My 5 Favorite Not Boring Essays of 2025

This retrospective from newsletter writer Packy McCormick reveals strategic insights about content differentiation and audience building in an increasingly commoditized digital landscape. The key challenge addressed is how to maintain quality and uniqueness when AI and automation make it easier than ever to produce generic, undifferentiated content ("slop").

McCormick's approach involved a significant strategic pivot: shifting from high-frequency publishing to fewer, deeper essays that required extensive research and developed a distinctive worldview. He focused on "means and meaning" - the idea that while technology provides capabilities, humans must create purpose and differentiation. His content strategy emphasized going "unbelievably deep" on research, building intuition from first principles, and weaving together technology insights with philosophical frameworks.

The results were counterintuitive success - his longest, most research-intensive piece became the year's most popular, suggesting audiences reward depth over convenience. McCormick's portfolio companies are projected to potentially reach a quarter-trillion dollar combined market cap, indicating his deep-dive approach effectively identified high-potential opportunities.

The key takeaway for product managers is the "Great Differentiation" principle: as automation commoditizes basic offerings, the value premium shifts dramatically toward differentiated, high-craft products. Rather than competing on efficiency against machines, the winning strategy involves becoming uniquely human - developing novel approaches, deeper relationships, and distinctive positioning that can't be easily replicated by competitors or AI tools.