Charles Duhigg on the writing AI can't touch, what GLP-1s really do to your brain, and the serendipity tax

Summation with Auren Hoffman

Summation with Auren Hoffman
Charles Duhigg on the writing AI can't touch, what GLP-1s really do to your brain, and the serendipity tax
Jun 16, 2026
Auren Hoffman

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker. He is the author of The Power of Habit, Smarter Faster Better, and Supercommunicators. His work focuses on the science of habits, productivity, decision-making, and human connection.

In this episode of Summation, Charles and Auren discuss:

  • why producing the words is only 10% of an author's job, and the 90% AI can't do
  • what GLP-1s actually do to the brain 
  • the serendipity tax: why you pay for five dead-end dinners to get the one that changes your life
  • the three skills that separate supercommunicators from everyone else

You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Charles Duhigg on X at @cduhigg


Episode Artwork Charles Duhigg on the writing AI can't touch, what GLP-1s really do to your brain, and the serendipity tax 1:03:42 Episode Artwork SignalFire CEO Chris Farmer on why venture funds now last 20 years and the hiring boom behind the layoffs 46:03 Episode Artwork GTMnow Podcast | Your First VC Meeting Will Be Agent-to-Agent 39:59 Episode Artwork Serval CEO Jake Stauch: talent is the only moat left, hiring founders as FDEs, and building a $1B company with your wife and a newborn 50:10 Episode Artwork Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko on why curiosity is AI’s scarcest resource 1:00:06 Episode Artwork Fundrise CEO Ben Miller: VCX, Roaring Kitty's revenge, and AI killing the office 1:02:03 Episode Artwork Six-time CIA Station Chief Ralph Goff on the new doctrine of war 1:05:23 Episode Artwork Glenn Youngkin on governing like a CEO, the AI power crisis, and why every operator should run for office​ 57:44 Episode Artwork Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta on why trades are AI-proof, the trillion-dollar home services market, and why software stopped being a capital asset 58:53 Episode Artwork Eric Ries on why "bad governance" outperforms, the case against shareholder primacy, and AI's Chernobyl moment 58:46 Episode Artwork Fmr. German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg on NATO, nuclear energy, and how to disagree without blood 1:01:18 Episode Artwork Fmr Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on chips, China, and lessons from Andy Grove 58:10 Episode Artwork Vlad Tenev and Tudor Achim on mathematical superintelligence, why math is harder than code for LLMs, and the end of buggy software 48:54 Episode Artwork Retired 4-star General John Allen on Iran, AI hyperwar, and Taiwan’s future 55:19 Episode Artwork Adrian Aoun on healthcare as a product, Apple's AI problem, and why you should have kids now 53:57 Episode Artwork Tod Sacerdoti (Flex GP and Pipedream CEO) on seed at scale and SaaS mispricing 1:02:20 Episode Artwork Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia on bowling alone, AI bots, and why the heartland is happier than the coasts 57:42 Episode Artwork Lt. General Mike Fenzel (Ret.) on bad data, bad experts, and why we can’t exit wars 42:25 Episode Artwork Martin Shkreli on prison, beating Bloomberg, and being hated 1:01:33 Episode Artwork World of DaaS is now Summation 1:16 Episode Artwork Turing CEO Jonathan Siddharth - The $30 Trillion Knowledge Work Market, Training Frontier AI Models and Building Stage Five Culture 41:54 Episode Artwork Chapter CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz - medicare complexity, $100B fraud and how tech can fix it 42:20 Episode Artwork Industry Ventures Founder Hans Swildens - how secondaries became the dominant path for VC exits 54:12 Episode Artwork Economist Glenn Hubbard - The Fed’s dilemma, AI productivity, and why experts lost trust 41:54 Episode Artwork Rembrand CEO Omar Tawakol - why product placement works better than traditional ads 52:32