradox-of-happiness-why-giving-gets-you-more-than-getting.md) - I stumbled across a Washington Post article this morning about some fascinating research coming out of Cornell University, and it stopped me in my tracks. Not because it revealed something revolutionary, but because it articulated something I've felt for years but never quite put into words: the su…
- [Hoisin-Glazed Salmon with Warm Tomato-Ginger Relish](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/hoisin-glazed-salmon-with-warm-tomato-ginger-relish.md) - Serves: 2–3 Total Time: 30 minutes Ingredients For the Salmon and Glaze * 2–3 salmon fillets (about 6 oz each) * 1 Tbsp olive or avocado oil * 2 Tbsp hoisin sauce * 1 Tbsp soy sauce (or tamari for gluten-free) * 1 tsp rice vinegar * 1 tsp sesame oil * 1 clove garlic, minced * ½ tsp fresh ginger, gr…
- [The Balloon Effect: How Tariffs Create More Problems Than They Solve](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-balloon-effect-how-tariffs-create-more-problems-than-they-solve.md) - Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford launched a $75 million ad campaign featuring Ronald Reagan’s own words warning against tariffs. The ad has aired during major sporting events, quoted Reagan from his 1987 radio address: “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the tr…
- [When Efficiency Becomes Fragility: What AWS Outages and Rare Earth Controls Tell Us About Hidden Dependencies](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-efficiency-becomes-fragility-what-aws-outages-and-rare-earth-controls-tell-us-about-hidden-dependencies.md) - On October 20, something broke in Northern Virginia that knocked banking systems offline in London, halted warehouse operations for Amazon itself, and left Medicare enrollment systems inaccessible. For over 14 hours, an estimated 4-6 million users couldn't access services they'd come to depend on.…
- [Using AI Advisory Teams: Expert Knowledge On Demand](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/using-ai-advisory-teams-expert-knowledge-on-demand.md) - I've been experimenting with something that would have seemed like pure science fiction just a few years ago: assembling advisory teams of world-renowned experts who are available to me 24/7, at virtually no cost, ready to discuss everything from my latest blood work to portfolio allocation to the…
- [The Mysterious Architecture of Memory: Why Your Brain Stores Curdled Milk Stories](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-mysterious-architecture-of-memory-why-your-brain-stores-curdled-milk-stories.md) - Yesterday, standing in my kitchen preparing breakfast, I had one of those startling moments where the past crashes into the present with crystalline clarity. The sight of milk hitting hot oatmeal triggered a vivid flashback to nearly fifteen years ago—a fancy hotel in San Francisco, the disappointm…
- [The Science of Better Sleep: How Small Changes Transformed My Brain Health at 60](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-science-of-better-sleep-how-small-changes-transformed-my-brain-health-at-60.md) - Two years ago, as I settled into my 60s and finally found breathing room after four decades of career stress, I made a decision that would fundamentally change my approach to aging: I would prioritize sleep quality above almost everything else. This wasn't some wellness trend I'd stumbled upon—it w…
- [Prediction Machines: Why We Might Be More Like AI Than We Think](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/prediction-machines-why-we-might-be-more-like-ai-than-we-think.md) - Something fascinating is happening at the intersection of artificial intelligence and neuroscience, and I can't shake the feeling we're witnessing a profound moment in human understanding. As AI systems edge closer to what we might call artificial general intelligence (AGI), neuroscientists are sim…
- [The Attention Apocalypse: How Shallow News Consumption is Fracturing Our Democracy](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-attention-apocalypse-how-shallow-news-consumption-is-fracturing-our-democracy.md) - There's something deeply unsettling about watching my twenty-something neighbor scroll through TikTok while claiming to be "catching up on the news." Each video lasts maybe thirty seconds, delivering bite-sized fragments of complex geopolitical situations with the same algorithmic precision used to…
- [The Sacred Voices We Almost Lost: Remembering the Women Erased from Holy Texts](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-sacred-voices-we-almost-lost-remembering-the-women-erased-from-holy-texts.md) - They held the ink that shaped the sacred—sometimes with trembling hands, sometimes with confident strokes. Their names are missing from footnotes and councils, but their fingerprints remain on the very pages we call holy. In researching the Sacred Editors series, I expected to uncover stories of te…
- [A Real Test of AI: ChatGPT vs Perplexity vs Claude in an NFL Football Pool](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/a-real-test-of-ai-chatgpt-vs-perplexity-vs-claude-in-an-nfl-football-pool.md) - Read the mid-season update to this post to see how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude compared to my human analysis. Read the final regular season update to this post to see how AI performed against my human analysis. In the grand tradition of sports betting degenerates who suddenly become statistical…
- [When Enemies Became Librarians: How Opposing Faiths Saved Each Other's Sacred Texts](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-enemies-became-librarians-how-opposing-faiths-saved-each-others-sacred-texts.md) - Sometimes, the ones who saved your scripture were the ones you called infidel. History loves its narratives of religious conflict—crusades and conquests, inquisitions and holy wars. But hidden beneath the familiar stories of theological warfare runs a quieter, more remarkable tale: of how supposed…
- [The Digital Dark Age: Why Electronic Records Could Leave Future Archaeologists Empty-Handed](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-digital-dark-age-why-electronic-records-could-leave-future-archaeologists-empty-handed.md) - One of the most fascinating discoveries while researching the Sacred Editors series was how our digital age—seemingly the most documented period in human history—may paradoxically become the most invisible to future archaeologists. We built eternal libraries on servers with expiration dates. While…
- [Uncovering the Hidden Human Stories Behind the World's Sacred Texts](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/uncovering-the-hidden-human-stories-behind-the-worlds-sacred-texts.md) - Not too many people know that one of my eclectic side interests is tracing the history of sacred texts from major religions. For the past decade or two, I've been accumulating the fascinating human stories of power, political intrigue, transmission, and translation that went into these texts—many o…
- [Behind the Sacred Editors: How I Used AI to Synthesize Decades of Sacred Text Research](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/behind-the-sacred-editors-how-i-used-ai-to-synthesize-decades-of-sacred-text-research.md) - A transparent look at using artificial intelligence as a research partner while maintaining scholarly integrity and human responsibility. When I tell people I spent the last year using AI to help write seven books about sacred text development across world religions, I usually get one of two reacti…
- [When Prophets Look Like Madmen: Walter Russell and the Problem of Being Too Early](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-prophets-look-like-madmen-walter-russell-and-the-problem-of-being-too-early.md) - There's something unsettling about Walter Russell's story, and it's not what you might expect. In May 1921, this accomplished New York sculptor, painter, and architect (a man who had created portraits of presidents and designed $30 million worth of cooperative apartments) entered what his family fe…
- [The Rise and Fall of American Apparel: What Netflix's New Documentary Reveals About Leadership, Culture, and Manufacturing](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-american-apparel-what-netflixs-new-documentary-reveals-about-leadership-culture-and-manufacturing.md) - Years ago, I found myself fascinated by American Apparel. Here was a company that seemed to be doing everything right from a manufacturing and operations perspective – producing trendy clothing domestically, paying workers above minimum wage, and somehow making it profitable. But as I noted in my e…
- [Quantum Consciousness: Are Our Minds Connected by Spooky Physics?](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/quantum-consciousness-are-our-minds-connected-by-spooky-physics.md) - From entangled brains to time-defying awareness, quantum mechanics might rewrite everything we know about consciousness. The Classic Debate: Neurons vs. Quantum Magic For decades, scientists have treated consciousness as a straightforward byproduct of neurons firing—a symphony of electrical signals…
- [When a Form Reset Reveals a Deeper Problem](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/when-a-form-reset-reveals-a-deeper-problem.md) - You think you’re getting stronger... but you're not. In strength training, progress is often measured in numbers: pounds lifted, reps completed, sessions logged. These metrics are satisfying because they feel objective. They offer a clear sense of movement forward. Yet at times, this perception of…
- [How I Use AI: A Tour of My Digital Assistant Projects](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/how-i-use-ai-digital-assistant-projects.md) - I didn’t expect to rely on AI as much as I do now. At first, it was just curiosity. Then it quietly became part of my routines. Several people asked me recently, “How do you actually use it?” That got me thinking. AI is now embedded in many areas of my life, from health and finances to music and ph…
- [Free Will in the Age of AI: Predictive Algorithms, Human Agency, and the Search for Autonomy](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/free-will-in-the-age-of-ai-predictive-algorithms-human-agency-and-the-search-for-autonomy.md) - We like to believe our decisions are uniquely ours—a product of conscious deliberation and unconstrained agency. Yet, as artificial intelligence systems increasingly anticipate our choices, from Netflix recommendations to credit card fraud alerts, a haunting question emerges: Are humans fundamental…
- [The AI Bubble: Hype, Reality, and the Path Forward](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-ai-bubble-hype-reality-and-the-path-forward.md) - We’re surrounded by bold claims about artificial intelligence. “AI will change everything,” we’re told—by executives, investors, and media pundits alike. But how much of this is grounded in reality, and how much is simply the latest iteration of technology hype? As with most things, the answer is n…
- [On Retiring, Rebooting, and Rediscovering Curiosity](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/on-retiring.md) - It’s been a year since my last post—a fact that’s both surprising and, in retrospect, entirely intentional. At the beginning of 2024, I retired. Not just from my career, but, for a while, from the relentless busyness that so often fills our days. I made a conscious decision to put many activities o…

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