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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages ofInc.andFast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you cansign up to get it yourselfevery Monday morning. Consumers will spend a whopping $27.5 billion on Valentines Day this year, up from $25.8 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation. For 1-800-Flowers.com, the purveyor of candy, cards, andyesflowers, February 14 is a bit like its Super Bowl, with year-long planning for the holiday. Beyond bouquets Founder, chairman, and CEO Jim McCann, who started the business in 1976 when he acquired a flower shop in Manhattan, says Valentines Day has expanded from an observance of romantic love to an opportunity to give gifts to friends, loved ones, and even pets. Historically, men made up 90% of purchasers during the holiday. We now see men making up less than 70% of our customers who purchase for Valentines Day, and the recipient has broadened beyond the sweetheart to moms and sisters and children, McCann says. Thats resulted, frankly, in it becoming a bigger holiday for us. The retailer has responded in kind, introducing pet-themed items (pet owners are expected to spend $2 billion on Valentines Day) and a collaboration with lifestyle brand LoveShackFancy featuring pastel-hued cookies and flowers suitable for Galentines Day celebrations of female friendship. The company also offers trending items such as black roses, designed to appeal to Gen Z. In all, the company says it will deliver 24 million flowers for Valentines Day. Fixing make-or-break tech When I asked McCann how he leads his organization through demand surges, I expected him to talk about supply chain, marketing campaigns, and staffing. Instead, he openly spoke about the companys work to correct problems caused by the implementation of a new order management system at the companys Harry & David fruit and prepared foods unit during the December holiday season. The system had trouble managing some complex orders, which caused delivery delays, frustrated customers, and some canceled orders. Though his seasoned team has deep experience in the business, sometimes mistakes happen, McCann says. Flower delivery and other units such as Sharis Berries and The Popcorn Factory dont use the same system, but they share a common customer service platform that was overwhelmed by the holiday season snafu. On a recent earnings call, 1-800-Flowers.com executives said many of the issues with the order system have been resolved. We can hopefully come out a better management company as a result of it, because we cannot escape the changes of technology that are upon us and coming ever faster, McCann tells me. Embracing the flops McCanns willingness to own up to mistakes is nothing new. He frequently writes about mistakes hes made in his career and even maintains a Wall of Shame at company headquarters dedicated to celebrating every stumble, flop, and facepalm moment our team has had over the years, he says. Of course, leaders and companies have to do more than just own up to their errorsthey have to learn from them and figure out how to take calculated or mitigated risks. Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonson writes about intelligent failure in her book Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well. She contends that failing well is necessary if companies ever expect to break new ground. McCanns unabashed embrace of his own failures is a stark contrast to many other founders, who swagger about with an air of infallibility. (For more on these imperious folks, check out Inc. editor-at-large Bill Saporitos story on The cult of the entrepreneur.) Indeed, when I asked McCann if 1-800-Flowers.com benefitted from having a founder as CEO, he demurred. There are other people who are better at managing, and there are things that I could do that they cant do because of the unique situation Im in, having lived and breathed [this business] my whole adult life and having such a passion for it, he says. I dont think Im the best CEO thats ever lived. I think Im pretty good at envisioning what we are and what we can be. What’s your biggest ‘my bad’ moment? Do you have a wall of shame at your company? What was your biggest failure, and what did you learn from it? Send your comments to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Id like to share some of your insights in an upcoming newsletter dedicated to failure. Read more: on failing The Silicon Valley man obsessed with failure The biggest business failures of 2024 3 successful designers on the lessons of failure
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The cover process at The New Yorker is a beautifully inexact science. Each week, longtime art editor Françoise Mouly presents editor David Remnick a range of optionssome still in sketch formand Remnick chooses the one that feels most apt for the cultural moment. It could be a cover about a breaking news story; it could be a seasonal cover, an evergreen cover (Mouly banks the latter two types throughout the year). But inevitably, somehow, whatever he chooses feels organic to the publication, if not inevitable. What makes The New Yorker unique is that, as a general-interest magazine, our covers aren’t tied to feature stories but spring from the artists’ own observations and interests, Mouly detailed in an email exchange as she worked to finish production on the magazines landmark 100th anniversary issue. The New Yorker cover stands as one of the last bastions of wordless storytelling in our culture, a place where an artist’s singular vision can still speak directly to readers. In an age when were all flooded with a torrent of anonymous, manufactured images, these carefully crafted covers serve as an antidoteeach one signed by an artist, each one attempting to crystallize a moment or catalyze an idea. [Photo: Leila Abazine] Its a visual lineage that will be celebrated in the magazines centennial issue out this weekand in LAlliance New Yorks exhibition Covering The New Yorker, which runs through March 30. Co-curated by Mouly and Abrams Vice President and Publisher Rodolphe Lachat, the show features something readers have not seen before: original cover artwork from such luminaries as Maira Kalman, Barry Blitt, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Roz Chast, Anita Kunz, Saul Steinberg, and many others. Artist & Curators group shot at January 21st opening. Top, from left: Jenny Kroik, Barry Blitt, Richard Siri, Ed Steed, Mark Ulriksen, Art Spiegelman, Kadir Nelson, Ed Sorel, Peter de Sve, Gracie Lynn Haynes, Victoria Tentler-Krylov, John Cuneo, Front: Françoise Mouly, Tatyana Franck, Rodolphe Lachat, Gayle Kabaker. [Photo: Rebecca Greenfield] Speaking of those artists, Mouly considers the greatest accomplishment of her 30-plus year run to be the careful balance she has maintained between established contributors and new creatives who illustrate the covers. I’ve never had to sacrifice new voices for old ones, or vice versa, she says. As for the inexact science that underpins the cover process, she adores the job because it lacks formula, and says shes amazed the work remains as challenging as when she first began. The fact that I still can’t phone it in after all these years is perhaps the greatest gift of this role. [Photo: Leila Abazine] With the magazine turning 100 this week, we asked Mouly to select the top five New Yorker covers from her tenure. She admits that her selections would likely change on any given daybut either way, today these covers still land with the same power as they did when they first met the cultural moment in our mailbox. Or didnt, regrettably, in the case of the last one Missed Connection by Adrian Tomine, November 8, 2004. [Image: Adrian Tomine and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Adrian Tomines Missed Connection (Nov. 8, 2004) Adrian Tomine is a perfect example of the kind of artist I love working withhes a marvelous short story teller. Cartoonists are intellectual athletes in that way: They have a lifetime habit of compressing complex ideas into a few pen marks. When Tomine first approached The New Yorker as a young, relatively unknown cartoonist, he already had a stylistically sharp ligne claire style. Unlike other artists whom I would take to our library to study covers from the 1930s and 40s, Tomine just needed the right story to tell. Having just arrived in New York, he noticed things that natives often forget, like how subway cars running on parallel tracks offer glimpses into other lives. When I asked him to consider ideas for our fiction issue, he began sketching this subway encounter. I suggested having the two characters read the same book. Tomines masterful composition makes this image perfect: We see only tese two faces, and follow their gazes to each other. The use of color draws our eyes to the lightly sketched book. We know the trains will move in different directions and these strangers will lose each other. This is what I lovea picture that tells a complete story. The Man in the Mirror by Saul Steinberg, January 12, 1998. [Image: Saul Steinberg and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Saul Steinbergs The Man in the Mirror (Jan. 12, 1998) One of my greatest privileges when I started in 1993 was to be Saul Steinbergs editor. I would go visit him regularly in his home, and spend wonderful hours in conversation (he talked, I listened). He told me about baseball, architecture, the O.J. Simpson story, Las Vegasthere was so much he loved about America. Then wed look through his flat files, fishing for ideas. He was in his eighties then, and he would search through his thousands of sketches and doodles for ideas he hadn’t yet transformed into New Yorker covers. He was always careful not to repeat himself. When I discovered this particular drawing, it resonated deeply with meit captured what artist Maira Kalman would later call The Optimism of Breakfast. It brought back memories of my own father singing in the bathroom while shaving. Though Steinberg was dubious about whether the image was substantial enough for a cover, I encouraged him to develop it. Later, he gave me the original drawingthis one is yours, he saidwhich is why the original is included in this exhibition. I learned so much from Steinberg: less is more, use color only when necessary, let ideas shine through simplicity. As Steinberg said of his work, Once youve seen it, you cant remember not having seen it. A good image can become a building block of thought, like implanting a new word into the language. Thats an awesome power for artists to have. 9/11/2001, by Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly, September 24, 2001. [Image: Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Art Spiegelman and Moulys Black on Black (Sept. 24, 2001) On Sept. 11, 2001, my husband, Art Spiegelman, our daughter, and I stood four blocks away from the second tower as we watched it collapse in excruciatingly slow motion. Later, back in my office, I felt that the only appropriate solution would be to publish no cover image at allan all-black cover. Then Art suggested adding the outlines of the two towers, black on black, which I drew. It conveyed something about the sudden absence in our skyline, the abrupt tear in the fabric of reality. From no image came the perfect image. Iya Ni Wura (Mother Is Gold) by Diana Ejaita, May 13, 2019. [Image: Diana Ejaita and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Diana Ejaitas Iya Ni Wura (Mother Is Gold) (May 13, 2019) Diana Ejaita, who divides her time between Lagos and Berlin, created this Mother’s Day cover as her first of many contributions to the magazine. I love that the image evokes patterns and colors that are common in Nigeria, and was delighted to see she included the keke in the background. It gives you a sense of place, yet its also universal, capturing an emotion every parent knows. The composition tells the story perfectly: A mother kneels to meet her child at eye level, making herself fully present. The child’s posture, the way she holds herself, suggests that shes asserting her independence. It’s a tender portrait of maternal love preparing to let go. Venus on the Beach by Roz Chast, August 4, 2014. [Image: Roz Chast and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Roz Chasts Venus on The Beach (Aug. 4, 2014) Though cell phones have dominated our reality for decades, The New Yorker rarely features them on its covers. If the magazine published every phone-related submission, thered be room for nothing else. This exception to the rule, by Roz Chast, is particularly successful, however. Usually images of people on their phone focus on the screen. Here the phones all function as arrows, pointing us toward the alive and surprising. And this twist on Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus is a clever way for the cartoonist to use one old cliché to shed light on another. Kamala by Kadir Nelson. [Image: Kadir Nelson and The New Yorker. Used by permission. All rights reserved.] Coda: Kamala by Kadir Nelson (Nov. 18, 2024) On Nov. 5, 2024, I was preparing a cover that would celebrate the first woman presidentjust as I had done for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Kadir Nelson had created this painting as a celebration of the first woman, first Black and first Indian-American president. Despite editor David Remnicks repeated requests for a Plan B, I had no other approved sketch in the works. Around 9:30 p.m. on election night, it became clear that the Harris cover would never be published. I turned to a rough sketch that Barry Blitt had sent in. I called him and asked for a finish. When do you need it? he asked. Now, I told him. I asked him to draw it very small, very quickly; to keep it gestural, to just spew it out. The resulting image was published in the morning. Powerful covers often emerge not from advance planning but from living through and feeling the moment. This is as true for me as the art editor as it is for the artists. And in the show, I just love the juxtaposition of these two images: the huge, masterful oil painting of Harris, which took weeks to complete and carried so much hope, and the tiny, dark ink stain next to it. It speaks volumes.
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In news outlets, business publications, and scholarly journals, there is a crescendo of commentary about the combined power of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Without question, that convergence is already yielding exciting discoveries in many fields. Yet a third, equally crucial, kind of intelligence is being left out of the discussion: natures intelligence. The idea that nature itself displays the hallmarks of what we understand as intelligencethe ability to learn, to encode those learnings in new, more effective models, and to continually adaptis not altogether new. Leonardo da Vinci understood this well. Nature was his teacher and his inspiration. Nothing escaped his intensive observation: water, soil, plants, birds. Part of his expansive genius was to perceive the hidden systemsthe invisible forces and lawsthat govern everything from the workings of the human body to the movement of objects through the air. Today, we build on da Vincis wisdom when we analyze the intricate chemical communication of plants, the swarm intelligence of insects, the complex click patterns of whale songs. We are coming to see, with some humility, that nature is far more intelligent than we humans have ever understood. But what seemed to fascinate da Vinci the most was the interconnections among these systems and across disciplines. When he studied the human body, designed machines, or created masterpieces of art, he did so holistically, drawing on his ever-widening range of understanding, and producing work that is greater than the sum of its parts. This approach to innovation has never been more relevant or more possible than it is today. The fusion of natural, human, and machine intelligencea synthesis that I call polyintelligencepromises solutions to some of the worlds most intractable problems. Indeed, this integrated framework is already beginning to revolutionize biotechnology. From drug development to generative synthetic biology, polyintelligence is enabling breakthroughs that no single form of intelligenceor even the convergence of twocould achieve on their own. Take the example of the Human Genome Project, which completed its mapping of the blueprint of human DNA in 2003. More than two decades later, that union of nature, human intelligence, and AI continues to yieldamong other thingsnovel DNA and mRNA sequences that could unlock new breakthrough medicines. Or consider how scientists are using polyintelligence to learn the language of proteins, enabling us to craft new proteins that dont exist in nature with specific therapeutic functions. Just as words and grammar define a spoken language, AI analyzes vast amounts of protein data to understand the rules that dictate protein structure and function. This knowledge allows scientists to design novel proteins by writing new sequences within natures linguistic framework, surpassing traditional limitations, and developing innovative treatments for complex diseases. Beyond biomedicine, polyintelligent thinking, polyintelligent systems, and polyintelligent solutions will have wider applicationsand, I believe, unmatched power to mitigate climate change, increase agricultural yields in a sustainable way, and address other complex, global challenges. Again, this is not theoretical. Natures intelligence, supercharged by AI, is being applied to accelerating the evolutionary process of staple crops such as corn, wheat, and soybeans to enable them to grow in a hotter and drier environment. The promise of polyintelligence is clearly even greater than our hopes for AI. It is vitally important, therefore, that we manage this transition effectively and judiciously. The principles we set todayand the decisions we make regarding governance, ethics, and biasfor the use of AI should advance the goal of enabling polyintelligence. To realize its full potential, we must prioritize interdisciplinary collaboration by fostering cross-disciplinary research and integrating diverse expertise across sectors. By uniting policymakers, scientists, industry leaders, and educators, we can harness the collective strengths needed to both understand and address the worlds most pressing challenges. From urban-resilience planning and conservation of biodiversity to optimizing energy production and distribution, polyintelligence can catalyze sustainable solutions with wide-ranging impact. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, polyintelligence will also require a shift in human intelligence. In particular, we must stop seeing ourselves as the ultimate arbiter of what is good, correct, or intelligent. Whether were talking about the bodys complex and shifting methods of disease resistance, or a recent study showing that horses can think strategically and plan their actions, we should have the humilityas da Vinci, a true genius, didto recognize that much of the natural world operates beyond our ability to comprehend it. Our knowledge is and will always be incomplete. But it is expanding significantly, in exciting waysreshaping the very nature of discovery itself.
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