Learn Marketing in 80 Minutes — Lulu Cheng Meservey

The old communications playbook, it's

dead. Political and company narratives,

they used to be controlled by publicists

and journalists. But now things are

different. Founders and politicians,

they can go direct. So the question is

how? Like how do you spread a message in

this new world? Well, Lulu Changeng

Murervi, she's worked with companies

like Substack and Ander and Activision

Blizzard, and this is her tell- all

about how to build your own audience,

how to create your own content, and how

to shape your own narrative. Let's

rock. What I want to do is basically

treat this conversation like a giant

onboarding session that you would have

and we're going to take all your

knowledge about PR and communications

and we're just going to bring it into

one conversation. And the thing I want

to start with is two words. Go direct.

What does that mean? Why is it

important? I'll tell you what it does

not mean. It does not mean do every

single thing yourself in perpetuity. The

same way that being a technical founder

doesn't mean write every line of code

forever or being a product focused

founder means doing every single aspect

of product for the rest of your life. Um

it also doesn't mean alienating the

press and boycotting media and refusing

to talk to them and just like only

tweeting. The crux of what it means is

for the founder and the originator of

the project. So usually the founder of

the company to speak directly to the

audience without middlemen, without

screens, without filtering it through

all this kind of PR corpo talk and

actually revealing their true

personality and their true motivations.

You can do other things too. You can

also sometimes talk through the press

and you can have people helping you. But

if you are absent and you are not ever

speaking directly to the audience, then

in this environment, people don't know

whether to trust you. They don't know

what you stand for. Why would they be

excited to go work for you? And

everything about your company is just

flatter. Go direct, I assume, doesn't

just mean posting on Twitter, right?

Like it's got to mean something more

than that. So

what what's the difference there? So

okay, people think about posting on

Twitter. That can be part of it. um or

just posting on any social media

platforms. Um part of it is if you're

releasing a blog post, you have to have

input in the post, it has to be your

ideas. It can't be a post that's

completely detached from you that if you

didn't exist, that exact same post could

have gone out, right? So sometimes I see

companies just release things that have

no voice or vision of the founder in

there. Just random collection of generic

people could have cobbled together some

words, run it through Chat GPT, and then

hit publish. And that's what it sounds

like. Or going direct with events is you

are hosting the events. I know some

founders who will host dinners at their

house. Uh if you are going direct to

government and regulators, you are not

just handing it off to lobbyists and say

making it make it happen. But you need

to own your own relationships, form your

own relationships. You want to be on a

texting basis with these people as

opposed to hoping that the lobbyist will

deliver the message effectively and

faithfully every single time. So no

matter what you're doing that's

representing your company to the outside

world or to the inside world like to

your own employees some of it has to

come from you. The crux of it has to

come directly from you speaking in the

first person. And I think it has to be

the founder because the founder is the

only person in this world that can talk

about the vision in the first person. So

wasn't that always true though? Like

what changed about the world to make

this so important? The biggest thing

that changed is that opinions became

decentralized. We no longer have these

curators of information. The six TV

channels and then the 12 TV channels and

then the 15 news outlets. Now

information can come from a random

anonymous account from some random

corner of the internet become a meme and

then spread with more ferocity and

momentum and speed than if it had come

from CNN. Actually, probably now that

the sources of memes and opinions and

perceptions are so decentralized, you

have to go out and directly speak to

your public as opposed to going to the

centralized sources and thinking that

people are just going to get all of

their opinions from the same places.

Yeah. The other thing about going direct

is there's an energy, there's a

fortitude, like there's a certain

vibration in the kind of writing that

you get with going direct. like you can

actually feel like the heart and soul.

It like burns. There's like a fire in

it. Whereas a lot of the kind of more

corporate speak is very watered down and

diluted. It's very careful and polished

to the point where it loses its soul.

Yeah. If the writing is bad, it's better

for it to be bad and honest, right?

Like, do you ever feel like when you're

having a conversation with someone and

you're laying yourself bare and the

person isn't articulating themselves

well or you're not articulating yourself

well, but you're trying and the emotion

is coming through and the intention is

coming through and the person is left

with the feeling of something as opposed

to if you were to try to have it over

text message with the perfect words.

It's just completely different feeling.

And I would rather see writing that is

suboptimal, that has personality, that

has intent and has conviction than

writing that is like textbook correct.

You know the Orwell uh rule for writing

that's like better to break all the

rules than to do something barbaric.

Better also to break all the rules than

to release something that is dead and

boring and stale and stiff because that

is just not going to break through.

Well, it's funny because I was a

broadcasting major in college and I was

trained in doing that and over the past

few years I've had to unlearn so many of

the ways that I was trained cuz you'd

always get feedback and the word that I

was being trained for on camera was

perfect. And now perfect is not what

people want at all. I think now people

want to feel like the delta between who

you actually are when you're at the bar

with your friends and who you are on

camera is is is basically zilts or zero.

And it speaks to a deep and fundamental

change that's happened because of the

internet that applies not just to

speaking but also to writing. Yeah. So

think about three things here. One is uh

when Michelle Obama would give speeches

or actually when Barack Obama would give

speeches, there would be this

uh uh like do you actually think that

they are coming up with the words on the

spot? Like no, this is a speech that

they've rehearsed many times. They know

it. There's a teleprompter. They know

exactly what the next word is going to

be. But actually inserting

these little filler words and vocal

ticks that most people try to get rid of

makes it feel like it's more off the

cuff and more natural. Even when you

literally see the teleprompter and it's

right there, hearing the um makes it

feel like they're just speaking from the

heart on the spot. Second thing is with

Tik Toks, a lot of Tik Toks will be in

the car. Hey, I was driving today and I

had this thought. Yeah. So, the person

is looking into the camera and they're

also like getting ready in the morning

as if this is just a natural part of

their day. And they're not talking about

here's how I do my hair. They're talking

about something totally unrelated, but

it just feels like you just caught them

in this unguarded moment. And the thing

in the car is like you there are more

Tik Toks of people in the car than in

probably any other setting. It's like,

yeah, I was just heading home from work.

And then the third thing is when you see

people press I'll pretend this is the

camera when the video starts and they've

just like pushed the button and their

arm is in this there's no reason for

that arm to be in the shot of them

pushing the button because you know they

edited the video and you know they put

all these filters on it but they leave

the button press in because it made it

feel so spontaneous. And so people are

even engineering these moments of

spontaneity because they are so

effective for having the viewer. Crazy

is that what you just said engineering

moments of spontaneity. Like if that

doesn't speak to how our cultures

changed, I don't know what does. Yeah.

Because my college experience was

deliberately removing any spontaneity.

It was all planned. It was all written

out and it was all polished. Like, hey,

don't be saying ums like that. And now

we're engineering spontaneity. You're

talking about the Obamas. They're

actually inserting that humanity back

into the piece. It's like

inauthentically trying to be authentic.

Yeah. And some people are not good at it

and some people you can tell. So, the

best thing is obviously just to actually

try to be yourself, but how do you do

that? You see a lot of Congress people

now doing the vertical video Tik Tok

style with the mini mic that they hold

in their hand looking like a 21-year-old

creator from two years ago cuz DC is a

little bit slow to catch on. But you see

you see Congress people now making all

these Tik Tok style videos to try to

appeal to younger voters. I mean, look

at Elon. Elon's presentation style

versus Steve Jobs.

Yeah, people ask about Elon with go

direct all the time actually. Like, uh,

look at Elon. So many missteps. There's

all these times when he puts his foot in

his mouth or it causes trouble for the

company and he has to walk it back.

Um maybe but even if you even if you

agree that there are tweets that

shouldn't have happened or things that

shouldn't have said if you look at the

entirety of the picture of the size of

the platform that he has and the amount

of leverage that he has against people

who are hostile to him who are trying to

spread information against him and his

ability to do his own factchecking

weighed against the relatively small

number of mistakes it took to build to

that. Anyone would take that deal. When

you're advising founders to go direct,

how do you think about working with them

and the time that they spend? And here's

why I ask. Going direct, a founder who's

vocal, who's visible, who's clearly

putting their heart and soul on the line

for the sake of the mission and the

company I love. And at the same time,

there's no sure signal for me for a

company than a founder who spends all

day on Twitter. So, how do you think of

the juxtaposition between those two

things? Yes, there has to be a ship to

yap ratio.

Okay, you h you have to look at the

shipyap ratio and for someone like Elon,

he tweets like a 100 times an hour, but

no one thinks that the companies are

being neglected like the companies are

shipping and the companies overall have

just experienced insane growth. Palmer

tweets a lot, but then you see Andre

just like ship ship ship ship ship. And

then there are some um founders where

nothing substantive seems to be coming

out of the company other than words. And

that's where you get this meme of

they're shipping blogs, they're shipping

tweets, but where's the product? And

meanwhile, the founder is just like

tweet tweet tweet. And so um if the

ratio is off, it's it's a huge red flag.

I love that. The ship to yap ratio. So

what should we learn from Palmer? You

know, in the threebody problem,

especially in the dark forest in the

second book, where the tricolerans uh

look at humans and determine which

humans, which wallfacers have what level

of deterrence. And there's one guy who

has very high deterrence because they

just observe his behavior. And he's like

borderline crazy, but everything that he

threatens to do, he will do. And if he

threatens to push the button that is

going to ensure the tricolar and alien

colony uh alien races annihilation, it's

like 90s something% that he'll do it.

And then there's another person whose uh

deterrent effect is actually quite low.

All of this is a buildup to say that

Palmer has like one of the top deterrent

scores of any human and he needs it by

the way because there are a lot of

people who come after him. But he is

somebody that if he decides that he's

going to get this thing done or if he

decides he's going to hold a grudge, he

will hold it to the ends of the earth,

he will pursue it to the ends of the

earth. Whether it is um something he

wants to achieve or whether it's a

person that he's going to get back at

like whatever it is like once he's

decided he is locked and he's going to

get it done. It's almost like um the

movie Old Boy where it takes I'll spoil

it a little bit. Sorry, you're not going

to watch it. So good. It's a revenge arc

that takes like decades. um someone gets

wronged as a child and they spend

decades planning their eventual revenge.

Palmer is one of these people where like

eventually he will get there and I think

for for founders there there is a lot of

utility in people knowing that if you

say it's going to happen it will happen

whether they agree with it or not. The

other thing that I've taken from from

Andreal is being very explicit not just

about who you want to work with you but

also who you don't want to work with

you. And there's a certain comfort in

just turning people off. Basically an FU

mentality for saying, "I don't care.

You're not part of our mission. This is

what I believe. Either get on the bus or

get the heck out of here. I don't want

to talk to you." And that sort of

conviction, that sort of sharp sword of

a of a strategy I really see with

Palmer. I really see with with Substack

when you were there, too. Yeah. And it's

all the way down, by the way. So the guy

who ran that campaign, Jeff Miller, he

took this concept and just and and

actually way more work goes into

something like that than people

understand. This was the don't work at

Anderal campaign. It was a video, but

then there was a comms campaign led by

their head of comms, Shannon. They have

this head of design, Jen, who is

incredibly talented. So it's just like S

tier people in every role coordinating

on a massive campaign over a long period

of time. A lot of startups would have

cranked out a video like this in a few

days and just hit press and it would

have gotten attention for a few hours

and then that's it. These guys spent

months and months just like honing this,

not just the video, but a website and a

recruiting drive. And then once the

recruits go to the website, what happens

with them and how do they go into the

funnel? Cuz the thing that people don't

understand about attention or don't do

with attention is turn it into

something. They get the attention, it

feels good, it dissipates, it was an

eancent moment. Remember yesterday when

we went viral like high five, that felt

great. People move on. But the people

who really know what to do with

attention turn it into something. They

turn it into recruits and hires. They

turn it into money. They turn into

sales, turn into investor interest. And

in that case, there was a clear

strategic decision to turn that into

recruiting inbound. And that's what

happened.

It seems to me like part of the way the

internet's changing is there's more

viral moments that are sort of one time

and your biggest pieces of content can

be so much bigger, but the consistency

that used to be part and parcel of the

internet just isn't as big of a thing

anymore. So, it used to be like when I

was teaching writing and I started off

the whole strategy is publish

consistently, send an email newsletter

every single week and just like stay on

the same beat. But now it's not really

like that. Now, you can kind of go

silent for a while and then you just

come out with a bang. And what I'm

hearing from you there is like, yes, you

can create that bang. Yes, you can get a

lot of attention, but you need a good

strategy for how to harvest that

attention and send that attention

somewhere that actually helps you. It's

a little bit like turning potential

energy into kinetic energy. Like, if you

convert it to something that you can

actually use, um, otherwise it just

becomes feelgood ego trip. Like if

you're getting attention just for the

sake of attention, it's kind of this

empty cycle and then you're on the rat

race and then your dopamine goes away

and you need another dopamine hit. But

what do you actually turn it into that's

of substance? So let's get practical

here. Tell me about the medium, the

message and the messenger. So this is I

learned recently. So, Doresh has this

great series with Sarah Payne, the

historian, and and uh she talked about

Mao's propaganda strategy, and somehow I

never knew that this was the strategy

that Mao had for propaganda, like

literally the message, the medium, the

messenger, I think it was almost exactly

the same. So, so if we're if we're

onboarding you and um we're going to lay

out your comm strategy, the first thing

to talk about is what do you actually

want to achieve for your business? What

does this turn into? that is not just

ego points for you and something to hang

on your mom's fridge. Like how does this

actually help the business? Because

otherwise it just becomes a sugar high

for the founder to go off pursuing

dopamine while everybody else is left to

like build enterprise value by

themselves. So first is what are you

trying to accomplish for the business?

Are you trying to recruit and get the

best hires which for most companies I

would suggest making that the priority

because the war for talent is what's

going to determine your success as a

company. So getting the best hires is is

mission critical, but maybe it's you're

gearing up for a fundra, maybe it's you

need to convince regulators to let you

cook. Um maybe it is sales. You want to

close some enterprise clients or

something. So what is it that actually

matters for the business? Once you've

established that, then there are things

that are in your direct control and

things that are outside of your direct

control that you need other people to do

for you. So let's say that

um your goal is recruiting. The things

in your direct control are whether you

offer a competitive salary, whether you

make it a good place to work, etc. But

outside of your control is whether

people know you exist, whether they want

to work here, whether they'll eventually

accept your job offer even if they could

get more money somewhere else. and you

want them to make the decision to yes,

come to your company, join a company. In

order for them to make that decision,

they have to hold certain beliefs and

have certain information that triggers

their decision-making heristic to go do

the thing that you're hoping they'll do.

So, the entire job of a comm strategy,

the entire job is to make those people

believe those things that are going to

make them make those decisions. and the

way you make people believe things. This

is actually unsurprising that it's so

similar to propaganda because it's all

about how to make certain people believe

certain things, right? And that takes us

to the message, the medium, and the

messenger.

So, the message is the highest leverage

thing to get right. A lot of founders

and companies will spend a lot of time

trying to get on a podcast or trying to

get a press hit or formatting a tweet or

making a video or something. But if the

message isn't good, you've just wasted

all of that effort. It's like you have

planned your route on selling

encyclopedias and you don't realize that

these are not good encyclopedias or

people don't want them. Right? It's like

finding product market fit with a

message where the message is the

product. You have to have a good

product. One of the things I've noticed

about Peter Teal and a lot of other

founders is that they spend a lot of

time hosting dinners and they're

constantly working through their

messaging and you can just feel it as

they're working through it. They're

paying attention to what other people

are saying and it's the exact same way

that comedians develop jokes. They're

sitting there, they're talking, they're

getting feedback. And I'm amazed at how

often it is that even the best founder I

know in Austin, I can basically complete

probably 80% of his sentences because we

spend so much time together. But I've

noticed from knowing him three or four

years, the message is dialed in. The

message is dialed in. And it's all down

to certain words. Certain words. You

just got to get that right. And then

once you find it, off to the races. A

lot of the message doesn't have to be um

totally novel or groundbreaking. It just

has to be taking the thing that people

wish they could articulate themselves

and it's been brewing and it's been

sitting there and they want to get it

out and then you give them the words and

they'll latch on to those words and the

words become their release. So founder

mode is is an example of this and it

went viral so quickly for a bunch of

reasons. But one is just giving this

feeling that founders have a name and

calling it founder mode and giving them

permission to feel it and saying that

this is something inherent and endemic

to the path that you have chosen in life

and there's not something wrong with

you. Cuz the thesis around founder mode

is you're doing these things that other

people find annoying or weird or wrong

but you are being gaslit. People call it

micromanaging, but it's actually just

managing. People say you're overdoing

it. You're actually just doing it. And

that with the name founder mode gave so

many founders a feeling of like

catharsis of it's legitimate and it has

a name and there's a way to talk about

it. Um, and so the message doesn't have

to be something that people have never

heard of before. In fact, it shouldn't

be completely unfamiliar. It should have

familiarity, but you're giving it shape.

Yeah. You're giving it shape and you're

giving it a name and a form and maybe

there's a novel way to describe it so

that people can latch on to something

with with at least a kernel of what of

what they already feel. I mean, look at

go direct, right? What that is is yeah,

you know, it seems like founders are

sort of changing their approach. We're

sort of in a new media paradigm. And

you're like, go direct. The old PR

playbook is dead, right? You're just

super concise saying exactly what's

happening right now and you're giving it

shape and now there's language and then

that becomes the message. Yeah. And you

know who gets credit for that is Brian

Armstrong because GoDirect had been used

here and there and Bology had talked

about it or Brian had talked about it

like people had described it as um just

a thing that you do. But when when I was

starting Rostra and thinking about how

to describe this I was I was thinking

about should we try to coin a new term?

should we come up with a new kind of

founder mode and make fetch happen and

Brian's advice was like just just use

going direct you know it already exists

just reshape it in your image or you

know attach your ideas to the term and

then just use the term you don't need a

new term nice so we have the message

yeah message first then medium then

messengers the medium is how your

message gets delivered to the recipient

I talk a lot about

um intellectual erogynous zones or

cultural erogynous zones. And these are

the the hot button issues or topics that

people are already thinking about and

interested in and obsessed with. And

rather than trying to get them to have a

new obsession or a new interest, just

know where their interests already are

and take your message and shape it in a

way that it can be received by someone

with those interests. So what I mean is

this. If you're a founder and you're

trying to recruit um and you have a

company, well, let's make make up a

company. Let's just come up with one. Um

I want to actually just get to this

later and I'm just going to do it now.

So, I'm thinking of doing a spin-off of

the show, which is just about the

intersection of writing and AI, which

maybe we can use as an example here. And

the reason why I'm thinking about that

is there's already interest there and I

am just trying to You're doing it.

You're doing the thing. Think about

something there. So that's what I was

thinking about as you were saying that.

I was like, how do I apply this to

something I'm already thinking about?

Yeah. Okay. Can we just pull that up and

start working through it? That'd be

great. Free consulting. Here we go. So

let's let's say that you are super

interested in writing and you're the

writing guy and people are thinking

about AI quite a lot and they're

thinking about how do I use AI for

write? One of the top questions I get is

like should I use AI for writing and how

and what's it good for and that is the

equivalent of their cultural erogynous

zone. That's the thing that they're

thinking about and they want to talk

about and how do you bring it back to

writing and let me add a few things. So

the first thing is people are freaking

out about this and the second thing

is we have just witnessed over the last

18 months and this would be my message.

We have just witnessed the fastest

change in written communication in human

history. So, we've just written that.

Now, you might be scared. This major

thing is happening. So, that's sort of

the premise of where I'm at. And now I'm

like, "All right, how do we finish off

this strategy?" So, the message already

is something that is pretty resonant

with people. Um, the the hook there is

you're thinking about AI and you're

wondering how to use it in your life.

Writing is one of the most important

things that you do in any context. And

so, let's talk about how you use AI for

writing. I'm I'm making some of this.

this great up. If you want them to

actually get that idea, there's two

parts here. One is it has to attach to a

receptor. Like it has to be something

they're already thinking about. So,

we've just addressed that. Two is it has

to be it has to show up in the places

where they actually get their

information. So for example, a lot of

founders in tech are trying to recruit

and they want machine learning engineers

and they want technical talent and they

uh try to get on the New York Times or

Joe Rogan because everybody is these are

just really big audiences. Whereas if

you showed up on Doresh's podcast on

Doresh's podcast which is actually I

think harder to get onto than Joe

Rogan's podcast honestly but that's the

right audience. I was going to say if

you showed up in like a Scott Alexander

post um you would or a Tyler Cowan post

or a podcast or if you somehow showed up

in a Goran post or like uh in hacker

news like this this would be um probably

a smaller number of people but it would

be a higher number of the right people,

right? So number one is is the message

being shaped um in a way and has such a

hook that people will actually want to

pay attention and hear the rest of it

and number two is the message showing up

in a place where people actually get

their information. And so that's the

medium. Yeah. An example of this that

came to mind is in the early days of

Stripe they made a very deliberate

decision to go after developers on

hacker

news. Super specific. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Sometimes I describe it as you

want to get your message across, but not

everybody is wanting to hear your

message. They're not waiting around, you

know, I wonder what the latest podcast

on writing an AI is going to be or what

they're thinking about other stuff. And

so, think of the message that you want

to deliver as almost the medicine that

you want people to have. You have to

give it a candy coating in order for

people to want to take that medicine.

And so the color of the candy coating

and the flavor of the candy coating, you

get to choose that to wrap the medicine

in so that people will be interested in

taking it and the people who take to it

will want to hear more. And that's your

way in. But you need some way in that is

not just here's some abrupt transition

to my thing. Do you want to hear about

that? Because the answer is usually no.

Tell me more about this candy coating

thing. I like that. Several years ago,

someone um who owns a dog told me about

this analogy of like when you're trying

to give a pill to a dog, you can't just

give the dog medicine. You have to put

it in a piece of cheese. Apparently,

some people put it in peanut butter. And

I was thinking it's really the same with

human beings, too. Like, we don't always

want to hear the thing that we need to

be listening to or we don't always want

to do the thing that's best for us. But

if

there's some hook or some incentive like

a gateway drug for us to get interested,

we might actually stay interested. So

tell me about your six sense for the

cultural erogynous stones. Like is that

just from like reading Twitter and

having conversations with people and

just like getting this sense for like

what is in the zeitgeist right now that

isn't being named or what are you doing

to pick up on what's going on there? So

one factor is um who's talking about it.

Not just are people talking about it or

how many people but like who's talking

about it and what zone of status do

those people occupy and which uh

intellectual family tree do they belong

to? Like people are in pockets, you

know, and the pockets overlap, but if

you can saturate one pocket, then you're

probably in the group chat and you're

being discussed, but that doesn't mean

that you're necessarily in another

pocket. So, um, who are the people uh

that are talking about this? What is the

veilance of their feel like? What do

they think of it? Um, do they like it?

How passionately do they like it? Do

they hate it? And and why do they do

they hate it because they're resentful?

Do they hate it because it disgusts

them? So like resentment and jealousy is

okay. Cringe and embarrassment not okay.

But the resentment and jealousy hate

will show up very publicly and loudly.

Whereas the cringe and embarrassment

hate is usually very quiet. So do you

ever see someone post something that is

actually really cringy and bad and all

the comments are like, "You crushed it.

Congratulations. This is amazing."

Right? And you're just like, is nobody

going to say that the emperor has no

clothes? And no, because when we're

embarrassed for someone, we actually

don't. When we hate it, we'll say, and

that actually is fine, but the worst

kind of bad when like everyone's

embarrassed for you, you actually won't

see it. And you sort of have to look in

the internet spaces of who's not

commenting or like, "Oh, wait a second.

These people who usually support me are

like less vocal right now." You kind of

have to read the what's not in the room.

Um, so there's the there's the who,

there's the what do they think, there's

the how strongly, and then there's the

trajectory. So, we talked about founder

mode before, and the term founder mode

went from cool to cringe in I think

under 36 hours. Like it I've never seen

something blow up so fast, burned fast

and bright and then like not I don't

mean fizzled like the term went away,

but it just wasn't cool anymore. Like

now people use it ironically. I was

talking to somebody about like deals

sent a spy inside Ripling and then the

spy got caught and so he locked himself

in the bathroom and then evaded law

authority was like founder mode you know

you don't actually use it in a real

setting now anymore I never hear it used

earnestly so just like what's the

trajectory how quickly is it burning out

do you want is it like a slow sustained

burn or is it like a fizzle and sizzle

sizzle and fizzle wait so when you're

actually beginning to work on the idea

Is this just like boom, we're just going

to get going here? It seems like then a

huge part of your job is just really

being in sympa with the zeitgeist.

There's two ways to do it. One is you

watch the zeitgeist really closely. You

see the direction it's headed. It's a

little bit like trying to predict the

stock market. You can make an informed

prediction on where stocks are going to

head and sometimes you'll be right. Some

people are just better at timing it than

others right?

Um, and so this is like timing the

market. You form a thesis on what's

going to happen and and you always want

to play to where it's going, not where

it is today. So where it's going is

here, where we are today is here. So if

we say something along this

trajectory, we will be early, but not so

early as to be irrelevant. So let's take

a lot of time to prepare and double

down. and here's the thing that people

are thinking and not saying and we're

going to commit that arbitrage and we're

going to get here and own this so that

by the time everybody catches up we own

it. That is one way to like high

conviction, double down, high

preparation

um claim a piece of intellectual

territory. The other way is you're not

timing the market and you're just like

dollar cost averaging in and you are

just putting things out constantly and a

lot of them don't hit and that's okay.

You didn't put that much effort but when

things do hit you see the direction

you're going you're taking the feedback

and you're refining and you're refining.

So this is like when people say that

Steve Jobs didn't just come out with the

iPhone springing from his forehead like

Athena. like there were so many

iterations and we forget about the

iterations because the final like banger

is what we remember. And this is the

same with the second type of approach

which is you actually do a ton of

iterations and the things that don't get

traction like by definition people

haven't seen them and people haven't

engaged and they're forgettable and by

definition the things that hit are the

things that get a lot of traction and

people see them and people remember. So

it's lower risk than people think. You

know, it feels risky because you feel

like, oh, my post that flopped,

everybody saw that it flopped. Like, by

definition, nobody saw. Yeah. Yeah. The

question that I just sort of the

rhetorical question to really think on

is what is the thing in your field that

everyone's thinking but nobody's saying.

And it doesn't need to be a

controversial thing. It can be something

like go direct. It is just about putting

shape, putting form to a kind of energy

that doesn't have a place to go. It's

sort of fluid and you make it a solid.

The debate over Go Direct Mhm. is like

shadow boxing. It's tilting at

windmills. Go Direct has happened,

right? Uh it is here. It has arrived.

It's not evenly distributed, but it's

already happened. And so to try to

debate it is a little bit like we can

debate the moon landing. Well, I like

that. It's um William Gibson has a quote

where he says the future's here is just

not evenly distributed yet. And that's

another way to sort of look for this is

try to say what are the little pockets

of truth where something is happening

that other people aren't seeing. So

where I'm going to put my neck out on

the line in terms of my career over the

next few years is like the writing is on

the wall. We're about to just get a huge

change in communication. And you just

see all these writers who are scared of

AI and they're like I'm scared of that.

I don't want to go close to it.

Actually, no, it's not that good. I've

used I used GPT4 one time and um it's

cope. It was, you know, it was it it you

know, it wasn't very good. And I'm like,

you didn't try to use it well. You're

not using the latest models. And that

for me is a place where I'm talking to

my friends who are fiction writers and

non-fiction writers and they're using it

here, here, here, here, here. And then

I'm talking to all these people who are

less committed writers or very scared.

And I'm like, hold on, the future is

already here. I'm seeing it. I'm using

it every single day. It's not evenly

distributed yet. And that gets me back

to why I'm thinking of doing a spin-off

of how I write because it's like you

should call it the writing on the wall.

That Yeah, I Yeah, I really like that.

That's a great That's a great idea. What

were you going to call it? Not that. All

right. Yeah, writing on the wall. I like

that. Yeah. I mean, the writing's on the

wall. Yeah. There's no there's no

there's no point in in um indulging in

cope. it it might feel better to tell

yourself that AI can't replace me and it

can replace maybe other people but not

me, right? Or um going direct is not

really a thing like I'm as relevant as

ever, you know, depending on who you

are. But no, it's it's happening. It's

like you're not deciding that AI is

going to become a great it just is. It's

a fact. I'm not deciding um that go

direct is a thing that should happen. I

mean, I think it should happen, but it

already just like is happening. There's

a secular change, and we're not going to

reverse it. So, my um hot take on

something that is happening in in

communication, I think relevant to

writing, too, is going direct has

already just happened. Like, even I'm

not focused on that anymore as like a

new thing. It's just already it's it's

part of the playbook. And if you want to

be one of the people who doesn't realize

the Vietnam War is over because you've

been living in the jungle, like that's

fine. There are people who still want to

litigate the moon landing. Like that's

fine. Whatever makes you happy. I'm more

thinking about what is um what is the

next thing it one of the next things is

that humans need to figure out how to

stand out in a world of AI

content. And there are things that AI

actually can't do. And one thing is feel

emotions. It can simulate emotion, but

um it can't actually feel emotion. And

emotion comes through in ways that are

maybe surprising and not logical.

Emotions make us write things that are

actually not grammatical and not sublime

and not beautiful and and they break a

lot of writing rules. So like I've taken

manifestos that I've worked on um with

founders and with other people and for

things like that the recommendations

actually make it worse because it makes

the writing better at the expense of the

emotion and the conviction and sometimes

you don't want to make that trade-off

and sometimes you do and I think these

models are great but today sometimes it

actually takes away some of the

wrongness that is the point and the

other thing that emotion produces

conviction and AI cannot have conviction

to have conviction when the world is

telling you that you're wrong when even

the models are telling you that you're

wrong and you're like screw it this is

what I believe that is what makes a

piece of writing sharp so it can pierce

through the culture yeah like imagine

running James Joyce through chat GBT and

asking it to clean up the writing I mean

it would it would break right um imagine

EE Cummings you know just running that

through there are things that um AI at

least at this point can't emulate and I

think people need to lean into that. So

emotion is one, speaking from experience

is one, empathy is one. The other thing

is there's an interesting psychological

effect where things resonate with us or

we resonate with them more if we relate

to the speaker. So for example, with

children's shows, sometimes children's

TV shows will try to instruct children

in life lessons. and here's Daniel Tiger

and he learns to share, but it actually

doesn't stick as well as uh we'd like

because in the kids' minds, okay, he's

going to share, but he's a tiger and I'm

a boy, so maybe tigers have to share,

maybe boys don't. Like, for some reason,

it just doesn't break through. Same with

Blueie. Bluey has some great lessons,

but still there's like Blueie is a dog,

I am a kid, and maybe Blue is a girl and

I'm a boy. And if you show a boy a video

of a kid, the lesson will stick better.

And if you show a boy a video of a boy,

it'll stick even better. And if you show

them a boy who's their age, it's even

better. And so where I'm coming to with

this is if I am reading about a human

experience from a human and I know it's

a human somehow, it'll actually stick

with me and sink in in a way that just a

beautiful piece of writing from a

different provenence wouldn't. I don't

want to let you go on writing from

experience that there's a lot there.

What makes that so such a good thing to

do in your writing? It gives you a

monopoly over something. It makes you

the number one expert in the world on

something really small and specific. So

you know how Peter Teal says uh

competition is for losers. And that goes

for writing and for speaking and if you

are saying something that a lot of other

people could be saying, there's no

reason why people should um buy that

message from you. They're buying with

their attention and you're selling a

story or a message. There's no reason

why they should buy that from you. Um

whereas if you can find something where

you have a complete

monopoly then maybe the overall audience

is smaller and the denominator is

smaller but 100% of those people who are

interested in that thing have to come to

you. And so speaking from experience is

super powerful because it's very rare

that someone else has had the exact

experience as you and the same reactions

and the same take and is is recounting

it in the same voice. And so when you

talk about something from your personal

experience, you are creating a monopoly.

Whereas if you are weighing in with an

opinion on something, there might be

millions of other people with the same

opinion. Yeah. It also leads to so much

credibility. They've done I saw a study

one time of what gets popular on hacker

news. And one of the most common

formulas is basically goes like this. I

spend 487 hours learning to do this and

this is what I discovered. People know

that if you're paying with your time,

you're just going to know things that

other people don't know. And to the

extent that that's true, there's a level

of built-in credibility. Well, the the

one thing there is it's become a form of

content mill like engagement farming

slop that I super hate because once

these formats go viral, there are people

who want engagement just for the sake of

engagement. And it disgusts me on a

really viscerable level. Like I feel

exploited and taken advantage of and I

feel like they're like farming my

engagement, which they actually are. I

feel like they're treating us like the

people in the pods in the matrix just

like sucking engagement out of us so

that they can get the X payout or

something. It like disgusts me so much.

And what happens is like these templates

go viral and then people write templates

about how to do the templates and then

people emulate the templates and there's

nothing worse. And those templates the

um whatever I spent 100 hours learning

this so that you don't have to. Here's

seven hacks with chat GBT.

I can't even

like I need mouthwash for saying these

words out loud. Like that's how much

this format disgusts me. And when you

see it, that's when you see in the

comments everyone being like, "Great

thread. Thank you. I learned so much."

And I think 90% of those people are

bots. But that's when you see nobody's

telling them that this sucks. Let's

close the loop. So we talked about the

message, the medium. Now talk to about

the messenger. The messenger is the

person who has authority to say the

thing, right? Like words in a vacuum

don't mean a lot, but we just talked

about why it's so powerful to speak from

experience. The messenger is someone

speaking from experience and placing

their authority and their credibility to

give weight to that message. And

different messages require different

messengers. So if your message is here's

what we plan to do in the world and

here's our vision, it's pretty clear and

obvious that the founder should be the

messenger for that because they are the

only person alive who can say it in the

first person

and deliver and and carry through. Um,

if the message is this is a great place

to work and you'll have really good

bosses, then for the boss to say that is

actually incredibly either

counterproductive or it's just it just

doesn't hit the same to have the boss

say come work here because the boss is

great. Whereas

even the like lowest ranking person in

that company would have more moral

authority to say the boss is great than

the boss. Do you ever see uh profiles of

some big CEO and it's like the janitor

or the security guard saying this CEO

always took the time of day to greet me

and ask about my children. Like it's

actually so much better coming from that

person than for the CEO to say well you

know I'm the kind of boss that I say

every hi to everybody in the company.

Right. We're like yeah right. Yeah.

Write a thread about it. Yeah. and uh a

message like the size of the market and

this company's going to make so much

money like it would make total sense for

your investors to talk about that uh or

it makes total sense for some

commentator to talk about that. Whereas

if it's you talking about how huge the

market is and how much money you're

going to make, it's almost a little bit

distasteful or or um how well the

product works. Like get someone who's

used the product to talk about how well

it works, right? So different messages

require different messengers for it to

carry the right weight and have the

right authority behind it. And what's

the mistake that companies make? Having

a messenger that whose opinion nobody

cares about um like a paid

spokesperson, right? Like a generic paid

spokesperson who is being paid to say

those words, their opinion just straight

up doesn't matter. And if they're

pitching a journalist, journalists hate

getting PR pitches. Like they'll tweet

about bad PR pitches that they get and

dunk on PR people. And sometimes I'm

like, well, you know, people are trying

their best. They're just trying to do

their job. But I can understand if

you're a journalist and your job in

includes like every day just getting

hundreds of the worst emails you could

imagine from people who are sending

those emails because they were paid to

do so. Um, so a mistake is letting

people whose opinions are discounted to

nearly zero do your speaking for you

because you have just neutralized every

possible like all possible impact

because they have no authority. They

have no credibility. Nobody cares what

their opinion is. Everyone knows that

they're being paid to say it and

probably the message is not as effective

because they're not actually excited and

passionate. They're just like reciting

the words. They're putting the fries in

the bag of the email and it's just not

uh it's just not landing. Well, this

also feels like how the world has

changed. Paid spokespeople, celebrities

25 years ago didn't seem like it worked

and now it's like h who cares. We know

that you're just we're like ah you're

just being a shill for this company now.

We're like whatever. Like Matthew

McConna is cool, but I don't care that

he's in a Lincoln commercial. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Oh, you didn't go buy a

Lincoln when you saw the commercial.

Hate to break it to you. I would love to

break his

but like actually what's a really good

example about that is Matt McConn in the

front seat of Lincoln I literally don't

care about I live in Austin Texas he is

the ultimate UT fanboy and he's on the

sidelines of every single football game

he's like hitting the drum at big games

and I'm like Matthew Mccah you're the

man cuz he's there cuz he loves it. Yes.

So, same person, two different contexts,

and one I'm like, whatever. Completely

indifferent, and the other one I'm like,

yo, I want to go see Days and Confused

for the seventh time. You know what I

mean? Maybe you edit that part out for

the sake of your own reputation. But you

know what? There's a there's this trend

of brands creating like fake

userenerated content, which you maybe

have seen like they'll pay people or

they'll try to use avatars or something

to have it be like fake organic content

from fake fans. And the problem with

doing something like that is as soon as

people realize that's what's happening,

which maybe will happen as they listen

to this podcast or it probably is

already happening. It it completely

works. Like there are some things where

you get one bullet and you get one shot.

And something like this is okay, you can

fool people, but you get to do it one

time and they'll never let you do it

again. Or we were talking about why does

nobody write like an expose of like how

things really work in Washington. That's

you get one bullet, you get one shot,

your career is over. You're not going to

those parties anymore. And I think

nobody's willing to shoot that

particular shot. And the other big

takeaway is that what's not obvious

about the messenger is the messenger is

not at all the most powerful person all

the time. Sometimes go direct. Sometimes

you need the founder to basically go and

beat the drum on the mission. But

sometimes it's the janitor who is going

to be the best person to talk about the

CEO. or you see this on the news all the

time. Somehow there's a way that we just

trust Jane who lives down the street

who's talking about, oh yeah, you know,

the streets never used to be like this

44 years ago, but now they got they got

plastic covers over the Walgreens aisles

and there's just something weird going

on now. Like there's something about

that where, you know, we just we just

trust her, you know, we just trust her.

She's just like a normal human being and

sometimes Yeah, it sounded super normal.

Well, one of the tactics with uh

election campaigning is if you want

people to vote for you, you get their

neighbors to take some step that

indicates that they vote for you or you

just imply to those people that their

neighbors are going to vote for you and

then they, you know, are much more

likely to they feel like that's what

people are doing. Say that we're working

on something and we got the big launch

tomorrow. All right, Lulu, I need your

help. I give you the call. Yeah. Uh,

writing on the wall is about to drop.

Yeah. So, right on the wall, it's about

to drop. Now, the intuitive thing would

be, "Hey, can you share this for me

tomorrow?" Yeah. But that seems like

people are going to be shills and you're

get clearly getting the ick from that.

So, how do I change my requests? Yes.

So, that they'll help me out. This is

huge. Okay. I'm so glad that we're

covering this because I get asked like

10 times a day, can you amplify this?

Can you tweet? Can you reply? And you

can tell when someone is doing it

because the like the energy of an

al-Qaeda hostage video is coming through

in their post. You see people do the

just joyless LFG reply and you can just

sit there's t they're like let's

go send. Yeah. Exactly. Look at it as

you press enter. Yeah. And if you make

the request a couple things are

happening. One is favors are not a

renewable resource. So, you've just

tapped a pretty significant favor. Like,

it feels like a small favor, but people

hate doing it so much that you've

actually asked a lot. Like, you've

burned through more relationship capital

than you might think, right? Second is,

okay, you've put this request in front

of them. Now, here's their options. One,

pretend they didn't see it and they feel

guilty and they hate feeling guilty, so

they resent you for making them feel

guilty. two, they didn't really want to,

but they do it anyway because you asked

them to, and now they're like icky and

you made them do something they don't

want to do. And is that something you

actually want? Like, I wouldn't want

that. If you had told me those options,

I would rather they just didn't. Three,

they wanted to and you've given them an

opportunity and so now they've happily

done it. There are some people who want

to help you and they're excited about

things and they're like, "Yes, let's do

it." Of course, that would be me with

writing on the wall, obviously. But the

only time that you want it happening is

in that third category. Number one and

two, you actually don't want, right? So,

how do you frame a request that will

only happen if it fits that third

category and and just work backwards?

You are letting them know what you're

doing. You're letting them know because

it matches something that they're

already excited in or it plays into

something that they've already been

saying and that's why you thought of

them and this is not a request to share.

It's not obligation. I just thought it'd

be interesting for you or if you have

feedback for me, I'll take that. But

like now it's in front of them if they

wanted to share and if they fall into

category three, they'll just do it of

their own valition. You don't have to

ask. If they fall into category two,

they have an excuse not to do it. So

they won't do it resentfully. And if

they call fall into category one, if

they were going to ignore it, they can

still ignore it. But now they don't feel

bad because they're not ignoring a

request. You were just like an FYI and

they saw it. There's two good commms

tests. Could you say whatever you're

about to say without the CTA of asking

people to give you money in the next

sentence? Yes. What does that mean? What

it means is could you say something that

isn't just purely in your self-interest?

Most of the time, companies and founders

will only speak if there's like direct

self-interest involved. And that's when

you see like shilling the company or buy

our thing or whatever it is. But the

thing that's interesting to people and

what the candy coating consists of is a

statement about the world that is novel

or helpful or educational. And then if

they're interested and they follow you

and they want to learn more, like

they'll come to your company eventually.

But you don't just it's actually uh back

to the medicine and the candy coating.

The candy coating is something that

would be interesting to them regardless.

What I'm getting from you is so so far

there's a few words that have stuck out.

So the image that has been like

replaying in my mind is like this giant

poster of the word fake and you're just

like scratching it out with red ink like

get this out and then at the bottom it

just says be real. So that's the first

thing. The second thing is like useful

or pragmatic. And then the third thing

that actually has really surprised me is

what I would call leveraged beta. And

this comes back to what you're saying

with cultural erogynous zones. A lot of

people think, "Oh, if I'm going to have

a mission for my company, it's got to be

completely different. I got to make

something up out of nowhere." And what

you're saying is there's already these

like Gulf Stream vectors of energy. And

it's like, how do you harness one, coin

a term for it, make it concrete, and

then shout that thing into the world in

a way that has more shape to it than

it's ever had before. Yes. Because

people will want to say the thing they

already wanted to say. And if you give

them the words and the concepts, they

might use your words and concepts to

express it, but they're not going to

want to say something that they didn't

already want to say. And so it's like if

there's a current and the current is

going this way and you're stuck here,

they say it's a mistake to try to swim

against the current or to swim

perpendicular. What you want is to have

like the current go this way and then

you swim kind of this way and then you

end up going half with the current and

half in the direction that you want to

go. Something like

this. Don't take This is not survival

advice. I'm not a registered swim

adviser. Please speak to your advisor.

This is K's

advice. And uh let's say that the

current of opinion is here and you want

to go here. You don't just sort of like

swim against it and force your way to.

You kind of have to go with it. Uh and

you'll end up on a diagonal. And so take

something that people already care about

that they're already interested in. Give

shape. Give words to it. And then

they'll use that to speak from

themselves with genuine passion and

interest as opposed to like obligingly

repeating your corporate PR that you

asked them for a favor to go and say cuz

that is virality. Like you are killing

virality when you try to force people to

say something they didn't already want

to say. And that's why asking for a

favor doesn't really work. You can do it

one time and it'll give you the illusion

of working because people might oblige,

but you don't even know how much you've

tapped that reserve of relationship

capital. And it's anti- viral,

anti-mimetic, because by definition, you

made them say something they didn't want

to, they'll never want to say it again.

In fact, they'll be allergic to saying

it again because they don't want to

relive the trauma of the cringe. So if

you can give them something that they

already wanted to say, now you are

leaning in the direction of virality and

you are giving that a boost and giving

it like a delivery mechanism for spread.

It's like it's like a virus like the

virus has to have something to latch on

to and it has to have um people who will

spread the virus. And so you want to

design the v this is like I'm glad we're

not doing this podcast two years ago.

This would be like censored from

YouTube. But you want to create a

labmade virus with gain of function

virality that is designed to maximally

spread as opposed to something that

can't spreads.

That's it. Yeah, that's perfect. Thank

you. That's what I want. That's the

title of the show.

All right. Tell me this. Another good

comms test. Let's say our company

doesn't

exist. What's something we could say

that would make our target audience feel

understood? And it's it's a version of

the first test which is putting aside

your immediate commercial

self-interest. What do you have in

common with that audience? What is a

pain that they have that you understand?

What is a struggle they're going through

that you can articulate? What is a hope

and dream that they have that you share?

And so like the theme here is put aside

your desire to sell stuff to them and

pitch them and make money for a second

and just start by relating to them and

figuring out what they care about, what

they're scared of, what they want, and

what of that can you speak to with some

degree of authority and then figure out

how to link it back to the company

later. You can segue into that, but if

you start with that, you just lose

people immediately. Apple is getting

criticized a lot now for kind of losing

the plot a little bit. And um the golden

era of Apple a lot of people think of as

like the think different. You're the

underdog. You're part of this cult

almost and part of this like subculture.

And that was when people felt like Apple

really understood them and understood

that they wanted to create something

that hadn't been made before and was

outside of the mainstream and they're

going to actually think different. And

yeah, that's me. Now, it feels like

Apple is kind of pushing onto us things

that they want us to buy or things that

they want us to use. So, like this magic

photo generator, Genoji thing, I don't I

have it. I haven't used it. I feel like

they're trying to get me to use it so

that they can make more money and say

that more people use it. There's nothing

that it does for me and I haven't seen

anything that explains why it would make

my life better. And so I literally can't

remember what it's called, but I

remember a few days ago people were

irritated because they had turned one of

the settings uh screens into basically

an ad for this thing. Like it's

something in settings where and settings

is sacred. Like come on, settings is

sacred. You don't go there. You don't go

there. don't mess with settings.

Settings is for settings. And so, um,

they had put something on the sidebar

where you click and then the entire

thing is just an ad like use this

feature that we want you to use. And it

feels really icky and it feels like they

are using us to get more usage for their

feature as opposed to rewind. They

understand us and they understand what

we're trying to do and what we're trying

to build and who we aspire to be and

they have created the tool for us to be

able to do that. It it went from they

are serving us to they are asking us to

serve them to oversimplify of course but

that is part of the shift in how people

feel about Apple at least happening

right now. It didn't feel like they

alienated people. It felt like they

stood for something and you were you

know if you had a PC that that's that's

fine like hey I'm just not an Apple

person. But now it feels like we live in

this culture where to stand for

something means to be politically

divisive and alienating. And there

you're either on our team or you're not.

You're either red or you're blue. You're

either with us or you're against us. So

how can you stand for something without

alienating your opposition? Or is that

even worth striving for? It is

absolutely worth striving for because I

think companies should be opinionated.

First of all, I think companies should

just take risks. But I think companies

should be opinionated stand for

something. What you don't want is to

split your user base in half or to split

your employees in half. So a very

obvious example is if you were to choose

a political party to support. Now you

have created civil war among your

employees right?

Um, you can draw a line in the sand and

you should, but that line should be

gerrymandered to fit around your people.

There will be people outside of that

line and if it's people that you don't

need, then it's it's very low cost. So

for example, if you are a crypto company

and your audience is regulators and

people who hold crypto, then if you were

to take a side between different coins

or different exchanges or what you don't

want is to then divide your community.

But if you were to pick crypto versus

non-crypto or if you were like uh

economic freedom versus suppression and

oppression, um you you will still have

other people outside of that line. It's

not a madeup tension, but you have taken

all of your people and put them behind

you and and put them inside of the line.

So there are different ways to draw a

line. If you were to just draw a line of

like Republican versus Democrat, yeah,

you might be um splitting your base,

which you don't want to do. But if you

were to say us the people who believe in

what we're doing versus them, the people

who don't, that's nearly costless to

you. So for example, if you're Palanteer

or Anderl or one of these companies that

is pro- American greatness like

unapologetically, you can draw the line

of we believe that the West has superior

values and should be dominant. Period.

And if you don't believe that, that

comes at literally no cost to us because

you were no good to us anyway. You

weren't going to help us. You weren't

going to work for us. You weren't going

to do anything. And so why do we care

about you getting mad? In fact, you

getting mad only convinces our people

that this is real and that we're willing

to stand for our principles. Whereas, if

they had said, "We're choosing whatever

Coca-Cola versus Pepsi or Chick-fil-A

versus Taco Bell." Now, you've just

created an unnecessary debate among your

own base, which is distracting. When I

asked that question, you had like a

visceral reaction to it. What makes this

so important? Because if you don't stand

for anything, then there's no you're

offering a fungeible commodity and

people can get different types of

software for pretty much anything or

they can make their own. anything you

can name people pretty much have options

with the exception right now of being

like ASML advanced lithography machines

or something like almost everything else

in the world and that's you know who

knows right but everything else in the

world practically people have so many

options and the option that they choose

represents the person they want to be

and the person they want to be seen as

they want to tell themselves and they

want to tell other people this is the

type of person that I am and So what you

stand for is a direct reflection of

that. It seems like launches are a kind

of free lunch. They're like uh you have

one chance you can kind of play this Uno

card one time and you're really good at

launches. You you nailed it with Rostra.

I've just seen you have this

understanding of launches and what makes

for a good launch because it also feels

like I'm now seeing so many launches

every single day that now the idea of a

launch I'm like

kind of getting launch fatigue now. So

what do we need to know when what does a

founder need to know when they launch

something? Okay, a couple things. One is

let's do let's do three things. One is

launches are happening constantly as

you've said. It used to be every few

months and is every few weeks. Now it's

like multiple times a day and sometimes

huge launches are going on top of each

other and so there's so much noise and

breaking through is incredibly hard. So

it's just hard to break through period.

Two launches are not the be all end all.

And um some people have made the point

like you don't remember the day that

Facebook launched or the precise day

that Airbnb launched. you know, they

grew over time. It's okay. At the same

time, in an environment where it's so

hard to get attention, here is a moment

when you have an outsized opportunity to

get attention. You want to make the most

of it. Three is you want to turn that

attention into something. And we were

talking about this earlier. Don't just

have attention and then it evaporates

and

eancent something. Now it's gone. while

you have it, you have to turn it into

something that can stay and you want to

turn it into uh a recruiting pipeline or

a sales pipeline or you want to get

investor interest like you want to turn

it into something that will stay and

continue to benefit the company after

the attention is fleeted and so has

fleeted is is

belelen. I think we should keep just is

belelen.

And so those are the three things to

keep in mind. It's it's it's really

noisy. You have to work hard to break

through. Uh it's not the end of the

world if you don't. But think of it as

like one of the opportunities you have

to do this. And three is just uh try to

turn it into something and not just have

it be attention because you can't do

anything with attention. The mistake

that people make is jumping onto trends.

So I remember for a while like I was

doing a bunch of manifestos and then

it's like manifestos everywhere and I

was I was manifestoed out. Um, so now

like I think companies should still

write about what they're doing, but the

whole like here's our manifesto and

here's our secret master plan and just

that has gotten a little tiresome and

for a while um I was doing a lot of like

sizzle reels and montages and sort of

like accelerationist feel and now it's

like every launch is one of these and

just feel it feels really funible and so

I think you got to find the next thing.

What's the difference between a trend

and a cultural erogynous zone?

they can be the same. Okay, a cultural

arrogance zone is just something that

people really care about and think a lot

about. And maybe it's because um they

care right now and they won't 6 months

later, but you need their attention

right now. Maybe it's like something

that they'll care about for the next

year. Um maybe it's something that's

becoming more salient over the next six

months. But it's just like the thing

that really zaps their attention. What's

that game? It's like operation and and

you it's a game called operation.

There's a little guy on a board and he

has like little red lights and you try

to put the bones or pieces in and if you

trigger a red light it goes and the

light goes off. The hospital game. Yes.

The hospital game for the less

sophisticated. Yes. Yes. For lay people.

It's the hospital game. Yes. Um, so, so

that's that's what culturalism is for.

It's like try to avoid things that are

being overdone and you have to

constantly come up with new things which

can be tiring because you're trying to

outrun the thing that works. Like once

something works, everybody starts doing

it. Um, after the cognition launch with

the with Devon, there were some launches

that were like tweet for tweet almost

word for word following the template and

then you you can't just like keep using

now you have to go do something else,

right? Um, I said this a while back with

like Tolken inspired names. There was

just like a glut of people naming their

companies after Tolken. I'm not saying

they're bad companies. Some of them seem

really promising, but it's just like a

bunch of Tolken names all at once. It's

like that one year when everyone named

their daughter Ava and there's like a

class of AA's like these are sweet,

beautiful little girls. They're children

of God. It's nothing against them, but

there these things um tend to happen all

at once. Um there was a like when I was

in school there were a lot of Sarah and

I remember you had to be like Sarah S,

Sarah T, Sarah Y, whatever. These things

come in like downpours. Yeah. Tell me

about this method for writing. Start

with a brief summary of the news.

Explain what the company does. Talk

about the problem. Share your solution,

emphasizing why it matters and why the

company is the right team to deliver a

solution. And then end with a call to

action and information about how to

reach out. Solid outline. Can't go

wrong. I think where you go wrong is

like uh naval gazing too much about um

uh here's how great we are and we're all

so smart and then you forget to tell

people what's the problem, what's the

solution that you bring and why does any

of this matter to them. Like a lot of

announcements especially are

really salopsistic and narcissistic and

it's like the talk about your personal

experience gone wild and uh the whole

thing is I've always wanted to do this

and now here it is and I'm excited to

announce because I've done this and it

was hard and congratulations to me and

you kind of forget to tell people why

any of it should matter to them. You

have to think about that the reader.

Yeah.

To increase your pressure, reduce your

surface area. Yes. The equation in

physics is pressure equals force over

area. And you can picture it, right?

Like if you're trying to puncture a

board and you have the same amount of

force, but you slap down on it with both

hands versus you drive into it with a

nail, the nail is going to puncture the

board. And it's the same with our

attention and breaking through. Um or uh

I I used this example earlier today with

ramp, which is like if you're trying to

tear a piece of fabric and you're just

tearing um it's very hard, but then you

see wrestlers like and the whole like

wife beater comes apart and all you need

is like one small nick and the whole

thing opens up, right? So if you can

just concentrate force in a really

specific area, you can create a ton of

pressure. And what this means for

communication is if you want to talk to

these five people, don't talk to 5,000

people and hope that these five also

happen to catch it. Just target these

five. And if there's one thing that they

care about above everything else, don't

talk about 10 different things. Just

talk about one thing. Like Steve Jobs,

his famous commencement speech at

Stanford where he says, "Stay hungry.

Stay foolish."

How many people remember anything else

from that speech? Like most people

remember one thing. And if Steve Jobs

can give the best speech of his life and

have us remember one thing, what makes

us mortals think that we can give an

average speech or blog post or video and

have people remember 10 things from it?

It just doesn't happen. So you get to

choose. Do you want people to remember

one thing or do you want them to

remember zero things? And you should

choose the one, right? Yeah. So with

that, how important do you think slogans

are? Extremely important. Every great

movement has had a slogan. And the thing

that slogans do is they make something

feel

ubiquitous and inevitable and like just

echoing all around you all the time.

Because if you hear the same kind of

message a hundred times, but it feels

different every time, it's background

noise. Like literal white noise, right?

Whereas if you hear just one crisp note,

I mean it would make you go insane like

very quickly. Um so the slogan is if you

see the slogan 100 times, you just saw

one thing a h 100 times and it's just

like pressure pressure pressure. Whereas

if you see something dissipated where

it's like first it's like this and then

it's over here and it's these words and

this words, it just like fades away into

the background. So, were founders very

intentional about just we're going to

say the same word, we're going to say

the same words, we're going to say the

same words, and that's written out. They

should be intentional about saying a few

words over and over. But you don't want

to say everything over and over cuz then

you're robotic. Like, if you say the

entire paragraph over and over, now

you're scripted and now you're just like

reading off of the talking points. But

it's fine to say focus on the customer

over and over again. Yes. Yes. Blah blah

blah blah blah blah blah. It's always

day one. blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah day one blah blah blah blah

day one there's like a a far side

cartoon where the dog let's say his name

was Rex or something and it's like how

dogs hear human speak and it's like blah

blah blah Rex blah blah blah blah blah

Rex blah blah right and that's kind of

how it is like you choose the thing that

you want to have cut through and then

you just drive that but it can't be um

entire paragraphs of text at a time you

got to choose whether so maybe it's

think different maybe it's move fast and

break things. Maybe it's time to build,

but the words around it and the context

around it and the stories and the

examples should change in comms. Why is

it so important to start with the actual

business goal? What is the thing that

people end up getting wrong? What people

get wrong is attention feels good and it

could become this sugar high. it becomes

this distraction and you get on the

dopamine treadmill and what it is is

it's it's a sinkhole for your effort and

money and time where you just invest.

It's it's like people at the slot

machine who are just doing this and

nothing is coming out but it feels like

something is happening. So that's when

you get it wrong. It's like you're

you're feeding off of the feeling of

having intention and engagement but it's

not turning into anything real. Knowing

what the business goals are is your way

to turn it into something real. You need

to turn that attention into recruits.

You need to turn the attention into

revenue. You need to turn the attention

into fundraising. Whatever it is, like

the attention is a means to an end. And

you need to convert the attention into

motion. It's like if you were to just

sit on a can of gasoline and hope that

you'll end up at your office. like you

need to convert it into motion and

actually know where you're going, right?

It needs to become fuel. So, what

another thing I've taken from this is

that good comms, it's not just about how

many eyeballs you're getting, but how

you're converting those eyeballs. And

so, as you're drafting a comm strategy,

how are you thinking about the post

people find us funnel to then get them

to do what they want? It has to line up

with something that they already want to

do. So it's which eyeballs like which

hearts and minds and then it's what do

we want to convert that into? And so if

it's uh job application we want to

convert it into recruiting. Then we want

to recruit these people and here's the

things that they want. We're going to

offer them those things when we can and

for the rest that we can't give to them

on the spot. Like for example they want

to restore western military dominance.

We can't just like hand that to them as

part of the contract. We have to

convince them that by working here,

they're going to get that done. And

we'll convince them through the personal

authority of the founder. We're going to

convince them through evidence of other

things that we've done. Third parties

vouching for us. We're going to convince

them through a mission statement that

resonates with them and that they hear

everywhere so that they feel it's

inevitable. And we're going to convince

them by taking something that they feel

and worry about and frustrates them

about like America falling behind and

say it to them in words that they

recognize so that it feels like we're

totally on the same page. So you just

have to convert the attention into

something that matters for the business.

Can we talk about the Crowd Strike

rewrite that you did? Sure. Okay. So

this was the original message.

CrowdStrike is actively working with

customers impacted by a defect found in

a single content update for Windows

hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not

impacted. What is going on with the

voice here that makes this uh suboptimal

to say the least? It's funny that

actively is the third word and the voice

is as passive as

possible. Impacted by customers impacted

by a defect found. You know, it's like

that meme with the goose like whose

defect? What defect? Who put it there?

Why did the customers get impacted? And

it's the voice that companies use when

they don't want to take responsibility

for something. It doesn't mean that

they're trying to evade responsibility,

but it sure seems like they're trying

to. And so, um, when I said earlier that

it can be really powerful when a founder

speaks in the first person, passive

third person is like as far away as you

can get from that. And usually it's

because they don't want to deal with the

smoke. So then what's going on here? You

rewrote it and you said, "I'm the CEO of

CrowdStrike. I'm devastated to see the

scale of today's outage and we'll be

personally working on it together with

our team until it's fully fixed for

every single user." But I wanted to take

a moment to come here and tell you that

I am sorry. People around the world rely

on us and incidents like this can't

happen. This came from an error that

ultimately is my responsibility and then

you say here's what we know. Yeah. Tell

me about the difference between I think

this is what people want to see from

leaders. And to their credit eventually

like a few hours after that rewrite they

did their own rewrite and it was a lot

better and they did apologize. They

actually ended up doing some of these

things. But I think what people want to

see is you're on it and you actually

care and it actually bothers you because

I'm bothered. My electricity just went

out. My server just went down. My

computer isn't working. Whatever it is

that happened. If you seem less bothered

than me, then I am going to have to try

to make you as upset and disrupted as

you have made me like that. I need to

bring you down to how I feel right now.

Whereas, if you show that you also feel

really, really bad. Now, we're on the

same level. We can't talk when I'm here

and you're up here unbothered. I have to

drag you down here first in order for

you to see what's going on. So, this is

the writing equivalent of a story I once

heard where there was a shop and I think

they sold coats and basically there

would all the time there would be angry

customers. So, there would be a clerk on

the floor and a customer would come in,

they said, "Hey, there was a hole in my

coat. I'm super upset." And this

customer was pissed. So what would

always happen, this was just they just

ran the playbook left and right, is the

person who was on the floor who was

working with the customer was like, "I'm

so sorry. Let me go get my boss." And

then the boss would come back and say,

"There was a hole in the coat. You've

got to be kidding me. That is absolutely

unacceptable. We will not have that.

Give me the coat. Give me the coat." And

now all of a sudden the uh emotions

change where the customer's like, "It's

not that bad. It's not that bad." Okay?

Like I understand, but please please

please don't get this mad at this

person.

It's not that bad. And I think that

that's what's going on where if you can

come out with that energy and that fire

and that all of a sudden like I think

what I'm hearing you say and what I got

from this story is that a customer

they're upset and they want to feel that

the company gets that they're upset and

there's nothing worse than a company

that's just like saying there's no need

to be upset but if you can actually come

in hard then sometimes the the customer

will just be fine. I think the visual to

remember is here's happy here's upset.

If the the let's say just a customer and

business owner if the customer is here

and you're here they have to drag you

down until you are at their level so

that they until they feel that you get

it. Whereas if you immediately take

yourself to here and you're just like

sackcloth and ashes then they still want

to be at your level. So, they actually

might bring you back up to here. So, the

person uh coming out saying, "I can't

believe there's a hole in the coat and

they are making an even bigger deal and

they're even more upset about it." Or

here. And then the customer, what

they're doing is it's okay. It's not

it's not that bad. It's it's just a

little don't worry about they're they're

pulling you up or if you're at their

level, they'll stay at the level.

Whereas, if you had come in and said,

"What's the big deal? It's just a hole

in the coat." They now have to explain

to you why having a hole in the coat is

unacceptable and they have to take you

down here. So this is where you'll

always end up and you get to choose the

path. I find the message, the medium and

the messenger to be just be fascinating.

And the big thing that was a surprise

for me is to really get sensitive to

what people aren't able to say that is

sort of in the cultural consciousness

and put form and shape to it. That has

been super surprising to me. And then

the other thing is as you think about

taking a stand, taking a stand that

aligns with your customer base, the

people who you're trying to reach and

not

dividing your inroup uh seems to be an

own goal that a lot of companies score

on themselves. Yes, you should draw a

line in the sand, but you should

gerrymander the line in the sand so that

it fits your people and doesn't divide

them. Sweet. Thank you, Lulu. Thank you,