George Bush doesn’t care about black people
— Kanye West
I would argue that no individual has been able to create moments around themselves / product better than Kanye West in the last 20 years. When Kanye compared himself to Jobs, Disney, and other great minds that we all look to for inspiration… it was a deeper understanding of the ability to direct a crowd on the edge.
Beyond the product. Beyond the argued brilliance or hype of his current music. Yeezy. What we are all fighting for, mentally wrestling with ourselves — as creators — is the ability to foster a unique intimacy.
A lot of times, I have this existential fear that scale will ruin the soul of an artifact. If my evolution through time will be appreciated, or will the first album always be the best.
Even though he deleted the tweet, Paari said this very true thing that went something like “most of life the only thing that matters is what your friends and family think about you, but product is the where the only thing that matters is what strangers think of you.” Something like that.
This is important, particularly for consumer. So often I get frustrated with technologists building for other technologists. And then we get the 50th version of a personal crm. No one wants it. Stop building it just because you manage a lot of loose tech relationships. No one else goes through this in the real world my guy.
There’s this thing that happens in tech where your peers become your close friends, which also becomes this very ~fun~ dynamic of your financial future and legacy in the industry. (other industries operate in this manner as well)
So then what we attempt to produce is trying to satisfy both sides of Paari’s coin. And I would argue we’ve been so self-referential, that I view most product as quite boring. Maybe mine is as well… I don’t think so. But I’m not going to act like I know everything.
I think one of the reasons I look to music and film for product inspiration, is because they understand their peer circle is not what will bring their product scale. However, this isn’t always true in tech. And again… the lines continually blur.
My point is that tech is in a dark age of commanding attention and spectacle and wonder. Except for the wonder of continually bad behavior. And this has been a point of meditation lately…
I’ve been listening to a lot of Sade. Recently, I read a Fader story about her struggle through fame, music, and life at large. I found it incredibly moving, controlled, and equally a flaming arrow through the landscape of a soul.
I just want to be who I am in the end, that's all you are anyway. It doesn't matter what anybody says about you, you are who you are in the end. Because in the end I breathe and sleep and laugh and cry, and all the things that everybody does. And that is me.
— Sade
I played competitive golf from the age of 5 up until I left for college. I’ve always been a very competitive person. I’ve always simply wanted to be better. To win affection, through some sort of ability. Every sport I’ve been drawn to, in terms of playing myself, has always been solo sport. Golf. Tennis.
Now as the Eternal team has been growing, I’ve been meditating on what exactly I’m competitive about. How to channel that for “team play” in the office. And where my current psyche is, every time I’m holding an interaction for the company.
I think this is also why I like writing, and why I will rarely send it to friends for edits. I want it to be so rawly me. Without a doubt. With all its flaws and bruises. But undoubtedly mine.
Funny enough, spiritually speaking, you can never win affection. Love comes through DESPITE what you can prove. Because if you only received what you could prove, you would never have enough.
So I’m coming to believe that this is the nature of team play as well. The collective spirit of the team, creating truth in experience, far beyond what any individual could manifest.
My final ramble is around the nature of taking as many swings as possible, while you’re watching the bank account slowly trickle in alignment with your projected burn.
Watching many founder / early team friends go through big pivots, small pivots, or shutting down their companies is interesting to experience as my team is cranking on our product.
I don’t have a lot of thoughts on this. There’s this truth that product isn’t built in a vacuum. But it’s equally not built by looking to the left and right all the time.
For a moment of incredibly brutal honesty… you almost have to not care. You obviously care about them as humans. You want them to succeed, to win, to get hella cash. But you can’t soak your consciousness with their problems. You have too many of your own. You’ve bled too much to get to your current position, and you’re going to have to bleed much more if you’re going to see your way out of it.
Every time a friend asks, “I’m noodling with this idea, I think I’m going to go out and raise some money yada yada yada”. Once they start to ask for genuine advice, the only thing I respond with is “How much pain are you willing to go through.”
That’s all this really is. Outside of falling ass-backwards into building Twitter. Something that will never die no matter how little they do to improve it. A lot of building is a constant check on individual pain tolerance. For yourself and everything you will go through as the individual, but also how much you will choose to emotionally hold for others.
I’m not going to go back and edit any of this…. so…. excuse anything that doesn’t make complete sense or typos…
Thanks so much for giving me your attention. I hope it was worth it, if not… unsubscribing will not hurt my feelings, and will give you back time you literally cannot have back.
Much love.