Kunal Shah - This is the only thing people pay for

Gross margins are fundamentally tied to a product's ability to elevate a consumer's social status rather than its mere utility. While the "CFO of the brain" seeks cost-cutting in utility services, the "CMO of the brain" drives investment in high-status assets like Ivy League educations or luxury brands. In the digital age, utility-based businesses are seeing margins collapse toward zero as they are disrupted by companies offering free services to cross-sell high-margin status or financial products. This shift is particularly evident in low-trust, non-Western societies where trust concentrates in a few "super entities" or conglomerates like India’s Tata Group, enabling the rise of super apps. However, social trust appears biologically linked to ethnic and belief-system homogeneity; while high diversity can stifle trust and lead to authoritarianism, excessive similarity halts innovation, necessitating a delicate balance for societal progress.