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And now, on to the newsletter.
Welcome to the one hundred and twenty-ninth edition of ‘3-2-1 by Story Rules‘.
A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:
3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece
Let’s dive in.
𝕏 3 Tweets of the week
Haha, Lulu is brutal.
Whoa, the almighty Google is under pressure. No company remains a leader forever.
Billy is one of the best ‘story-collectors’ I’ve come across and I highly recommend subscribing to his weekly newsletter.
Every week he picks a theme and shares six stories about that theme. The last week, he wrote about ‘being great wherever you are’.
One of the stories is about William McRaven (a now retired US Navy Admiral):
Early in his military career, fresh from a grueling frogman exercise—a high-stakes drill for Navy SEALs and Underwater Demolition Teams—William McRaven got word that his unit’s commanding officer wanted to see him immediately. Racing to the commanding officer’s office, McRaven imagined the possibilities—a promotion, some praise for his tireless work ethic, or maybe even the call to lead a mission of great consequence. Instead, the commanding officer tasked McRaven with building a Frog Float for the upcoming Fourth of July parade. “A Frog Float?” McRaven asked. “Yes,” the commanding officer replied. “A big green Freddie the Frog, puffing on a cigar, carrying a stick of dynamite. The folks in Coronado will love it!”
This is the kind of job that may seem like a demotion, and most people would be tempted to put in a mediocre effort. So was McRaven—but a chance meeting with a senior officer made him reframe the situation:
Frustrated, he headed to the locker room. There, another of McRaven’s higher-ups with decades of experience in the Navy sensed his disappointment. After McRaven explained the situation, the seasoned officer said, “Let me tell you something…I’ve been in this Canoe Club for almost thirty years. Sooner or later, we all have to do things we don’t want to do. But if you’re going to do it, then do it right. Build the best damn Frog Float you can.”
McRaven did that, and learnt a valuable life lesson along the way:
“Throughout the rest of my career,” McRaven writes, “I would be asked to build a lot of ‘frog floats’—asked to do those menial tasks that no one else wanted, those tasks that seemed beneath the ‘dignity of my rank.’” He took on the tough, unwanted jobs and approached them as he would a high-stakes mission. “I found, in my career, that if you took pride in the little jobs, people would think you worthy of the bigger jobs.” Over time, McRaven proved himself in every task—no matter how small—and eventually found himself leading the very missions he once dreamed of. From commanding special operations units to overseeing the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, McRaven’s commitment to excellence, even in the most modest of tasks, paved the way for the larger, high-stakes missions that defined his career.
Read the post for more stories like the one above.
Navin is one of the foremost experimenters and thinkers on how to use AI, and I would highly recommend his Substack.
In this post he reflects on an unfortunate tendency of AI tools—to butter up the client:
LLMs have a “sycophancy bias”, defined as “is the tendency of an AI model to excessively agree with or flatter the user, often sacrificing accuracy or truthfulness in order to gain favor or maintain harmony.”
And if you want to feel good, try this out:
Here’s another example: try this prompt in ChatGPT (make sure you’re logged in1): “Based on everything you know about me, write a one-paragraph description of me.” I predict that most of you will be astonished by how well ChatGPT captures you. And you’ll also have a warm glow, because it is such a nice description.
AI companies are aware of this issue and are trying to solve it, but are up against a key issue—most people want to be admired:
So, all the AI companies have been working hard to reduce the sycophancy bias. But the problem is hard to fix. The real issue is that if they make the model truly non-sycophantic, the model gets low scores on LMArena, the AI quality leaderboard where people like you and me vote for which LLM is the best, and because people are a problem, they give low scores to LLMs that tell the unvarnished truth.
Even if you ask AI to critique your idea, it will pull its punches and soften the blows, since it knows that it is your idea.
Is there any way to fix this? Yes, says Navin.
So what’s the best model and what’s the best prompt to reduce sycophancy?
Here:
Lesson: Fire from the shoulders of your imaginary friend, and you’ll have a better chance of reducing the sycophancy bias.
Look, I’m a Thalaivaa fan, and I thought that Jailer was a phenomenal movie. I haven’t yet seen Coolie and am not sure whether it will live up to the crazy expectations.
But irrespective of whether or not you are a Rajini fan, I would recommend watching his speech for the movie’s release function. (The audio is in Tamil, but there are English subtitles).
Rajini is a superb storyteller—and an inspiration for leaders who are asked to give speeches. He gives this arresting 40-minute-long speech without any notes.
In the heartwarming speech, he thanks all the creators and artists associated with the movie and peppers his talk with gentle ribs, self-deprecating wit and memorable anecdotes.
Here, he gently ribs his director, Lokesh Kanagaraj, on his penchant for giving long interviews:
Our director Lokesh Kanagaraj and his interviews. He gave this one that went on for two hours and ten minutes! I was standing and watching thinking it’ll be done (soon). Kept listening (and it was) still not done. I then sat and listened, it still didn’t finish. I even lay down and listened. I got sleepy, fell asleep, and woke up. The interview was still going on!
Rajini makes fun of his own frailties as a ‘1950s car model’:
And then Sandy the dance master. On the very first day of the song shoot he told me, ‘Sir, let’s rock the steps!’ I told him ‘Listen, Master, my body’s a 1950 model. It’s been running for lakhs of kilometers. Every part’s had a fix-up. Don’t make me dance too much, or parts might start falling off.’ I told him to be careful with me. Still, even after telling them they made me do some crazy moves. You have to see it in the movie!
This next part is hilarious in the original Tamil. In this incident, Rajini again takes his own case, by narrating how the director admitted that he was a Kamal Hassan fan:
(For context, in Tamil cinema, there’s always been a friendly rivalry between the fans of Rajinikanth (the mass hero) and Kamal Hassan (the thinking actor). You could say they are like the Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan of Tamil cinema.)
Now coming to Mr. Lokesh. About him, his first first film, Maanagaram, did really well Watched it, it was excellent. Most directors who have a hit begin with a bang and then drop over time. Then the talk was that Kaithi is doing great And the director? Lokesh Kanagaraj. I watched the movie and called him immediately. I wanted to get him before others could. So he came… Told him I watched the movie and it was really good. I asked if he had a subject for me. He said, ‘Sir, don’t even ask, I have a subject. I’ll tell you, sir. But one thing, sir. I’m a Kamal fan, sir’.
Maybe it’s in my stars, I don’t know! Nelson (the director of Jailer) comes home asks for ‘good’ coffee. I asked him if he had a story for me he’s like, ‘I’m a Kamal fan’ Did I ask, huh? Did I ask whose fan you are? He’s like, ‘I’m a Kamal fan’.
Like he was hinting the typical punchlines and that cool hair push won’t do it. Need smart, intelligent acting, he was indirectly telling me!
He lavishes praise for all his co-stars, including Telugu star Nagarjuna (even at his own expense):
And then the king Nagarjuna came on board He did ‘Nattukku Oru Nallavan’ movie 33-34 years ago When I looked at him… I hadn’t followed many of his films since he doesn’t go out much or talk much. When I looked at him now, he… looks even younger now! Younger than ever! His skin was glowing! The color, man, just wow! I kept looking at him like ‘How’s this possible?’ My hair’s gone but his is growing thicker. He’s just in perfect shape! Skin shining bright I asked, ‘Mr. Nagarjuna, What’s your secret? Tell me’.
He was like, ‘Mr. Rajini, nothing special, just exercise. Continuous exercise. Weights, Swimming. And consistency. Been doing it for 40-45 years. And dinner over by 6:30 PM max. No eating after that. And dieting…’
One thing, my friends, if we punish our body, the body will punish us back. Our organs heart, lungs, liver, kidneys intestines, cells, all tell us ‘Come on! Exercise a bit! Run a bit! Do something! I’ll function better for you’.
This final story is heart-rending. Did you know Rajinikant actually worked as a coolie at his uncle’s shop when he was young, to support his family?
An order came for 3 sacks of rice to be delivered to a shop immediately. My uncle told me ‘Listen, Shivaji (Rajini’s original name), just 2 sacks, 500 meters only. Go deliver. You get Rs. 10 for 2 sacks.’ I said okay, took the three sacks on the handcart and set off. To my bad luck, an accident had happened there so they had diverted traffic. What should’ve been a quick 500 meters trip turned into a long 1 to 1.5 km haul with the handcart. Balancing those sacks was not easy. Full of traffic, lorries, buses, and cars kept passing by. I had to haul over bumps and holes. Lost balance, and one sack tumbled down. Everyone started yelling at me. Passengers on the bus, random folks shouting. I was sweating like crazy. People asking, ‘Why are you bringing this on the road? Who gave you this handcart?’ Because I was so skinny.
I reloaded the sack got scolded, struggling to push. And then suddenly the cart picked up speed. I looked back, Saroja (the maid from the shop) was pushing. She kept pushing me, ‘Come on Shivaji, look ahead, push! You got this!’ Reminds me of Manorama ‘Go this way, then that way’ she kept telling me. After all the scolding, fuss, and mess, I finally delivered the sacks. They gave Rs. 15. ‘Shivaji , you rest on the cart, I’ll haul the cart’, she said. And then took me back. I got Rs. 10. I was sitting there tired. Half an hour later my uncle told me ‘Three sacks came, need to load them into the tempo’. I said ‘okay’, and I loaded the sacks. Then I asked for money he gave me Rs. 2 ‘Keep this as tip!’, he said.
It was a voice I recognized, and when I looked it was Muniswamy, my collegemate. I used to be noisy and tease him. He looked at me and said ‘You acted so big, and now look at you!’ Leaning on those sacks, I cried for the very first time in my life.
