In this episode, Chris sits down with Dr. Ram Singh, CEO & Founder of EtaKor, to unpack what happens when we start trusting the numbers more than the people behind them. They explore why familiar metrics like ROAS can create false confidence, what gets lost when models treat human behavior as predictable, and why the most important signals are often the ones we dismiss as noise.

The conversation moves beyond measurement itself into a bigger question about judgment. As AI gets better at finding patterns, what still requires a human to challenge the answer, add context and recognize when the data is telling only part of the story?

Ram also shares why he believes measurement should be a vehicle, not the destination, and why uncertainty, critique and empathy may be some of the most important tools marketers have left.

Learn more about EtaKor at etakor.ai.

The special humans making this possible

Dr. Ram Singh, Guest
Chris Marine, Host
Pip Kolmar, Producer
Caili Elwell (Just a Girl Productions), Producer
Cover Art Illustrated by Naretiv
Song, “Under The Night Sky” by Kevin Matley

The Responsibly Different™ Podcast is inspired by the original producer/host Benn Marine of The Rising Kind.

And to David Gogel, Kelly Gadsby, Aidan Clark, Shea Hendricks, and the entire team at Campfire, along with the clients who trust us with their work, thank you. Your partnership makes it possible for us to tell stories like these, and to help tell yours too.

Enjoying this content? Text us your thoughts! (if you want a response please include an email address in your text)

Learn more about Campfire Consulting

Visit the Responsibly Different™ Shop where profits go back to nonprofit organizations. Wear your spark on your sleeve.

Thomas Kennon is a professor at New York University, longtime strategist, and author with his latest book The Bigger Leap: An Ethics of NextCapitalism. He has spent decades studying audiences, strategy, and what makes people actually do what they do.

But the deeper his work went, the bigger the question became.

What if the problem in business isn’t that we lack insight, but that we keep using better insight to optimize for the same old outcomes?

In this conversation, Thom and Chris explore the ethics behind how businesses understand and influence people. They move through the difference between growth and thriving, fairness and kindness, community and extraction, and trust and fear. They talk about whether love belongs in business, why sophisticated research still requires human interpretation, and what happens as AI becomes increasingly capable of finding patterns in human behavior.

The question running underneath it all is simple, even if the answer isn’t.

If we understand people better than ever, what responsibility comes with that understanding?

And when the models get smarter, what still belongs to us?

The special humans making this possible

Chris Marine, Host
Thomas Kennon, Guest
Pip Kolmar, Producer
Caili Elwell (Just a Girl Productions), Producer
Cover Art Illustrated by Naretiv
Song, “Under The Night Sky” by Kevin Matley

The Responsibly Different™ Podcast was inspired by the original producer/host Benn Marine of The Rising Kind.

And to David Gogel, Kelly Gadsby, Aidan Clark, Shea Hendricks, and the entire team at Campfire, along with the clients who trust us with their work, thank you. Your partnership makes it possible for us to tell stories like these, and to help tell yours too.

Enjoying this content? Text us your thoughts! (if you want a response please include an email address in your text)

Learn more about Campfire Consulting

Visit the Responsibly Different™ Shop where profits go back to nonprofit organizations. Wear your spark on your sleeve.

When CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert - the #1, Emmy-winning show in late night - they called it "purely a financial decision." Chris Marine isn't so sure. In this special Fireside episode, the Campfire founder and CEO traces the story most coverage skips: how your attention becomes advertising dollars, how those dollars decide what gets made and what gets killed, and why the cancellation of one late-night show is really a signal about media consolidation, press freedom, and power.

Drawing on his time in a newsroom, on the buy side, and on the sell side of media, Chris connects the dots between the $16M Paramount settlement, the Skydance merger, the Jimmy Kimmel boycott, the rise of retail-media giants like Amazon and Walmart, and the research on what happens to communities when journalism disappears. It's part tribute, part wake-up call, and an honest look at the power you hold every time you choose where to point your eyes.

This one's personal. Pull up a seat by the fire.

Enjoying this content? Text us your thoughts! (if you want a response please include an email address in your text)

Learn more about Campfire Consulting

Visit the Responsibly Different™ Shop where profits go back to nonprofit organizations. Wear your spark on your sleeve.