About KERNEL

I've always been captivated by stories. They're the invisible force that has driven humanity forward for over 100,000 years. Stories are how we encode wisdom, transmit culture, and reshape reality itself.

Throughout history, there have been pivotal moments when the velocity of storytelling suddenly accelerated—the invention of writing, the printing press, radio, television. Each time, the speed at which a new narrative could reach the furthest corners of the earth changed dramatically.

We're living through another such moment with podcasts.

I'm Finnish, and our national epic, the Kalevala, has always fascinated me. It's a compilation of spells, incantations, and narratives gathered from oral tradition. Some shamans refused to share their most powerful spells with the collector, Elias Lönnrot. They understood something profound: stories are power. They shape reality.

Today's podcasts are our oral tradition. Every day, thousands of stories are told—founder myths, cautionary tales, transformation narratives—spreading from show to show, evolving with each retelling. These are the spells of our time, reshaping how we think about success, failure, innovation, and human potential.

Modern stories spread at unprecedented speed, changing the underlying structures of society before we even realize it's happening. A story told on one podcast can reshape an entire industry's thinking within weeks. A narrative about failure can transform into a mythology about resilience as it spreads.

KERNEL makes this invisible process visible.

We're systematically cataloging the narratives flowing through podcasts, tracking how they evolve, identifying where they originate, and mapping how they spread. The goal is awareness. Understanding the stories that define us is the first step to consciously participating in the mythology we're creating together.

My hope for KERNEL is simple: to give us all better visibility into the very stories that define our time.

Just as the Kalevala preserved the narrative DNA of Finnish culture, KERNEL aims to capture the living mythology of our global digital culture. We want to help us see it clearly—to understand which stories are shaping us, how they're evolving, and where they're taking us.

Because if we can see the stories that move us, we can better choose which ones to tell, retell, and let guide us forward.