I.
Solo essays
Short, written, narrated. A single idea about incentives, read aloud and pressure-tested in the open.
The Podcast · A Pazlow™ series
The Incentives Podcast.
Conversations, essays, and case studies about what systems actually reward — and why the answer explains the outcomes nobody planned for.
One question runs through every episode: What is this system actually rewarding?
Trailer · Forthcoming
The show trailer drops with Episode 001. Join the list to hear it first.
The show promise
Conversations about what systems actually reward.
Most shows interview people about what they believe. This one is about what their systems quietly pay them to do — and why the difference between the two is where the real story lives.
Every episode follows the same lens: identify the system, name the incentives, trace the behavior, and look at what would actually need to change. No jargon. No ideology. Just the architecture beneath the outcome.
Format
Three formats. One lens.
II.
Interviews
Long-form conversations with builders, researchers, and operators about the systems they live inside.
III.
Case studies
A specific company, platform, institution, or moment — taken apart through the incentives that produced it.
Topics
One question, applied to everything.
CultureBusinessTechnologyRelationshipsPoliticsInstitutionsHabitsAttentionStatusPower
Each season moves across these domains — sometimes inside one episode — so the lens gets sharper as the show goes on.
Episodes
Season One — coming soon.
What Is This System Actually Rewarding?
The opening question of the show. Why the gap between what a system says and what it rewards explains almost everything that follows.
Solo essay
Why Good People Build Bad Systems
How well-meaning founders, leaders, and institutions design machines that quietly punish the behavior they claim to want.
Interview
Attention Is an Incentive
The economy beneath the feed. What platforms reward, what they make impossible to ignore, and what gets quietly buried.
Case study
Status Is a Currency
Why status moves people more reliably than money — and how to spot it operating in teams, markets, and relationships.
Solo essay
When Institutions Reward the Opposite of Their Mission
Schools, hospitals, agencies, and platforms whose metrics quietly drift away from the outcome they were built to produce.
Case study
Designing Better Incentives
What it actually takes to change behavior at scale — and the small structural moves that outperform big motivational ones.
Interview
Suggest a guest or topic
Know a system worth taking apart?
Tell us about a builder, a researcher, an operator, or a system whose incentives deserve a closer look. The best suggestions become episodes.
Send a suggestionUse the optional note field on the Join page. Submitting a suggestion doesn't subscribe you to anything unless you also provide your email.
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