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Creator Mansions, Shitposts & Chief Meme Officers
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Creator Mansions, Shitposts & Chief Meme Officers

A psychoanalysis of the venture capital industry and the future of digital communities

Brett Goldstein
Sep 8, 2020
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Creator Mansions, Shitposts & Chief Meme Officers
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Yo! ✌️ I’m Brett! I am a founder and former Cognitive Science researcher. Social Studies is a semi-weekly newsletter for people building great products for humans. It includes recaps of what happened on Tech Twitter every week plus deep analysis using frameworks from Psychology, Economics, and the other Social Sciences.

🚨 Help me make Social Studies even better! Please fill out this quick survey for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card!


✨TLDR

🌴 We started a Hype House for startups - I just moved into a mansion in Tulum with 19 entrepreneurs. It’s like a TikTok collab house, but probably more cringe.

🏠 What is a collab house? - Collab houses are modern reality TV shows. They’re focused on social media growth for entertainers but will include professionals as well.

🤪 The rise of the Chief Meme Officer - More and more VCs are shitposting these days, creating satyrical tik tok videos and memes. Why is this happening?

📈 Brand is the most valuable asset for a career - Brand increases in value over time (skills decrease) and can drive up the value of any product.

🏢 The rise of micro-entrepreneurs - Entire businesses (both solopreneurs and venture scale) are being built on the backs of brands (social media followings).

💩Where shitposts fit in - Memes and videos are easy ways to drive growth. In competitive industries (like VC) they are used to mock competition and win deals. Importantly, they resemble content similar to entertainment influencers.

🚀 More professional collab houses will emerge - As content from professionals more closely resembles content from entertainers, methods for creation will converge. Namely, more professionals will choose to participate in collab houses.


🌴 We started a Hype House for startups

Twitter avatar for @thatguyBGBrett Goldstein 🚀🏠🌴 @thatguyBG
Excited to announce LAUNCH HOUSE 🚀🏠🌴 An Instagram/tiktok reality show where 19 entrepreneurs (mostly @beondeck) spend a month together in a house in Tulum. Follow us everywhere at @launch_house First launch is tonight at midnight More👇

Brett Goldstein 🚀🏠🌴 @thatguyBG

Personal news - I'm on a plane to Tulum with a dozen entrepreneurs. More on why soon ✨

September 4th 2020

6 Retweets186 Likes

On Friday, I moved into Launch House, a mansion in Tulum housing 19 entrepreneurs for the month of September.

Basically Hype House for tech people.

The announcement stirred up quite a commotion.

Twitter avatar for @TaylorLorenzTaylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz
NEW CREATOR MANSION ALERT: The Launch House is a really more of an entreprenuer house than a creator mansion, but 19 entrepreneurs are moving to a giant house in Tulum and documenting it on TikTok/IG @launch_house https://t.co/Ex1csIpyQ0

Brett Goldstein 🚀🏠🌴 @thatguyBG

Excited to announce LAUNCH HOUSE 🚀🏠🌴 An Instagram/tiktok reality show where 19 entrepreneurs (mostly @beondeck) spend a month together in a house in Tulum. Follow us everywhere at @launch_house First launch is tonight at midnight More👇 https://t.co/98S0a995hx

September 5th 2020

2 Retweets34 Likes

Just a few days ago, Launch House didn’t have a name, let alone a website and active Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok accounts. The point was simply to get some people to quarantine together in a nice place and launch some cool projects over the course of a month. We had all been feeling isolated and unproductive amidst the pandemic, and this was our solution.

But then our cheeky ideas got the best of us and it became ✨a thing✨

And tbh, it really should be a thing.

🏠 What is a collab house?

Collab houses are physical mansions (usually in LA) rented out by groups of influencers (usually on TikTok) centered around one theme - growth.

If social media is replacing television, collab houses are replacing reality TV shows like Big Brother and Terrace House.

Twitter avatar for @TaylorLorenzTaylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz
1st there was the Hype House. Now, there's: The Sway House The Clubhouse The Drip Crib The Valley House The Kids Next Door House The Vibe House The Alpha House The Young Finesse Kids And more collab houses plan to open once the stay at home order lifts
Delayed Moves, Poolside Videos and Postmates Spon: The State of TikTok Collab HousesGen Z influencers are settling into life in a shuttered Los Angeles.nytimes.com

May 21st 2020

52 Retweets512 Likes

Collab houses exist to elevate the careers of influencers through:

🤝Collaboration - Cross pollinating audiences by creating content together is one of the main ways any creator grows their audience. Collab houses make collaborating 10x easier.

📚Skill sharing - Improving at any craft is best done by sharing learnings with peers. Collab houses make this easy.

❤️Camaraderie - There are trials and tribulations with any career. Collab houses create spaces for people to discuss and overcome them together.

The truth is, there there have been co-living experiences across industries that accomplish many of these things for years:

  • Corporate training - Deloitte University offers training programs to Deloitte employees at a beautiful facility in Texas.

  • Artist residencies - The Land is an artist residency program

  • University education - (do I really have to explain this one?)

So what’s different about collab houses?

𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙗 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙩𝙝.

So, of course entertainers who build their businesses on social media (e.g. TikTok influencers) would want to participate in collab houses.

So why would professionals care?

Because professionals are becoming social media influencers as well.

🤪 The rise of the Chief Meme Officer

There’s something strange happening in the venture capital industry. The newest generation of investors create memes, shitposts, and tik tok videos as a core part of their job.

Twitter avatar for @zckZak Kukoff @zck
The new C-suite - Chief Thoughtboi Officer - Chief Sadboi Officer - Chief Stonksboi Officer - Chief Notion Officer What else am I missing?

August 27th 2020

20 Retweets402 Likes
Twitter avatar for @TurnerNovakTurner Novak @TurnerNovak
catch my TikTok with everything twitter missed on Zoom’s earnings yesterday
Image

September 2nd 2020

32 Retweets738 Likes
Twitter avatar for @katherineykwuKatherine Wu @katherineykwu
following anything crypto/ defi-related in the summer of 2020
Image

September 1st 2020

28 Retweets734 Likes
Twitter avatar for @andrew__reedAndrew Reed @andrew__reed
ARR is the 2nd-most ambiguous term in SV, only bested by “Bookings”
Image

August 16th 2020

17 Retweets288 Likes

This is an excerpt from a recent job posting from Founder Collective:

And this isn’t limited to venture capital.

Twitter avatar for @briannekimmelBrianne Kimmel @briannekimmel
The Chief Meme Officer is real.
Image
Image

August 31st 2020

45 Retweets212 Likes
Twitter avatar for @isaboemekeisabelle 🪐 @isaboemeke
in which I talk about the density of uranium
Image

September 6th 2020

603 Retweets2,607 Likes

What’s going on here?

𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨?

📈 Brand is the most valuable asset for a career

After a certain point, the value everything - from handbags to board seats - comes down to brand.

For professionals, a stronger brand means higher paying consulting gigs, better deal flow for sales/investing/hiring, etc.

Brand is also one of the most resilient assets to any career. Brands can actually increase in value over time. Skills, on the other hand, mostly decrease in value - technology makes most skills irrelevant over time.

As a result, professionals have constantly sought out ways to improve their brands. Some examples:

  • Writing books and op eds

  • Speaking at conferences

  • Appearing on TV, radio and podcasts

  • Completing higher education.

What many are realizing is that building an audience on a platform like Twitter is one of the most reliable path towards increasing one’s brand. On Twitter, brand is also highly measurable in a way that was not previously possible.

This has caused an explosion in businesses built around social media followings.

🏢 The rise of micro-entrepreneurs

Investor Li Jin says we’re witnessing the beginnings of the unbundling of work, where more and more individuals are choosing to build independent single-person businesses instead of working for companies.

Twitter avatar for @ljin18Li Jin @ljin18
We’re in the midst of a massive rearrangement in how work, and thus society, is organized. We’re going from the “Organization Man" Era to the “Unbundled Work" Era.
Image

July 29th 2020

6 Retweets45 Likes

David Perell is a classic example. Instead of working for a traditional company, David makes his money (a lot of it) selling online courses and angel investing. Twitter is his top of funnel.

Put another way, Twitter has allowed David to capture an audience. He can sell any number of products he likes to monetize it.

Twitter avatar for @david_perellDavid Perell @david_perell
~ My Business Model ~ I write, tweet, podcast, teach, and invest. Here's how my personal media engine fits together. Dark blue = The current flywheel Dotted blue = The future flywheel For an explanation of every element, read the thread below.
Image

May 25th 2020

229 Retweets2,270 Likes

In this so-called passion economy, other examples include Lenny Rachitsky (newsletters), Tiago Forte (courses), and Li Jin herself (investing).

Social media followings are also being utilized to grow venture-scale businesses as well. Austen Allred (LambdaSchool), Domm Holland (Fast), Erik Torenberg (On Deck/Village Global) and others can trace the majority of their key hires and customers back to Twitter where each has a strong presence.

And this trend is likely to continue.

Twitter avatar for @balajisbalajis.com @balajis
Founding influencer is now on par with founding engineer. An influencer with an organic community can identify a problem, pair with a technologist, crowdfund a solution, and continuously communicate progress along the way. The community derisks the process of market discovery.

August 29th 2020

296 Retweets1,778 Likes

So if building a strong following on social media is crucial to building a successful business, how do you do that?

💩 Where shitposts fit in

There are some tried and true methods for building an audience on platforms like Twitter.

Twitter avatar for @thatguyBGBrett Goldstein 🚀🏠🌴 @thatguyBG
The playbook for growing on Twitter is simple: - reply to big accounts - share your wisdom or learnings (summarize essays and podcasts from big accounts and ask for RTs) - bold statement, then bullets, then ask - be concise, smart, kind and funny - tweet a lot anything else?

September 2nd 2020

5 Retweets111 Likes

In general photos and videos receive much more engagement than text content but most of the photo and videos on Tech Twitter are memes, non-serious Tik Tok videos and other shitposts.

What’s going on? Competition

Twitter avatar for @thatguyBGBrett Goldstein 🚀🏠🌴 @thatguyBG
Venture capital is a commodity. - everyone will give you money - everyone has their hot take - everyone was an operator/founder VCs are turning to shitposting to differentiate and I'm loving it.

September 7th 2020

1 Retweet4 Likes

Since there’s so much competition and so little differentiation between products, more VCs are utilizing mockery (by way of shitposts) as a way to stand out and shut down competition.

Psychologists Jayne Raisborough and Matt Adams suggested that humans use mockery to signal moral superiority and set normative standards for behavior in groups. By creating memes and Tik Tok videos mocking venture capital, VCs are stating:

  1. “I am better than other VCs”

  2. “VCs who create serious content (especially content that takes a lot of effort) are trying too hard, and are thus low quality” (see Sprezzatura)

So where does this all leave us?

The key takeaway here is this:

𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙮𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙨

As a result, the methods for creating content (and thus growing on social media) will also converge.

Which means…

🚀 More professional collab houses will emerge

The professional world approaches with the non-professional world over time (it’s just a few years late). Just like T-shirts and jeans became accepted in the workplace, social media-focused collab houses will become commonplace for some professionals as well.

In fact, the precursors to such houses are already prevalent

Digital communities like the Type House (which I am a part of along with Li Jin, David Perell, and Turner Novak who were referenced in this post) have been exploding lately. These look and act exactly like collab houses but with less emphasis on social media growth and obviously only take place online… for now.

Twitter avatar for @ljin18Li Jin @ljin18
Type House 🏡 on @IcebreakerVideo
2pml.com/2020/07/13/typ…
Image

August 7th 2020

12 Retweets82 Likes

As remote work continues to drive individuals towards online communities like Type House, I believe we’ll see many of these communities establish IRL experiences like collab houses.

Community-centered businesses like Y Combinator and On Deck will likely be the first to do this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if companies like Google or Facebook also did at some point.

Eventually, this may all bring us to what people like Balaji have been talking about for years - the emergence of sovereign, “cloud cities.”

Twitter avatar for @balajisbalajis.com @balajis
How to start a new city - Build a community in the cloud - Organize economy around remote work - Enforce laws with smart contracts - Practice in-person norms of civility - Simulate architecture in VR - Eventually, crowdfund territory - And materialize city into the real world

June 6th 2020

890 Retweets4,403 Likes

Hell… Less than 1 week into Launch House and we’ve already taken over 3 different houses in the area. It’s only a matter of time before this becomes Launch City!


🙏 Thanks

Thanks again for reading! Leave a comment or reply - would love to hear your thoughts!

Twitter avatar for @yayalexisgayAlexis Gay @yayalexisgay
every NYC to SF transplant 😉
Image

September 1st 2020

1,227 Retweets14,340 Likes
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