Going Direct | Lulu Cheng Meservey | Ep. 25

The thing that I have extremely high

confidence in is that comms is the final

bastion of human ability

>> where 10 years from now, 50 years from

now, the ability to persuade and win

over and make other people fall in love

for other humans will still be uniquely

human.

>> I'm really happy to be here with Lulu

today. Lulu, I was just asking you

before like what's the right way to

introduce you? The way I would describe

you is like a startup whisperer for

comms behind like, you know, amazing

companies, amazing investors. I don't

actually know the full scope of how you

do what you do and what it all is, but

um it's really incredible and uh you're

one of the most thoughtful people on how

people communicate, position things, and

so I'm really excited to talk about this

and learn from you today.

>> Thank you. Yeah, I'm stoked. Why has

comm's been having like the moment that

it's been having? And um I feel like in

the last few years, people have started

like understanding what it is better and

dissecting it and applying it and being

more thoughtful. I think com has started

to get paid more, which is appropriate.

I think you can really feel it online,

the companies that have it nailed, the

ones that don't. But like, why has it

become more of a thing in recent years?

Seemingly,

>> I think we're all just pattern

recognition machines. And when we're

seeing that the companies where the

founders have the most aura and the

companies that have built these

impressive cults and the companies that

have the best reputations are getting

the best people and are winning and are

worth the most then the founders coming

up say I want to do that too. It feels

like even though so like even that word

aura I feel like there have been more of

these lately where I'm like there's

cracked kids and there's like we have a

lot of aura and there's like vibes and

it seems to me maybe this is always

happening but it feels more lately that

people are more attuned to these words

and these positions and what's the

energy of the company and the thing is

that does it feel like that to you?

Yeah. And it's actually um handinhand

with people caring more about comms and

how they're perceived. Like aura is code

for how good of a communicator you are.

You you can't be bumbling your way

through a sentence and not able to

describe what your company does and then

still have aura as a founder. That's

very difficult. So I I think that people

are just seeing the pattern that the

people with stronger reputations that

other people think more highly of and

are more impressed with are the winners.

And they're trying to figure out ways to

recreate that. And so some are trying to

do it with these cinematic videos and

some are trying to do it with various

forms of aura farming. Some are hiring

online influencers which I'm a little

bit ignowed by. But everyone's trying to

approach it in in these different ways.

But there actually is time-tested grand

strategy for how to curate a reputation.

If you take a holistic approach, it is

like you start with what are you trying

to achieve? And it it's not what I want

to try to achieve is people love me and

think I'm great. What I want to try to

achieve is to uh save the US military

innovation future by equipping them in

the right way or to build the software

engineer of the future or to uh build

super intelligence right and that's what

I want to achieve and as a means to that

end what do people need to know about me

obviously it has to be true but out of

the set of 10,000 things that could be

true what are the things that people

care about and that are useful for this

project and so thinking about it through

those terms. Sometimes it'll lead you to

doing the standard checklist of like

video, influencer, tweet a lot,

whatever. But sometimes it'll lead you

to launch a fellowship program, host a

competition, turn down certain

opportunities. You know, it it might

actually be um outside of distribution

compared to what you you're seeing other

people do. When you think about like the

most successful comms, either just

campaigns or chapters or people or

companies, is it more about clarity in

what they say or is it more about like

the way they say it and what the

personality that they show as they do

those things? Cuz you know, like I think

having a clear mission and clear

articulation is really good. But we can

all think of these examples where like

many companies are all basically saying

the same thing, but for some reason

everybody wants this one to win. And

then when people want this one to win,

it becomes easier for them to win. It's

like what is Yeah. What's the balance

here?

>> Yeah. So, two things. The what and the

how are both more useful and important

than the where. Uh have you seen this

comic of Waldo sitting at a bar and he's

looking sad and he's got a drink and the

caption is nobody ever asks how is

Waldo.

>> I love that.

>> Everybody is always saying which podcast

can we go on? Nobody ever asks how do we

get people interested once we're there.

So, the what and the how are both

important. I will say one thing that

people probably underrate is that if

people just like you in their gut, they

will figure out ways to try to help you

be successful and they will kind of

reccon to themselves the thing that they

heard and how compelling it was and

they'll just like help you inside their

own mind.

>> Yeah. It's like one of the founder

archetypes I think about a lot is not

like you know there's there's many

intersecting things that are very

valuable like there can be visionaries

and there can be deeply technical people

but there's also this type or this

characteristic that can overlay where

people are just so magnetic so likable

so just pure seeming whatever where just

the whole world wants to see them win

>> and I think I don't know what that is

but that seems like a very important

thing here

>> a lot of it is pure honest conviction

and confidence this is what you You and

I can't get through a conversation

without talking about Napoleon. So,

we'll get to that. But some of it is if

you just have complete confidence that

this thing that you're doing is right

and you're going to win and it's

inevitable and you just simply share

that with people, they will feel that

emanating from you and it's very hard to

resist. And this is true in the past

when people have had to run into a storm

of bullets in order to achieve this

thing that you've told them must happen

and will happen or today if people need

to leave their jobs and come, you know,

turn their lives upside down to work

with you. So I I think some of it is

just like another human being telling

you with complete confidence and

conviction that this is the thing that's

going to happen. And that's the thing

that AI will not be able to take away

from us. We'll see. But but you know AI

will be smarter and better than us in

many ways. And people who deny that are

just coping. A lot of these like AI can

already do better than me, but it needs

me doing it's like no, you're just

asking for a DI program for yourself as

a human, you know, like like

>> um AI can do better, but for convincing

other humans, I think will always take

humans. I think that actually

communication will be the skill that

humans need.

>> When you start work on helping a company

position itself or get its brand right

and you think about stories, what goes

into that for you? And so like you know

what I'm imagining is I got to like tour

the like Pixar studio one time and like

meet some of the people there and it's

like the thoughtfulness and the

deconstruction of a great story is just

such a science and I'm wondering if you

could break down what's the what are the

lenses or the attributes of a great

story in tech. Every great story has a

problem and a resolution. And the way

people think about where you're headed

from here is um by thinking about where

you are on that curve. You know, what

goes up must come down. Um pride comes

before the fall, darkest before the

dawn. We have all of these different

phrases for things meeting a resolution

is the same way that supposedly Eskimos

have so many words for snow. It's

because we have this deep deep

attachment and commitment to seeing

stories through. So we assume in our

heart that every story has to have a

problem that then gets resolved somehow

and if someone flies too close to the

sun, they have to come crashing down to

earth. And if it doesn't happen, if the

story was Icarus then flew happily away.

>> It's not a story. Or if somebody crashes

down and doesn't make their way back up,

if we were to see a movie like that, we

would not be able to sleep. People would

hate that movie and not know why. It's

like this uncanny valley of a story that

was kind of head in the right direction

but didn't quite get to the other side.

And so every story has that arc. Um a

narrative arc is literally an arc. It

goes one direction and then it comes

back the other direction. The way this

is relevant for founders is you need to

help people understand where you are on

that arc and where the arc is headed.

You don't get to choose that there's an

arc and that people will think there's

an up and a down and a start and a

beginning, middle, end, but you you get

some agency in where people think you

are on the ark. And if people think that

you have crested or you've already hit

the apex and your past days are behind

you, then they assume that you must be

coming back down. Or if people feel that

you're actually just hitting the knee of

the curve to go up, then they assume

that some greatness awaits in the

future. You So, so you get to choose.

Are you um on this kind of an arc where

you've already passed

>> Yeah.

>> the the apex.

>> There's always an arc.

>> Yes. Or do you get to choose whether

you're on this part of an arc and you've

come through struggles and you're

destined for greatness.

>> So what is the ark? Where are you on the

ark? And people will fill in the rest of

where they assume you're going to go and

where you deserve to go.

>> I guess also companies need multiple

arcs of course. And so you think about

the companies that have gone really far.

There have probably been so many minor

and major arcs and resolutions and then

there's a new tension that's created and

resolved. And I guess that's a big part

of it too. It's like you almost need to

create the next tension point for the

next story.

>> It's sort of like the S- curves of

technological adoption. You know,

there's you can be on one S-curve, but

you know that there's others coming. You

know that there's a there's a bigger

arc. It's sort of like in um what was oh

Men in Black where there's like a

universe in the universe and another

universe or like the stock market where

there's the zigzags every day but then

you can zoom out to the month or the

year and then um over the decades like

each of the ups and downs are part of

some bigger up and down. The point of

this for founders is just you if you

know that people think this way then you

have to be really conscious about where

you are positioning yourself on those

arcs because people will judge you by

that and that's um it'll shape their

expectations on if you're headed up or

down.

>> So how do you create those arcs? Like if

you're sitting there and you're running

a early stage company or maybe it's not

so early stage, how do you make an arc?

>> There's two things that you need people

to believe. So first of all imagine that

people's opinion of you is like a living

is like a living thing and and the story

that the uh take a set group of people

that's your audience like let's say that

um my company needs to hire software

engineers and I'm talking to like Bay

Area software engineers and that's the

people that I care the most about among

those people my story will be kind of a

living thing that has a homeostatic set

point like um your body sorry this is

like such a

round to the answer. I'm like,

>> here we go.

>> Unfortunately,

I'll lay out the ingredients and then

I'll put them together.

>> Um, imagine that the the story among

those people is a living thing. And

imagine that that living thing has a

homeostatic set point. This the way that

your body temperature does, your body

temperature doesn't have really like a a

neutral, you know, it's supposed to be

at 98.6, let's say. Is it still that?

There's like some new science.

Let's say let's call it that. that

>> if it's above that then the body will

regulate to bring the temperature down.

If it's below that regulate to bring it

up if it's far below that it'll try

really hard to heat up. The way this

translates to the story is people have

an assumption of the level of

celebration you deserve.

>> Interesting,

>> right? Like how good you are and how um

much reputation you deserve.

>> How do people decide that?

>> Let's get to that. Cuz you you you want

to try to engineer it.

>> Yep. If you're above that, people think

you're overrated and they want to bring

you down and they don't like you. If

they perceive that you're below that,

then you're underrated. Like underrated

is a compliment. Why is it why is it a

good thing to be poorly rated? In my

mind, it's sort of like you fumbled.

Like what do you mean you're not

wellrated? Like go fix it.

>> It's an interesting point.

>> But underrated is a compliment.

Overrated is an insult. You would think

that being highly rated is good. But

overrated is not. So people want to fill

that delta. If they think you're

underrated, they'll try to bring you up.

So, this is like what people we'll get

to this too, but uh this is what people

have been saying about Google Gemini.

>> It's underrated. It's like it's high

status to say,

>> yeah, it's a compliment, but it's

>> it's a compliment, but it's also like

seen as insightful and valuable and

useful to point out that Google Gemini

is good.

>> That's true. Yes. People feel good when

they make that point.

>> Yeah. They're like, I'm pointing this

out. So, I'm I'm writing some kind of

wrong in the universe. I'm filling that

out.

>> I guess people also feel good about

themselves when they call it something

overrated. People just feel good about

identifying the discrepancy. We're all

kind of reputational Karens. That's

interesting. We want to like bring

people and companies to the level that

we think they should be. People feel

really I'm thinking people think really

smart when they make these points.

>> All of us.

>> It is all of us. We feel off

>> when something isn't where it should be.

And that's why all these phrases exist.

So anyway, when you are the founder and

you want people to think of you well,

you want people to think that you're

underrated because you want people to

think that your true value is even

higher than the market is placing on you

right now. Even if that's high, your

true value is like even higher and your

best days are ahead of you and things

are even if they're good now, they're

going to be amazing in the future,

right? And so how do you get people to

think that? Well, there's two points

that are relevant. One is where should

you be valued? like what is the correct

homeostatic set point for your story and

reputation and the other is where are

you now relative to that. So where a

founder would go wrong would be if you

are saying um our mission is to do this

thing and we are achieving it then

people are like oh have you already you

you were meant to go here and now you're

here like so founders will talk a lot

about mission statements and uh I think

a lot of mission statements are either

so lofty and generic that they don't

mean anything and so people don't have a

set point they'll just make one up or

they're so current and not sufficiently

timeless that people feel like you you

did it like what now?

>> So, um choosing what the natural end

point is and then choosing how to show

people where you are relative to that.

>> It's an interesting point about not

wanting to seem overrated because you um

there there's also, you know, you want

to you want to be relevant and you want

people to take notice and usually people

do that through look what I'm look what

I've done and look what I've built and

look at these customers I have and all

of those things. So, it's an interesting

balance where you were trying to in a

weird sense be very loudly underrated or

something like that.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Crypto was a good example of this. NFTTS

were a really good example of this where

I happen to agree there was like some

natural

value that NFTTS could have had, but but

it just soared so far beyond that.

>> It got crazy.

>> Got crazy. You just saw people trading

things where you're like, I can print

and everybody kind of was like, this

doesn't make sense. And at the same

time, these things are trading for

millions of dollars.

>> Yeah. Open Doors is an interesting

example. Now, my friend Cass, who used

to be president of of Shopify, uh, went

to go run the company and things have

been bumping overnight because people

are just optimistic about where the new

natural set point for the company is.

He's going to be making a lot of changes

to product and R&D and to the team and

culture. He's already started announcing

some of them. None of those materialized

in the first 24 hours. The only thing

that materialized was this guy who

showed up and said, "I'm going to do

this." So, the pretty significant jump

in the stock was based on trusting him,

>> liking him, believing that he can get it

done, right? It wasn't actually anything

that happened in those 24 hours, but

people reset what they thought was the

homeostatic set point for that company.

>> Yes. And then all of a sudden, it was

underrated.

>> All of a sudden, it was underrated,

undervalued.

>> That's right. Do you think all companies

just necessarily have to go through

these ups and downs? Are there examples

of a company you've ever worked with

that just like stayed maybe not right on

the line, but that didn't have the

dramas of the ups and downs and kind of

just hung pretty close to homeostasis on

its way up?

>> I think the more ambitious a company is,

the harder it is to stay steady with

that. If you're ambitious, it's sort of

like some of the most ambitious

companies in the world today are these

big AI labs. They are making massive,

massive bets. And each of these bets, if

they pay off, lead to massive massive

returns. And if they don't pay off,

could lead to just complete abject

failure and destruction and ruin and

humiliation, right? And the way that

this works is it pegs to your narrative.

Like it there's volatile ups and downs

and and the the slopes are just steeper.

>> Whereas if you are a very steady kind of

consumer company of of

your um like Chick-fil-A,

>> you know, pretty much like some they've

had some dramas.

>> They've had some dramas, but the dramas

didn't really seem to affect the chicken

consumption.

>> Now, people still like the sandwiches.

You're right.

>> It's like, if you like these sandwiches,

come and eat them. You know, and now

with Maja, people are saying these

sandwiches will kill you, but the people

who were eating the sandwiches weren't

eating them because they thought they

were healthy. Like, so

>> there's also some health kicks that go

like even just broad health kicks. Like,

you know, how bad are microplastics?

People are like, "It's terrible." And

they're like, "Ah, whatever."

>> There's a lot of that.

>> Just doesn't seem to matter. We're still

using a lot of plastic.

>> Yeah. like the plastic list project came

out with um uh those fair life those

core power core power shades had ton of

phalates I went over there and you know

there's one in the fridge I'm drinking

it it's like yeah

whatever there's a whole other lens that

you've spoken about that you know is if

what we just described is sort of like

the flow of the up and down there's

another lens you've talked about with

like circles in storytelling and like

that that's more like the stock of where

you're at can you talk about that

>> yeah yeah I think about flow and stock.

So like um flow is more like a

trajectory of where are you going and

and drawing out the long arc for people

and telling them what to expect and

stock is more like at this moment in

time what do you say okay a bad recipe

for this is what sounds good what's

going to get the most engagement um good

recipe for this is based on what I'm

trying to achieve what is the circle of

things that are true and then what is

the circle of things that are relevant

and interesting and then what are the

circle circle of things that are

strategic or helpful to the business.

So, let's say um that we're starting a

what company should we start?

>> An AI personal tutor.

>> Okay, we're starting an AI personal

tutor. And uh the circle of things that

are true about us are that we have um we

have discovered that one-on-one tutoring

u immediately puts you in the 99th

percentile of student results and that

it's worked throughout history. there

are military studies that confirm this

and that people want this for their

children because uh there's so much

controversy about schools being a mess.

Um and there's facts about Jack is a

repeat founder who you would be the CEO

how chief staff

>> and so like Jack is a repeat founder and

uh has scaled and grown companies and

and has seen these and and has children

of his own. He's a father. Then the

circle of things that are relevant to

today are everybody's excited about AI

looking for real use cases and and solid

business models. Um that the education

system is in high controversy and tumult

and that this next cohort of kids who

are now in K through 12 are going to

graduate into a world where AGI has made

it very unpredictable how they're going

to make a living.

>> And then the circle of things that are

helpful to the business are like easy to

use. We partner well with schools. We

can layer on top of traditional

schooling. You don't have to go full

homeschooling in order to use us. In

order for us to decide like you're going

on uh a podcast today and how are you

going to describe the business? We would

want to look at the overlap between all

three of these circles. So there are

things that might be true and relevant

>> um but not helpful. So maybe it is true

that you what's your what's one of your

hobbies on here?

>> Music. Yeah, like you're really into

music and um it is relevant because

there's some study that music helps with

neuroplasticity in in young children and

helps to form a stronger brain, but

we're not ready to offer that product

yet. And if we advertise it, it doesn't

actually help us right now. So like

that's not useful. Anyway, you could go

through all of these examples. There are

companies today

that

have left out the third circle of is it

useful and strategic.

>> There's this question of like is all

press good press? And like we could say

something right now. If I said say

something to just try to make this next

60-second clip do the rounds. Don't

worry about any other variable. Just do

the rounds with the next 60 seconds. You

could say something nuts and make sure

that this clip went viral.

>> Yeah.

>> But that doesn't necessarily help. And

I'm curious actually your take on this

specifically of this like all press is

good press thing because this is like

you know taking this circles analogy.

This is basically saying if I'm just

going to go nuts on relevance I'm going

to drop the other stuff.

>> There are a lot of people who think

that's good.

>> Yeah.

>> I I think based on your framework you're

actually kind of implying it's not.

>> You could potentially super handicap

yourself in the future. So imagine that

you're saying something that is true

about you and it is relevant but it is

not useful to say. So um there's a lot

of controversy about is it useful for

clue clue to say cheat on everything and

then they're explaining well cheating

isn't technically cheating when we it's

a very valid question to ask is that

useful for the business because now you

have distribution and and let's say you

reach millions of people and you've told

those millions of people that your ethos

is cheating and you're building products

really quickly and so now your question

is going to be is that useful for the

business we're trying to build. Well if

the business is um figuring out a way to

make a sizzly video no matter what then

it would be. If the business is let us

record your screen and trust us with

your data, then it might not necessarily

be. So, it's worth looking at all three

of those.

>> I guess the gamble could be can you

change your narrative over time. In

other words, like let's take that clue

case study. Can you get a huge amount of

distribution with something that feels a

little, you know, tricky next to the

trust us with your information kind of

thing, but then can you basically get to

that place a year from now with a lot of

distribution and say we actually have a

way to now navigate the other side of

that

>> and have a new story that matches, but

now we have the distribution. Like, do

you ever see that or do you think it's

really hard to change the ethos of what

the company was to try to make those

kind of moves? I think anything is

doable, but it is hard, especially if

it's something that accrves to

personality and trust. Um, cuz people

can believe that your business model

will change. So like Figma literally

changed who they were as a company in

the sense of like they changed what they

were focused on as a business. But if

you're somebody who trusts Dylan Fields

to to to steward your data and to care

about you as a customer and as a person

or as an investor, you would trust him

no matter what. And

>> he's an amazing example, by the way, of

somebody that everybody just always

wanted to see him win.

>> Yes. Everybody wants to see him win. And

he even got the narrative arc with the

Adobe thing and

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and he's been

winning and we still want to see him win

even more because we think that the

correct level of winning for Dylan has

not achieved yet has not been achieved

yet. You know, Dylan could say today I'm

starting a new company that does who

knows what and everybody would be like I

hope he wins.

>> Yeah. Exactly. Absolutely. So, it it's

harder to pivot who people think you are

as a person because

>> either um you're flighty and fickle, you

know, as as an adult

>> or something doesn't add up and

something wasn't true before.

>> Here's an interesting question. Do you

feel like who people are from a comm's

perspective is what it is and you're

basically just trying to expose the

truth more or are you more of the view

that we can actually position somebody

like when you work with somebody are you

like in your head are you like you're

actually this way but we're going to

make you seem this way a little bit more

or are you like we're going to expose

true attributes about you but we can

only work within the confines of what's

true about you.

>> I think more the latter. I think there

are different archetypes of people, but

um you got to lean into the thing that

you are. And it's like Charlie Mer said,

you can always invert. Like everything

has two sides. And so if someone is more

remote and more cold um and they're not

like the warm and fuzzy type with people

to try to position them as that because

you think people want a manager that has

empathy is just hard. it's it's it's

going to come across uncanny valley

where it's like I see what you're saying

but I don't feel it. Um whereas if you

actually lean into this is a technical

genius who is in the lab cooking up

something amazing and you can be part of

this team, you'll attract people who

want that and that's actually the right

thing long term. What you don't want to

do is bait and switch someone into

joining the company for example because

they think that they're working for this

type of guy and then that guy just

doesn't actually show up to work. He was

only on the podcast.

>> Yeah. You basically have to lean into

authenticity, but you can choose which

parts of somebody's overall shape to

emphasize.

>> Yeah. Most people don't know you as a

founder personally, and they don't get

to shape. So, so there's like a there's

like the the the true authentic platonic

ideal of Jack and that includes all the

things that are true about you properly

weighted. You a full person. And that's,

you know,

>> that's like what like my hopefully what

like my wife would know. This is like

between you and your wife and God like

that exists a

>> complete picture.

>> Yeah. And then there's the people who

know you personally. And for the sake of

simplicity, let's include people who are

very close to you as well as people who

are just like friends. And these are

people who actually directly know you

and form some opinion that's like a

resembling Jackish homunculus

>> uh of you.

>> And then there's the world.

>> Then there's the world. and the world

maybe they have this parasocial

relationship with you but basically they

see some um even more mini version of

you refracted from afar. This is like

the Walter Lipman theory of the the

purpose of the media originally is that

the world has too much data for us to

actually take in and therefore we need

something to compress it down to us for

a little almost like a metaphor of the

world that we then use. And so like the

model of Jack that people will make will

be some version of you. You get to have

some influence over that version. and it

still is based on this.

>> Someone watching this right now, it's

like this isn't a normal setup. Like

there's like cameras and lights and what

microphones and whatever. And so it's

like there's just no way for it to be

like that. And so then you have this

choice of like what side of you are you

going to expose? And I do think some

people choose to just be like whatever,

I'm just going to be who I am. And some

people think about it a lot more.

>> Yeah, it's worth thinking about what are

the things you want to intentionally

highlight about yourself. You know, as

long as it's also one of the things

that's true. If it's a subset of the

things that's true, you can choose like

these are the traits that are most

relevant and useful for the business for

people to know about me and I want to

highlight those. It's like, you know,

when anchors go on TV, especially Fox,

they wear a ton of makeup.

>> Yeah.

>> Which you and I should have done today.

We just slather on the makeup and that

is to like highlight their features so

that it so that it still uh in person it

looks almost macob, but like through the

camera it looks normal. And so for for

your personality traits and the things

about you, you almost have to amplify

them beyond what is normal in in this

kind of a setting so that it really

reaches the world. Like if you and I

were just uh hanging out today and you

told me one story about how you want to

run your fund like 10 times be a little

much for me.

>> Yeah.

>> But if you're moving through the world

and you tell that story 10 times

>> even personally hears it like once one

and a half times or something.

>> Yeah. Or like zero

>> or zero. Yeah. Five times maybe if

you're lucky.

>> Yeah. I think about this a lot with um

just like companies doing marketing. I

remember at Lattis like in the early

days when we were just you know first

doing this our team would be like oh

we've said this so many times. I'm like

yeah inside but outside it's like no

one's heard it like zero people know

about Lattice so we got to keep saying

it.

>> It's like that kind of idea and it's

weird to repeat yourself so much. Yeah,

>> but it's kind of what you need.

>> Yeah. Like how many times do you think

that

think different was said in how many

places before it stuck with you or you

know like uh Steve Jobs's stay hungry

stay foolish speech like how many places

did it have to show up before it like

reached you and then actually stuck

Steve Jobs is another great example of

this where the comeback story is like

this is his company the correct version

of this company has him in it and when

he's not there it's not the right

version we don't believe in it when he's

back it's become the company or it's on

the path to becoming the company it was

meant to be and it's like destiny

fulfilled.

>> Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about um

maybe some of the like nuances around

like choices of words and things like

that cuz I think like so many to that

point, you know, like think different or

like so many of the so many of these

messages that get repeated are actually

quite short.

>> Like you don't get a lot of words, you

don't get a lot of attention. Like

people can read a tweet at most. They

can read like half a tweet better. The

choice of words that sound very close

but aren't very close,

>> it like matters a lot. And people kind

of like speak off the cuff. Obviously

not you, but like yeah,

>> English is one of the largest languages

in the world because we've absorbed so

many words from other languages. I heard

someone make the joke they were dunking

on France and they were like, "Well,

there's no word for entrepreneur in

French."

>> That's good. Yeah, I like that.

>> Like so many of our double ant like so

many of our words come from other places

that we've just absorbed and then we've

made a bunch up on our own. And so

there's a vast array to choose from. And

the words that you choose actually, not

to put pressure on people, but the each

word that you chooses should be

loadbearing. In practice, you can't do

this with everything all the time. Like

when whenever this comes out, assuming

we don't say anything catastrophic in

the rest of this interview, it comes

out, I'm going to watch it and listen to

like 80% of my words and be like, "Oh my

gosh,"

>> Yeah. So, it it's impossible to to

really do that in practice. But when

it's something important like, "What are

you going to put on this million dollar

billboard campaign that you paid for?

What goes on your website? what are the

five words to describe your company?

It's um not the case that a bunch of

words that mean the same thing or the

same. The way they sound influences how

we feel about them. So like the word

sinister, which means it comes from the

word for left cuz left is bad and right

is good. um has a different feel, like a

different ear feel um because of the S

and because of the I versus words that

have rounder feels give people more of a

friendly um so if uh if you have um two

words that mean the same thing and one

is something with like S's and I's and

one is like with O's and B's and um the

second one will feel friendlier if there

are choices in how to describe your

product. So, so one of these examples

that I think is pretty famous, I've seen

a couple times is that if there's crime

sweeping, let's say San Francisco,

hypothetically, if there were crime

around here, one day if there were to

be,

>> uh, if you wanted to get people to think

about this, and you had two two choices,

one choice is the crime is ravaging

through the city, just rampaging like a

wild beast, and we need to get it under

control.

>> I'd be like, we got to stop it.

>> Got to stop it. Any means necessary.

National Guard, let's go. Right. And

then if the second one were crime is a

disease that is spreading and uh it is

spreading to more people in

neighborhoods and now you're starting to

think like yeah disease has patience.

Exactly.

>> And so you can put people in a different

mindset of like do they want to crack

down or do they want to try to send in

the social workers

>> through the analogy that you choose and

through the words that you choose.

>> Another example here is actually can we

go to human psychology for a second?

It's just adjacent. Okay. A lot of

founders go against the grain of human

psychology. Like we know not everything

about how humans form ideas and

thoughts, but we know enough. I mean, we

know a lot. So, here's an example. In

prospect theory, we know that people

have risk aversion. And we know that the

willingness to take a risk is basically

double if we're trying to avoid downside

than if we're trying to get new upside.

So like if you're at the poker table and

you might lose $5 versus win $10. You'd

have to win at least $10 for you to take

the same amount of risk.

>> Yeah.

>> So the way that startups talk sometimes

to let's say their customers

>> is okay what you've got now is mid and

we've got something much much better and

if you switch we'll offer you this thing

that's much better. you're actually

going against the grain of human

psychology because you're telling them

to take a risk on this newer unproven

startup and in exchange for that risk

they might get something that's better

than what they have now hopefully if

you're correct.

>> Yeah.

>> So the image would be like they're

standing on solid land and you're rowing

by in this rickety canoe and saying if

you get in my canoe I'll row you

somewhere really awesome.

>> Uhhuh. And you're like but I could be

drowning.

>> Yeah. Get my white van. Yeah. What you

want is the image of them on a uh

rickety canoe and you are on solid land

and you're like

>> come to us. We'll we'll save you. And

the way to reverse that would be sales

pitch number one is what you've got. I

know you think it's working. It's really

missing out on all these opportunities.

If you come with us, we can do this this

much faster, whatever. Right?

>> It's also where like a lot of sales ends

up being like you think that your land

is solid, but that's actually quicksand

and all your competitors are doing this

thing. And so what looks soly right now

is going to be gone.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example.

So So a a good um version where you are

going with the grain of human psychology

would be that you are currently in the

losing state and your status quo is

actually the losing state and we want to

bring you in. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Your default screwed.

>> I think the default dead thing is like

amazing. I I don't think it was

necessarily meant this way. I think it

was just like what came. But like that

YC sort of there there's a Paul Graham

post about it and I think it is

extremely poignant for startups.

>> Yeah. You're a dinosaur meteor's coming

>> and it's basically that you're never

stagnant. You're either going up or

you're going down and the default is

that you're going down as a startup and

you're fighting against that always and

that creates urgency.

>> Yeah. But if you're talking to a big uh

enterprise customer, you're talking to

like Barclays, they don't think

necessarily that they're going to fail,

but they should wonder if they're going

to fail eventually if they don't move in

the future with you. And so anyway, new

sales pitch would be the way things are

going with what you're using is going to

be obsolete in the next 5 years and your

competitors are moving to firm land and

what we are offering you is to not only

keep what you have, but to cement your

grip on leadership. A lot of this too

though is also why it's really hard to

start out by selling to those like it is

hard to sell to those big groups because

they feel stable. It's much harder to

incite that story in them than in you

know an upand cominging fintech company

who feels default dead every day.

>> Yeah. Some people will say like well

Barclays is so much sorry Barclays. Uh

it's so much bigger. They have more

money. Well if you think about 5 years

from now the companies that are going to

have the most money the most influence

highest rate of grow growth is probably

not going to be a Barkclays. It's

probably going to be one of these

companies that you could sell to today

that doesn't seem as impressive right

now, but you'll have more impact with

them because their baseline trajectory,

like their beta of growth is already

really high. So, if you add on top of

that,

>> you like looking even better. Yeah. Like

ramp, save time and money. 5%. Average

company saves 5%.

>> Um, and then the second thing is these

companies move a lot faster. So, in the

time it takes you to close one Barclays,

you could close like 10 of these

companies. The other challenge as I'm

thinking about it is even if you land

the story correctly, the average

employee at Barclays and again sorry

Barclays is cool but you know the

average employee there is not as

connected. They're like

>> I just am trying to not lose my job. I

don't want to do something stupid. Which

is another reason why like even if you

land the story the person there might be

like I don't care. My story is different

than their story.

>> Yeah.

>> Guess who's not going to sponsor the

Jackman podcast.

>> I think Barclays is great. Yeah. I have

no particular It's just an example.

>> It's a good example. Yeah. they're in a

good position

>> to tie all of this back to like what the

impact is. Um, and maybe going back to

the opening of the conversation of like

why people started to care so much. My

sense is that one of the reasons that

this comm's, you know, focus has

happened is because recruiting has

gotten so hard and people have realized

that it's deeply connected with

recruiting.

>> And it seems to me like for a bunch of

reasons, it's like harder than ever to

hire great people and the uh the gains

that occur to the companies that can are

very high. So the stakes on recruiting

are high. How does this actually

manifest for companies? Like what how

does the aura translate or not into the

recruiting?

>> This is where we get to talk about

Napoleon.

>> Ah, I need that.

>> It was waiting to happen. And here is

the moment. One of the best recruiters

of all time and one of the best builders

of morale of all time. And there's a few

things that go into this. So, first of

all, uh we don't even need to spend a

lot of time on why recruiting is so

important. I think every founder gets

it. And if you're not recruiting the

best people, you're mortgaging your

future. like you're just not going to

exist cuz you you can't build the best

product. Um, okay. What made someone

like Napoleon such a great recruiter is

he gave his men a cause bigger than what

it seemed like. It was a grander

mission. It wasn't just take this bridge

or it wasn't just fight this one battle.

Um, at the Battle of the Pyramids, which

by the way, he rebranded to the Battle

of the Pyramids because it sounds cooler

to have said I fought at the Battle of

the Pyramids.

>> It sounds incredible.

>> Yeah. And so he rebranded the battle and

then he said something like that the men

were gathered there for battle and he

said from the top of these pyramids

40,000 years of history are looking down

on you and what you're about to achieve.

Some version of this like

>> you I mean you're just going to perform

better and you're going to want to be

part of that army. That army has the

mandate of heaven. He would be branding

his army all the time. So, for example,

um when they were trying to take Britain

or they wanted to, I think it it would

have been called the army of Britain

probably because when they took Italy,

it became the the army of Italy, but

they were clearly not going to take

Britain. So, you don't want to be the

guy who was in the army of Britain and

Britain's clearly not part of France

now. It's like embarrassing.

>> So, that that's when he started

rebranding it into army,

which is so much cooler than army of

place we didn't conquer. Yeah. And then

there was uh a group of guys who were

sent to hold a bridge and the bridge was

within firing range of the Austrians.

And so that group of guys had a 100%

casualty rate. It was like you are

guaranteed to get shot if you go here.

So he sends the guys 100% of them get

shot. He needs new volunteers. And he

fills it with volunteers. And the way he

did that was that he branded the group

of guys. He called them le which means

the men without fear. And so you know

which one's more attractive like um the

guys who get shot.

>> Do you want to join the guys who get

shot or do you want to join the men

without fear? And part of it is you got

to go you got to go guard that bridge.

giving them uh this this magnitude of

what they're fighting for and then

giving them this kind of branding that

would make it seem like even if they

were shot for the cause, it would have

been something worth it and they would

have been proud to be part of it was a

big part. He um also made himself part

of the army as a soldier. You know, the

little corporal is is part of this. I

think um he started being called the

little corporal because he was aiming

the cannons himself, which is grunt

work. And so to to be there as a short,

not 5'3, but like pretty short guy

aiming the cannons. Um they called him

the little corporal and it was actually

like a really affectionate nickname of

he's in the trenches. He's like SSIA's

in the lab.

>> He's got hands on the keyboard. He's got

the craziest keyboard I've ever seen by

the way, but like his hands are in there

in the in the deep wells. And that's a

lot better than uh the CEO's just on

podcast and everybody's going to build

so that he can has something cool to say

on the next podcast. Um, he would eat

the same food. He'd wear the old gray

jacket. When he came back from exile, he

retook France with a thousand men in 11

days.

>> He landed. He was wearing his old shabby

stuff. He said, "This eagle is going to

fly from steeple to steeple until it

finally lands on the towers of Notre

Dame." And then he went and did that in

11 days. And then the people who came

who were sent to go shoot him obviously

didn't shoot him. He said, "Are you

going to shoot your emperor?" They

didn't. And how do you do that? Like how

do you get the people to follow you? so

dedicatedly that they will defy orders

to shoot you and instead join you. It's

because they think that you are their

true leader and that this company could

only be led by you. I think it's a good

mark of whether a founder has embedded

himself or herself so much in a company

that if they left it's not the same

company

>> that and that you're truly one of them

that you are giving them the cause that

you are giving them a way to um if

they're part of this team they're part

of something to be proud of like they

gain membership into something that

immediately gives them glory.

>> Yeah. I mean obviously like I'm as I'm

listening to that I'm like man that

sounds unbelievable and then like you

know you take it to something that is

you know inherently a little bit uh

calmer less sort of grand you know than

you know wars and conquering and all

that but still very important.

>> And so then tech companies either get

this or they don't and it somehow

translates into like recruiting you know

it's a little bit more mundane but it's

very real where then it's easy it's easy

for them to recruit or it's really hard

and they're either like fighting this

uphill battle or a downhill battle.

>> Yeah. Yeah. You can see this in the CEOs

who do amazing personal recruiting. So

like Brian Chesy recruits personally and

what I hear is that he just steps up as

somebody who could, if he wanted to, who

could go into the company and be one of

the best people in certain roles in the

company. Joe Jebby is still the same

way. By the way, there was one um one

day recently where he was like in Figma

designing websites, you know, by hand

artisan. Toby is like this uh at

Shopify. He is like the chief AI

tinkerer. He's not like, "Go use these

new tools. Good luck. Let me know how it

goes." It's like

>> he's like, "Look what I did.

>> Here's the thing that I made. You can

make it, too." He he he made this like

swarm or like team of agents before it

was even a thing. And then he made it

into a tool that the company could use.

Like how do you not get inspired to

follow somebody like that? So, so being

one of the people and being one of the

soldiers is still vitally important.

Scott Woo at Cognition is this like

incredible co uh engineers

feel proud to be at Cognition and they

feel proud that Scott is a peer to them

and there Scott's not the only legend at

Cognition. I think Genna is like u maybe

a recordbreaking

um coder and uh doesn't have any ego

about it but these these become your

peers and you're building a company

together. Uh same with like elite

researchers or or anything like that.

>> Yeah. And obviously, you know, like

taking biases aside that we all might

have, it's like if you look at even like

the big AI labs, the way

>> Do you have a favorite AI?

>> I don't have a favorite. They're all

great. Um, but

>> friends at all of them.

>> So, yeah, it's um they're all taking

different recruiting tactics, but I

think partially and they all have very

different brands and auras and it's

probably deeply related.

>> Yeah, I think so too. with the AI labs,

it's very it's actually a good case

study uh of there's no like permanent

moat with talent. You have to keep

earning it every single day. And a lot

of um the a lot of what goes into

whether people want to work at a place

is they look at the leader and they say,

"Do I identify with that person?" And

there's all these different archetypes.

It's actually really cool and and

wonderful to see like different personas

and different leadership styles. I am

like you. Like there are things that I

like more like less about each of them,

but they're all like magnificent and

impressive. And so there are people who

identify more with one or more of the

other and then kind of turns into the

team is shaped in the image of the

leader because over time people will

converge onto the style um you know of

uh the leader that is sused down to the

organization and then the the people

that they can attract.

>> Maybe to wrap up I'm curious about like

the way that you choose to sort of like

practice your business at a high level.

You can either be like internal and

focused on only one place or you could

do what you do which is where you work

with like a wide breadth and then I

guess you're learning things from one

experience bringing it to another. Maybe

you know a little bit less about any

particular entity but like you've got

these other advantages in that way. I'm

curious how you reflect on what's the

difference what's the collaboration

maybe between you and internal comms

when you're looking at these things like

how does it all play together?

>> The way I learned to do comms was being

just deep in one thing. So I I

co-founded a comm's company, but like my

main work there was Andre. People

sometimes will say like I helped Andre

with comms, but actually Andre helped me

with comms. Like working with Palmer and

Trey and Brian and Matt and those guys,

it's like necessity is the mother of

invention. Like they forced us to do

things unconventionally. And so that's

how I learned. And then through

Substack, which is still like very near

and dear to my heart. It was like live

and breathe Substack all day long. I

still work with Substack, but like just

live and breathe Substack 25 hours a

day. And then same with Activision's

Blazer. So, I've gone very very deep.

And the thing that's super rewarding

about this is that you get to fully own

um something and and if you mess up,

it's on you, right? And and if and if

it's great, then you learn from you can

build on it. I'm trying to form a

general theory of comms and I'm still

learning in the process, but I don't

want to confine that to just one place

because I actually want to change how

comms is done across the industry.

>> It seems like you probably couldn't even

get to the general theory of comms if

you only worked with one place. that

might yeah might

>> you probably need to see all of these

different examples to like get

completeness on

>> like I'm still in learning mode like I'm

still in kind of data gathering

iteration mode and um in my own head and

so um for for inputs I want to see more

broadly what is going on across um

different pockets of the industry and

then externally I really want the entire

industry all of us together to get

amazing at this because well what

happens in the aggregate right like if

if each company gets better at making

their case and gets more powerful and

hires and grows faster, then all of tech

grows faster and that's better for

America and the world.

>> Absolutely.

>> It's hard to do that from within one

company, but I still try to concentrate

as much as possible. So, instead of

taking like 30 clients, you know, I take

less than half of that. Instead of

growing the firm to be 80 people with a

roster of hundreds of clients, it's me

and my apprentice Gabby. And we have

probably yeah fewer than half of the

clients that we could have even with

just the two of us. And then out of

those there is a power law where there's

like specific ones where we like really

go deeper. So yes, number one I I um

sorry not to make this about me. I did

the meme of like we made it about me.

Okay. I do want to do the general

relativity theory for coms. Like general

theory for comms and that applies to the

industry more broadly. Sometimes I see

companies I had nothing to do with who

will the founders will write me like I

read your blog post and did this launch.

What do you think? That is magnificent

to me. Did I Did I get dollars from it?

No. I get deep satisfaction from seeing

that people are using these practices.

But within that, we do try to

concentrate as much as we can.

>> Let's imagine it's 10 years from now and

you've learned a bunch and things have

gone great and you're much smarter about

comms than you are now. Looking back,

what would you say is the thing that

you're most likely to be super right

about with comms and what do you think

is the thing that you currently are

least confident in your own, you know,

variable in the general relativity? The

thing that I have extremely high

confidence in is that comms is the final

bastion of human ability

>> where 10 years from now, 50 years from

now, the ability to persuade and win

over and make other people fall in love

for other humans will still be uniquely

human and and we have to get really

really good at that because AI can't.

Um, so it's like if not us, who? So, so

I I have very high conviction that this

is the ultimate skill that everybody

should practice and I also have very

high conviction that there's like this

um immutable desire for narrative

completion uh within humans. The thing

that I have least confidence in is the

form factor.

>> Is it videos? Is it podcast? What about

the role of the media? Is that shifting?

I do not recommend that people anchor to

a specific form factor and be like,

"We're the company that does great

videos or we're the company that tweets

a lot." Uh, I think that people should

be constantly experimenting. You need to

be ready to outrun your good your own

ideas. I've had to outrun my own ideas.

Like, if if we do a launch together with

a founder and it goes really well,

people will dissect that and then copy

it. You know, after the cognition

launch, I I saw people who just copied

Scott's thread like almost word for word

um in the exact same format. And if

everybody were to start doing that or

like those hype sizzle reels like the

the techno accelerationist montages and

now a lot of people are copying like the

Culy launch video and once it reaches

saturation it's actually cringe to keep

doing it. So you have to find oh great

it worked hooray that means I need to

find the next thing because if I push

the frontier here and it worked

everybody's racing towards me if I don't

get the heck out of here and find some

new frontier now I've lost my alpha and

we're like in the exact same place. So I

would say the takeaways from here are

you need to find your narrative alpha.

Um you need to find the way that

narrative makes your company even more

valuable than the fundamentals would

make it be. That's the job of the

founder. That alpha can be positive or

negative. People that alpha is

determined by the homeostatic set point

that people think your company deserves

and where you are now relative to that.

And that this is the skill that every

human should try to master as much as

they can.

>> I love it. I was gonna end there, but I

have one more thing I got to ask. You

mentioned the media and you obviously,

you know, are big about going direct and

how important that is. But if you had to

guess, where is this dynamic going to go

with tech and the media and that

relationship? Cuz it used to be that all

the announcements happened there. Now

there's this hybrid mix. There's a sort

of lovehate relationship. Where where

will this where will this trend line go?

>> I think we're um going back uh towards

the media actually being more relevant.

And this is why I say not to be

dogmatic. Even in my very depths of

distrusting the media and being

blackfilled about the media even then I

had reporters that I knew and trusted

and it was mutual and we could work

together and I would try to be helpful

and and today like last night I was

hanging out with a bunch of tech

journalists and um and they were saying

that they appreciate my outlook and I

appreciate theirs and um going direct

does not mean that you have to boycott

the media. It means that you can't uh be

dependent on others. You need to create

self-sufficiency and then you can choose

to collaborate with the media but it's

not that oh nobody wants to cover this

story so I'm just up the creek.

>> So where is this going? I think actually

that media is becoming more relevant.

There was sort of like a nayir in tech

media relations where it's like very

combative and now the relationship is

better. The coverage is better. There's

sort of also some fresh blood in tech

journalism that is very curious and

forwardleaning.

>> That's definitely true. And now that

people are getting more of their

information from say Chachi BT or Claude

or whatever,

um, media can be very helpful for that.

You know, Claude is not necessarily

going to tell you, well, three people

tweeted about you favorably today and

some like anime profile picture said

this thing about you, but if there's

like one article in in an outlet, it can

kind of solidify that for you online. We

were overly reliant on the media and

then it became very competitive and and

I think we're reaching a new equilibrium

collaboration.

>> Sounds good to me.

>> That'd be great. Lou, this was amazing.

Thank you so much for your time doing

this. I really enjoyed it.

>> Thank you.