The Exchanges

Q terms of audience building Is there's a lot of folks who are basically copying other people's content on X. Sometimes that works, but my thesis is that that's going to be less and less of a thing over time as AI helps automate a lot of that. So the people that are going to win are going to be sharing unique perspectives and stories. What are your thoughts on that?

A There was a time on X that you could just copy and paste anything from Wikipedia and that would get traction. So long as you drop some images in a smart way and had a decent hook, especially with writing being done by AI right now, a filter that I like to use is if I'm writing something, could AI have written this? If yes, it's probably not worth me publishing. If no, all right, what do I have here? There's this guy years ago, his name is call us to Eden, and he founded a company called Envato and they built marketplaces, basically a big tech company out of Australia. And he had this line that he said, maybe two dozen, 10, that just stuck with me. And he basically said, if you want to be interesting on the internet, First, be interesting off the internet. And I think that's what is so interesting about Siva compared to someone who is just, you know, copying content or theorizing on stuff. Siva's like, I bought this business. Here's what I learned. Here's where it worked. Here's where I went wrong. Here's my, or here's my thesis on investing. Follow me as I actually put it into practice. I think the best content comes from a story that only you can tell. It's a unique point of view that you have. Someone else that I love to follow is Dan Runcie, who runs a blog called Trapital, and he has this like deep inside look into the music business. And so his newsletter is read by a lot …

AI assessment note: “I think the best content comes from a story that only you can tell.”

Q If you're on this planet and you're breathing, you're interesting. But what do you say to those people who might not be Nick Huber, Sahil Bloom, Siva, Level, who are very interesting, um, in the traditional sense. What do you, what do you say to the untraditional people?

A Well, I think, I probably disagree with your premise that everyone is interesting. I, I think that most people are actually really not interesting at all, because they don't know, like, the fundamentals of a good story. I was talking to a, uh, book publisher, this is maybe four or five years ago, Right, so he's an editor at a major publication. We're talking about the difference between how fiction books work and non-fiction books. So if we're writing a nonfiction book and we want the publisher to buy it, I write a proposal table of contents in one chapter and I submit that. Fiction is a little different where fiction, you have to write the entire book and then you shop it. Unless you have a track record, you don't shop the book until it's done. So I was talking to my friend of like, wait, so you're just getting entire manuscripts dropped on your, on your desk nonstop. Like, how do you, are you reading all these books to find out if they're worth reading and like worth publishing or not? And he's like, no. You don't have to read the entire book to know. I only do two things. I pick up the book and read it at the beginning for long enough to understand who's the hero of the story. What describes their character? Like what are they struggling with? Any of those things. And I go to the end and I read enough to try to understand, are they the same person at the end as they were at …

AI assessment note: “I probably disagree with your premise that everyone is interesting.”

Q I think on the B to B side, because we're talking about Siavas and Nick Cubers and stuff like that, I think that you're right in the sense that not everyone who does things professionally is doing something interesting professionally. Prompt for people is, Two things for, for B to B. It's how do you become interesting? Number one. And then how do you become an interesting storyteller? Number two.

A I think also realizing going to your first point that there's not that big of a difference between the people we perceive as interesting and the ones that we perceive is not interesting. If I'm a designer working at a software startup, I go to work, I come home, I do my thing. That is not really interesting. But if I give a quest in there, right, I am trying to level up my skill because I want to be a creative director. And now I'm going out and I'm interviewing people and I am learning what I can do. And I'm teaching the skills that I learned last week. Like there's, it's a very small difference between like showing up and doing my job and having a clear goal and getting to that point. Right. Let's say I want to get a job at Apple. I can go through that in a very boring way, moving through things gradually. Like, and someday I'd love to get a job at Apple, or I could tell a story of like, I want to work at Apple one day and here's everything I'm doing. Here's how I'm learning. Like the connections I'm building all of that to be someone that Apple would be excited to hire. Who knows if that would actually work out. But I know for a fact, the more you can be clear on a goal and like relentlessly pursue it, the more interesting it is. Or the other thing, the other side I think you could do is really focus on being a great storyteller in the mundane, because you can take those mun…

AI assessment note: “the more you can be clear on a goal and like relentlessly pursue it”

Q So my thesis is that you're actually going to see a bunch of creator led productized agencies die in about 18 to 24 months. Whereas I think the winners Um, are going to create smaller agencies or, um, they're going to create a build one, sell twice course type thing, or they're going to create like a Ryan holiday type thing that has quality control. What's your thoughts on that?

A Everything sounds easier when someone talks about it on a podcast than it actually is in real life. Like that you're bringing up like, Hey, this whole running an agency thing is actually kind of hard. Or you get into something where it's like, it's simple, but not easy. Have good deal flow to get clients, provide those clients a great experience. They'll tell more people, book more clients, right? It's a pretty simple model, but then you get into it and you find like, oh, everyone has slightly different goals as much as you try to productize it. And then you're having to fire clients who you hope were a good fit, but ultimately aren't because they want something that's like 20% different than what you're offering. You know, or you don't fire them and you end up, then your, your agency like gets spread so thin trying to do all this custom work for everybody.

AI assessment note: “then you get into it and you find like, oh, everyone has slightly different goals”

Q quote unquote grows up and he's amazing at it. So like For him to go and create that video, like for him, that was probably shooting from the head for someone like me, or maybe you, that is a bit more of a high barrier. And the question becomes, how do you get normal people like us? To the level of Sean. Is there a way to accelerate that learning?

A This is a little different, but in the realm of public speaking, that's a place that comedy matters a lot. You're finding this balance between education and entertainment. Uh, there's a guy named David Nuhill who, uh, he's this Irish guy lives in the Bay area who hated public speaking, forced himself to get into standup comedy in order to overcome his fear of it. And now he like, he's quite a good comedian. If you look at his videos, he's done really, really well. He did something that was a really interesting service. One of these agencies that I think is just fascinating. He said, when I sit in an audience and I'm watching like a conference talk, I hear a story, right? Because everyone knows when you tell, uh, you know, give a conference talk, you should tell stories. Your voice changes when you're telling the story, you'll see the eye and start to lean in. They're like, blah, blah, blah, boring thing. Oh, he's telling a story. Then they lean in and pay attention. So what David was saying is he notices the audience do that. He's like, as a comedian, I can see where the joke is going. And then like the speaker totally fails to land the joke. He was like, there was a great joke there. Like you could have done this punchline. And so what he did is he got a bunch of his comedy friends together and said, we were going to make an agency where we will punch up your business talks. Y…

AI assessment note: “we were going to make an agency where we will punch up your business talks”