Funny and Crazy at Work

In this AI era and late-capitalist society, I expect we’ll need fewer people — and that creativity will keep thinning out. The small funny moments and the room to feel something crazy at work, the kind that used to exist, are disappearing.

My first career was at a fund, and it was the opposite of a numbers game. It was after the Lehman shock. Dealmaking belonged to a handful of seniors who were brilliant and a little insane. For us juniors, something as small as a kendo match could swing deal compensation by millions of dollars. My heart hurt every day. That was craziness at work in its pure form. I was exhausted — but as a game, it was fun.

After that I moved through several IT startups. I saw products killed and businesses stall more than once. This was before AI. We argued with founders and customers until our throats were raw, chasing apps that might actually be useful. The apps that shipped weren’t “crazy.” But the process — going from no customers, no people, and no product to a startup that grew almost too fast — was crazy itself.

Nonstop incident calls. Sudden hiring gaps. Building a sales team and a sales flow from nothing. It was stressful. It would be a lie to say the craziness wasn’t also fun. Work was funny and work was crazy. I burned out at the end of that stretch. What stayed with me was the memory of that craziness.

Look at the wider world. From what people tell us — and from the language that gathers around THE GREEN DOT and THE EXECUTION — funny and crazy are leaving the workplace. Work gets more efficient. Room to play gets smaller.

Honestly, that isn’t fun.

otiose corp. is starting a B2B business that exports the funny and the crazy we still have into organizational culture.

That’s it.