AI10 min read4 July 2026

When Your Bank Replaces You With an Algorithm: The Starling Problem

Starling Bank announced 130 job cuts this week. The reason wasn't declining performance, market contraction, or a restructuring born of crisis. The reason, s...

David Chadderton spent his twenties and thirties teaching people how to make life-or-death decisions at forty thousand feet. He now applies the same principles to consumer psychology, which, depending on the brief, can feel equally high-stakes. He’s the creator of the STAR Framework and the author of The STAR Framework: Rewriting the Rules of Consumer Engagement (NYC Big Book Award 2025), The STAR Operating System: Decode Mindset, Understand Motivation, Transform Human Behaviour, and Dear Algorithm, It’s Not Me, It’s You. By day, a Chief Marketing Officer. By night, a behavioural science obsessive who writes The Unoptimised Human because he can’t stop thinking about why people do what they do.

The STAR Framework

If you enjoyed this essay, you'll find the full argument — and the framework behind it — in the book.