Jamir Nazir won a Caribbean regional prize at the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. 7,806 entries. One winner from his region. Days later, online commentators ran his story through AI detection tools and declared it machine-written. Granta's own publisher said the judges may have "awarded a prize to an instance of AI plagiarism." Three detection tools were used. Three different verdicts. This is the new plagiarism charge. Easy to throw. Hard to disprove. Burden of proof falls on the writer. I've been working on this problem: collecting AI tells, reverse-engineering prompts, ghostwriting for people who need to prove their own voice on the page. Here's what I've learned about what actually separates human writing from machine writing. Hint: it's not the em dashes.
The Self That Survives the Layoff
A year ago I wrote about an engineer who lost a $150k job and was driving for DoorDash, living in an RV. Last week, out of nowhere, I looked him up. He's now Head of Engineering at a startup. I felt relieved. Not just for him, but for everyone wondering when their number comes up. Wrote about what his story made me think about: identity, layoffs, and the version of yourself that exists outside the job.
How AI Is Flattening Indian English Into American English
"No way he has written this!" Felt this way reading a LinkedIn post from a long-lost friend? He cannot write that well, you think. But that's below the belt. Maybe he improved. A steep learning curve, but not impossible. Yet something's amiss. Then it dawns. The language, the idioms, the metaphors. All highly polished. All... Continue Reading →
AI Made Us 3x Faster. Our Output Didn’t Change.
Robert Solow said something in 1987 that feels written for 2026: "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." We are living the AI version of it right now.
The Great Inversion: When Articulation Becomes the Bottleneck
25 years ago, Linus Torvalds said: "Talk is cheap. Show me the code." In 2026, Zerodha's CTO flipped it: "Code is cheap. Show me the talk." The great flip happened in just 25 years.
What I Learned from Scott Adams: Systems, Stacks, and Selfishness
I started my very first newsletter quoting Scott Adam’s, Systems > Goals That’s how deeply I internalized this particular insight. With the news of his passing yesterday, I pondered over his final message: "I had an amazing life... If you got any benefits from my work, I'm asking that you pay it forward... Be useful." That’s one beautiful parting message. And one of the 3 top lessons that most resonated with me.
2025, or What Happened When the Reservoir Ran Dry
When I started this newsletter (back in 2024), I had the confidence of someone who'd never run out of ideas. By this year, the reservoir had run dry. But I kept writing anyway. Here's what I learned from writing 51 newsletters in 2025: → AI dominated my output (31%) when I planned to write about policy → Being right about content marketing's comeback didn't prevent months of struggle → The newsletter became less about expertise, more about documenting uncertainty → Writing became thinking in public The biggest lesson? Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. And that applies to career too.
What 2025 Taught Me About Survival and Meaning
This is the 100th edition of "Elephant in the Room", and my most personal. It's the story of survival in face of uncertainty. Edition 100 is about the year that forced me to learn the difference—and what actually kept me intact when everything felt uncertain.
The Waiting Room We Never Left
"What if a demon were to creep after you one night... and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more...' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?" - Friedrich... Continue Reading →
Wondering If You Should Follow Up After Interviews? Here’s The Answer.
Radio silence after an interview? Should you follow up? Or will it make you look desperate? I wrestled with this myself this year, sending dozens of follow-ups and tracking the results. My finding: while silence usually means rejection, there's a crucial 20% upside you're leaving on the table if you don't act strategically.
Musings by Madhav 