How To Take Over the World!! | Lulu Cheng Meservey

The surface area of the opportunity we

have to latch on is getting more and

more fine which means that the hook that

we need to use has to get more and more

sharp.

>> Lulu Chang Maservi is one of the

sharpest minds in communications today.

Having been CCO and EVP of corporate

affairs at Activision Blizzard and VP of

comms at Substack, she is now the

creator of Rostra, the only advisory

firm focused on founder comms. Lulu is

known as the go-to strategist for CEOs,

founders, and policymakers navigating

highstakes moments. In this episode, she

explains how to grab attention in a

noisy world filled with AI slop, appeal

to human psychology, and build trust

instead of farming engagement.

>> If someone is fighting you with stories,

you have to fight with stories. Under

the statistics are more powerful

stories. If you're trying to relieve

pressure, you don't get to change how

much force is coming at you, but you can

change the service area. You're not just

attacking me, you're attacking all of

us. The loss in trust, the loss in

future prospects, customers, employees

who defect, that recruit that doesn't

accept the job offer, it could add up to

billions. The three things for actually

making a difference with your story are

one, two, what are the right and then

lastly,

[Music]

>> Lulu, welcome to the podcast.

>> Thank you. Thanks for having me.

>> In a world that is so noisy, it's full

of AI generated content, there's uh

people trying to get your attention. How

do we get people to pay attention to us?

I think about this a lot because the

flood of just sheer content is

completely unrelenting and that people

are doing things all the time now too

like people are creating genuinely

interesting things with new tools where

it used to be so if you look at the

world of company launches it used to be

every few months there was some big

announcement or some new launch now it's

multiple a day every single day

including weekends and evenings and

holidays and so the way to stand out

from that I think is a few things one is

it's about human beings. We've always

gravitated to human beings and human

stories. And I think we gravitate to

that even more now because it gives you

something to care about that's not just

generic content. Like content is

infinite, but individual human

characters stand out from that. It gives

you a person to root for, gives you

something to get attached to. It gives

you a thing to care about. And so having

it be attached to a human um whether

it's a product launch or a company

launch or some some piece of information

having a human mascot represent it is

really important. Another is human

conviction. Like there's something

within us that responds to another

person's conviction. Like when you see

cult leaders being able to recruit or

terrorist group leaders being able to

recruit, their actual pitch on the

merits is horrible. It's like that meme

of like you get this and I get that and

it's like you get basically nothing,

poor pay, extremely poor prospects of

success, leave your family behind and I

get rights to your life and then also

maybe you die on the marriage. The pitch

is horrible. But there's something

within us that finds it really hard to

resist when someone is just looking us

in the eye and telling us with absolute

conviction that something is true. This

is why pathological liars are so

powerful and sociopaths are so powerful

because we can't resist the gravity of

someone telling us these things and if

they happen to be false then we're

actually very vulnerable to it. But we

have this vulnerability to human

conviction and you can't convey that

through any other means. There's like a

unique way that people can convey

conviction that makes us buy in. And

then another is having it play into some

kind of narrative arc. So, whatever

you're saying, if you just say it in a

vacuum, here's like a little pile of

facts that I drop in front of you. Well,

there's pile of facts, piles of facts

around as far as the eye can see in

every direction. But if I tell you that

this is part of something bigger and you

need to stay tuned, then it gives you

something to hang on to. So, this is

like the 101 nights shaherad. You know

the story. um she was going to be

beheaded and then she told a little bit

of a story and had to wait till the next

day and then told a little bit and then

after a thousand1 nights he was like you

know what great you can go made it this

far. Even journalists when they're

following a beat they try not to write

one news story as a standalone they try

to cover the narrative arc of something

that's happening. So when you see people

right now covering hires at Meta for

their new super intelligence, they're

they're covering what is the long-term

goal of this and how is it progressing

over time and what does it tell like

they're thinking of it as a 12 stories

that link together. And so all of this

put together means when you're trying to

cut through the noise, you tell it

through a human with extreme conviction

and you tie facts together in a chain

such that it forms this bigger narrative

that people feel compelled to follow.

How do we go about determining what that

narrative is?

>> The wrong way is here's what I want to

say. Here it is. Because the thing that

you you care about might not be what

anybody else is caring about. I think

the right way is to take two things. One

is here's what I care about. So like

think of it as a circle of information.

Here's what I care about and what I want

to say. Then there's another circle of

here's what the person I'm speaking to

cares about and what they're thinking

about and it's probably a little bit

different from what's on my mind. If it

were identical, then what's the point of

saying anything? But there's probably

going to be some overlap. And so what

people tend to say is the circle of

things that are on their mind and then

just put it out there and hope that

somebody latches on to it. The real

story to tell is what's in the center of

that van diagram. So, don't tell the

story that's in your circle because it

it's hard to get other people to care.

Don't tell the story that's in the other

person's circle because you don't get

anything out of it. It's not strategic.

Tell the story that's in the ven

diagram. And then once you meet them in

the ven diagram, you can kind of walk

them into the rest of your circle. You

give them a gateway drug.

>> That intuitively makes sense to me on a

onetoone basis. What about a one to many

where you're communicating with a group

of people whether they work at a company

whether they're society or at large.

>> I was actually thinking of it in terms

of one to many. I think it works really

well with one to many. The key is many

can't be infinite. The many can't be 8

1/2 billion people. That just doesn't

work because if you're talking to that

many people, if you're talking to the

whole wide world, you have to water down

your message so much that it becomes,

you know, a drop in the ocean. It is

just a nothing. The many should be the

people who work at my company or the

people who are really passionate about

robotics or the people who are really

worried about conflict with China. The

many has to be like an actual

circumscribed set of people. And then

once you have that circumscribed set of

people, then you think about what do all

those people have in common that people

outside of that circle don't necessarily

have in common. So let's say that you

are starting a new company and the

company is something to do with American

defense tech. It's something between

Palunteer and Anderel type of vibe and

you want to talk to people who are

really concerned about geopolitical

competition and rivalry with China. So

think about what are things that they

specifically are thinking about right

now. They're not thinking about your

company. So the circle of stuff that you

really want to talk about is like

marketing dril for your company. And

then the circle of things that they're

thinking about is if there is an

invasion of Taiwan, what might that look

like and how do we plan for it? But

there's an overlap in the ven diagram

where part of planning for it means

integrating the software that we are

making and and to join us and help us

build this so that we can be ready. And

so identifying that this is what they

care about, speaking about the overlap

part in terms of what they care about.

And once they're with you there, then

you can tell them, well, here's what

we're building and here's how we

approach software. And then they

actually already are with you. I think

that's a good way to approach it. Just

like picture the circles and then find

the overlap.

>> Do you think of that as sort of like an

API into people or is it positioning

something so that people can be

receptive to it and then at that point

once you've got a hook, you can pull

them along to sort of the message you

actually wanted to say?

>> Yeah. it's the API into their mind. Um,

or it's the gateway drug, whatever it

is, it's it's not just the thing you

want to say, it's the hook. You start

with the hook and then once the hook is

in, then you can do the reeling. But

some people are like, "Here's the fish

sandwich I'm going to make for dinner

before they think about what goes on the

hook and is any fish going to bite the

hook." So, the hook is probably the most

overlooked part, I would say, in order

of how much it matters. It's the hook,

then how you tell your story, and then

where you tell it. Most people get this

reversed where they spend an inordinate

amount of time thinking about where can

I go talk? What podcast can I go on? How

do I pitch Shane Parish? How do I get on

TV? Do I start a pod? Do I do a blog?

and they think about the form factor in

the medium and they don't think enough

about how can I become so interesting

that my distribution method is people

telling other people because they can't

get it out of their heads and they have

to it's it's it's in there and it's

tickling their brain and they have to

share it with their families and they

have to go have a conversation about it.

That is the most powerful most high

lever thing and nobody thinks about it.

>> I want to double click on that in one

second. I just want to come back to the

hook. Is that there's a lot of research

that seems to indicate that you have

sort of 12 secondsish

>> to get somebody's attention. Is that

what you mean by a hook?

>> I don't know about seconds because now a

lot of the way that people interact with

people that they don't know personally

is through these parasocial

relationships on the internet. Like

there's a lot of people who watch your

podcast who feel like they have a sense

of who you are. like they've created

they've created this model of you in

their minds that's this kind of like

weird chain homunculus that's sort of

resembling of you but not not the full

picture. They don't necessarily do that

through time spent with you. They see it

through your writing, your newsletter,

your clips. So if it's um time in

person, okay, maybe 12 seconds. If it's

time through a clip on the internet, I

would say like first 5 seconds they

decide whether they're going to keep

scrolling or not. Like less than five.

When you see the metrics, this is so

almost crass and pragmatic to start

talking about video metrics, but when

you see the video metrics of things

posted on social media, after 30

seconds, like 99% of people are gone,

right? And and you pay closer attention

to this than I do, so your your metrics

will be like more precise, but basically

in the first few seconds, it can drop

off precipitously.

People are just like scrolling. Like

when you see people looking at videos,

what do you picture? this or this.

>> Yeah,

>> it's actually more the latter.

>> Yeah.

>> So, you get like a couple seconds. I bet

our attention span is going down to who

whoever did the study that came up with

the 12 seconds. I would love to see them

redo it and see if that's gone down to

10 or eight or something as our patience

has worn. And then in terms of text,

because some of the ways that people get

to know you is through your writing. I

don't know about seconds, but it's like

the first paragraph. For an email, it's

a subject line. For a tweet, it's the

first line, first sentence, the hook. So

like the opportunity like the surface

area of the opportunity we have to latch

on is getting more and more fine which

means that the hook that we need to use

has to get more and more sharp.

>> So should that hook be like emotion?

Should it be tension? Should it be

stakes like you get invested in reading

this? Should it be like what's in it for

me?

>> How do you think about that?

>> It could be any of the above. The most

common ones that I've just observed

online are humor, curiosity, or some

strong emotion. It can be a wow emotion.

It can be a WTF emotion, or it could be

here's a topic that I'm already thinking

about, and this is going to give me some

new angle on the topic. Depends on who

you're talking to. Like if you're

talking to brain rots, it might be a

little bit different from if you're

talking to AI researchers or if you're

talking to academics. You can use

slightly different things, but but it's

humor curiosity

uh strong emotion,

outrage, shock, surprise, or they're

about to learn something about a topic

that they're already following.

>> I want to go back to be interesting.

What does that mean? Like it it sounds

very simple, but you can't go to

somebody and say, "Hey, be more

interesting."

>> It's be interesting to whom? So, all of

these things I I hear sometimes in a

vacuum. So it's like uh say the message

and and we've talked about this like

who's saying the message and to whom and

depending on who's the messenger and

who's the receiver, the nature of the

message completely changes. It's the

same with be interesting. So what's

interesting to one person might not be

interesting to another. And if you're

very clear on who you're speaking to,

then you can make it maximally

interesting for them, which will mean

tradeoffs and making it less interesting

for someone that you don't care about.

Um, if you're trying to be somewhat

interesting to everybody, now you're

back to the eight billion people problem

where it's so so so minutely interesting

in order to capture everybody that it's

actually marginal. It just like eances

into the air. So once you identify who

are the people you're talking about, the

way you're interesting is to speak to

their interests. If you know what are

their cultural and intellectual

erogynous own, what do they care about?

What are they interested in? What are

they thinking about? then link it from

there. So, at the bottom of all of this,

the way to be interesting is to find

that sliver of the ven diagram overlap

of what you're trying to say and what

they already care about and meet them

there. And if you misfire and you end up

somewhere else, then you're not doing

your job as a good storyteller. or if

you misidentify the audience. I would

say the number one mistake is

misidentifying the audience and trying

to speak to the general public and then

the the narrow sliver of people that

super duper matter to you in that

moment, whether it's people you're

trying to hire, people you're trying to

even befriend, whatever your goal is,

that you miss them because you've just

sprayed it out into the air.

>> Why do you think a lot of corporations

and governments uh communicate so

poorly? The people who have done the

communicating are laring as company

executives. They're laring as what they

think a business should speak like. So

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When you ask AI for anything related to

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blabbering idiot. like even the most

advanced models that are creating these

wonderful insights and writing poetry.

You ask it to do anything related to

comms or PR and it'll give you the worst

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[Music]

>> and it's because that's what it's seeing

and that's what it's learning from and I

think that's the same effect with people

like somebody

starts their career and then goes into

the company doing PR and then they look

around at what does PR look like and

they're like okay let me just do some

version of that and it's it's like this

experiment that I read about where they

had mice in a cage and they were trained

train to run a certain route and then

they would put in a new mouse and take

out the old mouse and they had fully

replaced all of the mice like a ship of

thesis with mice and all of the new mice

were doing all of the behaviors of the

old mice for literally no reason at this

point. The old mice were getting cheese

or whatever. They just they just

following one by one. So, I actually

think we're in this like very

hollow,

meaningless corporate zeitgeist of

everybody copying everybody else and

there's just no there there. And

I think the way to break the cycle is

every once in a while somebody just does

something totally different and it works

and then the copying can at least glom

on to copying something better. So, so

the leaders will do something more

interesting and then the copers will try

to do something similar to that and the

leader will get the A+ result and the

copers will get the C plus result. Then

someone else will get an A+ result and

the copers might get a B+ result and I

think that's the way you so um Toby look

Shopify he has done a number of things

that are original courageous for the

first we're were both Toby Vans and then

you see other companies kind of falling

in line. And so it's like the number one

most courageous does it first and then

the number two and three do it and then

eventually 5 years later the number 50

is doing it too. And so you do this

enough times that over the years

hopefully things get better. I don't

know if he realizes it, but he probably

single-handedly changed the number of

people speaking out in Canada on the

election because he started having an

opinion, having a voice, and that that

sort of made it safe for other people to

have an opinion, have a voice, and that

might go counter to the norm.

>> Yeah. But government communications in

particular, I mean I I think of this as

attacks on citizens,

>> attacks on educated citizens because you

have to spend, you know, they

communicate in one page

>> uh what should be maybe two max three

sentences and you have to spend your

time deciphering it. It's almost like a

race to see how much we can say without

saying anything.

>> Yeah. It's incredible. I mean, someone

like you, your billable hours would be

like in the thousands. Yeah.

>> If you spend an extra couple hours and

then that adds up over the course of a

lifetime, that is that much productivity

added together from everyone who's doing

it. And the more um productive someone

is in the economy, the more time they're

probably spending reading this stuff

like from the news and from government

announcements. And so it really adds up.

I would love to see someone do a study

of the financial cost of jargony gov

speak and corpose speak. I think I

wonder if this comes from the idea that

we need more communications that doesn't

make better communications. Like the

answer for a long time, I don't know

what it's like inside companies now, but

for a long time uh in the government and

and in large corporations that I was

working with, the answer was always like

more comms, but nobody was asking like

what's better comms? You know, it's not

like we need to communicate more. It,

you know, we need to be more effective

at our communication. How do you think

about that?

>> This is the um this is sort of Goodwin's

law where once the measure becomes the

goal, it ceases to be a good measure.

And what we've done is we've taken a

group of people and said your job is

communications and your metric is

communicating a lot presumably.

If you picture a scenario where people

have a job and their job is just to

communicate versus a scenario where the

goal is to help people understand

something important. This plays out

completely differently. In the first

scenario, the people whose job is

communicating are just generating

activity

>> to try to show that they should hold on

to their jobs and be able to get jobs in

the future.

>> Whereas in the second scenario, if the

goal is to help people understand

something important so that we can

effect a change in the world together,

that's more the paradigm that I think is

the reality today. It's just not evenly

distributed. But the the top leaders

like the Toby look Brian Armstrong

types. They already get it. And that is

the most effective person to speak is

the person who's leading the enterprise.

If you were building a cult, and I would

say that most successful startups are

like cults in many ways. If you were

building a cult, you would never be

like, "Let's not let have the cult

leader speak. He he might go off the

reservation and he's kind of quirky and

eccentric, a little bit weird. Let's

just have somebody who's like really

polished and professional and normal

speak on his behalf in a way that will

never offend anybody. You would never

build a cult that way. What the best

communicating companies are doing is

having the cult leader having the leader

of the enterprise speak directly about

their what their vision is. Because if

you're trying to do something different

that hasn't been done before, in my mind

that's the only thing kind of worth

doing cuz otherwise just go be an

employee. If you're trying to be some do

something original and different that

has not been done, it doesn't exist,

it's very hard to prove to people that

it's going to work, especially in the

early days. And what I said before about

human conviction and that being

contagious, you need the person who

leads the enterprise to say in the first

person, we are going to do this. It is

going to work. Look me in the eyes.

Follow me. Join me on this because we're

going to do something great. I swear to

you on my life this will be my life's

work. It could be your life's work too.

There's nobody else who can do that in

the first person. Like imagine that

recruiting speech given in the form of

my boss has told me to tell you whatever

it looks like. So I I um going back to

your question of why has it gotten so

sucky? It's because the we have

designated a group of people who had

less skin in the game to be the

communicators and given them a metric of

just saying stuff. What is the skin in

the game from the person doing the

communicating if it's not the founder

sort of like if it's a big cor for

example a big corporation puts out a

press release like what is the skin in

the game for

>> I don't think there is any nobody has

real glory if it goes right nobody has

humiliation and despair if it goes wrong

it just sort of is out there for the

purpose of checking a box and for some

public companies they need to literally

check box according to like SEC rules,

but the press release as a means of

communication I think is obsolete by

like a decade.

>> I want to come back to something you

said where the founder with conviction

is like giving this message. It's very

different than so having an intermediary

between people.

>> How much of that appeals to us from a

psychological level because it's

uncertainty avoidance? this person's

certain like I believe it because

there's no surface area for any

non-belief.

>> What do you mean?

>> Well, if they're saying this is true and

we're going to go to the moon.

>> Yeah.

>> And it's going to happen and I'm this is

my life's work.

>> And I might be thinking, you know,

practically speaking, that's probably

not, you know, going to happen or go to

Mars or it's not going to happen in the

next 5 years. But because this person's

so convincing and they're so passionate

about it, there's like my uncertainty I

would feel diminishes. And like

eventually you hear that message over

and over again. Repetition. Repetition.

And then you start to believe it.

>> Mhm. Yeah. That is how people believe

things. Repetition is one of the ways

that people believe things. And another

is being told something by someone that

they trust. So earlier when I thought

there there was a ghost in your studio,

if

if I had been like, Shane, there's a

ghost here. I'm telling you, I know what

I saw. There's a ghost here. At first,

you would be like, this, you know, she's

a little cuckoo. Maybe we scrap this

episode. But if I just kept following up

with you and telling you and like I

swear to you, I saw this. I'm not lying.

You would be a little bit creeped out.

Have you ever had like a kid say to you,

"I think I saw something or there's a

monster under my bed." And they're just

so sure and you're like, "No, there's

not."

>> But there's the hint of,

>> you know, um it actually is very hard to

resist. And so one of the main ways to

turn something from being perceived as

totally impossible and insane is to have

a person that you trust tell you with

total confidence that it's real and it's

going to happen. Now, the two things in

there are it has to be a person you

trust and they have to say it with total

confidence. If it's not a person you

trust, if it's someone screaming on the

street that your studio has a ghost,

you're not going to take that seriously.

And if I don't say it with confidence,

you're not going to take that seriously.

So, let's say you and I trust each other

and I say, "Shane, I think I saw and you

were like, "No, that was just the thing.

That was just a shadow that I like, oh

yeah, probably." Okay. That doesn't do

anything to you either. It's someone

that you trust speaking with complete

conviction and doing it over and over.

And those three ingredients can be

engineered.

You can engineer trust. There's there's

a formula. Let's talk about it. You can

engineer trust. The conviction should be

real cuz otherwise what are you doing?

Just go get a normal job. So hopefully

the founder already has conviction. But

the but there's ways to convey that and

impress that upon people and to do it

repeatedly with insistence over the

years. So yeah, going to Mars sounds

super wacky, but people who have been

around Elon and I've heard him say it

over and over and people who know him

and trust him believe that we will go to

Mars

>> in our lifetime.

>> I believe him.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. But if you if you find people

>> the first time he said it I thought he

was crazy.

>> I'm sure maybe the tenth time, maybe the

hundth time, but by the 10,000th time

you're sort of like maybe he sees

something that we don't see. And if you

look at people who do not like or trust

Elon, they don't believe it as much cuz

they think he's a charlatan. They think

he's a liar. They think he's a bad guy.

And so anything he says, they don't take

seriously. But if you take him seriously

and you trust him and you believe him,

then that carries a lot of weight,

especially when he says it over and over

and over. So, you use the word trust and

I'm wondering is there a nuance with

likability because I had heard before

and I don't know where I got this from

but I remember reading something about

like we're more convinced by people we

like and you use the word trust and I'm

wondering if that was conscious.

>> We're more convinced by people we like

and we like people that we trust. Okay.

>> Um so they are related. It is it is

possible to believe someone you don't

like. Right. It is um like picture

someone that you really dislike and they

say they're going to do something but

you immediately believe that they're

going to do it. So let's say that

there's some foreign adversary who makes

a threat and you believe that they'll

follow through on their threat because

they usually do even if you don't like

them. That is possible. But there

definitely is a link between um if you

like someone you're more likely to

believe them and if you if you believe

someone you're more likely to like them.

Uh and I think that liking is actually

really underrated. So have you heard of

the affect heruristic?

>> Yeah. It's, you know, we have different

decision-making heristics. We have

mental shortcuts because we don't have

all the time in the world. This is like

an evolutionary thing that everybody has

this. We don't train it. It just, it

just comes with us, you know, out of the

box. We don't have all the time in the

world to take in every single piece of

information and make a decision all the

time. Sometimes it's like if you see

smoke, you just got to go, right? And

so, we make um we take mental shortcuts

all the time. And one of the big mental

shortcuts is if we like something and

feel comfortable with something, it's

more likely to be real. Someone we like

is more likely to be competent. Someone

we like is more likely to be smart. All

these things just kind of go together.

And so liking is at the center of that.

>> You mentioned that we can engineer

trust. How do we do that?

>> One is repeated exposure. So in order to

trust somebody, first you have to have a

sense of who they are. Like you would

you wouldn't trust a stranger. you

wouldn't trust a mystery man. So, one is

you have to know who who are they? They

have to show up enough for you get a for

you to get a sense of you actually know

them and they're not a total stranger to

you. It's hard to trust a stranger, but

it's easy to trust even a stranger that

you have a parasocial relationship with

because they're not a stranger. There

are people that you've never met in your

life who would trust you because to them

you're not a stranger. So, first is just

become not a stranger. Second is

establish a set of shared values. I

wouldn't necessarily trust your opinion

on a restaurant. Unless I knew that you

and I like the same type of food. So if

you are like a vegan that hates spicy

food and whatever, I I probably wouldn't

take your restaurant recommendation. Um

even if I like you as a person, right?

>> So you you have to establish some shared

baseline of values. Here are some core

things that I believe about the world

and if you share them then listen to

what I have to say next. If you don't

share them that's okay, right? Not

everybody has to share them. So they

have to get a sense of who you are and

you're not a stranger. And they have to

get a sense of how you think and how you

view things such that when you say other

things, they already have ingrained in

their mind that they think like you

think and therefore if you believe this

thing, they're more likely to believe

that thing, too. This is how to resolve

a debate or an argument. By the way, the

better way to argue, and you see really

uh smooth people like Gav Gavin Newsome

does this on his podcast, maybe a little

bit too slick, but he's clearly very

good at it, is he'll have somebody who

totally disagree with with him on a

bunch of things, and he'll always make

sure to start with agreeing with them on

something, even if it's trivial. I agree

with you that that thing was totally

insane. And now we can have a productive

conversation because we've established

that it's even possible for you and me

to see things the same way as opposed to

your knee-jerk assumption that it

wouldn't be possible. I wonder if that's

why so many almost never disagree with

you. When you are like oh I taste

whatever in this wine they're like

possibly or you know like in their head

they're like no way like that's

completely different taste but they they

never actually come out and say no they

always sort of like bridge a little bit

of a gaping and then they'll like direct

you or steer you towards what they want

you to notice.

>> That's interesting. I'm a tea totler.

So, I'm the person that if I sniff a

wine, I'm like, I think it's wine.

But, but what I have noticed, which is

related to this, is do you ever see

online when people are insulting someone

or dunking on someone, but then that

person shows up and says, "Thanks for

your feedback." The original person who

was insulting them or dunking on them

almost immediately folds like a cheap

suit. Have you seen this?

>> Yeah. almost immediately they fold. Hey

man, thank you. No, totally understand.

I would be doing the same thing. I got

you. Like, what what just happened? And

it's because once you're actually

confronted by a person instead of just

like a concept or some kind of nebulous

idea of a person or or some

representation of a person like once the

person is there talking to you, even if

it's online, we behave in a completely

different way. And so one of the things

I tell founders to do is just to show up

and defend yourself. You know, defend

your people, defend your companies. Sam

Alman is really good at this. He defends

his employees. And it's very hard, even

as much as with any public figure,

people like to dunk and hate and insult.

And when he shows up, a lot of the time,

you see the person immediately fold cuz

they're just like flattered or they

don't want to fight with him directly or

something. It's one of the most powerful

things is just to put a human in their

way.

>> That's really interesting. Do you think

that founders have to rebut everything?

I want to get into sort of negative

media later, but do you think they have

to rebut everything or is it that if

they do it enough, it sort of like

deters attacks?

>> I think there's a big um deterrent

effect with some founders. So like

Palmer Lucky has extremely strong deter.

Have you ever read the three body

problem?

>> No.

>> You'd love it. You'd love this trilogy.

The three body problem. It's it's it's

uh actually three books and there's an

alien civilization and they probably

want to come to Earth and take all of

our resources and we would be destroyed.

And it turn it turns into a game of

deterrence. It turns into game theory of

how do we prevent them from doing that

when they're so much more

technologically sophisticated than us.

And I won't spoil it, but a large part

of the book centers on how do we deter

them? And again, they are

technologically dominant over us.

They've actually sent sensors and spies

to come here and can see everything

that's happening. And so, Earth has

designated certain people to be what

they call wallfacers, as in they are

metaphorically facing a wall and not

interacting with the outside world uh in

a normal way. They're making secret

plans and their job is to be deceptive

so that anyone watching, whether you're

a human or you're a tricolar in alien

civilization, you can't tell what

they're really up to. And among some of

the people in in the second book, they

have the power to do the equivalent of

of pulling a trigger. And the aliens

have to determine who's really going to

do this. So the aliens decide which

people have strong deterrence and weak

deterrence. And there's one guy who has,

I think they call it perfect deterrence,

which is he will 100%

pull the trigger if needed. He doesn't

care about dying. He He doesn't care.

He's not worried about protecting his

family. He's not worried about literally

anything. He's just like a perfect

algorithm where if this then trigger. He

has perfect deterrence. And during the

time that he's around, the aliens do

nothing. They're completely deterred.

When he's gone, that power passes to

this woman who has actually very weak

deterrence. Okay,

>> she just like feels bad. She's got other

stuff going on and the aliens call her

bluff. They realize that she has weak

deterrence and they are not deterred and

then things go very badly from there.

All of this is to say that some people

have strong deterrence or weak

deterrence and you can signal that

through your behavior. Someone like

Palmer whom I love and I really like

this about him has basically perfect

deterrence which is that if you come

after him in some material way he will

come after you basically guaranteed 100%

of the time. His comm's team isn't

holding him back. His co-founders aren't

holding him back. Investors nothing

nothing is holding him back from coming

after you and probably continuing to

come after you for maybe the rest of his

life. like extremely strong deterrence,

which doesn't mean that there are not

like internet goons who sometimes still

take a shot, but I actually haven't seen

it for a very long time. I can't

remember the last time that someone took

a meaningful shot at Palmer, that

someone landed a blow.

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>> I remember being in the audience at the

Miami All-In

>> Yeah.

>> summit.

>> Yeah.

>> And him and Jason just went off on each

other.

>> And I thought it was brilliant. Like I

liked the fact that he was like standing

up for himself and, you know, sort of

arguing. He was doing it respectfully,

>> uh, but he was sort of just calling

you know,

>> and he was doing it on his own. And not

everybody, like I wouldn't have done

that. A lot of people either wouldn't or

couldn't get away with it, but this is

authentically him. This is not like his

PR team wrote a script for him and

they're like, "Hey, read this and get

really mad." Like, this is him. I think

he had it on his Apple notes and just

like did himself like, "Hey, I'm going

to do this." And then and then did the

way this goes wrong is if people try to

affect being someone that they're really

not. And then once you see through that,

not only do you not have the original

intended effect, but then you also lose

all your other credibility, too. Who

else is like I I think Sam Alman has a

fairly strong deterrent, but the way

that you respond to attacks establishes

how strong or weak of a deterrent that

you have. And it's painful up front, but

then it gets a lot easier later because

people stop coming after you.

>> Well, let's talk about responding to

attacks first. Palmer, if you're

listening, I'd love to have you on the

podcast. Palmer, Shane's great.

>> Let's talk about how uh to respond

during an attack. What What are sort of

there's a let's say um two scenarios

that come to mind are like a negative

article about your company or like maybe

an accusation against the CEO. What

What's the playbook for responding to

these things?

>> The first thing is does it actually

matter? Cuz like don't waste your one

wild and precious life responding to

every single thing if it doesn't matter.

Not because it'll necessarily hurt you,

but just you have better things to do

with your time. Go for a walk. So, the

first is deciding whether it matters.

And there's a couple things to decide

whether it matters. Number one, is it

reaching people that matter? Cuz if it's

some dark corner of the internet with

some crank and your actual audience is

not there and don't care, that's totally

fine. Or let's say that you are a

Republican politician and your audience

is like right-wing Americans and AOC

attacks you. Great. Congratulations.

That's good for you. You do you don't

have to do anything there. That's

actually like a wonderful complaint. You

might turn it into an ad. Like lean into

it. So So the first is just like

>> who is it and who are they reaching

>> and is that going to do damage? And then

the second is is it something material?

So, if it's I write a blog post and I'm

like I went to Shane Parish's studio and

his snacks weren't that good. But if

it's like I went to his studio and he

lied to me about what we're going to

cover. Um, he tricked me into coming on

with promises of an interview and and it

went in a totally different direction.

And after he lied, he used that to, you

know, he put my face on an ad without

getting my permission. He used it to

like shill his new supplements company

or something. that would be pretty

material to you in trying to get future

guests and in in the image that you have

with people that you respect and so that

would be worth addressing.

>> Yeah.

>> So, so who are the people involved? Do

they matter to you?

>> And then what is the actual accusation?

Does that matter to you? If both are a

yes, then you got to respond immediately

and aggressively, right away. You can't

kind of, oh, I don't know. It feels so

bad. Maybe it'll go away. the the

instinct is let me just maybe it'll just

go away by itself. It doesn't go away by

itself. So this is like so I broke my

nose um multiple times in college. You

could sort of see it's like curved. And

the what I learned about broken noses is

if you break your nose, you got to break

it back right away so that it can heal.

If you don't do that, you either have a

crooked nose forever and learn to live

with it, or if you want to get it fixed

five years later, you got to break it

back five years later. So, you can

either break it back now while it's

already broken and then let it heal

hopefully once and for all. Or you can

kind of wait for it to go away and then

decide that you're not happy with it and

it bugs you and then you have to fix it

and then 5 years later you're stuck

breaking your nose from scratch. This is

the way that I think about a

reputational blow is if if there has

been material reputational damage, you

can either handle it in that moment and

break the nose back and and just fix it

then and there while things are already

bad or kind of let it fester and then

eventually you'll realize like you don't

want to live with this and you have to

address it and now you're stuck with do

I have a crooked nose forever or do I

have to break it from scratch? One of

the things that I read that's related to

uh accusations and sort of corporate

crisis, you said if you're fighting a

story with a statistic, you're losing.

>> Yes.

>> Double click on that for me.

>> You know the probably apocryphal Lenin

quote about one death is a tragedy, a

thousand deaths is a statistic. This is

so true. And I think a good example of

this is probably during the NAFTA

debates where it was about should we

have free trade or not free trade. And

the people who are pro- NAFTA, protrade

would say it'll lift our GDP by this

much. It'll it'll help facilitate this

much um flow of trade and do these it

was like very nebulous because what is

2% versus 1% versus 8% like the average

person doesn't it doesn't mean anything

to them. Whereas, if you're anti-rade

and you could say like, "This is Shane.

He's got 12 children. He just lost his

job." People will do anything to help

Shane with 12 children who just lost his

job versus the 2% of potential growth

just doesn't mean anything. It's why

when um charities try to get you to give

money, they're like this specific child.

So, on the on the poster on the

recruiting thing, it's never like

>> 50,000 children or at least if they're

doing a good job, it's not. If they're

doing a good job, it's like this is one

little girl, you know, staring into the

camera. She has this sickness. She needs

$10, right? Can you just do that? Or

even if it's save the pandas,

>> it's like this panda,

>> it's very specific.

>> This panda has a name. And so we always

wanted we we want to influence a story

and help a person. For us, the reward of

getting

cataract surgery for one person is much

more powerful than changing a percentage

from 2.1 to 2.105.

>> How does that influence politics and

like the way that people think on mass?

Because politics is so much about this

story. The great presidential uh

campaigns

are very good at telling specific

stories about here's the way something

should have been. Here's where it all

went wrong and here's what needs to do

to bring about a happy ending and we're

almost there and help me take us to the

happy ending. Like that's every story,

right? The Shire is green and beautiful

and then Sauron starts to wage war and

in order to make things right again, the

ring needs to go into the volcano. Every

great story is some version of here's

how things should be and here's

something wrong and here's what it takes

to fix it. And the great politicians

make themselves the thing that it takes

to fix it and you can help them get

there. And along the way they're telling

stories about this one single mother

sitting at the breakfast table over this

bill for this specific type of cancer

that her husband whose name is Joe. Like

that is the message that gets people to

care as opposed to help me take help me

turn 2% into 2.1%.

>> In the interest of better political

discourse around the world, how do you

argue with that if you're the opposition

when your opponent is telling a story

but factually it has no basis in reality

and you're coming out arguing with facts

which isn't going to win. How do you how

do you counter that?

>> You have to fight story with story.

There's no like the most powerful

statistic

is probably not as powerful as the

median story. Like the most powerful

statistic is not as powerful probably as

the average story. If someone is

fighting you with stories, you have to

fight with stories. Out of the

statistics will be better stories. Under

the statistics are more powerful

stories. So the facts are on your side.

Better stories can be found. And if your

opponent is actually lying in their

skull duggery, maybe there's a story

about that. Like in the in the tech

world, we're seeing a very interesting

story play out between Ripling and Deal,

which are these two payroll processors,

and Deal planting a spy and the spy like

running into the bathroom and then try

to flush a phone. I mean, it's very

vivid. And so all this back and forth

about you spied on us and we spied on

you and you told pe people this and our

revenue is this but you claim you're

like all of that fades into the noise

and people are just picturing like the

spy hiding into the bath in the bathroom

trying to flash a phone. So if someone

is actually lying and attacking you

maybe there's a story to be told about

that.

>> How much of our minds are driven by

headline when it comes to this stuff?

>> Whoever frames it seems to have an

advantage.

>> Whoever comes out first has an

advantage. Um this is Winston Churchill

says the a lie makes its way around

around the world before the truth can

get its pants on. And when you

>> quote

half the quotes attributed to Churchill

are apocryphal but they're all of them

are excellent whether they he actually

said it or not. He spiritually said it

online you see this constantly where

somebody will post something and then

sometimes there's a great rebuttal and

the rebuttal will get like onetenth as

much engagement as the original thing.

And so there's a lot of value in simply

saying the thing first. And if you think

someone is going to attack you for

something, then you can get ahead of it

and do the pre- rebuttal. The

pre-buttle. Uh I think the pre-buttle

should be a thing. If you know what

people are going to attack you for, do

the pre-buttle. So have you seen the

Eminem rap battle in 8 Mile?

>> Yes. The final one. I know everything

you're about to say against me.

>> Yes.

>> And everybody should do this. I actually

think um there should be just a clip. I

want to find a clip of the final rap

battle and just make it mandatory

viewing for anyone who's in the public

eye and has haters and people attacking

them because what he says hopefully

everyone's already seen this u cinematic

masterpiece but what he does is in this

rap battle Eminem's character he goes

first and everything that the guy would

have used against him he uses against

himself and addresses all of it and he

either owns it or diffuses it and then

by the end the other guy actually has

nothing left to

So just being first means that you have

the opportunity to do that. If that if

the order had been reversed, the whole

thing wouldn't have worked.

>> That was a I love that final uh battle.

And apparently for people who geek out

on this stuff, there's a lot of unedited

clips from when they were recording

where they actually did freestyles.

>> Uh and everybody wanted to challenge

Eminem.

>> Oh, I'm sure.

>> You know, I'm never going to be on stage

with you, but like in this studio right

now. And so people were going off script

all the time.

>> Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Talk to a UFC

fighter who is actually like UFC Hall of

Fame. And he says that whenever he goes

to a bar, he doesn't want people to know

that he's a professional fighter cuz all

the guys try to fight him.

>> Of course. Yeah. Legend has it Ken

Shamrock used to use bars as training.

>> So he used to go to the bars and like

use it as training ground

>> on that. A lot of power in just

sparring. Like when you listen to

whether they're CEOs or founders,

political figures, the people who spend

a lot of time sparring are sharper than

the people who haven't had to spar. They

are just sharper and better. So like

Charlie Kirk, um he's a right-wing

activist. He goes around to campuses. He

literally just parks himself at a campus

and then all these college students who

hate him line up and fight with him

verbally. they argue with him and he

just like chops them down systematically

or he engages with them like it's not

disrespectful. He engages with their

ideas and then he has these debates and

this he just does this basically as a

full-time job and he is now incredibly

sharp. Ben Shapiro is the same. These

are people who have had to defend every

single thing. If you're Ben Shapiro, you

walk outside and say the sky is blue,

people would say, "Well, of course you

would think that you Zionist." He would

have to defend it. like everything

they've had to defend repeatedly and as

a result they are very sharp. You can

say that you disagree and you think

their opinions are bad and wrong. It's

very hard to say that they're not

sharper and they're not smart and

they're not great on the stump because

they objectively are. Even the people

who hate them and hate their positions

can't say that they're dumb. Um and

that's the same for CEOs like Palmer or

like Toby where they don't surround

themselves with yesmen. They put

themselves into situations that might be

mixed, hostile, skeptical. They welcome

the skepticism. They engage and as a

result, they are incredibly sharp and

they don't freeze when they're

confronted with skepticism. Whereas,

when you see sometimes CEOs that have

been more coddled, where they've been

like the god king of their company and

everything they say is right and true

and brilliant, they're the most handsome

and smart person everywhere they go. If

someone disagrees with them online or

they're getting dunked on, they actually

don't really know what to do and so they

outsource it to the comms team and it

sort of unravels from there.

>> That's really interesting. How would you

go about getting better at sparring?

Like if you wanted to start learning how

to defend your opinions better or to

realize that you're wrong. So it's not

even defending your opinions, it's like

putting them out there and then sort of

getting feedback from the world and

adapting. How do you think about that? I

think it's about who you surround

yourself with and getting people who

will tell you

in the safety of your inner sanctum when

you're wrong so that you can start

sparring in a in a more sterile

environment. Like you can start, you

don't have to go and start sparring with

the blue water internet. You can start

with just people that you trust and it's

not going to do any damage. But if you

don't even allow people close to you to

disagree and spar with you, and if you

penalize people who speak up against

you, then what you're doing is you're

making yourself incredibly

intellectually brittle. So that when you

go out into the world and get faced with

who knows what, you're completely

unprepared. And that unpreparedness e

shows either in live interviews.

Sometimes you see people in live

interviews just like lock up and they

freeze. No one on their team has told

them that they sound bullshitty. And so

suddenly the reporter is telling them

they don't know what to do or they just

freeze and hide and go away and they

don't engage and now it's just like

you're lying on the ground while people

punch you. So I think it's just who you

surround yourself with. It's kind of

like you want your friends and family to

tell you if you have broccoli in your

teeth so that you don't have to go out

into the street. But if you yell at them

for doing that and they stop telling you

now you just walk around all day with

broccoli and then someone else will

point it out. One person I know and I I

won't mention their name, but they block

everybody who sort of disagrees with

them on Twitter or X or whatever you

call it now. And I worry about this in

my head because like how does this play

out, right? Like over the long term, you

know, it's like you stop getting

information that's different than your

worldview. And if you become a bit more

fragile, I think in that case, do you

agree with that or like what when do you

block, when do you not? What do you

think? I'm I'm a big muter

>> where it's like, okay, if I've said

something and you think it sucks, then

feel free to dunk on it. I've decided to

say it. I'm not going to say it only to

people who agree with me. I think if

someone is like abusive or threatening,

maybe that's a block situation, but I'm

a big muter where it's like

>> I just don't want to pollute my feed

with your nonsense. Um, and it's

different from disagreeing. It's more

like if you are just negative and rude

and toxic in other ways. So the way that

I do it is if someone just disagrees, I

actually want to see that, right?

>> I don't want to insulate. Yeah. I don't

want to insulate myself from that. I

want to see it. Maybe I want to engage

with it. Maybe I want to have some of

that back and forth. Um, especially when

I was working in video games, you know,

gamers are so passionate and have no

tolerance for nonsense. And I really

respect them for that. Even the ones who

hated me or hated my company. And I

really valued the opportunity to go back

and forth. And people and gamers are

really funny, too. Like they their love

language is memes. They would make memes

of me. Sometimes nice, sometimes really

like I cringe to to think of them. And

and yet that's part of the discourse.

You I would make memes back and and we

would interact. But if it's like uh just

rude and nasty, then I don't need to

subject myself to that. I'm gonna leave

the proverbial room. So that's a mute.

>> What if there's asymmetry in the

communication? And think of this as like

a newspaper uh maybe coming after a

small company or left-leaning media

going after right uh leaning sort of

politicians or something. There's like

an asymmetry to this. How do you deal

with that if you're on the other side of

that asymmetry? What's the asymmetry?

>> Well, the asymmetry is like there's a

whole bunch of money, power, reputation

behind um you know, if the New York

Times sort of write a story on a small

business, it could kill that business.

And it might or might not be true, but

that business might only have five

people working for it.

>> Yeah.

>> How do they How do you think about that?

>> I think God smiles on underdogs. And I

think that if you are blessed to be in

an underdog position, you should try to

take advantage of it. It's not going to

feel like a blessing in the moment. and

it'll feel really horrible. But there is

something to being so clearly punched

down on

>> that gives you more power and liberty in

that moment where people will naturally

sympathize with the underdog. People are

naturally very skeptical of big

mainstream corporate media right now.

People are very skeptical of bullies.

And so if you're in the receiving

position of that, I think you can

actually use that because if you if you

realize that you're not trying to win

over every single person in the world,

but that there's a a certain set of

people you need to win over who are

aligned with you, then actually all you

need to do is help them understand that

you and they are on the same page and an

attack on you is an attack on them and

use that to rally them to you. So I

think that a hit piece is not the worst

thing that can happen. There's a there's

a kind of horseshoe where a great piece

fine, a hit piece, fine, kind of fine,

you can use it. Doesn't feel good, but

you can use it. What you don't want is

the uncanny valley where it's not a hit

piece, but it has information about you

that while it doesn't sound aggressive

or hostile, makes you look horrible.

Like, that's the worst way of looking

bad is not even being attacked and

looking bad. It's not the mainstream

media is coming after me and they have

an agenda and they hate what I stand

for. It's just, oh, they reported this

fact and it makes me look horrible.

That's like the uncanny valley where you

you don't want that or it's like mixed.

But a straightup hit piece I think is

okay.

>> And then when you talk about sort of

like rallying your the people like you

and making is that spreading your

surface area out so it's like you're not

just attacking me, you're attacking

everybody who's like me.

>> Yeah. So I I sometimes refer to an

equation in physics which is P= F A. The

pressure equals the force divided by the

surface area. And it it's very

intuitive, right? Like the same amount

of force if you spread it over a wide

surface area doesn't exert a lot of

pressure. So think of like a a big sheet

of paper that's pushing down versus if

the surface area contracts then the same

amount of force creates a lot of

pressure. So like a needle can puncture

through. So like a big sheet of paper

really hard to puncture through. Needle

can puncture through. Or it's the same

when you're trying to rip fabric. If

you're just tearing fabric, it's really

hard. But if there's a tiny nick

already, the whole thing just comes

open. And so the way to think about this

is if you're trying to relieve pressure,

you don't get to change how much force

is coming at you. But you can change the

surface area. You can spread it out over

more surface area. You're not just

attacking me. You're attacking all of

us. You're not just attacking, let's

say, Substack or a Substacker for a

specific post. You're attacking all

independent writers who are trying to

assert their freedom of expression.

That's a way to diffuse the pressure on

you and rally people to you uh in a very

powerful way. And then if you're ever on

offense, not that you want to be the

antagonist and go after someone and

attack someone, but sometime sometimes

you need to go on offense just to defend

yourself. If you're going on offense,

then you actually want to maximize the

pressure and you decrease the surface

area. So, for example, if if the media

is attacking you in a very unfair way,

the worst thing you can do is just

complain about the media. If the surface

area of what you're complaining about is

too big, then you sound like a tinfoil

hat. Like, the the media is after me and

the government's after me and also the

CIA is after me and also the weather is

not good. It it's it's too much.

Whereas, if you narrow it to say this

specific reporter has had a vendetta

against my company because their cousin

runs a competitor or whatever, that is

actually a lot more effective and more

credible and you're maximizing the

pressure on that person.

>> I like that a lot. Double click more on

the offense if you're playing offense

here.

>> What does that look like?

>> How do you tactically do it or

>> Well, so this is offense as a defensive

response. So, you know, you're attacking

a reporter. What's offense without a

response look like? Like what does

instigation look like?

>> Yeah. So,

>> if you're trying to pick a fight to get

attention, if you're uh trying to

preempt something if

>> sometimes a good way to succeed as an

underdog is to pick a fight. Now, I

don't suggest picking a fight just to be

mean and you never want to be punching

down or you be the bully. That's not

good. But if you are starting from

basically nothing and you need to gather

steam and and gather people to join a

movement, make yourself relevant, then

it's good to have something to fight

for. You need to have a cause. And often

with a cause, you need to have a foil.

So yes, there's something you want to

see in the world, but there's something

that you want to change. There's

something that you are against. And so I

think that it's very worth choosing a

foil. And maybe the foil is the strangle

hold of the existing financial system.

Maybe the foil is this one specific

regulation. So boom, supersonic. Uh

Blake Schaw runs it. It's the first

civilian privately uh created supersonic

plane.

They've been lobbying and fighting and

struggling against this one specific bad

piece of legislation that's like

outdated from 50 years ago that's

basically a speed limit in the sky

because at the time planes made this big

boom when when they went fast and people

didn't like the big boom because it's

disruptive. So they said you're not

allowed to go fast. The real thing

should have been you're not allowed to

be noisy but they just made it you're

not allowed to go fast. Now that we're

able to go fast without being noisy,

you're still not allowed to go fast. So

he was able to actually help influence

getting this legislation overturned and

that was a big win. But he wasn't

attacking anybody, wasn't being mean to

anybody. He just said like pinpointing

this is the thing that's holding back

speed in America, not just for me, but

for industry and for a lot of things

broadly um beyond just my company. And

>> kind of like this is indicative of a

broader problem. It's affecting me in

this way, but it's affecting everybody

else. But there's one specific thing to

picture. If he had said the problem is

red tape, that's nothing. You know, if

the problem is bad regulations,

the problem is being slow and not moving

fast enough as a country in general,

like there's just nothing there.

>> You have to be specific so people can

sort of like see it or feel it. Is that

the

>> Yeah, there has to be something to

attach these emotions onto. And if it's

just sort of this like

diaphous idea in the ether, it's very

hard for people to even congregate

around something.

>> Going back to physics for a second, how

important is velocity when it comes to

communication?

>> Yeah. So, I talk about velocity a lot

because velocity is a vector. It has a

magnitude and a direction. People talk a

lot about magnitude. They don't talk

about direction. So they t this is what

you were saying earlier with like people

just say a lot of words but it doesn't

mean anything and so sometimes it feels

like the metric is just quantity of

yapping and we're going to go on all

these podcasts and we're going to

deliver blog posts like I've seen inside

a lot of comm's teams or agencies where

their metrics and their KPIs for the

quarter are

two opeds,

three podcasts,

four town halls and and it's all about

quant quantity

without talking about where are we

trying to move the needle to. So it's

kind of like you know the you know the

clawed logo that's

>> you know like the starburst in in all

these different directions.

You don't want your comms to look like

that where you're just like doing things

in a bunch of different directions. You

actually want your comms to look kind of

like a line that builds towards a

destination. And if you don't have the

direction in mind, then it's just a

bunch of frantic activity and wasted

motion, some of which cancels each other

out. So again, it goes back to don't

worry so much about where are you going

to say it. Worry about what are you

going to say in none of these plans and

strategies that lay out three town halls

and four opeds and whatever. I almost

never see here's the idea that we want

to spread. here is the idea that we're

going to spread and everything needs to

go in this direction and what makes this

idea interesting and worthwhile. It's

just get the CE out there, get this CEO

out there, get him interviews, get him

onto the Shane Parish podcast. What's he

going to say? Nobody knows. Just put him

in the chair.

>> I think that's interesting because I

often wonder why this stuff happens,

right? Like how do we end up in this

sit? Like why isn't the default behavior

the the correct behavior? And I I often

come back to the conclusion uh at some

point somebody's coming to you and it's

like what did you do last week and then

oh I organized a town hall I like

reached out to 72 different podcasts

>> and you know it's not about like well

how do they matter? Well I just you know

it's sort of like this spray and prey

approach.

>> Yeah. Uh but you always have a good

story so you can never get in trouble,

right? Like you're always doing and then

they can tell you to do something

different but at that point you're

getting specific.

>> Yeah.

>> You're doing stuff. The three things for

actually making a difference with your

story are one, what is the message?

Don't just start saying stuff like what

is the core truth that you're going to

convince people of? And that's the

overlap in the ven diagram that we

talked about. It's true. it's relevant

to you, but it's also something that

those people actually care about. You

got to get that out there. So,

identifying the message. People kind of

just skip this part, like just get the

CEO on podcast and he'll open his mouth

and stuff will come out.

>> Two, what are the right mediums? So,

there are people who maybe should be on

this podcast, maybe should be on Shawn

Ryan, maybe they should be on Theo Van,

maybe they should be on the New York

Times. Like, it depends on who they're

talking to and what they're trying to

get accomplished. But people don't often

think that way. They think about just

what are the hot podcasts right now.

They'll look at the Apple leaderboard

and then okay the top ones on the Apple

leaderboard are this. Let's try to go

there. Who has the biggest distribution?

Who cares about what's the biggest

distribution? It's a vector. It's not

about just magnitude. Magnitude means

nothing without direction. In what

direction is that distribution? Who are

they distributing to? So in AI for

example, I work with a lot of AI

founders and companies and I've heard

companies and founders try to

they're like doing comm's activities and

then I ask them what's the goal? Well,

the goal is actually recruiting

researchers. Okay. Well, if you're

trying to recruit researchers, why are

you spending all this time on NPR? Do

you think the researchers are listening

to NPR? Do you think the researchers are

like reading this whatever? I don't I

don't want to dunk on anyone too bad,

but like NPR actually is a good example.

>> Yeah,

>> they're probably reading like the Simon

Williamson newsletter. They're probably

reading this V substack. They're reading

the less wrong, you know, comments. Like

this this is um a totally different

ecosystem that you actually haven't

penetrated whatsoever. And so just

putting it in the right medium and then

lastly having the right messenger. So, a

lot of the time we speak through

press releases or spokespeople or hired

gun PR agencies when actually the

founder just needs to go on video and

talk as a threedimensional human being

and nobody's going to like if you're the

Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. It's

very hard to trust you because people

don't even know who you are. But if you

just come out with your face and say it,

that's more effective than an army of

hired guns trying to say it for you.

>> Well, let's use a recent example and

compare and contrast the Crowd Strike

response

>> to the Coinbase response

>> to two big crisises that were handled

very differently.

>> I think that fits this, doesn't it?

>> I think so.

>> Yeah. Can you walk us through that?

Brian is very special in the sense that

he has such a deep sense of right and

wrong in what he believes in that he he

has such high conviction that the thing

he believes is right and true and good.

Um I happen to agree with him but not

everybody does and when people don't it

doesn't bother him as much as it would

bother an average person because his

conviction is so deep that the opinion

of a random person actually doesn't

matter that much. He's also been forged

by fire the same way that Palmer and

some others have where they've gone

through this experience and felt the

pain and now they know that the normal

slings and arrows of the quotidian

haters don't amount to that much. And so

I I give you this preamble because the

spinal fortitude of the person matters a

lot. I don't know the crowd strike CEO

and I don't want to criticize because

that was an insane

time and it feels very overwhelming but

it was an insane time for for Coinbase

and the thing that held true was Brian

is willing to put his face to his words

and his words to his principles and he

was willing to say it from himself. He

could have gone through spokespeople and

then not had to take any of the comments

and just kind of hid behind he could

have used his people as a human shield

and he didn't. So that makes that made a

big difference. you you can see in the

reactions of just what that did with

people's confidence in him and of the

company and obviously it's not a great

situation but he turned it into

something that estab that gave the

company a really costly way to prove

what its values were.

>> I was really surprised by the

crowdstrike response in just terms of

like it looked like a PR agency sort of

handled that.

>> I think lawyers wrote it.

>> Yeah,

>> I think probably a committee. I think

the collective noun is maybe a bar a bar

of attorneys wrote it for him

and it and it doesn't sound human

because it's not human. A committee is

not a human being.

>> So So walk me through if you were in

that room hypothetically and all the

lawyers are saying you you can't go out

there and just talk yourself, you can't

open your surface area, you can't, you

know, give more, you can't admit guilt,

you can't uh do any of these things. How

would you what would be your advice in

that situation?

>> Here's a here is a big difference

between the CEO and anybody else. Most

other people, their job is to optimize

for one specific thing. So lawyers,

they're doing their job, their job is to

minimize legal risk and to minimize the

surface area of legal liability

approaching zero. the CEO's job, and

this is like a Hegelian political

philosophy point of view of weighing and

considering different factions and

different interests. The CEO's job

uniquely is to consider different

interests and weigh them against each

other to reach the net optimal outcome

for the company.

When this goes wrong, what it looks like

is everybody gets scared of the lawyers

and the CEO follows exactly what the

lawyers say and dismisses every other

interest. They are not doing their job

as the CEO, which is to weigh the

interest against each other and find the

net best outcome. They're folding to the

lawyers and they're making the lawyers

supreme over everybody else. And I think

that is probably what happened. That

it's what happens a lot. The problem in

the real world when this happens is by

entirely considering legal risk, you're

not considering trust, reputational

risk, and all these other things. Trust,

reputational risk, these are things that

matter inherently. Just I don't even

have to explain why they matter. Like,

of course, they matter, but they also

come at a cost if they're lost. So if

you were to translate everything into

dollar terms, legal liability might cost

you $100 million.

Yeah, it's not cheap. You know, you

might have to go to court. You could

drag on. But the loss in trust, the loss

in future prospects, customers,

employees who defect, that hire, that

recruit that doesn't accept the job

offer, it could add up to billions.

>> But those costs aren't visible.

>> They're not visible and they're not

immediate.

>> Yeah. And you don't have a person who's

advocating for that with all they've

got. Like the lawyers are advocating for

the legal risk. So I've seen a situation

where a company gets accused of

something. It's like so painful, but

this happens and probably happens a lot,

but this company gets accused of

something and it's false. It's really

bad, but it's false. So the lawyers say,

"Well, we're definitely going to beat

this in court. So, all you have to do is

keep quiet and don't say anything that

could make the situation worse and we'll

beat it in court. What ended up

happening was that keeping quiet and not

saying anything let that narrative take

hold and fester and it ended up costing

more than 10x

more in reputational damage and lost

opportunities and consumer trust and

people boycotting and employees leaving

the company and on and on and on. If the

CEO does their job, that won't happen.

But in the moment, the lawyers have

everybody quaking in fear.

>> Yeah.

>> And they are the subject matter experts

because there's potential litigation and

I'm the lawyer. So, I don't actually

even fault the lawyers. They are doing

their job. What happened is the CEO was

not doing their job, which was to weigh

the balance of interests.

>> And there's a bit of like asymmetry to

loss aversion here too, right? like a

hundred million versus like this vague

thing that's not really immediate nor

visible or Yeah. but I probably know

inside that is like

>> outweighs the hundred million but I

can't sort of like pinpoint it. It's

hard to argue.

>> Yeah. Also, lawyers will say, you know,

um sometimes when a company screws up, a

lot of times lawyers will say, "Don't

apologize." Because if you're

apologizing, you're admitting fault, and

that makes it harder for us in the

courtroom. In practice,

I'm sorry, I I know I'm not a lawyer. In

practice, I've never seen someone lose a

case because the CEO expressed human

remorse and empathy and that was the

thing that made them lose in the

courtroom. I'm I just haven't seen it.

>> Well, there is also a temptation to

apologize for things you haven't done

cuz you think that's the easy way out.

>> Walk me through that.

>> I think that's true. If everybody just

apologized when they did something wrong

and resisted apologizing when they did

nothing wrong, so many problems would be

solved. So many problems would be

solved. It's when people mess up and

refuse to take accountability and then

get accused of something where they

didn't do anything wrong and apologize

for that just to make it go away that

everything gets muddled. And by the way,

you lose all deter effect and you become

a really soft target because whether you

apologize becomes arbitrary.

If your apology and your um subsequent

contrition and a attempt to make amends

is not correlated with whether you did

anything wrong, then of course everybody

should come after you all the time

because it's a lottery ticket, right?

Just come after you and then maybe

they'll get a payout, maybe they'll get

something out of you. Everybody should

try.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right. That's the that's the incentives

that you're setting up. Whereas if you

are the type of person to take

accountability if you did something

wrong and never accept responsibility if

you didn't do something wrong and you

stay true to your principles

there will be some pain in the beginning

but you do that a few times and it sets

up a very strong deterrent. You you

achieve strong deterrence like that

wallfacer in the dark forest in the

novel. I'm sorry. Um, so, so it's super

important to do that and CEOs would

solve a lot of their PR issues by simply

apologizing only when they need to and

not sherking accountability if they did

something wrong.

>> I want to come back to politics just for

one second. I don't want to get into

left or right. I I want to ask, do you

think that Donald Trump is an effective

communicator?

>> What makes him effective at

communicating? One is he speaks at like

a third grade vocabulary level. Like he

doesn't use words that nobody can

understand.

Maybe Kofi was the one time. Kofi aside,

he uses words where everybody knows what

the words mean. Strong, great, bad,

good. Everybody knows what these mean. I

could read my seven-year-old a Trump

speech and they could kind of grasp

what's going on. or I could read to my

immigrant parents and they would know

what's going on or me, right? So, so one

is just he uses normal common words that

have a very clear meaning and it's so

basic but so many people just don't do

it. The other is he has very strong

deterrence.

He behaves very predictably in someone,

you know, people will say he's erratic.

He does great, but he's kind of

predictably erratic. Like his behavior

patterns are actually quite predictable.

And so if someone is a super Trumper

Trump fan, they know what they're a fan

of. It's not like it's unclear. You

know, he's this manufactured thing that

sways in the wind and he's like the John

Ky kite surfing video. He is this way

one day, that way, another day. We don't

know. Like, it's very clear. And

everybody who hates him already hates

him. Some cost. It's baked in, but it

doesn't continue to hurt him. Like,

people who hate him aren't going to be

more damaging to him tomorrow than they

were yesterday. And the people who love

him like already are on board with this.

You know, there's some stuff on the

margin with swing voters, but it's very

clear whether to be for or against him.

He doesn't have to worry about his base

shifting all the time because he's

shifting all the time. The third is that

he is really funny. He is he is the

funniest president. I'm sorry. Trump is

the funniest president. Um Reagan closed

second. He is

And then Lyndon Johnson.

He is legitimately funny. And being

funny is an incredible communications

hack. It gets people's attention. It

makes them keep tuning in and keep

listening. You know, keeping attention

is harder than getting attention. And

he's able to do both. And also being

funny makes you weirdly likable. There

are people who hate everything about him

forever. Yes. There are also people who

really don't like his positions and what

he stands for and finds a lot of the

things he does and says distasteful and

they can't help but have some weird

feeling of liking because he makes them

laugh.

>> Yeah. like he he really diffuses

uh situations by being funny. There's

times when he has said something that

might be really shocking or offensive or

whatever, but he's done in a hilarious

way and a lot of people sort of laugh

along with him. So that I think is very

underrated.

>> Do you think uh again not into politics,

but do you think Carolyn Love it, who's

the White House press secretary, I

think, do you think she's effective at

communicating?

>> I think she is. Um with her, a lot of it

is body language. again, you know,

separate this from we're separating this

from the substance of do you agree with

the policy and do like it's just like on

the pure like the form factor and the

aesthetics

>> nails it. She does a wonderful job.

She's really young. You know, she comes

off as older than she is. And then part

of that is um you actually kind of see

her grow into the role in the months

that she's been behind the podium, which

is kind of cool to see. But so much of

communication is your body language and

your bearing. You and I have talked

about this. I'm like super nervous and

sort of dying inside right now, but I'm

trying to just like stay chill for you.

Um, for her, just showing confidence and

ease and comfort and not showing anxiety

or stress or anger or resentment is a

big part of her persona. She comes off

as a happy warrior. People love a happy

warrior. She comes off as being

confident in what she's saying, even

though sometimes if you actually just

parse the words in writing, sometimes

you'd be like, I have some follow-up

questions. Yeah. But the way that she

delivers it is so comfortable and it's

the bearing of somebody who has the

facts on their side.

>> Yeah. It's interesting. Uh just coming

back to the politics, aside part, so

many people just shut their brain off.

uh when you know when I post like a

quote in the newsletter from somebody

they might not like nobody's more

controversial than Elon. I'll post like

a little quote from Elon in there

>> and then people are like I can't believe

you quoted Elon. I had so much respect

for you but now and I'm like

>> are you like the substance of what he

was saying and what I'm trying to convey

or we just have this reaction to people

where we shut down.

>> Yes. And it also goes the other way

where if you like somebody, you

automatically think something is good

and right. There's this thing called the

halo effect. And um I I treat it more

more broadly. I'll tell you how I think

of the halo effect. There's a more like

rigorous disciplined definition. But the

way that I think of the halo effect is

if you're good at if you're considered

good in some arena, people will think of

you as good in some other arena. Like,

>> yeah,

>> I was asking myself the other day, why

do I care what Dave Portoi thinks about

pizza?

>> Like,

>> how did this happen?

>> Why? Like, why am I giving any credence

to this man's taste in pizza? I've never

had dinner with him and been like, "Oh,

we we have the same taste in pizza. Why

do I get And it's like because he's done

a really admirable job

>> in the media with his company. I find it

interesting and refreshing how he

approaches media and his own company

dealing with it. He's taken I think a

very brave and principled stand on

issues on Israel which also is

disconnected from bar stool but it it

just has created this ladder of things

that I tend to agree with him on. And

now he says this pizza is good and I'm

like okay it's probably good. It's what

we were talking about earlier. is like

if you agree on certain things people

will sort of assume just using cognitive

huristics and shortcuts that you'll

agree on another thing too and so there

are people who say I don't believe I

don't agree with Elon on how he

campaigned for this or this or political

or cultural position he has and

therefore I don't think we'll go to Mars

and therefore I'm mad at Shane for

including a quote in his newsletter and

this stuff just spreads because the data

points that we have are relatively few

and we use those to actually draw

outsized conclusions relative to what

the data points merit. Another another

aspect of the halo effect as I think of

it is who are you surrounding yourself

with? This is super relevant for let's

say AI companies and founders. If you're

building a technology that is so

mindblowing and advanced and esoteric

and confidential,

you can't tell people,

well, just go verify that it works. They

can't verify that it works. It's It's

not like you're selling a shoe and they

try it on and yes, it's comfortable.

They'll buy it. Like they actually can't

verify. They can't verify what you're

doing with their data. They'll never be

able to investigate for themselves

whether you're respecting their privacy.

>> They just have to use as proxies other

things whether they trust or not. So

they'll look at you, the human, as the

mascot of the company and use you as a

proxy. This seems like a super

libertarian guy who believes in

individual freedoms and therefore he's

probably more likely to respect my

privacy.

>> This is like Chris Best who runs

Substack is just very skeptical of

overly concentrated power and the way

that that can be abused has talked a lot

about how he as a tech executive

shouldn't have excessive power over

people's speech. And you can conclude

from that that Substack will probably be

very minimalistic and disciplined in how

they use my data. They're probably not

going to be selling my data to stuff and

this is just because of his ethos on

these other things and I probably trust

his taste in pizza too. So, so that's

another area where you could think of it

as a halo effect. And then a last one is

by the company you keep. Have you ever

heard of the cheerleader effect?

>> No. Cheerleader effect is when a group

of um we'll all get cancelled after this

probably, but if uh you um if there's a

woman of a certain attractiveness level

and she stands in a group of attractive

women, you'll think of all of them as

really attractive.

>> You know what I'm talking about? Like

it's like

>> Beyonce looks great and then Beyonce

with her beautiful backup dancers looks

incredible and they all look incredible.

Yeah,

>> this is true of founders and companies.

Like you see one founder on stage, they

might be super impressive and then if

you were to see like why combinator had

this event recently where it was just

star parade and if you were to see Gary

Tan and Sam Alman and Elon Musk and

Satcha Nadella on the same stage, it

would be kind of more than the sum of

its parts in terms of spectacle and awe.

This is what companies can do like with

the company that they keep. So when deal

for example and it goes both ways good

and bad. So when deal was being accused

of having this ridiculous spy episode,

then the uh a co-founder of Brex sat

down with the deal guy and then Brex

looked bad and he ended up deleting it

and so it you know there's like anti-

Halo effect

>> right

>> as well. But basically the the core idea

here is people do not have enough

information to make all the decisions

they need to make. Some of it because

they can't actually understand the

technology you're building or you're

keeping it hidden from them. Some of it

just because it's simply not available.

But they still need to make all these

decisions in the absence of sufficient

data. And so they'll start using all

sorts of incomplete deduction and and

mental shortcuts. and you you can direct

these mental shortcuts.

>> I want to switch gears a little bit

before we get into some of your

frameworks. I want to talk about

practical insights that the office

worker uh who's listening to this can

use whose primary job might be, you

know, email presentations, briefing

notes.

>> What advice would you give them?

>> Yeah, there's a there's a macro and a

micro. So, I'll start with the macro.

The same way that um a founder needs to

project an image of themselves and an

image of their company and what they're

doing, any person in any realm of their

life needs to project an image of

themselves. So I am you might project an

image of yourself as a

spouse or as a friend or as a business

partner or as an employee but in every

scenario the 40 billion data points

about you as a fully rounded

three-dimensional person is way

overwhelming. Nobody actually brings

their full selves to work. It's

literally impossible.

So you can either

half-hazardly let people see whatever

they can make out from the random data

points you give them or you can be

intentional and strategic about which

ones you present. So let's say that

there's 10 million things about you that

are true and in the work context your

boss and your colleagues are going to

remember like two and and it's not

because people are stupid. It's just

because we don't hold that many things

in our mind at the same time.

>> Yeah.

>> Like if I tell you Steve Jobs or Okay.

creative visionary, Stanford speech,

died early. If I said name 20 things

about Steve Jobs,

>> you would falter past like five. And

this is one of the best known people,

right? If I said name 40 things about

Trump, you you you struggle. So at any

given time, there's a very small number

of things that people actually retain

about us. And we can either be haphazard

or we can be intentional.

So at a macro level, I would say just as

an employee in any role, as an employee,

as a friend, be intentional about what

you want those things to be. And then

present proof points and foster that.

And obviously it should be uh tethered

to reality. It should be authentic. It

can't be like totally fabricated, but it

can be a conscious decision of this is

the best side of me in the workplace.

What's an example of that that comes to

mind?

>> So, if you are Okay, give me uh give me

an example of someone who works

somewhere. Give me give me um a

hypothetical employee.

>> Let's think about a VP working for a CEO

of a cyber security startup.

>> Okay. VP of what?

>> Let's do comms.

>> Okay. VP of comms. And what is the VP of

comms? You're the VP of comms.

>> I'm making this up. I

>> You're the VP of comms. What's your

career goal? to eventually probably

become CEO.

>> Okay. I actually, as an aside, I think

that more comps people should have a

path into a CEO role.

>> Um because that'll be one of the most

important things for a company to pull

off is being well understood.

>> So, I want to be CEO. Uh I've been

hired. I've been in my job for two

years.

>> Uh I know this guy's retiring or girl's

retiring in like 12 months.

>> Okay.

>> Uh do that. So think about the product

yourself that you are portraying. Your

goal is you want to be CEO.

The people who will decide that are

current CEO via the succession plan, the

board via executive appointment um and

personnel decisions and also your team

and colleagues via their feedback.

>> Mhm.

>> Okay. So that's your audience. Now, what

does the audience need to believe about

you in order for them to want to make

that decision? Let's say they need to

believe that you have executive

presence,

>> that you have a vision for the company,

and that employees love you and they

would be stoked to work for you.

>> Okay, so now you want them to believe

these three things.

>> How do you convey that to them? Message,

>> medium, messenger. So, the message is

you believe that the future of the

company should be XYZ.

>> Yeah. If they agree with that, maybe

they should consider about having you

CEO. If they don't agree with that, then

probably you shouldn't be CEO, right?

But but this is what you truly believe.

You believe that the future of the

company should be XYZ. And here's the

role that employees will play in it.

What's the form in which you convey that

to them? You can write a memo. You can

make this you can start a new initiative

on your team. You can roll out a

campaign portraying the company that

way. You can um advocate for a new

partnership portraying the company that

way. You can start pointing the company

in that direction. You can start

identifying problems or obstacles for

the company being viewed in that way and

you can make sure that you're an

incredibly great boss to your employees

and that you're beloved and that the

messengers should be not just you saying

here's my vision but that there other

you uh convince other people on the

executive team to champion your vision.

Maybe collaborate with them. Maybe you

and the VP of product work together on

something. Maybe you and the VP of

engineering partner on some sort series.

Anyone can and everyone should be

strategic about the image of themselves

that they're presenting to the world and

the product that is themselves that

they're selling to any given market. So

if you're dating, you are a product for

a certain consumer,

right? If you are trying to get married,

you're a product for a certain consumer.

If you are looking for a job, you're a

product for a certain consumer. And if

you're trying to get a promotion, you're

a product for a certain consumer. If

you're founder, very obvious, you're a

product for a certain consumer. For

people to accept the job offer, for

people to invest in you, for people to

buy the thing that you made. So, let's

say that you are a mid-level

designer and you're trying to get

promoted to the next level up.

Okay, your goal is to be promoted. You

know that there's a goal. There's comms

is a vector, not a scaler. There's

magnitude. There's also direction. You

know the direction you want to go. Your

goal is to get that promotion. Your

audience is your manager and your skip

level.

And maybe your peers because they're

part of giving you a 360 review. You

know your goal. You know your audience.

What they need they need to believe

about you. They need to believe that you

can manage people

>> and that you have vision for what should

be done. and they believe that you are

going to be at this company for a really

long time. Okay. Now, how do you convey

that to them? You can convey it to them

through things that you write and

create. You can convey it in the goals

that you set for yourself. You can

convey it in how you speak to your

peers. You can convey it in products uh

or projects that you kick off, in the

initiative that you bring to new ideas.

And the messengers are not only you but

your peers, your partners, you know,

anyone trying to get a promotion kind of

has a very similar template here. But

with anything you want in life,

anything you want in life, when you have

a goal, there are people whose

permission you need for that goal to

happen. Whether you're trying to date or

get married or get a promotion or start

a company or fund raise or sell a

product, there are people whose buy in

is required for you to meet that goal.

Unless your goal is like climb a

mountain or something like that, go

train for a mountain. But in order to

get the people to

give you that buy in, you need to

convince them certain things and you

need to be intentional of how you

present a story to get them to believe

that. And this is something that we

probably really underutilize. I mean

people whose literal job is only

communications don't even think that

way. So I don't take it for granted that

somebody who's really busy with other

things should think that way. But I

think everybody should in any context in

your life. You are a product that you

are selling to a certain consumer. I

love that. So that's the macro. What

about the micro in terms of like how do

I make my presentation better, my email

better, my like what are the the tips

and tricks that you've learned that you

wish everybody knew?

>> It goes back to what are you trying to

say?

People worry way too much about the form

factor and not enough about what they

want to say. And so whether it's an

email or a text or a phone call or a

presentation, know the thing that you

want to say, say that. Then say why they

should care. And if you can do that,

you've won. like the the vast the vast

majority of presentations or emails that

are sent are more like I need to check

the box and just get this thing done so

I can move on with my day to do I guess

more of these but there isn't a clear

view of this thing that has taken up 5

seconds of someone's time had a goal and

did you achieve that goal or not?

>> I like that a lot. I think most people

don't even think about what they're

trying to convey. They just sort of like

do a brain dump and then they give too

much information and then people don't

know what to pull out of it or they

don't have enough time to make the

message short.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh and so they're giving it's just

really hard to communicate that way. And

>> and just use normal words too. Like just

use normal words, please. Normal words.

Just use words where everybody knows

what they mean. Sometimes there's like a

very specific word that I'm not saying

never use jargon. By the way, if you're

talking to other people in the industry,

jargon is a word that they all know what

it means. So, you can use that because

they all know what it means. If you're

talking to six-year-olds, you obviously

wouldn't use jargon. So, it's not about

categorically always use this, never use

that. It's about use words that the

other person is going to know.

>> You did your MA at Yale uh in

counterterrorism

>> uh at the at the Fletcher School at TUS.

It's a law and diplomacy school. A lot

of diplomats go there. I studied

counterinsurgency.

>> And your thesis was on narration as soft

power.

>> I didn't have to do one big Oh, yeah. I

Yes. Okay. I I wrote a bunch of things

while I was there. But the the main

takeaway I have from that time is that

when you look at insurgent groups, you

can actually learn a lot of lessons that

apply to startups. right here is

something that is formed either from

nothing or from something very small

going up against something very big

going up a against a status quo.

I obviously don't support terrorist

tactics or insertion tactics or violent

extremism but I mean the idea of trying

to change the status quo, change the

power structure and create a new normal,

it's incredibly hard to do. And in no

context is it harder to do than in a

country when the government and usually

it's not a government like ours. Usually

it's like an authoritarian regime that

is all powerful, has a monopoly on so

many things including force that you and

a scrappy band of little bandits are

going to say we're going to go replace

them. It sounds absolutely insane. And

now to get your first 50 followers, you

have to go around and tell people here's

the thing. We're going to replace the

government with us and we're going to be

the new government and they have the

military and we have these four guys and

me and we're going to win and you should

join us because we're going to succeed

and maybe you'll die but I'm pretty sure

we can do this like you should

definitely come with us. That pitch is

insane and it works. And so studying why

it works and what it takes to do that I

think is very instructive because for a

startup you're saying okay we're going

to take on Google and we're going to be

the next Google and we're going to be

bigger than them and our company is

going to be worth trillions of dollars

and our market is in the quadrillions.

And if you look at Google now they're

nothing compared to what we're going to

be and it's Yeah. It's just me and one

other guy

>> in my garage.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Our office is my house and

it's just me and him, but it could be

you. We have Wi-Fi. We have like $50,000

and some of it is from my parents and

you could join. Uh what's your pay? Like

uh I we can't pay you right now, but

like we'll pay you something and then

we'll pay you more when we're able to

get to it.

>> How do you get that person to join and

that person is going to leave like Open

AI or something and go do that? It

actually sounds insane, but there's

something.

It's irrational, but there's something

like super rational, like something that

supersedes rationality

that actually

takes another circuit in their brain.

You know, it's like the amygdala hijack

of the prefrontal cortex, but on a much

bigger long-term scale where the thing

that makes sense once you start to see

the world through this new prism that

I've convinced you to look at it

through, the old thing actually doesn't

make sense anymore. And in the new world

that you can see that I painted for you,

my thing makes sense. You have to join

my thing. This is when you see people at

a less extreme level. This is when you

see people that take a pay cut to go do

something they really believed in. I

took a big pay cut to go join Substack.

I mean, they paid really well. It's just

that I was a, you know, a company owner

before that and never regretted. I'm so

happy I did that. There have been

projects that I've done for free or for

a dollar that I've been so happy to have

been involved in. And sometimes you do

the thing that doesn't make immediate

sense because it's something you believe

in. And if someone can make you believe,

if someone can make you believe, they

can

circumvent the obvious logic in the

moment and sign you on to something

bigger. And this is how startups take

off. Every great startup was two guys in

a garage and then three people and then

they get one person and then they they

get Wi-Fi at some point, you know, and

it go and it goes from there. It every

startup sounds insane. There's like a

talent collection aspect to it in a way

which is like an unfair advantage. If

you can collect talent, you can convince

them to join. If in this situation where

I'm giving you what by all accounts

would be an irrational promise and

message,

>> I can convince you to come join me.

>> There's a talent to recruiting the

rebels.

>> Yeah.

>> But you will never recruit them through

a spokesperson. And you will never

recruit them if you don't look them in

the eye and tell them in the first

person that you're going to keep your

promises and you're going to deliver

this for them or you're going to die

trying, but it'll hopefully be the

former.

>> Yeah, definitely. One of the things you

said that got my attention in a previous

interview was that you have second

strike capability. What does that mean?

Unpack that for me.

>> It's it it goes it relates to to

deterrence. So, you might not want to be

the aggressor. You might not want to be

out instigating and starting fights, but

you want to establish that you're not a

soft target. And being a hard target can

look a bunch of different ways. So, at

Shopify, one of the things that we're

really proud of, I'm on the board and we

have this wonderful general counsel,

Jess. One of the things that we've been

really proud of at the company is that

Shopify has been in the past a victim of

patent trolls that just go over. They

just go out to companies and attack them

and then they settle and then they get

money that way. And Jess and her very

strong team have decided that they're

going to fight it every single time. And

in the short term, super expensive, huge

pain. Again, you you take the pain up

front so that you don't have to live

with chronic pain for the rest of your

life. You get the surgery now so that

you don't have to deal with it. And

now Shopify gets no patent trolls. Zero.

Zero. And so just establishing yourself

as a hard target. Or we talked before

about Palmer and if you cross him in any

meaningful way, he will guaranteed hit

back. He will not let it stand. As a

matter of principle, it doesn't matter

legal advice, doesn't matter PR, but

like he won't let it stand. You need to

have something about you that's a little

bit spiky. It'll be hard to step on and

if you can establish that upfront, you

will make the rest of your life so much

easier.

>> I like that idea a lot. And I think for

you it was uh it's not tit for tat. It

was tit for two tats.

>> Tit for two tats. So when people study

game theory and I think this is an axle

rod idea where it's actually written up

as from a series of experiments which is

people think of game theory as things

like prisoners dilemma and when do you c

you know when do you cooperate versus

defect and there's a term called tit

fortat but in a repeated game where it's

not just you meet each other once and

leave you know prisoners domain all

these games uh that we talk about a lot

it's like a one-time thing with someone

you don't know and then you

If you and I knew each other for a

really long time and then we had

prisoners dilemma that might go

differently, right? Like the pure

rationality in the moment gets

superseded by other factors. We believe

in each other. We believe in some larger

cause, right? It's like what we were

talking about earlier. It's the hijack

of the prefrontal cortex where the thing

that makes obvious sense in the moment

is not the thing that people choose

because you've given them something

bigger to believe in. Similar here. So

if you have a one-time game, okay, tit

for tat. If you have a repeated game of

long-term relationships and repeated

interactions, the optimal strategy is

actually tit for two tats. And um what

that means is you can cross me once and

maybe I'll let that go, but if you cross

me the second time, I never will. And

that is optimal balance between

cooperation and deterrence.

>> How does intent figure into that? Like

do you figure malicious intent into the

tats?

>> Yeah. Well, intent depends on trust and

if you know the person. So, trusting the

person and knowing the person and

whatever your view and the model of that

person is is one of those things that

can override the immediate short-term

logic of something. So, for example,

going back to recruiting for a startup

in the very early days, okay, it's just

me and one other guy. We're going to

beat Google. Do you want to join us?

Everything about that speaks

like hallucinogenic liar and um nothing

about that sounds real except if you

know me and you know that when I say I'm

going to do something I do it. Even in

cases in the past when it seemed crazy I

said I'm going to do I'm going to do it.

Now I'm going to say I'm going to do

this other thing. That's something that

supersedes the immediate obvious

rationality of the moment to get you

believe in something bigger. And

sometimes the something bigger is the

person.

>> Yeah,

>> there are definitely people who you see

jo like I see this right now people

leaving really comfortable jobs or

offers to join something where they

don't actually know what it'll be in a

year but they're joining because they

believe in the person and if that person

is involved it'll probably work out.

Like there there are people now who are

thinking about starting a company and

people are basically offering them blank

term sheets. I don't know what I'm

investing in. I'm investing in you.

Whatever you do, here's here's some

money. I'm sure it'll work out.

>> I think that's a great place to wind up

this interview. We always end I mean I

could go on for another two hours

talking to you. Uh we always end with

the same question, which is what is

success for you?

>> Success for me is to open source a lot

of what we're talking about here.

Specifically, the idea that you can

control your destiny. You can create

alternate realities. You can bend

reality. Reality is subjective anyway,

right? You can bend it to your favor if

you're able to communicate to people who

matter in the ways that strike them in

the heart and in the mind to get them to

see the world the way that you do so

that you can come together and do

something that doesn't make sense in the

moment but does make sense longer term.

And if and open sourcing this means that

people understand that they can just go

and do this. They don't need to hire me.

They don't need to hire consultants.

They don't need to hire a team. They can

like anything in the world is is better

with friends. You can have people help

you with it. But you don't need to wait

for anybody else. You can just take

control of your destiny by deciding here

is where I'm going to go. Here's the

direction I need to go in order to

achieve this specific goal. and I'm

going to bend reality until I can get

there.

>> That's awesome. We're gonna have to do

part two of this at some point.

>> Super fun.

>> This was amazing. Thank you for coming

on.

>> Thank you.

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