With Glenn Kramon, Stanford GSB

One of a million.Or one in a million.

Glenn Kramon edited at the New York Times for 37 years and now teaches one of Stanford Business School’s most oversubscribed classes. His argument: AI raised everybody’s default, so the default is now the floor. What makes you one in a million is two things — warmth and competence — and both of them fail the same way.

The three tools Watch the episode

Inbox9:41

Alex Riveranow
Quick question
Hope you are well, I
Alex Riveranow
My first three exercises
Cherie suggested we connect —

Five words each. One of them spent them on a wish.

Same sender. One of them wasted the only words they had

Three tools

The rules, as instruments.Run them on your own drafts.

Each one is a lever of the episode with input fields attached. Start anywhere — they do not depend on each other, and nothing you type leaves the browser.

The two levers

Two ways to be forgettable.They are the same way.

Warmth fails by being generic. Competence fails by being vague. Both produce writing that would survive a find-and-replace of the recipient’s name — which is the only test this episode actually applies.

Warmth
Fails by being generic
“Hope you are well.”
At least half of Kramon's students admit to opening that way, and AI does it by default — which is exactly what makes it a marker of the million. Warmth is bought with research, not with pleasantries.
Competence
Fails by being vague
“I'm resilient.”
Most people have the competence and spend it on adjectives. Replace the label with the scene, and the adjective becomes redundant — which is how you know the scene worked.

And the twelve rules for email

Know your audience.
Say what you like and what you would like, not what you don't like.
Know your main point before you start.
Clear personal subject line indicating urgency.
Start with what your audience doesn't know, not what it does know.
Be more formal if you're not sure what your audience expects, like dressing for a party.
Start fast. Get to the point quickly, not at the end.
Be shorter.
Vary the length of your sentences. Some very short, some longer.
Write it as you would say it to family or friends.
Add some warmth, even humor.
Assume it will be on page one of the New York Times, or distributed to everyone you know.

Kramon’s list, as he teaches it. Rules 2, 4 and 5 are the three the episode stops to work through — and rule 12 is the one only you can answer, which is why the cold email check asks you rather than guessing.

Say it

I’m a Swiss Army knife.

Show it

At 17 I managed social media, customer retention, finance and HR simultaneously for my family business — a diner struggling through COVID.

an age
four functions
a place

“Suddenly, that’s a movie scene. That’s what you want.”

The fix is always the same shape

Run it on a draft

Eight questions and a gut check.In the order that kills drafts fastest.

The episode is unusually checklist-shaped, so this is the whole method in one pass. Work down it — the cheap checks come first on purpose, because a draft that fails the first two never needed the rest.

For a gratitude note, skip all of it and write the one scene you actually remember.

0 of 9 cleared

Subject line — would they open it? Is there a “my” or an “our” where a definite article is sitting?
First five words — cut any greeting that would survive a find-and-replace of their name
First sentence — does it tell them something they do not already know?
Does it show what you can do for them, before it asks for anything at all?
Every adjective about yourself — replaced with the scene
One specific thing about them, from research — the opener, or the P.S.
Sentence lengths — read it aloud. Some very short, some longer.
Rule 12 — the front page of the New York Times, or forwarded to everyone you know
Maya Angelou — how will this make them feel?

Watch the episode

This all came from here.Just under an hour, and no small talk.

Glenn Kramon spent 37 years editing at the New York Times and now teaches Winning Writing at Stanford GSB, where Cherie took the class as a student. He opens by returning the compliment: South by Southwest booked him last year, and when he asked how they had found him — assuming it was his Times work — they said they had heard him on this podcast.

Open on YouTube

Fan club

Six things they let slip.How closely were you listening?

An episode about writing turns out to be the one where the sisters give away the most about their own. Answer first — the fact arrives afterwards, so nothing is spoiled before you have had a go.

Question 1: not answered
Question 2: not answered
Question 3: not answered
Question 4: not answered
Question 5: not answered
Question 6: not answered

Question 1 of 6

Jean ran a writing programme as an undergraduate. Where, and what was it?