taste is the only moat left

why the future belongs to those who can sense what machines miss (letter from within ☉ #4)

What happens when the people who built the algorithms start warning us about algorithmic thinking?

Earlier this week, the founder of Vercel Guillermo Rauch tweeted: 'You can't outsource taste.'

Naval Ravikant commented: 'Judgement refined into intuition.'

Jack Dorsey added: 'all that matters.'

They're seeing something the rest of us are just starting to feel.

The systematic destruction of human creative intuition.

We're living through the death of everything that can be optimized, automated, or reverse-engineered.

What remains is the thing that's always been there but that we've forgotten how to see.

The mysterious faculty that lets some people consistently choose what resonates while others chase what's trending and miss the whole point.

We call it taste, but that word feels too small now.

Too quaint.

Like calling a thunderstorm "weather."

Last week I shared why your taste will be your competitive advantage in the coming era:

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as I watch the creative world split into two. Those racing to optimize everything for the algorithm, and those trying to remember what they actually love — and who they are at the essence.

The first group is winning the attention game but losing something else—something harder to measure but infinitely more valuable.

The problem runs deeper than I initially realized.

We're not just facing the commoditization of creativity—we're witnessing the systematic erosion of the very capacity to discern quality from noise.

Every day, algorithms feed us content optimized for engagement rather than meaning.

Platforms train us to chase metrics rather than substance.

Trend cycle moves faster, leaving less time for anything to mature into genuine significance.

This is what we're up against.

In a world where AI can generate infinite content, the rarest commodity becomes genuine human discernment about what's worth our finite attention.

The machines are getting better at mimicking the surface patterns of what moves us while missing the essence entirely.

AI can now generate images that look like Studio Ghibli films, but as one critic noted, “a computer program will never really be able to replicate the heart and soul of a Studio Ghibli work.”

The algorithms can copy the the shape but not the spirit.

And yet we keep trying to compete on their terms.

We study what went viral instead of what went deep. We analyze engagement rates instead of emotional resonance. We optimize for the algorithm's attention instead of human connection.

But what we’re really doing is we’re training ourselves to think like machines at the exact moment when thinking like humans becomes our only advantage.

This is the paradox we're living in.

The more we try to engineer resonance, the more elusive it becomes.

The harder we chase viral moments, the further we drift from the kind of work that actually stays with people.

We're optimizing for the wrong metrics while the real treasure—that capacity to move someone's soul—slowly dies off from neglect.

But as Naval and Jack are also sensing, we're approaching an inflection point where this changes everything.

The philosophers saw this coming.

Kant wrote about aesthetic judgment as something fundamentally different from logical analysis—a form of knowing that operates through feeling yet claims universal validity.

Hume argued that taste could be refined through practice and comparison, that some people really do develop superior aesthetic sensitivity.

What they couldn't have predicted is how industrial optimization would nearly eliminate the conditions needed for such development.

When I was working in finance, there was a trader named Marcus who never spent a lot of time looking at screens during market hours.

While everyone else was glued to flickering numbers, he'd read poetry. Or sketch. Or just sit quietly, feeling for something he couldn't name.

His returns consistently outperformed the guys with seventeen monitors. They called him crazy until they saw his numbers.

Marcus understood something that the algorithm-optimizers in every field are missing. The deeper patterns aren't visible to systems that only see what's measurable.

True edge comes from sensing what's about to matter before it shows up in the data. And that requires a different kind of intelligence—the aesthetic intelligence, one that trusts mystery over metrics.

This is why companies led by people with genuine aesthetic intelligence consistently outperform those run by pure analytics.

Steve Jobs didn't A/B test the iPhone's design. Yvon Chouinard didn't focus-group Patagonia's values. They felt their way toward something that resonated and trusted that instinct even when advisors said it was risky.

For creative entrepreneurs, this represents a profound opportunity.

Instead of optimizing for the same algorithmic signals, those who develop genuine aesthetic intelligence can command premium pricing, build fierce loyalty, and create work that stands the test of time.

Think about it. Customers pay Apple's premiums not for superior specs but for the aesthetic coherence that makes their products feel like extensions of themselves.

Patagonia charges more for outdoor gear because their aesthetic choices—from photography to copy to product design—signal values that resonate deeply with their audience.

But you can't develop this capacity by accident.

You have to cultivate it deliberately, like tending a garden that grows invisible fruit. And that's the cruel irony.

At the exact moment when aesthetic intelligence becomes most valuable, our culture has created conditions that make it nearly impossible to develop.

The constant stream of optimized content numbs our sensitivity to genuine quality.

The pressure to produce at algorithmic speed prevents the slow seasoning that real taste requires.

The addiction to external validation drowns out the quiet voice that knows what actually moves us.

I started keeping what I call a “resonance journal” about six months ago. Just paying attention to what actually moves me during the day. A phrase in a book. The way light hits a wall. The pause in someone's voice.

At first, the patterns seemed random. But gradually, I began to see the thread connecting everything that made me stop and pay attention.

What emerged wasn't a formula I could teach or automate. It was more like developing a sense of taste for my own aliveness. Learning to recognize the difference between what I thought I should find interesting and what actually lit something up inside me.

This distinction—between what we think we should respond to and what we actually respond to—might be the most crucial skill for navigating an algorithmic world. Because algorithms excel at telling us what people like us usually want. But they can't sense what you specifically need to come alive.

The neuroscience backs this up in ways the philosophers could only intuit. When we experience genuine aesthetic appreciation, our brains light up across multiple networks simultaneously—emotion, memory, reward, meaning-making.

It's a full-system response that integrates feeling with thinking in ways that pure analysis cannot. This is what Naval meant by “judgement refined into intuition”—the convergence of rational assessment with embodied knowing.

There's a café in Mexico City where I would go to write sometimes. The owner, Elena, changes the music throughout the day based on some internal rhythm I can't decode. Morning jazz gives way to ambient electronic, then classical guitar, then back to something I can't categorize. When I asked about her system, she shrugged. “I just feel what the space wants.”

The café is always full. People linger longer than they should. Conversations happen between strangers. There's something in Elena's curation beyond just the music that creates an atmosphere you can't manufacture with playlists or market research. She's responding to variables too subtle for systems to track.

This is what aesthetic intelligence looks like in practice — the ability to sense and create coherence in ways that transcend logic.

Not just following rules or copying what works elsewhere. We’re developing such sensitivity to what's alive that our choices naturally align with some deeper pattern.

For artists and creators, this translates into work that stands out not because it follows trends but because it emerges from a place of genuine discernment. Your aesthetic choices become a signature that can't be replicated because they come from your specific way of sensing beauty, meaning, and aliveness.

I keep thinking about something Rick Rubin said in an interview: “I don't know anything about making music. I just know what I like and what I don't like.” He's produced some of the most influential albums of the past forty years based entirely on that seemingly simple distinction.

But simple isn't the same as easy. Knowing what you actually like—not what you think you should like, not what gets engagement, not what fits your brand—requires cutting through layers of conditioning and expectation to find something more authentic and soulful underneath. Plus a relentless commitment to your choices despite what others might say.

The algorithm can tell you what performed well yesterday. It can analyze patterns and predict probabilities. But it can't sense what wants to emerge through you that's never existed before.

That requires a different kind of intelligence—one that trusts the unknown over the proven.

When I left my corporate job five years ago, everyone asked what my plan was. I didn't have one, not in any way they'd recognize. I just knew that something in me had been slowly dying in those glass towers, and I was willing to trust whatever wanted to come alive instead. That willingness to follow what feels genuine rather than what seems strategic has led to everything meaningful in my life since.

I know it might sound romantic. But to me, it's practical wisdom for an age where the copyable approaches are becoming worthless. As AI gets better at generating content, optimizing funnels, and analyzing data, the only sustainable competitive advantage becomes the thing that can't be replicated — your specific way of sensing and responding to life.

The solution isn't to abandon technology or retreat into some pre-digital fantasy, even though the nostalgic comeback of vintage items and analog aesthetic is only going to get stronger.

The solution is to reclaim and refine the human capacities that technology cannot replicate — presence, discernment, the ability to sense what has soul versus what merely functions. Taste. This requires what the Zen masters call “beginner's mind”—approaching each moment with fresh perception instead of algorithmic pattern-matching.

If you're ready to develop your own aesthetic intelligence, start with what I call the Aesthetic Practice.

Each morning, before checking your phone or consuming any media, spend five minutes with something beautiful—a piece of music, a photograph, even the way light falls across your kitchen table.

Don't analyze it or try to learn from it. Just let yourself experience it fully. Notice what happens in your body, in your breathing, in your attention.

Keep a simple note in your phone or in a small journal of moments throughout the day when something stops you—a color combination, an unexpected phrase, the gesture someone makes while talking.

Don't judge whether these moments are “important” or “useful.” Just collect them like found treasures. After a few weeks, patterns will emerge that reveal your aesthetic DNA.

Practice what I call Aesthetic Fasting—periodically disconnecting from algorithm-driven feeds and trend-following accounts. Instead, spend time with master works. Study them not to copy but to understand what moves you about them. If you're a writer, read poetry even if you don't write it. If you're a designer, visit museums even if you work in digital spaces. Cross-pollination often sparks the most original insights. Go out in nature to contemplate the magnificence of natural beauty.

Most importantly, start making decisions based on what feels alive rather than what seems optimal.

Choose the coffee shop that has soul over the one with the best wifi. Buy the book that calls to you over the one you think you should read. Follow curiosity even when it doesn't fit your brand or business plan.

It’s not just being impractical — this is recalibrating your sensory apparatus to recognize quality that can't be measured.

Perhaps most importantly, aesthetic intelligence becomes a compass for all creative decisions.

Instead of endless A/B testing or trend analysis, you develop an internal sense of what serves your work versus what merely serves metrics.

This not only makes you more effective—it makes the work itself more fulfilling because it emerges from authentic choice rather than external optimization.

Here's a simple diagnostic I've started using:

Algorithm thinking asks: 'What will perform well?'

Taste thinking asks: 'What wants to be expressed?'

The sweet spot asks: 'What authentic expression serves a real human need?'

I realized this morning, sitting with Naval's comment, that we're witnessing the emergence of a new economy.

Not the creator economy or the attention economy, but something we might call the taste economy. Where value comes not from efficiency or scale, but from the depth of connection between what you create and who receives it. It comes down to deeper resonance.

In this economy, taste becomes more than aesthetic preference.

It becomes a form of intelligence that can navigate complexity, uncertainty, and information overload in ways that analytical thinking alone cannot.

It's the ability to sense what matters amid the noise, to recognize quality despite the clutter.

Elena's ear hears patterns the playlist algorithms miss. Marcus saw market movements before they appeared on screens. They've all developed a capacity to sense what's alive in ways that transcend measurement.

That capacity—call it taste, intuition, gut feeling, sensitivity, aesthetic intelligence, or simply the ability to sense what's real or notice a hidden pattern —may be the only uniquely human advantage left.

Not because it can't be studied or practiced, but because it emerges from the irreplaceable intersection of individual consciousness with lived experience.

As I finish writing this, the sun is setting over the mountains outside my window.

The light keeps changing in ways I could never predict but somehow always recognize as beautiful. That recognition—instant, inexplicable, completely personal yet somehow universal—is the foundation of everything worth creating.

The algorithms will keep getting smarter.

But they'll never know what it feels like to be moved by something you can't explain.

That mystery belongs to us.

And in protecting it, cultivating it, and trusting it over the seductive promise of optimization, we preserve the possibility of creating work that doesn't just capture attention but touches souls.

Maybe that's what Jack meant by "all that matters."

Not the technical execution or the strategic positioning or the growth metrics.

The judgment refined into intuition.

The moat that can't be crossed because it can't be copied.

The taste that remains ours alone.

Cherish it with care.

Love,

Nik Huno

P.S. The most uncomfortable question isn't whether AI will replace human creativity. It's whether we'll have any human creativity left to replace. Every time we optimize our authentic impulse into algorithmic candy, we train ourselves to forget what we actually wanted to say. Remember, always.