It’s the spaces people choose for conversations, the energy of the room before the event starts. The in between moments after presentations end when everyone is not speaking on script. It shapes the tone of the trip without anyone explicitly acknowledging it.

The city of Nashville brought incredible Energy I didn’t expect and felt especially layered that way. Over a few days, I moved between hotel lounges, rooftop events, live music venues, restaurants, and conference spaces all tied together by conversations about retail, customer experience, and where the automotive industry is heading next.

And somewhere between meetings, I realized how much my relationship with professional spaces has changed. Earlier in my career, I thought professionalism meant becoming more neutral. More polished. Less personal. Now I think the people with the strongest presence are usually the ones who seem fully comfortable observing, contributing, and existing as themselves within the environment they’re in.

The leaders people remember are often the ones who bring perspective, curiosity, warmth, style, emotional intelligence, and presence into the room instead of trying to strip those qualities away.

Here are some of my favourite bits of Nashville during my free time, having the vodka pizza and trying on western outfits while listening to Taylor swift.

The meetings mattered.

But Taylor Swift’s 22 somewhere in the background.

The conversation has largely centred on productivity. How many hours can be saved? How much faster can tasks be completed? But there’s another, less visible story unfolding — one that reveals more about culture than technology.

As AI adoption spreads, two very different patterns are emerging.

Some employees use AI as a shortcut. They lean on it to shrink workload, automate tasks, and reduce effort within their current scope. Others use AI as an amplifier. They integrate it to clear bottlenecks, expand their contributions, and take on responsibilities that stretch beyond their job description.

At first glance, both behaviours look identical: they fall under the banner of “using AI.” Yet the signals they send are opposite. One is about minimizing; the other is about multiplying.

The challenge for leaders is that traditional performance metrics rarely capture this distinction. Efficiency gains look the same on a scorecard, whether they come from retreating into less work or stepping into more. In many workplaces, that means both groups are being rewarded equally.

This creates a quiet but powerful risk: organizations may inadvertently reinforce minimization over multiplication.

That risk is not technological. It’s cultural.

Every workplace sends signals about what it values. Sometimes those signals encourage creativity, ownership, and initiative. Other times, they emphasize predictability, consistency, and risk avoidance. AI simply makes those choices more visible. It is less an engine of productivity than a mirror held up to organizational culture.

If employees conclude that doing less is rewarded the same as doing more, the safer path becomes obvious. The multiplier mindset — using AI to accelerate growth, unlock new insights, and expand contribution — will lose out to the minimizer mindset. Over time, the promise of AI as a driver of innovation and competitiveness will fade.

The implications reach beyond individual organizations. Canada already faces long-standing productivity challenges compared with peer economies. If AI is treated primarily as a tool for cost-cutting rather than growth, our workplaces risk reinforcing the very patterns that hold us back.

For leaders, the takeaway is clear: AI adoption cannot be evaluated solely on output. It must also be understood as a cultural signal. The critical questions are not just: How many employees are using AI? or How many hours are being saved? The more important question is: What behaviours are we actually rewarding?

Are we encouraging employees to minimize — or to multiply? Are tools being used to shrink effort, or to expand impact?

These choices will shape not only the trajectory of individual organizations but also Canada’s broader economic resilience. AI will accelerate whatever values a workplace already holds. Leaders who want to unlock its full potential must ensure their cultures celebrate the amplifiers — those who use technology to expand scope and contribution — rather than simply applauding efficiency gains.

In the end, AI will not just change how we work. It will change what we choose to reward. And that cultural decision may prove more consequential than the technology itself.

Last year, while working at Ford Motor Company, I joined my first Formula 1 office pool.

Everyone else was deep in tire strategy and Verstappen predictions. I was fairly quiet in the group chat, I made my picks and hovered near the bottom of the leaderboard.

But my attention kept drifting somewhere else.

Not to F1 itself, but to the broader shift unfolding across the industry: the long, complex move toward electrification. And the one championship that seemed built around it from the start: Formula E.

Electrification is as much of a drivetrain evolution as it is a perceptual one.

Formula E didn't invent the shift but it's one of the places that asked us to feel it.

Back then, it still felt like a championship in progress and not the movement I was ready to write about.

For those unfamiliar, Formula E is an all-electric racing championship launched in 2014. It was built to prove that sustainable, high-performance vehicles could thrive not just on the road but on the global stage, racing through city centers instead of remote circuits.

Formula 1 began in the 1950s and shaped the soul of motorsport as we know it. It wasn’t just about speed. It was about sound, risk, and legacy. The visceral presence of machines pushed to their limits. Formula 1 continues to carry that legacy forward. And it will. It remains a global phenomenon and an ongoing testament to engineering, drama, and spectacle.

As I quietly observed that first office pool, Formula E still felt distant. It was smart, clean, and undeniably promising, but it didn’t yet inspire the same emotional connection.

I work in an industry full of pioneers. Incredibly talented people engineering what comes next for mobility, sustainability, and performance. I’ve seen the vision firsthand. But emotionally? I hadn’t caught up.

In 2024, Formula E was about 0.6 seconds slower than Formula 1 from zero to sixty. That number stuck with me. It felt like a metaphor: close, but not quite. A measurable gap difference that also felt like an emotional one.

So I waited.

And in just one season, the gap reversed.

Formula E’s Gen3 Evo now accelerates from zero to sixty in 1.82 seconds, according to the championship’s official Season 10 performance release. Faster than any Formula 1 car. What was once trailing by a fraction is now leading by nearly a full second.

The silence wasn’t delay. It was a potential gathering force.

Formula 1 taught us to crave noise. Speed wasn’t just speed. It was combustion. It was danger, ego, and generational legacy amplified through carbon fiber at 200 miles per hour.

Over a decade ago, I experienced my first visceral thrill of racing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway with Ford Motor Company. It wasn’t a race, just a demo day, but I suited up, sat beside a professional driver, and launched into real speed on a proper circuit.

Demo day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — the day speed became a sensation. Photo credit: Ford Motor Company

I remember the energy among my coworkers. It was a work perk, yes, but something deeper clicked. While accelerating at racing speeds, I felt the sound of the combustion engine, the pressure of G-force, the tension just before takeoff. It stayed with me.

That moment shaped how I understood racing. Not just as speed, but as sensation.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Shelby GT. Race Car Selfie in park mode (Not in motion!) Photo credit: Renee Chu

I don’t remember the speed we were traveling, just that I could feel the noise in my soul. This was the moment I understood: Racing isn’t just sound, velocity. It’s a soul experience.

— Renee Chu, Motorsport Observer. Cultural writer exploring speed, emotion, and silent signals.

We didn’t fall in love with racing because of the numbers. We fell in love with the feeling of being that close to the edge.

That feeling was loud. And loud felt real.

Then Formula E showed up. No roar. No gasoline. Just the whine of electric precision. A whisper instead of a war cry.

For a long time, that was the story.

Season by season, Formula E stopped trying to be louder. It started becoming undeniable.

This isn’t racing as spectacle. It’s racing as systems mastery. Energy regenerates every lap. Speed is recalculated in real time. Drivers become strategists. Engineers become artists. Performance becomes precision, not just performance for its own sake.

The Gen3 Evo cars now hit 200 miles per hour. They don’t announce it. They just arrive.

Formula E's viewership has doubled since its debut.

Data compiled via public reports and estimates (incl. Nielsen, FIA releases, and industry summaries)

In one season, Formula E flipped the narrative.

Formula E’s 1.82s 0–60 acceleration (Gen3 Evo)

• 374 million global viewership (Formula E Season 10 Audience Report)

• Zero carbon footprint since launch

• Backed by Jaguar TCS Racing, Porsche Cars, Mahindra, Stellantis

Not a gimmick. A signal.

The shift didn’t happen by accident. Under the leadership of CEO Jeff Dodds, Formula E has stepped into its identity — with clarity and confidence, redefining what high performance now means. Founder and Chairman’s Alejandro Agag has long envisioned Formula E not just as a championship, but as a cultural signal. And with Ellie Norman guiding the brand's voice as CMO, the series now resonates beyond tech and motorsport and it’s become a mirror of modern values.

As racing gets quieter and familiar signals like sound begin to fade, how do we stay emotionally connected to performance, identity, and brand? Will the soul of racing — and driving itself — remain?

What does progress look like when it stops performing for attention?

Formula E isn’t replacing Formula 1. It’s offering something else. A new way to feel connected. A new sound for the soul of speed.

Quiet. Precise. Unapologetic.

And once you really hear it, you can’t unhear it.

With respect to the visionaries shaping Formula E

Jeff Dodds (CEO), Alejandro Agag (Founder & Chairman), Ellie Norman (CMO)

Other Mentions: Formula E, Stellantis, Mahindra Group, Porsche Cars Canada, Ltd., Jaguar TCS Racing, Toyota Canada Inc. (Current), Ford Motor Company (Former)

That ride in the Shelby GT at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was my first taste of real speed. A nod to Jim Farley— whose love for racing shaped more than just strategy. These days, I get to explore mobility from another angle at Toyota (my current home), where the future is unfolding in quieter, more deliberate ways.

For any inquiries, please contact:

Email: rennchu@gmail.com

Website: linkedin.com/in/reneexchu/

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Welcome.

What to expect

• Essays on culture, identity, and systems

• Cultural field notes and observations

• Analysis of subtle shifts in how we live, move, consume, and create

• Occasional interviews or guest ideas from adjacent minds

Cadence:

There’s no fixed schedule
I’ll write when I have something real to say
Some seasons will be quieter than others
But I’m not starting from zero—I’ve been collecting years of unpublished work
What you’ll read here is drawn from a deep archive of thought
Everything will be considered, and worth your time

Free subscribers will get the core essays and field notes.
Paid subscribers (coming soon) will receive deeper analysis, behind-the-scenes process thinking, and early access to upcoming collaborations.

Thanks for being part of this quiet shift. I’ll be tracking it from the edges - and from moments like this!