Weekly Readings #2: The Future of Work and SEO Benchmarks

Every week, I come across articles that make me think—about work, AI, history, and how to stay sane in a noisy world. Some offer practical insights, others challenge assumptions, and a few just stick with me for reasons I can’t quite explain. Here’s a mix of what I read last week, from reflections on long-term thinking to the evolving role of AI in our daily lives.

1. How I’m Preparing For The Next Four Years

by Ryan Holiday

• "I’m reading old books, not watching the news. If you want to understand current events, don’t rely on breaking news. Find a book about a similar event in the past. Read history. Read psychology. Read biographies. Go for information that has a long half-life, not something that’s going to be contradicted in the next week."
• "Randall Stutman has been a coach to some of Wall Street’s biggest CEOs for decades. His clients have included Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America. His consulting and advising agency, CRA, has worked with thousands of executives at hundreds of hedge funds and banks. These are people whose entire livelihood depends on them being perpetually ready to respond to the daily, hourly, sometimes even minute-by-minute volatility. Stutman surprised me when he told me that he often asks these very busy executives how they recharge, given the all-consuming nature of their work. The best, he found, have at least one hobby that gives them peace — things like sailing, long-distance cycling, listening quietly to classical music, scuba diving, riding motorcycles, and fly fishing. There is a surprising commonality between all the hobbies: An absence of voices. In a noisy world, a couple of hours without chatter, without other people in our ear, where we can simply think (or not think), is essential. I can’t control the chaos of the world, but I can control whether I get sucked into it."
• "I’m contributing to my community. America’s communities have been hollowed out. Big box stores replaced small businesses. Digital replaced physical. So much of modern success is subtractive—extracting, optimizing, squeezing more for less. I’m trying to do the opposite."

2. 40 Thoughts On Turning 40

by Paul Millerd

I found Paul's writing online after reading his book that not only questioned the validity of the traditional career path but offered a value-based alternative. Not long ago he published a book about the next step on this path-seeking journey that explores what is "good work".

The Pathless Path: Summary & Notes

The Pathless Path is a book about what happens when you achieve success based on others’ terms and still feel miserable. It’s about our unhealthy relationship with work, money, and accomplishments and how to fix that.

Norbert HiresNorbert Hires

Even in the last few years, a lot has changed and the future of work looks different than it looked two years ago. Paul writes about this and shares other nuggets of wisdom on relationships, happiness, and life.

• There are many rules worth paying attention to but many more are negotiable. We live in weird times and thriving in life likely requires weird approaches. If you aren’t shaking things up in random ways, you are missing out.
• A “good job” can still be bad work. It’s easy to confuse a life that makes sense on paper with one that fills your heart and soul.

3. Three Observations

by Sam Altman

I spend too much time figuring out how AI can make my life easier right now and not enough time considering the broader changes it will bring in the coming years. Partly because the latter feels more unsettling than empowering—and also because no one has yet presented a coherent vision of what AGI might mean for the world. Sam Altman shares some interesting thoughts on this.

• The world will not change all at once; it never does. Life will go on mostly the same in the short run, and people in 2025 will mostly spend their time in the same way they did in 2024. We will still fall in love, create families, get in fights online, hike in nature, etc.
• But the future will be coming at us in a way that is impossible to ignore, and the long-term changes to our society and economy will be huge. We will find new things to do, new ways to be useful to each other, and new ways to compete, but they may not look very much like the jobs of today.
• The price of many goods will eventually fall dramatically (right now, the cost of intelligence and the cost of energy constrain a lot of things), and the price of luxury goods and a few inherently limited resources like land may rise even more dramatically.

4. Workers’ experience with AI chatbots in their jobs

by Pew Research Center

Going back to practical matters on how AI is already shaping work (most of us are using it as a Google + Grammarly replacement).

• Limited Adoption of AI Chatbots: A majority of workers (55%) report rarely or never using AI chatbots at work, and an additional 29% are unaware of their presence in the workplace. Only 9% use them daily or a few times a week, and 7% use them a few times a month.
• Demographic Variations in Usage: Younger workers (ages 18 to 29) and those with higher educational attainment (postgraduate degrees) are more likely to use AI chatbots. Specifically, 23% of younger workers and 26% of those with postgraduate degrees use these tools at least a few times a month.
• Primary Applications: Among those utilizing AI chatbots, the most common tasks include conducting research or finding information (57%), editing written content (52%), and drafting reports or other written materials (47%).
• Perceived Benefits: 40% of workers who have used AI chatbots find them extremely or very helpful in completing tasks more quickly, while 29% believe these tools significantly improve the quality of their work.
• Barriers to Adoption: Among workers not using AI chatbots, 36% cite a lack of applicability to their job as a major reason, 22% express a lack of interest, 10% are unsure how to use them, and 9% indicate that their employer prohibits their use.

5. 2025 SEO Benchmarking Report

by Similarweb

On one side it is good to have a little sneak peek into industry-specific metrics on the other hand there is no groundbreaking news in this year's Benchmarking Report of Similarweb.

What stood out for me:

• AI Overviews are still small: There is no industry where AI overviews would appear for more than 4% of the keywords. For industries with more transactional searches like e-commerce or fashion, it stays under 1%.
• Election-induced noise: For News & Media sites, search demand grew by 11%, driving a 6% increase in overall traffic, largely due to political interests. While not explicitly stated in the report, elections and political uncertainty could reduce search demand in other industries and delay major purchases.

However, the growth opportunity section looked a little generic to me:

• Adapt to AI-driven Search: Optimize for SERP features, AI Overviews, and zero-click searches. (Aside from pushing to implement the IndexNow API to appear in Bing (and consequently in ChatGPT), I haven’t come across any practical AI optimization strategies that feel genuinely compelling.)
• Leverage Brand Power: Branded search is crucial, as organic rankings alone are no longer enough. (Most brands that invested in SEO are already optimized for branded searches and those who didn't may not really have a big enough brand to focus on it.)
• Enhance User Engagement: Giants win on trust and UX, while smaller players must differentiate with niche expertise and superior on-site experiences. (Though how do you measure this?)
• Industry-Specific Tactics Matter: SEO success is highly contextual, requiring tailored strategies for each sector. (Something I agree with, but also something that didn't help anyone looking for practical advice.)