Insight
Most successful startups operate exactly like cults in many ways
“I would say that most successful startups are like cults in many ways”
Assertion Supported
Deel planted a spy at Rippling who tried to flush their phone
“Like in the tech world, we're seeing a very interesting story play out between Rippling and Deal, which are these two payroll processors, and Deal planting a spy, and the spy, like, running into the bathroom, and then trying to flush a phone.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
A CEO's human remorse has never lost a company a court case
“In practice, I've never seen someone lose a case because the CEO expressed human remorse in And empathy, and that was the thing that made them lose in the courtroom.”
Insight
Enterprise founders like Tobi Lütke and Brian Armstrong make the best communicators
“The top leaders, like the Toby Looker, Brian Armstrong types, they already get it, and that is the most effective person to speak is the person who's leading the enterprise.”
Opinion
The corporate press release has been an obsolete communication tool for decades
“The press release as a means of communication, I think is obsolete by like a decade.”
Insight
Founders who personally confront online critics directly cause attackers to fold
“And so one of the things I tell founders to do is just to show up and defend yourself, you know, defend your people, defend your companies. Sam Altman is really good at this. He defends his employees. And it's very hard, even as much as with any public figure,…”
Insight
Material attacks reaching relevant audiences require immediate and aggressive response
“If both are a yes, then you got to respond immediately. Immediately and aggressively. Right away. You can't kind of, oh, I don't know, it feels so bad, maybe it'll go away. The instinct is, let me just, maybe it'll just go away by itself. It doesn't go away by…”
Insight
The most powerful statistics lose to average narrative stories in public communication
“You have to fight story with story. There's no, like, the most powerful statistic is probably not as powerful as the median story.”
Insight
Underdogs diffuse media pressure by expanding the attack's surface area to others
“And so the way to think about this is if you're trying to relieve pressure, you don't get to change how much force is coming at you, but you can change the surface area. You can spread it out over more surface area. You're not just attacking me. You're attacki…”
Insight
Apologizing when blameless incentivizes attacks, whereas holding firm builds strategic deterrence
“If your apology and your subsequent contrition and attempt to make amends is not correlated with whether you did anything wrong, then of course everybody should come after you all the time because it's a lottery ticket, right? Just come after you and then mayb…”
Opinion
Donald Trump is the funniest U.S. president, which is an incredible communications hack
“He is the funniest president. I'm sorry, Trump is the funniest president. Reagan, close second. He is, and then Lyndon Johnson. He is legitimately funny, and being funny is an incredible communications hack. It gets people's attention. It makes them keep tunin…”
Insight
Humans are psychologically vulnerable to absolute conviction regardless of truth
“There's something within us that finds it really hard to resist when someone is just looking us in the eye and telling us with absolute conviction that something is true. This is why pathological liars are so powerful, and sociopaths are so powerful, because w…”
Insight
Corporate communicators fail because they LARP as what executives should sound like
“The people who have done the communicating are LARPing as company executives. They're LARPing as what they think a business should speak like.”
Opinion
Even the most advanced AI models produce terrible public relations work
“When you ask AI for anything related to comms or PR, it turns into kind of a blabbering idiot. Like even the most advanced models that are Creating these wonderful insights and writing poetry. You ask it to do anything related to comms or PR, and it'll give yo…”
Opinion
Palmer Luckey has perfect deterrence because he relentlessly retaliates against public critics
“Someone like Palmer whom I love, and I literally like this about him, has basically perfect deterrence, which is that if you come after him in some material way, he will come after you basically guaranteed, 100% of the time, his comms team isn't holding him ba…”
Insight
Founders stay sharp by actively engaging with hostile and skeptical environments
“And that's the same for CEOs like Palmer or like Toby where they don't surround themselves with yes men. They put themselves into situations that might be mixed, hostile, skeptical. They welcome the skepticism. They engage. And as a result, they are increasing…”
Insight
Coddled CEOs unravel online because they outsource disagreement to PR teams
“Whereas when you see sometimes CEOs that have been more coddled, where they've been like the god king of their company, and everything they say is right and true and brilliant, they're the most handsome and smart person everywhere they go. If someone disagrees…”
Insight
An overt media hit piece is better than subtle, unflattering coverage
“So I think that a hit piece is not the worst thing that can happen. There's a kind of horseshoe where a great piece, fine. A hit piece, fine, kind of fine. You can use it. Doesn't feel good, but you can use it. What you don't want is the uncanny valley where i…”
Insight
CEOs fail when they blindly defer to lawyers during corporate crises
“The CEO's job uniquely is to consider different interests and weigh them against each other to reach the net optimal outcome for the company. When this goes wrong, what it looks like is everybody gets scared of the lawyers and the CEO follows exactly what the …”
Insight
Donald Trump's simple, third-grade vocabulary makes him a highly effective communicator
“One is he speaks at like a third grade vocabulary level. He doesn't use words that nobody can understand. Maybe cofefe was the one time. Cofefe aside, he uses words where everybody knows what the words mean. Strong, great, bad, good. Everybody knows what these…”
Opinion
Karoline Leavitt excels at communication through confident body language and composure
“I think she is. With her, a lot of it is body language. Again, you know, separate this from, we're separating this from the substance of, do you agree with the policy? It's just like, on the pure, like the form factor and the aesthetics. Nails it. She does a w…”
Insight
Bringing your full self to work is impossible and completely counterproductive
“Nobody actually brings their full selves to work. It's literally impossible. So you can either You can haphazardly let people see whatever they can make out from the random data points you give them, or you can be intentional and strategic about which ones you…”
Opinion
More corporate communications executives should have a direct path to CEO
“I actually, as an aside, I think that more comms people should have a path into a CEO role. Cause that'll be one of the most important things for a company to pull off is being well understood.”
Insight
Human mascots cut through infinite content saturation better than generic PR
“Content is infinite, but individual human characters stand out from that. It gives you a person to root for. It gives you something to get attached to. It gives you a thing to care about, and so having it be attached to a human Whether it's a product launch, o…”
Lulu Cheng Meservey