By Josh Gondelman — 07 Sep 2026

#200. CEOs and You

If you try to explain to me what Salesforce is I will throw up on you.

Hi everyone,

Happy 200th edition of That's Marvelous! We're coming up on the newsletter's four-year anniversary, but I thought this big round number was also worth acknowledging! I've published this sucker every Monday without fail for 200 solid weeks even though nobody has asked me to. I feel both proud of that fact and a little confused by my drive to do it. Mostly, I appreciate everyone who reads this puppy whether it's just once or week after week.

If you enjoy That's Marvelous, it would mean a lot if you wanted to share it with someone in your life, on social media or in private conversation. Or if you have read it once or twice, maybe consider subscribing? Or if you've enjoyed it and have spare cash lying around, upgrading to a paid subscription (top right corner) helps keep the whole endeavor running.

Since I don't have kids and don't work in a school, I do not acknowledge Labor Day Weekend as the End Of Summer. In fact, I found myself thinking the other day: "9/11 is technically MORE of a summer holiday than Memorial Day." Not a useful thought, but technically a true one. I do always enjoy the semi-abandoned feeling of NYC over the first weekend in September as Hamptons weekenders and families enjoy their last gulps of flexible warm weather travel. It's kind of a Leftovers situation, where it's not like nobody is around, but there are fewer people than usual in a way that's noticeable. But instead of triggering a profound theological reckoning, it makes it easier to get restaurant reservations.

And, obviously, Labor Day Weekend is notable because it marks Maris's birthday celebration!!! Our summer was largely consumed by our (well-chronicled) apartment flood and short-notice move out of our home of nine years. So, it was especially nice to devote this whole long weekend to relaxing and socializing and otherwise recreating (as in "recreation" not "re-creation"). We were not reenacting Civil War battles in honor of Virgo Season.

Happy Birthday Danger Maris!!! I love you so much!!! — Maris in a cream colored dress smiling as I kiss her on the side of the head! I’m wearing a green t-shirt and orange tie dye shorts. Photo by Rachel Syme

We kicked off the celebration by enjoying a performance of Cat Cohen's solo show Broad Strokes about her experience having a stroke when she was 30. Cat is talented to an extent that is frankly unfair. She's so funny and a great singer in a way that feels really natural and effortless. Her comedic style is extremely influential in New York City's comedy scene. She delivers a level of candor that is always buoyed with humor, and a degree of whimsy that's always anchored by emotional truth. Broad Strokes dives into some really heavy topics in a way that feels totally poised and in control and hilarious. It's running for a few more weeks and I super recommend checking it out if you're in town!

Program for Cat Cohen's show at the Lucille Lortel Theater with my canned cocktail visible in the corner. — Not sponsored. I just had nowhere else to put my drink.

As Maris and I made our way to and through the West Village on our way to the show, we got some really premium eavesdropping done. Well, less eavesdropping and more people watching. I think the difference is, we didn't see or hear anything that felt like a secret. On the subway, two older (Italian?) tourists took seats across from each other, and the subway car was post-rapture-empty enough that they were able to extend their legs fully and make kind of a bridge by touching the soles of their shoes together. I've never seen anyone do that before. I do not know why they did it, but they took great joy in their feat of feet. I was charmed by their late onset adult whimsy. Maris was annoyed by it, which is more than fair.

Out on street level, we maneuvered through a crosswalk towards another two men who seemed to be in their late 50s with strong eastern European accents egging each other on, repeating the same phrase with a different emphasis each time:

"They can go FUCK themselves!"

"THEY can go fuck themselves!"

"They CAN go fuck themselves!"

I do not know who they were talking about or why. I cannot claim to be on their side of whatever dispute had them so animated. But I loved seeing their hype man symbiosis. Humanity is such a beautiful and rich tapestry.

On Saturday, Maris pulled together a little gathering at a local bar, which is always difficult for either of us to do. She called a day or two before, announcing her intention to stake out a plot of the venue's backyard, and the manager was like...sounds great! That is admittedly a normal interaction, but as Maris pointed out, we are used to way weirder responses to bringing some friends to a bar for a birthday celebration.

The regular weeknight bartender at our previous local spot (directly across the street from our old apartment) would become immensely stressed if we showed up with a big-ish group unannounced, and they would get exactly as stressed if we let them know our intentions in advance. We were not the most regular regulars there, but at the very least we were irregulars there. They knew us, is the point. We would always tip generously (which additionally overwhelmed this bartender), but every time we showed up with more than two friends, it would result in me getting yelled at. That bar is the place I was yelled at the most of any location in my adult life. And it was almost always by management, for committing the crime of bringing them business. Not so at our new local. So, I guess what I'm saying is, some change is good even it comes from difficult circumstances.

Last night we had a GREAT dinner at Lonnies (immediate entrant into the canon of great burger-martini-fries places in Brooklyn) thanks to a smooth Leftovers Weekend reservation. Then we watched The Invite which was SO STRESSFUL and also REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I want to recommend it to my parents, but Seth Rogen laughs within the first minute, and that's a dealbreaker for my dad.

I'll be at Frankenstein's Baby tonight at Union Hall along with a totally ridiculous lineup. Tomorrow I'm interviewing my friend Ali Barthwell about her book Reality TV For Snobs. You can come!!!

A week from Saturday, I'll be back home in Massachusetts for THREE SHOWS at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square. It's my only night in town touring this new hour, and I'd love to see you there. The middle show is already sold out, and the early and late shows are well on their way.

COLORADO FOLKS: The Comedy Fort in Fort Collins posted the ticket links for my shows on 10/2 and 10/3! I'm SO excited to make my debut at the club, and it would be amazing to get a good turnout!!!

And WESTERN MA PEOPLE: New England Public Media is bringing me to the Iron Horse in Northampton as part of their Smart and Funny People series early next year (1/30). I loooove this part of Massachusetts and am SO hyped to perform at the legendary Iron Horse! I hope I live up to my billing!

Also, Alison Leiby and I are judging some live cartooning as part of The New Yorker Festival on October 24th. It's currently sold out, but you can get on the wait list if this is your thing. I'm psyched to be a part of this festival after having been out of town the last few years while it was happening.

Oh last thing! I'm on Joey Dardano's podcast Help From a Hypocrite! Joey is so funny (he's GREAT in the first episode of the new season of Adults) and we really got riffy and silly on his show!

PEP TALK FOR CEOs

I've probably done one of these pep talks before, but since it's Labor Day, an occasion recognizing the labor movement, union members and organizers, day laborers, care workers, customer service representatives, teachers–essentially anyone with a real job–I wanted to take a moment and salute a group that is too often forgotten on this day: the CEOs.

(Note: As my friend Chris Duffy and many others have pointed out, the U.S. celebration of Labor Day could stand to be more pro-labor.)

Today's rallies, marches, and social media posts will honor the people who organize, build, serve, deliver, and heal. But where is the love for the folks with the most crucial skill for thriving in this economy–having money already. And let's not forget the double threats who also know how to convince other rich people to give them more money.

Many CEOs possess broader arrays of skills that helped carry them to success. Expertise in a field that facilitated a rise through the corporate ranks. An idea that makes people's lives easier or better while generating profits. A managerial style that draws the best and most engaged work out of your employees, whose contributions you value and celebrate. To those business leaders I want to make it clear I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU.

Today I'm referring to the bosses' bosses who think with the ruthless cunning of an outside consultant and act with the deadened emotionlessness of a three-hole-punch (the kind of tool they have an assistant to wield on their behalf). I'm talking about the people who have gone from bragging about being "job creators" to trying to destroy the very concept of jobs without accounting for the lives of the people who need those darn paychecks to survive.

To you I say, enjoy the other 364-365 days of the year when you have essentially everything in the world. And I hope it is not too painful that the public has started asking you to pay literally any taxes. Also congratulations on inventing the concept of "permalance" contractors to avoid paying benefits to people who are very obviously your employees. It seems like that is currently working well for you, and it probably won't engender any longterm animosity at all!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This is a nice pep talk request, and I didn't edit it much. It's for anyone going back to school, but especially for people in their last semester. (I did add the nickname.)

I’m a NYC library worker graduating with my MLIS in December. Jobs are hard to come by and they all pay pretty badly! It was scary going back to school at 40, but I’ve done remarkably well while working full time and I hope it’s worth it in the end. Please pump me up before my last (ever) semester!
- Ready To Check Out?

It is a shame that the phrase "known unknowns" was coined by Iraq War architect Donald Rumsfeld, because it's such a poetic encapsulation of so many uncomfortable situations in life. It's almost unfair that such perfection comes from such a grimy source. It's like when you see an iridescent ripple of color across the surface of spilled oil. Like, wow and also yuck.

Looking into the future, it's easy to become consumed with the things you know you do not know. What will I do after I graduate? Will my degree "pay off"? Will the jeans I've been stalking online ever go on deep enough sale to justify my purchasing them?

For anyone on edge about being pushed out of the womb of academia–whether that's grad school, college, or high school–and into the "real world" I have a couple of general words of encouragement (sorta the premise of my whole deal here): You are already living in the real world. There are certain new social, professional, and financial challenges you'll face when you graduate (or simply decide to make a graceful, pregraduation exit), but you have prepared yourself for those obstacles by being alive, continuously from birth until now.

And, frankly, if you have been sufficiently coddled to the point that you do not know how to–for example–do laundry or boil water for pasta, there is an excellent chance that whatever structures have insulated you from any kinds of material struggle so far will remain in place going forward. (Most stuff these days you can just google or ask a friend about though.)

In terms of fears about an advanced degree being "worth it" that's potentially an easier question to answer. It's worth it if you value what you got out of it. Chances are you didn't pursue a masters degree in library science because you received promises of untold riches on the other side. As you mentioned, even the rare steady job in the field pays badly. You went back to school to learn specialized knowledge for the purpose of professional advancement, sure, but also to learn things that will benefit you in ways you can pass on to others.

A library science degree is not like getting an MBA where as far as I can tell, you pay however several hundred thousand dollars for someone to whisper to you: "Lay off as many employees as you think the corporate structure can withstand, and use any profits for stock buybacks." And then you get to be a CEO. This is possibly an oversimplification of how that works, but I think there's a 50% chance it's exactly how it goes. And it's really only worth it if you get more money out of the arrangement than you put in in the long run. In a utopian society, I have to imagine the people studying capital-b Business for fun and enrichment would be a vanishingly small number of true math weirdos.

Your diploma will be worth exactly as much as you put into it, as long as your life doesn't get worse having to pay off your tuition expenses. Obviously if you have to move into the hostel from the movie Hostel to save money, it would be hard to feel good about your decision to go back to school. But as long as you got attentive instruction and didn't use ChatGPT to write your papers, you're better off than you were before, mind-wise. Even if you're treading water financially, you'll be doing it with a denser, wrinklier, wiser brain than you've ever had. And you got to spend some of your precious moments on this Earth doing things you cared about. That sounds worthwhile on its own!

It is always worth it to take charge of your own life, despite not knowing in advance whether you will receive an influx of cash for doing so. You deserve to enjoy and benefit from your choices at 40 just as much as you did at 20 or will at 80. There are certainly bad decisions people have made in the name of getting their groove back, but I don't know anyone who regrets learning more about books and research. And I don't know of anyone who's harmed someone else through that pursuit either. Based on those facts alone, you're already in pretty great shape.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Denzel Curry & Kenneth Blume - "GONE FISHING"

I don't know what it is about the end of summer, but all I want to listen to is extremely energetic rap music (and I guess podcasts explaining the Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention scandal). I almost went with Busta Rhymes on back-to-back weeks, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, especially since the song that caught my ear over the past few days was a feature on the album Tom Hardy (yes that Tom Hardy) released with indie collective Czarface. As much as I am borderline addicted to drums that sound like a trash can full of bricks falling down the stairs, I cannot yet give a full-throated endorsement to Bane The Rapper (shout out to Boston's own 7L and Esoteric, as well as Inspectah Deck though).

Denzel Curry is a name I've heard for a few years but hadn't really investigated until I saw he had a new album out, and ii–a collaboration with Kenneth Blume fka Kenny Beats–hits the spot for what I've been craving lately. Denzel and Kenny are both in MF DOOM mode here, which is one of the best modes a rapper and producer can be in. It feels like watching a car chase in a movie, all gas no brakes, fuck a turn signal. But there's a playfulness (DOOM style) here too. The whole album is really good, and it grabbed me right from the opening track. Can't ask for much more than that.

I also was staying up a little later than intended one night last week and stumbled across Armand Hammer's recent Tiny Desk performance, and it grabbed me for completely opposite reasons. The group's style is kind of dazed and aggressive, like Cannibal Ox (for any other early aughts Def Jux fans still reading). The closer, "Stonefruit" got lodged in my head in a way none of their music had for me before. It's definitely not feel good music, but I think I've got a few readers who enjoy this kind of thing. Let me know in the comments!