# The New Media Playbook with Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEOiwEemiTA

[00:00] Today's going to be a fun one.
[00:01] We're going to dive into all things new media.
[00:04] What is new media?
[00:06] What the new media team is doing here at A16Z, what we're focused on, where we're going in 2026.
[00:11] Really stoked to be making this happen.
[00:15] Ben had this quote which I think summarizes some of the some of the one of the main principles of of new media.
[00:21] I just want to, you know, read a small small part of it and then have you elaborate.
[00:26] Uh old media is defense-oriented and in new media offense is always better than defense.
[00:32] We've spent many years fretting about our results being leaked.
[00:35] Old media tries to please every audience.
[00:37] Old media is terrified of upsetting people and new media only cares about being interesting.
[00:42] When in doubt, flood the zone.
[00:45] Yeah.
[00:46] Yeah.
[00:47] That sounds like something I said.
[00:50] W- Why don't you share some of the tenets behind that idea and how you came to it?
[00:55] Yeah, so I actually it's interesting um it it's a really weird adjustment going.
[01:01] From you know, I mean, I spent my whole career in old media or dealing with old media and now we're in new media.
[01:09] You know, kind of in the history of the firm we've been the the one thing that we really really really really defended against was basically leaked results.
[01:17] And uh the reason and it goes back to in the pretty early days of the firm, uh the New York Times got a leak of our results.
[01:29] And they they were very I mean, we were like a young firm, so most of the funds were like a year old.
[01:38] Um and you know, venture capital firms don't have high returns in the first year cuz like nothing happens in the first year.
[01:43] It's not like a stock market type thing.
[01:48] And so, you know, that they missed or maybe it's the Wall Street Journal.
[01:52] I mean, one of the two, but they misinterpreted the results.
[01:57] Um you know, so they kind of said, "Well, the early funds were good cuz those had enough years to get kind of returns in."
[02:02] Them, but like fund three was terrible and like da da da da da and so forth.
[02:07] And there was no, um, you know, because old media was still powerful, it was very hard to combat it.
[02:16] You know, we put out statements and this and that and the other and blog posts but explaining like why they were wrong, um, but it didn't land and it was such a like a inside the firm it was such a big crisis that actually I'm pretty sure Balaji quit because he thought we were dead cuz the New York Times had just like ruined the whole firm with that uh article.
[02:38] Um, so it was like that kind of existential a threat.
[02:42] And so, you know, we were very oriented around like, "Okay, don't let anything out that could be misinterpreted or this or that cuz you can never correct it."
[02:52] It goes out there and you're never going to kind of come back from it.
[02:55] And and and say more about the the flood the zone concept in terms of of of why it works or or or you know, why and and?
[03:02] Why it's so different than, uh, than you know, what happened in the past.
[03:06] Yeah, well, so in the past, the traditionally it didn't count if it wasn't in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or like the Economist or CNN or like there were maybe eight channels that could say something.
[03:24] And then whatever they said was permanent and that like once it was out there, it was very hard to deal with.
[03:31] And it would be top of Google results like the whole thing.
[03:34] Um, but now you know, like we can go on, Mark and I, if it we really had a problem could go on 30 podcasts, uh, all of which get a much bigger audience than any of the publications I talked about.
[03:48] Um, and just basically.
[03:54] And we wouldn't have to talk about that.
[03:55] We could go talk about something else more interesting.
[03:58] Um, and erase that from everybody's memory very quickly.
[04:00] So, it's just you.
[04:03] Know, without commenting on what's a better world, like the laws of physics are completely different in this world than the other world.
[04:09] And I think to be effective, as an organization in marketing and media, you have to embrace the new world because you can't be half and half.
[04:25] Because the whole motion of the old world will kill you in the new world, and vice versa.
[04:30] And so, you have to kind of commit to, "We're going to really care about what goes down through the old channels," or we're not going to give a [__].
[04:41] Um, sorry to use language, and we're just going to, you know, say interesting things and flood the zone.
[04:47] And we're doing the latter, by the way.
[04:48] There's a whole history to this.
[04:50] But basically, the whole idea that there's like a quote-unquote corporate brand, like the whole idea that there's like a corporate trademark, and then the whole idea that as a business you basically load everything into that thing.
[05:03] And that thing, you know, whether it's General.
[05:05] Electric or International Business Machines or whatever.
[05:06] The, you know, the idea that that thing is somehow abstracted away from the people involved.
[05:10] Um, and then that the people involved, you know, their main job is to try to kind of buff that thing.
[05:14] Which kind of, you know, led to this, you know, you know, when we look at it, it's like it led to this like maybe your kind of reign of like everything being synthetic and plastic and boring, right?
[05:22] Where like the, you know, we, we, Ben and I have had this experience for many, many decades at this point.
[05:27] Um, it's just like, you know, the, the, the job of a corporate CEO for a very long time was to get up on stage and just say absolutely nothing in any sort of public, public event.
[05:33] Um, I, I actually was on a board of the CEO who very firmly, uh, believed this.
[05:37] Um, and, uh, he literally would come off stage having, having very deliberately said absolutely nothing and would have been thrilled.
[05:44] Um, because like he, he had made no news of, like, mission, mission accomplished, right?
[05:48] And anyway, so Eric, to your question, like basically I think the retrospective view on this, what happened, was basically in the past your communication channels were just like super narrow, right?
[05:56] And so, and so how could you get a message through to the mass market or to your audience, your to your customer base?
[06:03] Um, you could only do it by kind of sending.
[06:06] In a message that was encoded into as few bits as possible, right?
[06:08] Cuz that was kind of your only shot because it was always limited by you know, TV broadcast airtime or it was limited by newspaper column inches or whatever.
[06:15] And so you just you had to kind of crystallize everything down to this kind of min minimal and sort of least offensive, you know, kind of possible position.
[06:23] But but it's always been a natural because as human beings like that it does like it it never felt right.
[06:27] Like, you know, it always felt like weird cuz it's like this, you know, corporation is like this weird other kind of alien thing.
[06:32] You know, it it always felt weird and uncomfortable and we and we just kind of got used to it and it just, you know, it turns out as as as our friend Mitt Romney famously said, corporations are people, too.
[06:42] Um, and right?
[06:42] And like poor Mitt.
[06:45] Yeah, he was using it in a different context.
[06:47] Uh, he he was not he was not calling to change in PR, but um but uh you know, for our purposes, um you know, like this is it's all about people.
[06:57] Like it's all about the decisions that people make.
[06:58] Like when when you know, when a when a big company or a government agency or a nonprofit or a venture firm or a startup is like making decisions and acting in the world, that's people.
[07:05] Like that you.
[07:07] You know, there are some set of people who are sitting around making that decision.
[07:13] And I just think like, and then it's kind of, you know, it's kind of this almost, I don't know, like shock therapy or something where it's just like if the people who are actually making the calls actually show up and talk on their own behalf and explain themselves and actually say what they think, it like blows everybody's minds, right?
[07:25] It's just, you know, it's the response people have to, you know, Elon and the response people have to, you know, certain other people who are now, you know, kind of very notable in the environment who are running large things who are very public and vocal.
[07:35] It's just kind of this thing of like, and it's just it's almost like this thing where it's like, well, you know, they can't say that.
[07:40] And it's like, well, wait a minute.
[07:41] Number one, they can say that, like, you know, they're allowed to.
[07:43] They're like an adult in the United States of America.
[07:45] Like, they're allowed to say, you know, whatever they want, number one.
[07:47] Number two, like, how about they actually tell us what they think?
[07:50] Like, how about we hear directly from them so that we can actually understand what they're thinking and who they are, you know, and how they're processing reality and what their assumptions are?
[07:57] Um, and of course the technological cost for this is just that, you know, that narrow media funnel just got like completely blown to smithereens, right?
[08:04] In large part as a consequence of all the work that, you know, that we that.
[08:07] You know, all of us have done uh on this call over the last 30 years.
[08:11] And so, like, it it's just, you know, and you could kind of maybe say, you know, love it or hate it, like, the the the the the days of kind of this narrow channel narrowcasting and then what I would argue is just this like inherently deceptive practice um of abstracting things away from people.
[08:24] I you know, that that world is just clearly fading.
[08:26] Um and in the new world we're we're just going to hear direct from people.
[08:28] And I, you know, and look, I'm not a utopian and it's not going to be like 100% better, but I I think there's no question it's a big net improvement.
[08:35] Yeah, and by the way, you know, the other um thing that's really interesting in retrospect is the things that people got in trouble for, uh canceled for, fired for, etc. in the past that they said in the press were all just misinterpretations.
[08:55] So, they, you know, was somebody saying something and because it was so narrow and because you could never erase it and because you could never come back and defend it because the audience would be,
[09:07] You know, a thousandth of the size on the defense.
[09:10] You know, people just it was all it wasn't I said what I thought and people thought I was a horrible person.
[09:17] I said something, it got misinterpreted, and people thought I was a horrible person.
[09:21] So, now in this world where like, you know, people say much more like aggressive things, I would just say in terms of, you know, not being mainstream thinking, but have room to explain it.
[09:32] Um they that that rarely happens anymore.
[09:37] So, like, I mean, everything from like Howard Dean to you know, you name it.
[09:42] Like, in today's world, that that would be nothing.
[09:44] Um, but in that world, because there was no chance to say, "Well, like, this is what happened."
[09:53] Um, you know, like, there there were just thousands of times when people have gotten to incredible trouble for things that they said that were misinterpreted uh that they could not correct.
[10:05] Yeah.
[10:05] And and Eric, you know, Ben Ben.
[10:07] Gave me good advice, you know, actually before you came on board, which I I'm trying my best to stick to, although I will tell you it is a significant personal challenge.
[10:14] Yeah.
[10:15] Um, again, was not eating an entire box of Oreos and drinking an entire bottle of scotch every night, both of which I'm also trying not to do.
[10:20] Um, so, cuz we live in a healthy world now.
[10:23] So, um, uh less self-destructive world.
[10:27] So, um, you know, Ben Ben Ben pointed out that like the see the what Ben just said basically applies into the new world actually just as much as the old world in in the sense of like when every time I've gotten myself in a like serious trouble like in public over the last decade, it's because I tweeted something.
[10:39] Um, and I mean, you know, everybody on here probably knows how much I love Twitter and like it's great to be able to rip off the 100, you know, and I was really good at like compressing something super controversial in 140 characters and then really letting it rip with 280 characters.
[10:50] But Ben pointed out like, "Look, every time every time somebody gets mad at you, you know, every just gets like completely ripped at you over over that, basically what's happened is it's out of context."
[10:57] Um, and so what what Ben said is, "Look, just say everything that you think, but say it on a podcast."
[11:00] Right?
[11:02] Say say it in the context of an hour and a half discussion so that you can whatever it is, you've surrounded it with the full explanation, or say it in the form of an.
[11:08] Essay where you've like fully articulated your argument and it's fully in context.
[11:13] Um, and just observationally, like, it in not just playing to myself, but just more broadly, it's actually interesting if you watch this to this day, when public figures get blown to smithereens, it's almost always because of something that's basically too short.
[11:23] Um, when people actually do the full long-form explanation of what they think, even if it's on a highly controver, you know, even if it's imputed to be highly controversial, whatever, if it's the full explanation, it is actually harder to blow people up.
[11:33] And again and again, you could kind of say it's actually really funny.
[11:37] You know, when I was a kid, like, you know, the moral panic was around television, right?
[11:40] Kind of pre the internet.
[11:41] And the moral panic in television, a lot of moral panic in television, always was around the concept of sound bites, which is you only ever get to hear like 5 seconds of what anybody's thoughts are.
[11:48] Right?
[11:48] And somehow television is now the gold standard, you know, for information transmission.
[11:51] The internet's evil.
[11:52] Like somehow it all flipped.
[11:54] But anyway, the point being is like the internet gives us the chance to not only express ourselves like in short form.
[11:59] The internet specifically gives us the chance to express ourselves in long form.
[12:01] Right?
[12:01] And fully explain things.
[12:03] And that's just so different.
[12:05] Like the hour and a half, two hour discussion with somebody.
[12:09] Who's like deeply into something and is really involved in something.
[12:12] I mean we all experience this as consumers.
[12:13] Like it's just so much better than the than the 30-second bit that, you know, might have been on the NBC Nightly News 30 years ago.
[12:20] And by the way, you know, the long form of almost anything that's interesting, complex, a systems problem, um which is most everything in politics and in technology, you need the long form.
[12:34] There is no sound bite that gives you any information.
[12:39] Um and so you have to have uh a long conversation.
[12:42] So it is actually much better.
[12:45] Or is it really?
[12:47] As far as thing.
[12:50] But there's always that thing with sugar, you know, using bones or whatever to be whiter, that kind of thing.
[12:56] I'm going to eat a I'm going to eat a gigantic package of Oreos tonight.
[12:59] Deborah's on her.
[13:00] I really appreciate it.
[13:03] The Oh yeah, it's We've also talked about, you know, media training in the past.
[13:06] Used to be around sort of, you know, how to stay out of trouble, this.
[13:09] Kind of thing.
[13:11] And that now you know, if you're a CEO, you want to be, you know, something uh you know, Jordi from TV personality's concept of a Joe Rogan CEO.
[13:15] I mean someone interesting enough to go on Joe Rogan for three hours, you know, someone like an Alex Karp, someone like a Palmer Lucky, right?
[13:25] And the flip side of that is that uh you know, if you're interesting, you know, if you're powerful, you're it's because you're interesting.
[13:33] Cuz that's what people want to work for.
[13:35] It's you know, people want to be customers of.
[13:36] It's people want to invest in.
[13:38] Um and if you're powerful and interesting, you're going to be controversial.
[13:41] And that's something that you guys have also helped me get more accustomed to is like, "Hey, we you know, this is the big leagues."
[13:48] You know, and there are people who are going to be mad at what we're doing.
[13:52] And that is in some ways, that's a good thing.
[13:55] That's evidence of our power and our interestingness.
[13:59] Yeah, no, I think that's right.
[14:00] And I think it you know, it's hard this is another kind of crossover between the old world and the new world cuz if you're a corporate brand, then you know, you try and keep all the.
[14:10] Dust off the brand and, you know, try and be something that nobody hates.
[14:17] I guess for lack of a better word.
[14:18] And then, you know, I think in today's world, to be good at marketing, you've got to be interesting.
[14:23] To be interesting, if you're interesting and powerful, there are going to be a lot of people who don't like you.
[14:30] Um, and that's like, that's a good thing.
[14:32] Um, and I was very happy to see by the way the infrared piece, cuz we can get like a nice piece on like a subsection of the firm, but nobody's ever going to write like a really nice thing about the law firm.
[14:45] Um, I think that you know, also, it's a...
[14:50] This whole new world is much better for founder CEOs because to be a founder, you have to have an original idea.
[14:54] And original ideas are interesting by nature.
[14:58] I think that professional CEOs often get to that position through very careful politicking, which kind of is the opposite where you want to be.
[15:10] Uncontroversial.
[15:13] Like nobody can ding you right as you get to them thing.
[15:15] And you know, Mark and I have uh been on, you know, Mark much more than me, but been on large boards.
[15:19] Where on the large boards, you know, when it comes to picking the professional CEO they're all about what's not wrong with him.
[15:28] Not what's right with him.
[15:29] Or what's right with her.
[15:31] And so, you get these very vanilla characters who definitely could not go on Joe Rogan.
[15:37] And that, you know, is all to our advantage cuz we basically deal almost entirely with founder CEOs.
[15:44] I want to uh transition to one more structural mechanic cuz it's a segue into how we've built our team a little bit.
[15:49] And it's um this uh market system of McLuhan quote, you know, if it's on TV, it's a TV show.
[15:55] Um and just talk about how the different formats yield different different types of content.
[16:01] Do you want to talk about it?
[16:01] Okay.
[16:01] You you want you you want me to do it?
[16:04] Yeah, yeah.
[16:04] Okay.
[16:04] All right.
[16:04] Okay.
[16:05] This is the thing.
[16:05] Okay.
[16:05] So, yeah, Marshall McLuhan was the great media theorist of the of the TV era.
[16:10] And actually, his his work is actually held up really well.
[16:10] And
[16:11] It's, it's, it's, it's worth reading.
[16:14] Um, but uh, he, he had the, he had this, this thing that Eric just said.
[16:15] He said, "If, if it's on TV, it's a television show."
[16:19] Um, in other words, like basically the, the, the, you know, as he, as he said, as he said, "The medium is the message."
[16:24] Um, basically, what he said is like, "Look, like TV, TV is a specific kind of technology."
[16:28] It's a specific kind of media technology.
[16:30] Um, and basically, like all of the questions around TV are like, you know, is it a, is you know, it's, it's all basically just like the only real parameter is length.
[16:36] Like, is it a 3-minute news segment?
[16:38] Is it a 20-minute sitcom?
[16:39] Is it a 40-minute drama?
[16:41] Like, there, there, there's very little kind of variation like what you can do cuz it's just a linear, you know, it's just a straight, you know, just you know, broadcast video.
[16:48] And so, he said, you know, basically, the medium in its first, you know, 10 or 20 years evolved, you know, basically, the concept of what we now know to be a television show, which is basically either a comedy or a drama or, or combination of the both.
[16:57] And it's basically a little story.
[16:59] And it's a little story that plays out over 20 to 40 minutes.
[17:02] And it kind of has to be a self-contained story cuz you don't know when people are going to watch it.
[17:05] And you know, now they're doing, you know, now they're doing, you know, streaming.
[17:07] They're doing serial stories.
[17:08] But you know, television shows properly generally were, you know, where...
[17:12] Everything was a one-off.
[17:13] You can watch episodes out of order.
[17:15] And so, there's like there the there these very like self-contained little basically, you know, plays, little stage plays broadcast on video and then there there there are these self-contained little stories and then and then they need to kind of appeal to emotion cuz it's like an emotional medium.
[17:25] Uh right, it's not like an information dense medium.
[17:29] It's a, you know, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a medium that literally put somebody in your living room.
[17:33] Um and so the basically it's it's like these little morality plays, right?
[17:36] Where there's and there's got to be like good guys and bad guys and kind of a very simplistic story and there's like a few, you know, a few mild plot twists and then everything kind of wraps up at the end.
[17:43] And he And he said sort of the consequence to that is like everything on television has to be a television show and that includes everything in the real world that gets talked about on television has to be turned into a television show.
[17:51] Right?
[17:53] And and and this is kind of, you know, the running joke of like following, you know, I don't know whatever current events or politics on TV right now, which is you you kind of a running joke, which is you know, on on either party, which is just kind of like, "Oh, you know, that you know, you know, oh, it's you know, it's time for the next season.
[18:05] Oh, you know, this is the new, you know, main plot that's happening and then this is the new secondary plot that's happening."
[18:09] And if you watch CNN every night, you know, they're just kind of, you know, they're kind of just playing.
[18:13] With these stories you know, kind of over time the way that a the way that a soap opera might or that a, you know, that a that a that a that a that a drama might or occasionally, you know, how comedy might.
[18:20] And so so basically we we've just like lived in a world where it just seems like everything's a TV show.
[18:25] Um and it's and it's a world where like all the edges are sanded off and everything is kind of very smooth and professional and everything is kind of within this very narrow band of what can be put into these kind of little little morality plays.
[18:34] Okay, so Marshall McLuhan unfortunately is long dead, but I I assert that if he were alive today, he would say, "If it's if it's on the internet, it's a viral internet post."
[18:43] Right?
[18:43] So like what's the native medium of the internet?
[18:45] Like what's the thing that what's the form of media on the internet that like rips and dominates?
[18:52] And it's clearly the viral post, right?
[18:54] It's it's the viral you know, tweet, it's the viral Tik Tok, it's the viral Instagram, right?
[18:57] It's the it's the it's the viral Facebook post, it's the viral Substack, it's the viral YouTube video.
[19:03] Like it's very clearly the post and specifically it's the viral post.
[19:04] Like it's it it's the one that really rips.
[19:07] And so so basically, you're right, right.
[19:09] So my theory is, if it's on on internet, everything is a viral post.
[19:11] And then you just ask yourself two questions, which
[19:14] Is like, okay, what's the characteristic of a viral post?
[19:15] And like nine times out of 10 it's something that like really gets people cranked up, right?
[19:20] Like on whatever topic, right?
[19:22] It might be on whatever your favorite pop star said yesterday or it might be on whatever, you know, a politician said or it might be on whatever, you know, a business leader said or whatever, but like it's something that like causes people to like flip out, right?
[19:33] You know, and maybe some people flip out positively, some people flip out negatively.
[19:36] Something caused people to flip out.
[19:37] And then the other thing with viral posts that's really interesting is you can actually observe this in the data.
[19:41] They have this really rapid rise.
[19:43] Like they tend to if they're going to take off, they tend to take off within like 12 hours.
[19:47] And then they spike like crazy as everybody retweets or reposts and you know, emails it around and talks about it.
[19:52] And then there's basically this like half-life fall off where like within 24 it's like 12 hours up and then it's like 20 24 hours down.
[19:57] And then 36 hours later it's like gone from our collective memory.
[20:02] And the reason is because another one has popped up and has taken off instead.
[20:06] And if you kind of take a step back and kind of chart the media landscape that we've all been living in for the last whatever, you know, for sure 5 years, but you know, you could even say probably 10 years.
[20:14] What what we've learned through is just
[20:16] literally just like thousands of cycles
[20:18] of viral posts.
[20:19] Um okay, is you know, is this good or
[20:21] bad or something in the middle? You can
[20:23] have a big debate about that. Um you
[20:25] know, I would argue it's it's its own
[20:26] form of emotionality, right? It's it's
[20:28] basically things that spike the cortisol
[20:29] and so that, you know, it's sort of
[20:30] things that are controversial. And so it
[20:32] leans into that. But you know, the other
[20:33] side is it's things that are
[20:34] interesting, right? And then the other
[20:35] part is, you know, the the people get a
[20:37] vote of what goes viral, right? It's not
[20:38] just up to a news producer what what
[20:40] shows up on TV. So there there there's
[20:41] that aspect to it. Um another aspect to
[20:44] it, by the way, is that stories come and
[20:45] go much more quickly now, right? And so
[20:47] there will be some thing that pops and
[20:49] it's like the world's biggest crisis in
[20:51] whatever sector it's talking about and
[20:53] it's just like everybody in the world
[20:54] has an opinion. This is where I I was
[20:56] using a while back the the the meme of
[20:57] the current thing. Like it's the current
[20:58] thing. Everybody has to have an opinion
[21:00] on the current thing. It's the most
[21:01] important thing in the world. And then
[21:02] 24 hours later it's like it never
[21:03] happened because something else, right,
[21:06] has become the current thing. And then
[21:08] that leads to, you know, the new the new
[21:09] version of the old time on a strategy of
[21:11] getting through media crisis, which is
[21:12] like just like basically
[21:14] make sure something else, you know,
[21:15] becomes the new viral post.
[21:17] You know, gets get something else
[21:18] elevated into that thing. So there you
[21:19] know, there's there's there's there's
[21:21] this way to kind of kind of deal with
[21:22] these things. But But anyway, I just
[21:24] think like as long as the internet is
[21:25] the medium of choice, we're going to
[21:27] live in a world in which this is what it
[21:29] you know, this is the cycle now. It's
[21:30] like a 24-36 hour cycle. By the way, the
[21:33] traditional media in the former
[21:34] newspapers and television, like at least
[21:36] the way I read them, is they're
[21:38] basically covering whatever was the
[21:39] viral post like yesterday or a week ago.
[21:42] Right? And so right and so they're being
[21:43] driven by the internet viral post, which
[21:45] is which is you know, which is why I
[21:46] think that you know, that the internet
[21:47] viral post is is the higher order thing.
[21:49] And and I also think like that that's
[21:50] not going to change. Like they
[21:52] the whole long thing I could do on that,
[21:53] but like they literally if you're a
[21:54] television if you're a television
[21:56] producer or if you're a news editor or
[21:57] whatever, like you you can't possibly
[21:59] move your organization fast enough to
[22:00] stay ahead of these cycles. And so what
[22:02] you end up doing is you end up chasing
[22:03] them. And and that's basically the role
[22:05] of mainstream media for the rest of our
[22:06] life is just going to be to follow the
[22:07] internet viral post.
[22:09] Yeah, I never saw a funny joke on the
[22:10] Daily Show years ago where they were
[22:12] talking to the newspaper guy and he
[22:14] said, "Why do you call it news? You
[22:15] should call it olds."
[22:18] That's good.
[22:19] Um
[22:20] He It was he was interviewing at the
[22:22] time the managing editor of the New York
[22:23] Times. And he was in his office. And the
[22:25] New York Times, you know, was expecting
[22:26] to get this glowing coverage on the
[22:27] Daily Show. And whoever it was shows up
[22:29] in the office and says says what Benja
[22:30] said. And the guy and the editor is just
[22:31] like completely confused. Like he
[22:32] clearly has no idea what the Daily Show
[22:35] guy is talking about. And and he's like,
[22:36] "Well, like what do you mean?" And he's
[22:38] like he points to there's like a pile of
[22:39] literally physical newspapers on the
[22:40] guy's desk. And he says like, "Look,
[22:42] it's it's all old news." And he says
[22:43] like, "No, no, it's today's paper." And
[22:45] he's like, "No, no, it's yesterday's
[22:46] paper. Like I already know everything
[22:47] that's in that." Like you know, and so
[22:50] yeah, and and like it's just basically
[22:52] like again, what do they have they're
[22:54] very proud of this. They have their
[22:55] editorial process, they have their
[22:57] publication process. Like they they
[22:58] multi-layer you know, bureaucratic
[23:00] mechanism for you know, all all the news
[23:02] that's fit to print. Like, you know,
[23:03] it's at least a 24-hour cycle to figure
[23:04] that out. And I mean, and you know, 24
[23:06] hours later the internet has already
[23:07] moved on from whatever the last thing
[23:08] was. And so, it's just it's it's a it's
[23:10] a it's another example of the dog
[23:11] chasing the car, except now they have to
[23:13] chase it like every single day, which
[23:15] might be why they're so upset all the
[23:16] time.
[23:17] Yeah, they are pissed.
[23:19] You know, we really made sure to hire
[23:21] people who really understand the
[23:22] platform, not just how the platform
[23:24] works technically, but also the the vibe
[23:26] and the taste and the and the spirit of
[23:28] of of the platform. And and we've gone
[23:30] all in to start um on on X because that
[23:33] those are just where the most
[23:33] interesting conversations are happening
[23:35] and where where people are the most
[23:36] plugged in.
[23:38] And and and the way I think of it first
[23:39] Almost of tech world is on X, you know,
[23:41] like it or not. Like our world lives on
[23:43] X um just because that's also where all
[23:46] the
[23:49] both the kind of AI researchers and the
[23:52] AI influencers and the crypto influence
[23:55] and like like
[23:57] everybody in our world lives there uh
[23:59] you know, at least in part. So,
[24:02] we can't avoid it even if we didn't like
[24:04] it.
[24:05] But we love it.
[24:07] Were you about to say something, Mark?
[24:09] Oh, yeah. No, I was just going to say
[24:10] yeah, I know like what Ben said is yeah,
[24:11] so like this is a I posted a link to a
[24:14] book called The True Believer that kind
[24:15] of talk talks about this is, you know,
[24:16] the the old characterization is elites
[24:17] and masses, which is a little bit 20th
[24:19] century, but yeah, like the the like
[24:21] people who are spending 24 hours a day
[24:22] trying to understand, you know,
[24:24] basically in these domains like AI or
[24:25] you know, politics or whatever, like
[24:26] they they're on X. Like that and that
[24:28] and that's the that that that's not the
[24:29] mass market. Like that's not most of
[24:31] humanity, but like that's most of the
[24:32] people who are like basically in the
[24:34] what you might I don't know what you
[24:35] want to call like knowledge synthesis
[24:36] business or whatever where they're
[24:37] trying to like understand and formulate
[24:38] policies on things and and so forth. Um
[24:41] obvious obviously it's also true that
[24:43] TikTok and Instagram, you know, have
[24:44] just like much more reach. Like they're
[24:45] you know, they're just much bigger um
[24:46] you know, they they reach the mass kind
[24:48] of global audience
[24:49] um more. And so, they you know, they
[24:50] certainly they certainly play a role.
[24:51] But if if you're on the leading edge of
[24:52] a field like I, you know, it's it's very
[24:54] rare that the whatever is kind of the
[24:56] lead,
[24:57] you know, kind of the edge of that
[24:58] process of kind of idea formation,
[24:59] propagation, people, you know, in
[25:01] positions of of authority kind of
[25:02] figuring out what they think. It's
[25:03] That's almost all entirely on us.
[25:05] By the way, this is another huge
[25:08] difference between old media and new
[25:10] media. So, if you come from old media
[25:12] world,
[25:14] there's just reach.
[25:16] Yeah.
[25:16] Right. Like the targets,
[25:19] you know, if you were going for a target
[25:21] audience, um there was no real easy way
[25:24] to do it on I mean,
[25:26] you know, like maybe like if you were
[25:27] sports, you'd be in Sports Illustrated
[25:29] whatever, but like there wasn't really a
[25:31] way to do it. Um but now
[25:34] with podcasts and and blogs and X and so
[25:37] forth, you can go to an exact audience.
[25:39] You can really get down to an extremely
[25:42] narrow target in new media world. And,
[25:45] you know, for us that's great cuz the
[25:47] audience our audience is founders,
[25:49] um not the world, uh
[25:51] and so, you know, having a way to talk
[25:54] to 90% of founders as opposed to 4% of
[25:58] the world is just a much better thing
[26:00] for us.
[26:02] Yeah.
[26:03] The the two two more structural things
[26:05] that Mark I want you to explain and then
[26:06] I want to you present some some some
[26:08] slides, you know, give some detail about
[26:09] what we're doing
[26:11] that that that relate to what I'm about
[26:12] to say. One is I want you to explain the
[26:15] the Boyd um
[26:16] loop and and why, you know, that that
[26:18] makes Twitter and and social media
[26:20] so much more powerful in terms of, you
[26:22] know, forming consensus. Um and then the
[26:24] other is the difference between written
[26:26] and oral culture and and and what's
[26:28] prioritized um in you know, as we
[26:30] transition to oral.
[26:31] Yeah. Okay, so these are both long
[26:33] topics and so I'll try to do the the
[26:34] CliffNotes version. Um yeah, so um
[26:37] I'll I'll I'll link to the book on this,
[26:38] but in in in in military theory there
[26:40] there's this concept called maneuver
[26:42] warfare, which basically just says like
[26:43] speed speed wins. Like speed speed wins
[26:45] as compared to map map mass winning. Uh
[26:47] speed wins. And so, if if you if you
[26:48] believe that, then there's basically
[26:50] this frame there's this framework called
[26:51] called the OODA loop, uh OODA loop, uh
[26:54] which originally was developed for uh
[26:56] fighter pilots and then later for for
[26:57] broader military strategy.
[26:59] Um and the OODA loop what what OODA
[27:01] stands for is an acronym um it stands
[27:03] for observe, orient, decide, act. Um and
[27:06] so it's basically the decision-making
[27:07] cycle, right? And so and observe is like
[27:10] view the outside world, orient is like
[27:11] figure out where you are in respect to
[27:13] the outside world. Um decide, of course,
[27:15] decide what to do, act uh
[27:17] act and and basically what this guy Boyd
[27:19] who came up with this idea said was like
[27:21] any military opera- any fighter pilot,
[27:23] any military operation, any, you know,
[27:25] basketball player, any um you know,
[27:27] company, any government um um basically
[27:31] goes through a a decision-making cycle
[27:33] that's like that in order to make
[27:35] decisions. We just talked about the New
[27:36] York Times has their own OODA loop. It's
[27:38] like 24 hours to go through their
[27:39] process. Um uh right? And so um and so
[27:43] um
[27:45] basically what he said is like if if
[27:46] speed is the thing that matters, then
[27:47] the person who gets through that cycle
[27:48] the fastest is the one who's going to
[27:49] win. But he said, "There's a
[27:50] second-order thing that happens." So one
[27:52] is just like is your OODA loop faster
[27:53] than the than the other guys? So so
[27:55] that's one question. But he said the
[27:57] other thing that can happen is if if you
[27:58] if you can have a sustainably faster
[28:01] OODA loop processing cycle than the next
[28:02] guy, um then if you think about what
[28:04] happens like let's say it takes, you
[28:06] know, you whatever, you know, an hour to
[28:08] figure something out, it takes the other
[28:09] guy 2 hours to figure something out. Uh
[28:11] think about what happens is like okay,
[28:12] you start out on even playing field. Um
[28:15] you both start your your your your
[28:16] decision-making cycles. Um you operate
[28:19] you you make your decision within an
[28:21] hour. The other guy is still let's say
[28:22] is inside his own OODA loop when you
[28:24] make your decision, right? And so you
[28:25] make your decision, you act within an
[28:27] hour. He's only halfway through his
[28:28] process. He now has to start his process
[28:31] over, right? Cuz cuz you've changed the
[28:32] landscape, you've changed the parameters
[28:33] of what's going on. So he now has to go
[28:35] back and re-observe and reorient and
[28:37] start over, right? And then and then of
[28:38] course project forward. It's like okay,
[28:40] then you decide again within an hour and
[28:41] then by the time he gets And again, he
[28:43] gets halfway through his process, he
[28:44] gets interrupted. Um he has to go back.
[28:46] And so what he says is if you if you can
[28:47] be sustainably faster at running your
[28:49] decision loop, you can get inside the
[28:50] other guy's loop in a in a systematic
[28:52] and perpetual way and and basically the
[28:54] result of that is psychological
[28:55] breakdown.
[28:56] Uh basically you you destroy the
[28:57] psychology of the side because they just
[28:59] simply they they just can no longer
[29:00] operate or function at all. They just
[29:02] like basically go into complete panic.
[29:03] Nothing seems to make sense. They can
[29:04] never get oriented. They can never make
[29:06] decisions. They can never They become
[29:07] completely defensive, completely
[29:09] responsive. You completely dominate, you
[29:11] know, basically the playing field. Um
[29:13] and he you know, he was he was a famous
[29:14] fighter pilot. He was a
[29:16] famous fighter pilot called 15-second
[29:18] Boyd because he his claim was which was
[29:20] true is he could beat any other fighter
[29:21] pilot in a dogfight within 15 seconds
[29:23] using this method. And so it's basically
[29:25] this this this premium on speed and
[29:27] quality of execution such that you are
[29:29] actually causing the other side to have
[29:30] a
[29:31] have a psychological break.
[29:32] Um by the way, like again, going back to
[29:34] the like I think this is also a big
[29:36] explanation for what's happened to
[29:37] traditional media. The The fact that the
[29:38] internet moves events so much faster and
[29:41] the sort of internet collective crowd
[29:42] decides what's important so much faster
[29:44] causes all the people who were
[29:45] television producers or news editors who
[29:46] thought that they were in charge of the
[29:48] narrative to just basically have a
[29:49] psychological breakdown. Like how how
[29:50] how can you even function when the
[29:51] internet is just basically cycling much
[29:53] faster than you could. And I think this
[29:55] by the way, the same is true of
[29:56] companies. You know, this is what Elon
[29:57] does, you know, to his competitors like
[29:58] in the defense, you know, in the
[29:59] aerospace industry. This is what
[30:01] Anduril's now doing in companies in the
[30:02] defense industry.
[30:04] You know, this quite frankly is what we
[30:05] try to do, you know, to our competitors
[30:06] in the venture industry.
[30:08] Um so yeah, so that now to do that you
[30:10] have to be willing to commit to being
[30:11] fast, right? Um and so you you can't you
[30:13] can't have long bureaucratic processes.
[30:16] You can't have, you know, a you know, a
[30:17] risk-averse posture. You can't, you
[30:19] know, stress, you know, you
[30:20] you need enough time to make the
[30:21] decision properly.
[30:23] Um you know, but you you can't you can't
[30:24] run the fully deliberate, um you know,
[30:26] strategy that a lot of companies used to
[30:27] have in the past where it was days to
[30:28] weeks to months to figure out, you know,
[30:30] what they were going to say about
[30:31] something. Um by the way, in in politics
[30:33] they adapted to this probably 30 years
[30:34] ago uh with the concept of the war room.
[30:37] Um and there's a famous documentary in
[30:38] the Clinton campaign in I think in '88
[30:41] uh or the called the war room where they
[30:42] they show this and now now they call it
[30:44] rapid response and if you if you if you
[30:46] go to basically any any political
[30:47] operation on the internet right now, um,
[30:49] you know, they'll have an X account
[30:50] that's literally they call it like rapid
[30:51] response. So it's like the actually
[30:53] Department of War has one just as
[30:54] example. Department of War rapid
[30:55] response and it's literally like they're
[30:56] responding in real time to stuff that's
[30:58] happening cuz they want to stay inside,
[31:00] um, you know, everybody else's Udal
[31:01] Loop.
[31:02] Um, yeah, okay. So there's that and then
[31:04] yeah, the the the oral versus written
[31:05] thing is it's it it would probably take
[31:07] an hour to kind of go through the whole
[31:08] thing, but yeah, the the longest short
[31:10] of it is there's basically
[31:12] in sort of human culture there's kind of
[31:13] two ways to communicate. There's two
[31:14] fundamental modes. There's oral
[31:15] communication, there's written
[31:16] communication. You know, oral
[31:18] communication, you know, is the original
[31:20] form and you can think about it
[31:21] literally as like people around a
[31:22] campfire telling stories, singing songs,
[31:24] you know, reciting poetry.
[31:26] Um, you can think about written
[31:27] communication would be, you know, kind
[31:29] of famously the book, um, or the
[31:31] scientific journal article, right, or
[31:33] the math equation, um, or the business
[31:35] plan, right? Um, you know,
[31:37] you know, a a written artifact. Um, and
[31:39] then basically the characteristic of a a
[31:41] reality or oral communication is it's
[31:43] it's sort of inherently emotion first,
[31:45] um, right? Cuz it's it's, you know,
[31:47] literally, you know, live interactions
[31:48] with another person. Um,
[31:50] the characteristic of written
[31:51] communication is sort of abstraction,
[31:53] you know, and you know, hopefully logic,
[31:54] the scientific method, you know,
[31:56] intellectual rigor, analytical rigor.
[31:58] Um, it
[32:00] it it used to be the case that you could
[32:01] kind of really divide these, you know,
[32:03] like in traditional mass media it used
[32:04] to be the case you could say that like
[32:05] newspapers and magazines were written
[32:07] and so they would be like more calmer
[32:08] and more dispassionate. You could say,
[32:10] you know, television was oral, right? It
[32:12] was people literally people talking and
[32:13] so it was going to be much more
[32:14] emotional and hot-headed. You know,
[32:16] basically like, you know, that that
[32:17] that's all broken down cuz of everything
[32:20] we've talked about. Um, but the modern
[32:21] version of that is like the internet.
[32:23] Like, okay, is the internet an oral
[32:24] culture or written culture? And it turns
[32:26] out the answer is the internet's both
[32:27] cuz the internet is everything, right?
[32:28] It it supports every kind of media.
[32:30] Um, and so a YouTube video, I will say
[32:33] for sure a short form Tik Tok or
[32:35] Instagram reel for sure is oral culture.
[32:37] Like it's it's something short and
[32:38] bursty and emotional and and and
[32:40] interpersonal and it's experience. Um a
[32:42] long-form Substack post is for sure
[32:44] written culture.
[32:45] Uh but then things get more complicated
[32:47] because a short tweet, even though it's
[32:49] written, is actually an oral culture
[32:51] thing, right? Because the fact that it's
[32:52] short means it has to be like this again
[32:54] this sort of this burst of of of of of
[32:56] sort of say triggering emotionality uh
[32:58] in order to go viral. So so actually
[33:00] tweets, I would say are oral culture
[33:01] even though they look written. And then
[33:03] long-form podcasts are actually written
[33:05] culture even though they look oral,
[33:06] right? Cuz if you're going to talk about
[33:07] something for 3 hours, like that's
[33:09] necessarily something where you're kind
[33:10] of getting into abstractions in depth,
[33:12] you know, beyond just kind of a flash
[33:13] moment of emotion. Um and so the
[33:15] internet lets you kind of play with
[33:17] these formats and and and the kind of
[33:19] impact that you want to have um in a way
[33:21] that, you know, in in the past was kind
[33:22] of determined by exactly fixed which
[33:24] fixed media you were in. Uh and and and
[33:26] look, we we all live this. Like if you
[33:27] want to have the internet experience of
[33:29] like doomscrolling and getting really
[33:30] pissed off at the world, like you go on
[33:31] TikTok and X and you can do that. If you
[33:33] want to have like learn a lot of stuff,
[33:34] you can go on Substack and long-form
[33:36] YouTube podcasts and you can live in
[33:37] that world and like you can like, you
[33:38] know, raise your IQ a point a day like
[33:40] it you know, it's absolutely amazing.
[33:41] And so there is a choose your own
[33:42] adventure aspect to it. Um and um and
[33:45] then of course, you know, we you know,
[33:46] firms like ours you know, need to think
[33:48] hard about how we communicate because of
[33:49] of the differences.
[33:52] I I love that as a segue cuz it just
[33:53] emphasizes how different every platform
[33:56] is and it's not, you know, a lot of
[33:58] people or companies will just, you know,
[34:01] have one idea and then cross-post it,
[34:03] you know, across every platform, but it
[34:04] doesn't fully appreciate um you know,
[34:06] what that platform is built for and what
[34:08] that platform rewards. And so for every
[34:10] platform that we have, we have a, you
[34:12] know, with Substack, podcast, Instagram,
[34:14] you know, uh
[34:16] X, YouTube, etc., we have expert running
[34:19] it who is obsessed with with that with
[34:22] that medium. Uh you know, on Instagram
[34:24] we're up 35% you know, month over month
[34:26] right now. We have this guy Hero who's
[34:29] uh who's 18 years old and has been, you
[34:31] know, grew up on on Instagram and and
[34:34] knows it like the the back of his hand
[34:36] um
[34:37] and and and that really matters. That
[34:38] makes a difference. And and so with with
[34:40] that as a segue, I want to do a share
[34:42] just a few slides that just show
[34:45] um
[34:46] a little bit about what we've what we've
[34:47] done so far. Second.
[34:51] So,
[34:52] what we're you know, really trying to do
[34:54] is is is king make our companies, right?
[34:56] Is is is give them such a a superpower
[35:00] in terms of getting their message out,
[35:01] in terms of reaching their customers, in
[35:03] terms of reaching their their talent.
[35:06] You know,
[35:06] the superpower that companies like
[35:08] Anduril have to punch way above their
[35:10] their weight class and and and other
[35:12] brands you know, wish that they they had
[35:14] that level of of of resonance, that
[35:16] level of reach. We're we're we're you
[35:18] know, trying to give them those
[35:19] superpowers and we do that by by
[35:21] building our own channels, our own you
[35:24] know, media empire
[35:26] across platforms. We do that by making
[35:28] sure that we know everybody else who's
[35:30] got those
[35:32] My screen paused for some reason. Okay,
[35:33] screen share.
[35:34] But everybody else who's got those
[35:36] powers of distribution and and having
[35:38] great relationships with them.
[35:40] Um
[35:41] And then also by just you know, making
[35:43] sure that we have the expertise
[35:45] to be able to deploy
[35:47] to our companies as well. You know, Lulu
[35:49] put this put this well, you know, that
[35:51] people don't really invest enough in in
[35:53] in people running these these platforms
[35:56] and you know, we've really
[35:58] spent a lot of time recruiting the the
[36:00] right expert talent to to do it. So, I'm
[36:03] I'm I'm stoked because now that we've
[36:04] had them build our platforms, we're
[36:06] going to deploy them to to work on
[36:08] behalf of our companies.
[36:10] And so, we're we're you know,
[36:12] Kaster from Applied Intuition, you know,
[36:14] he's he's always been I was an angel in
[36:16] Kaster's world so known for a while and
[36:17] he's always been complaining of like,
[36:18] "Hey, you know, why are we not valued
[36:20] more? Or why do we not have more
[36:22] resonance? Why do people you know, why
[36:24] why is everyone when about other
[36:25] companies not not our company given how
[36:27] good we are. And I've I'm Is it Kasser,
[36:30] you know, you've never tweeted in your
[36:31] life. How do you expect to have
[36:32] tremendous tremendous mind share? And he
[36:34] he finally, you know, thanks to a lot of
[36:36] pushing that that we did, bit the
[36:38] bullet. And his first tweet got like
[36:39] 4,000 likes. And you know, the first
[36:41] product we have, I'll get to it in a
[36:42] second, was this launch as a service. Um
[36:45] the second one is going to be this this
[36:46] founder go-direct motion. You know,
[36:48] we're working with Kasser, we're working
[36:49] with Garrett from Flock Safety. You
[36:51] know, that that's a heroic company that
[36:52] should be at the stature of a Anduril as
[36:54] well. And and I really helped them build
[36:56] that machine.
[36:58] So, speaking of the launch as a service
[37:00] offering, this was, you know, inspired
[37:02] early on I was asking, you know, some of
[37:04] the GPs, "Hey, what would Where could we
[37:06] make the biggest difference? Like, what
[37:08] what new product should should we have?"
[37:09] And you know, Cyrus said, "If we could
[37:11] get guarantee a viral announcement, you
[37:13] know, I I I I think that'd be a super
[37:14] power for us." So, so we built out this
[37:17] this launch as a service. Um you know,
[37:19] everything soup to nuts from from, you
[37:21] know, all the all the social media copy,
[37:23] the messaging, the um you know, the the
[37:26] the rollout. We we created these custom
[37:28] videos. You know, we we hired Richard,
[37:30] another 18-year-old who uh you know,
[37:33] we convinced him to go straight from
[37:35] high school to the MBA, i.e., not go to
[37:37] college, or at least not right now. And
[37:39] um he uh he had previously done the
[37:41] Cruelty video.
[37:42] Uh and um and uh the browser-based
[37:44] video. And he's just got this, you know,
[37:47] phenomenal um taste for for what really
[37:49] does well. And so, we we built this
[37:51] video team, Richard, Ben, you know,
[37:53] Henry, you know, has really led this led
[37:55] this product. And and you could see the
[37:57] the views here. It's it's it's just done
[37:59] phenomenally well. Um you know, millions
[38:01] and millions of views for for our
[38:02] companies. We've now scaled up this
[38:04] offering to be to to offer it to to all
[38:07] of our companies. And um
[38:10] that that's our first product. After
[38:12] working with companies, companies were
[38:13] saying, "Hey,
[38:14] you know, how do I hire people like
[38:15] that?" And and thus the new media
[38:16] fellowship was born to to help us hire
[38:18] them, but also help help our companies
[38:20] hire them. And so,
[38:22] uh because, you know, there's this sweet
[38:24] spot where you need to be online enough
[38:26] to really know the the the have taste
[38:29] and and have sensibility and understand
[38:32] these new platforms, but um
[38:34] you need also need to be functioning
[38:36] enough and professional enough to work
[38:39] at one of these companies. And and
[38:40] there's not many people can can can do
[38:42] both. And so, we've really um you know,
[38:46] tried to create this this uh this
[38:48] program to be able to identify these
[38:50] people and then just give them a little
[38:52] bit more sort of technical know-how. And
[38:55] so, our first fellowship uh we you know,
[38:58] 2,000 applications, we picked 65 people.
[39:01] We think we think they're incredible. Um
[39:03] we two hires from us came came from that
[39:06] so so far. Um and we think this is going
[39:08] to be a franchise um to come. And and
[39:10] and
[39:11] the other part of it I'll just leave is
[39:13] um
[39:14] you know, I think we were really
[39:15] popularizing this term new media. Seeing
[39:17] a number of people with, you know, new
[39:20] media JDs. They they want a head of new
[39:22] media. They they're they're they're
[39:23] looking for that. And I think we're uh
[39:26] sort of in in the way that we
[39:27] popularized American Dynamism and other
[39:29] people have American Dynamism practices,
[39:31] um we're starting to see that with with
[39:33] with Newbie. And so, it's cool to to see
[39:34] our thought leadership there.
[39:37] Um and uh you know, more to uh
[39:41] more more to come. So so yeah, those are
[39:42] the things I'll I'll leave you with in
[39:43] our our our presentation. The um
[39:46] you know, our our channels are are up um
[39:49] tremendously and we're going to continue
[39:50] to to invest in them. We um we've got
[39:53] this portfolio offering launch as a
[39:54] service. We're we're, you know, now
[39:56] launching our go direct motion and
[39:58] really helping our our CEOs and and
[40:00] companies do that. It has to come from
[40:02] the CEO. So, every engagement we do, the
[40:03] CEO is is tremendously engaged. Um and
[40:07] then we're really building out this this
[40:08] new media category creation, this new
[40:10] media talent base for for us cuz we're
[40:12] continuing to hire, um but then also our
[40:15] our our our our our
[40:16] Yeah, so Ben, any closing thoughts?
[40:18] I'm
[40:18] I would just say that I
[40:21] you know, particularly if you've spent
[40:23] time in uh the prior media regime, um
[40:28] you know, of old media.
[40:31] You know, you really have to rethink
[40:34] every instinct that you have cuz
[40:37] it's it's one of the
[40:39] weirdest things where all your instincts
[40:41] are wrong. I mean, we're actually
[40:42] experiencing a little bit of this in AI,
[40:45] too, which you know, Martin wrote a
[40:46] great post on, which is like in the old
[40:48] world of software, the one thing you
[40:51] knew is you couldn't throw money at a
[40:53] problem. And now you can throw money at
[40:55] a problem. And so like
[40:57] you don't even realize how much of your
[40:59] thinking is affected by that old rule.
[41:03] Um and
[41:05] you know,
[41:06] I would say this is that in spades where
[41:09] like every single instinct you have is
[41:12] incorrect if you're in this world, and
[41:14] you just have to let it all go. And this
[41:16] is why you know, this is people lament,
[41:19] "Oh, like
[41:20] the right wing built this big podcast
[41:22] network and blah blah." That's not what
[41:24] happened. What happened is
[41:25] Trump just understood new media. For
[41:27] whatever I don't know why he did cuz
[41:29] he's so old and he's been in old media
[41:31] the whole time. But like he just rolled
[41:34] right into it and you know, not at a
[41:36] technological level, but as a media.
[41:39] Uh as a medium. And I think that
[41:43] you know, we've got to do that. We have
[41:44] to understand uh and and we have to kind
[41:47] of play by the new rules.
[41:49] Uh all my favorite comedians,
[41:50] podcasters, etc. always tell their
[41:52] guests, "Don't read the comments."
[41:54] Uh what do you guys think? Do the manic
[41:57] Reddit posters drive you nuts? I have
[41:58] not dived into our podcast comment
[42:00] section, but I have seen A16Z rage on
[42:02] Reddit. Not surprising.
[42:04] Uh for what it's worth, every tiny
[42:05] little conference I've been at while at
[42:06] A16Z has always had an A16Z fanboy
[42:09] raving about our podcast. Um yeah, so
[42:11] Eric, read the contents or read the
[42:12] comments, don't read the comments.
[42:14] Uh, don't read the comments if they're
[42:16] going to affect what you say.
[42:19] Um, it's it's kind of like the Yelp
[42:21] problem, you know, people who care
[42:23] enough to post either either absolutely
[42:24] love it or absolutely hate it, and we
[42:26] we've definitely got at this point I I I
[42:29] it doesn't affect me, so I I read the
[42:30] comments.
[42:32] But, uh, you know, I um I well, you
[42:35] know, and Mark and Ben have helped me
[42:37] not not get too concerned about some of
[42:39] the some of the commentary on Twitter
[42:41] by, you know, certain anonymous,
[42:43] uh, Twitter posters who who, you know,
[42:45] raging in their basements, et cetera.
[42:47] But, yeah, in short, don't read the
[42:50] comments.
[42:51] Yeah, so I'll just I'll I'll just maybe
[42:52] close on on on on two things. So, one is
[42:55] um Uh, there's a long history of this,
[42:57] and so, if you read any sort of
[43:00] biography or autobiography of any sort
[43:01] of professional author, you know, um Uh,
[43:04] you know, who writes writes books for a
[43:05] living, like 100% of the time at some
[43:07] point they will tell you, "Oh, the one
[43:08] thing I never do is read read read the
[43:10] read the critics, right? I never read
[43:11] the reviews." Um, and then and then
[43:14] they'll say, "Well, actually, no, that's
[43:15] not true. I always read the reviews."
[43:19] Cuz I know I shouldn't, right? Like, I
[43:21] know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't
[43:22] because like critics, like by
[43:23] definition, are like, you know,
[43:24] basically bitter, you know, bitter
[43:26] people, um,
[43:27] you know, who aren't who aren't writing
[43:28] novels or whatever. And so, of course
[43:30] they're going to be mad. Um,
[43:32] and and I know I shouldn't read. I know
[43:33] it's very bad for me. I know it's going
[43:34] to really screw me up. Um,
[43:36] and then I I try, and then it's like a
[43:37] magnetic pull. I I always end up reading
[43:39] them, you know, cuz it's like 3:00 in
[43:40] the morning, and I can't resist, and
[43:41] then I always end up getting mad.
[43:43] Um, and so there there, you know, there
[43:44] is this push. And and it used to be,
[43:45] right, only professional authors or
[43:47] professional filmmakers or whatever had
[43:48] critics. Right? Reviews. And now,
[43:50] basically, right, the entire the entire
[43:51] world is a critic. And so, I I think we
[43:53] all we all we all we all kind of have
[43:55] that. It's it's a little bit of a it's a
[43:56] little bit of a push and a pull. Um, and
[43:58] so, um, that is a that is a little bit a
[44:01] little bit difficult. Um You know, I
[44:03] will say I I think maybe a thing to kind
[44:05] of bear in mind, Um, I couldn't resist.
[44:07] I posted a link to it another book on
[44:09] this topic with it has a great title
[44:11] called Kill All Normies.
[44:13] Um, and it's this this book actually
[44:15] from like a decade ago that talked about
[44:16] like this kind of very angry internet
[44:18] culture, you know, the kind of developed
[44:20] after the 2000s. Um, and um, because by
[44:23] the way, the internet was not always
[44:24] like this. Like in the in the very very
[44:26] early days the internet was so hard to
[44:27] get on to that the only people who were
[44:29] on the internet were like basically
[44:30] super basically like smart super
[44:32] successful people.
[44:33] Yeah, newsgroups were really good then.
[44:35] Yeah, yeah, like the pre-1993 newsgroups
[44:37] were like utopian.
[44:39] Um, and then and then and then sort of
[44:41] post-1993 things started going sideways
[44:42] and then things start that the modern
[44:44] kind of caustic internet culture really
[44:45] developed in the in the 2000s and 2010s.
[44:48] Um, but but basically like it it
[44:50] actually turns out there's like a
[44:52] a genealogy to it and it actually turns
[44:53] out like a lot of it is literally
[44:55] literally it's it's like Call of Duty
[44:57] lobbies um,
[44:59] for online gaming. So it's like
[45:00] literally like online gaming lobbies
[45:02] cuz like when the Xbox and the
[45:03] PlayStation, you know, kind of
[45:05] rolled out voice you know, voice
[45:07] interaction for the first time, you
[45:08] know, they're like it'd be great for
[45:09] players to be able to talk to each other
[45:10] and it turns out you just get like, you
[45:11] know, 12-year-old boys in these lobbies
[45:13] just like torching the [ __ ] you know,
[45:15] out of everybody and and and literally
[45:17] trying to get under their opponent's
[45:18] skin and then being willing to, you
[45:20] know, anonymously say absolutely
[45:21] anything to do it. Um, right? And so
[45:23] that led to, you know, you know, very
[45:25] very coarse, very vulgar, very
[45:27] offensive, you know, kind of thing and
[45:29] then that you know, kind of flipped, you
[45:30] know, that kind of culture kind of
[45:31] expanded into early internet forums like
[45:33] Something Awful. And then it started
[45:34] metastasizing into things like you know,
[45:36] like YouTube comments
[45:38] um, and then you know, and then
[45:39] obviously social media kind of blew that
[45:41] open. And so um, there is this
[45:44] you know,
[45:45] there is this kind of you know, I don't
[45:47] know like
[45:48] rage undercurrent to everything.
[45:50] Um, and I guess it just say you know, it
[45:51] just got you you do kind of literally
[45:52] have to think about it. These are people
[45:53] literally in their in their in their
[45:55] parents' basement.
[45:56] And by the way, the you know, the other
[45:57] thing is
[45:58] generally when we get attacked on the
[45:59] comments are or like that, it's somebody
[46:02] with like four followers or like a bot
[46:04] or something like that. So,
[46:06] it's a
[46:07] And by the way, that that includes when
[46:08] it's hey Montra Venod.
[46:10] Yeah. And that includes when it's hey
[46:11] Montra Venod.
[46:13] Yeah. Yes.
[46:14] Yes.