Seinfeld's Genius Advice for Success in the AI Age

The gist

1. Newport heard on Acquired that Seinfeld, asked about McKinsey and efficiency, said "If you're efficient, you're doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way."
   Acquired
2. Newport says email, pitched as a fax and voicemail replacement, turned work into constant back-and-forth messaging that left workers stressed without clearly improving output.
3. He argues AI agents push a "cognitive assembly line" model where work is a pile of small tasks, leaving people supervising agent output all day.
4. Newport's fix is to know firmly what good work means in your job, then adopt new tools selectively, reluctantly, and after the cutting edge has passed.
5. He says hard thinking and cognitive strain often signal real value, citing Acquired's estimate that Seinfeld has earned four to five billion dollars in revenue.