One rule of old media is don't be interesting. Like that's the worst thing you can do.
There is no way to get to anything resembling a story that you're going to like through the traditional media anymore. Like it's just basically not possible. Old media you had very restricted channels with very restricted formats. New media is unlimited formats, unlimited channels. And the brand is now the person. The grand wizard of this is Alex Carp. If you watch his interviews, he never talks about Palantir. Everybody just naturally thinks inside out, me and my company and my product out into the world. Don't think that way. Think in terms of like what are the most interesting things happening in the world and then how do those things relate to us.
Old media is defense-oriented. New media is offense. Talk more about why that is.
There's still this anxiety that people have, which is legacy media somehow is like where the respectability is, the prestige is. I don't believe that anymore and I think it's very important for people to kind of get that out of their system.
So, first I just want to say it's Gabby's birthday today. Uh, welcome Gabby.
Uh, you know, I'm so excited the Knicks won in five for many reasons, but one is that Ben had floor seats to game six and wasn't going to make it today. And so, we're so lucky that we get to have Ben here. And uh, you know, Marc not a huge basketball guy but he uh he did tweet about how Jalen Brunson, he had a comment where that he operates purely on instinct uh not on introspection and uh Marc uh appreciate that.
Obviously working, many people are saying, you know, across industries and so I actually think that's a pretty interesting segue because one of the rules of new media uh Marc that we were talking about with the CEO last week in our growth portfolio is uh authenticity and sort of being able to have the same conversations on camera that you would have um in person behind closed doors. Um why don't you talk about uh that a bit more and why that's so important uh to really nail in terms of nailing your voice and how to build that presence because a lot of mistakes that founders will make is trying to be too buttoned up, trying to be too media trained, etc. As we uncover the new rules of new media, why don't you start there?
Yeah. So, I had this really formative experience when I was younger. So in the 90s when I was coming, when Ben and I were coming up um and so you know in those days, pre-blogs, pre-YouTube, all this stuff. Um and so in those days you know the assumption was 100% of what you did if you were running a company or doing anything was you're going to have to work through you know established media, legacy media. Um and so and then everybody would get you know of course media trained uh in how to do it and you know most painful experience in the world.
Oh yeah. So for people who haven't been through media training it's actually...
Yeah. So, okay. So, here's how media training works. I don't know if they still do it, but do they still do it? Do you guys still do it? Okay. Yeah, probably. Okay. So, for people who haven't been through it. Yeah. So, it's like you get put in front of one of these cameras in your face and then somebody like, you know, who you think is your friend um you know, they do like the full 60 Minutes interview with you. Um and you know, whatever. And then they, you know, for like an hour and then they literally make you sit there and watch it, which is just like the meanest thing you could do to somebody.
And critique you and you're looking at yourself, [__] it up. And they're going, "You see how you [__] that up?"
And you're like, "Wow, I'm really uncomfortable now. I'm never going on TV."
Exactly. And you're like, "Can we just fast forward?" "No, you can't fast forward. We're going to watch the entire thing."
Um, and then maybe we'll watch it again.
Um, and so it is very revealing. Uh, and you discover all kinds of things about your personal... By the way, also, you discover all the things you do, all the extra words,
How much you hate your voice.
Yes. Exactly. How much you hate how you look. I mean, it's incredible. It's incredible. And so, if your ego survives the beating, you go on to a successful career. Um and so um you know that's what you did and then but it was always so weird because it's like the result is just like it just always struck me as just like the result is like wow you see like important people with important things to say on TV or whatever they just seem like plastic people they just seem like it's all very you know fake and staged and then by the way you know this is like you know in the old days it's like you know because all the anchor people or interviewers are all like you know using you know anchor man voice and then you get a CEO up there who just says like the most innocuous things possible and a lot of CEOs in those days and by the way still they rank their success in doing an interview or giving a speech based on minimum controversy, right? So they come off stage, I've worked with lots of CEOs, like they come off stage they're very proud of themselves because they didn't make any news, right? Um so sort of like that and so.
Right? So I go through the media...
So I get, we hire at the time a company, we hired you know at the time was considered the best media trainer uh who was a guy um uh who uh had previously been a producer at 60 Minutes you know.
Lee Zeldin, who'd been a producer, he was actually quite a well-known guy at the time. Um he had been uh Lesley Stahl's producer and Lesley Stahl became... no, um.
Well I mean Mike Wallace, it was that whole complex, but he's like, we're not doing any of the classic media training that we do. He said we're going to do the thing that everybody always underrates which is we're going to get you to basically just say all the things in public that you would say if you were sitting having lunch with a friend, right? And I remember like the back of my head like, you know, just like blew open because it's just like, okay. And then immediately you're like, okay, why are we paying this guy? And then it's like, you know, because that's like very obvious advice and it's like nobody else will give you that advice. And what's going on. He just said, look, he said the following. He said, if you are on stage or in an interview and you were talking about something and you don't know that topic inside out already, like what the hell are you doing there? So the only thing that you should ever be talking about is something that you know intimately. If you know it intimately, you should be able to talk about it in a viscerally interesting uh way. Um, you know, that really relays your thoughts in the thing and you ought to be able to come across as a very interesting person because you're, you know, it's just like if you're sitting across the table talking to a friend. And so he's like my training is 100% to try to get you to not do all the other stuff and basically be able to do that. Um, and then you know the other part because you assume the media is adversarial. The other part was then you know the, I forget what he called it, the pivot or whatever, which was basically just the thing of like you never answer their questions, you always answer your own questions, which by the way makes it a little unnatural, right?
It does. It's the Jedi Knight thing that made that whole approach work, which is it's just like, okay, you're talking naturally. Well, one of the ways you talk naturally is you just refuse to answer the bad questions and then you just substitute in your good question. Anyway, so he went through the whole thing. And so then I, you know, we've been watching the evolution of the whole new media landscape for 30 years. And it's just like, wow, if you watch what Palmer Luckey does or if you watch what Alex Karp does or if you watch what Elon does or you watch what any of the great communicators do, like that's what they're doing. Uh you know, I say put Jensen in that rank, you know, lately. Um it's just like wow. It's like and by the way, you know, this is the rise of the long form podcast, you know, the three-hour conversation. Um and then just, you know, by the way, the sort of rise of the idea of just like interesting people having interesting conversations, which you know was very radical at one point, which is now a common thing. Um and so I think that remains the actual advice. And of course, Erik, to your point, what that gets across is authenticity, which is like, okay, am I, you know, in addition to what's being said, do I actually, as the viewer audience, do I actually feel like I'm meeting the real person?
Related, um we've been talking about how old media is defense-oriented, new media is offense. Um talking more about why that is and what that playbook looks like. One of the things we were talking about Marc also in that meeting is the importance of outside-in and situating sort of your story within the context of what's happening externally.
Yeah. So the press in my view, and reporters furious at me when I say this which is why I know that I'm correct. Um uh the traditional press, legacy press defined itself as having two functions, right? Which one was you know impartial journalism, objective journalism, sometimes called the voice from nowhere, which meant you know presenting both sides of something. Um, by the way, under the assumption that everything has two sides and by the way, not more than two sides. And so that there's always something a little bit weird about that. But, you know, at least the idea of like showing an issue, explaining it, articulating it, letting different spokespeople, you know, for the different points of view actually say it. Um, and then they had this, the second mission was to speak truth to power.
Yeah, that was the one that got in the way of the first.
That's the one that got in the way of the first one. So, speak truth to power. And that became the way they ended up describing that was it was uh uh afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
Yeah. Right. Uh, and of course, you know, at this point we know what that means. Um.
Yeah.
Well, it devolved into uh power to truth. So, it's like the press's way of intimidating you into not saying what you thought. Um, so.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because it's a line between actually objective and then activist, right? Somebody with an agenda. Um, and so I think my view is what happened over time is that that second one just light swamped the first one and then it just became the thing. And then as a consequence like just the very nature of the interaction changed and you I mean the short version is I did tons of traditional media between 1994 and 2017 and you know every once in a while there's a hit piece or a bad faith thing or whatever but like I don't know 90% of the time I felt like it had been a good idea to do it and I felt like you know I'd been given a chance to tell my thing. By the way, for almost that entire run, most people in the country and in the press thought startups were kind of cool and tech was kind of cool and kind of fun and it was kind of good for America that there were these tech companies and the products were kind of fun to use.
I kind of remember those days.
Yeah. In the ancient myths of the past, you know, they just, you know, and it was exciting, you know, everything was exciting and then, you know, then a lot of reporters, editors, and you know, they genuinely viewed as like, oh, we need to like explain this to our readers and our viewers and really really have this come across. And then as we like to say like in 2017 things changed. Um and basically since then my view is that that sort of second mode of being um uh you know which is the sort of agenda driven you know kind of really took over which I think probably will never actually unwind. Um and so it's just the practical reality as we always tell our founders like there is no way um to get to anything resembling a story that you're going to like through the traditional media anymore. Like it's just basically not possible. Um you know every once in a while.
You can land a story but you can't run a strategy. Yeah.
Yeah. Like people point to individual success and I'll just be like okay that's the exception that proves the rule like you know there's 99 others um you know that are not like that and so there just needs to be a new approach then I think the new approach comes in two parts. It comes you know as we all call now go direct which is you have to tell your own story and increasingly through your own channels and through the channels of allies. And then the other thing is, you know, new voices uh and new media. Um and because the legacy press has gone so bananas, you know, obviously there's this just massive opportunity that's opened up uh you know for the creation of new media and it's just like the examples, you know, many of whom are in this room are just spectacular, I think, with what's happening. Well, it used to be, it's actually really funny. It used to be even in the golden age media like Charlie, like if you wanted to watch a smart person talk about something for an hour, it was Charlie Rose. And when I was a kid in the 80s, it was Charlie Rose at midnight.
Um there was something called the CBS Overnight. Uh CBS News Overnight and he was literally at midnight and I would and this is like you know pre the VCR and you'd stay up until midnight to watch a smart conversation and to go from that to what we have today in the podcast world in the Substack world is just such an incredible advance um and going incredibly well. So I think the new media world is just supremely, you know, just incredibly high quality, doing incredibly well. Um, you know, but there's still this anxiety that people have, which is the legacy media somehow is like where the I don't know. I mean, it sounds so silly to say anymore, but like the respectability or the prestige is. And I at least I don't believe that anymore. And I think it's very important for people to kind of get that out of their system because the world has changed to your point. So, so we were just in Washington and so we were with like all the kind of Washington people, senators and whatnot and uh I was asking them you know what does everybody in Washington read and it's the Mark Halperin newsletter um which is new media uh so I fully expect Axios, the Washington Post and so forth because by the way the one hold out from you know kind of people in the firm on like old media is well except for Washington they all read this old, you know, stuff and not even that is true. So, so I think Marc's right.
Yeah.
Marc, you mentioned um going direct. We're certainly in the era now of going direct. It feels like it's table stakes for founders. Um but I've talked to a lot of founders who feel that now they have sort of a second job of being the spokesperson for their company on top of running the business day-to-day. And you can even think of a lot of great founders who spent their lives or careers in a lab or staring at a computer and this is not what they've been trained in. So I'm curious both of your advice for founders who maybe are uninterested in doing this or they don't know where to start. Do they have to get good at it or are there other paths for them to get their company the attention it deserves?
Yeah. So I think this is tricky. So if you just go okay old media and how did that work and new media? So old media um you had like very restricted channels with very restricted formats um and the brands were the companies. So like that's basically the setup. So yes, you could talk to the New York Times or CNN or whatever if you wanted to get the word out. Um but then you were forced into like a quote or a very short interview or something like that and then you were representing um a brand that wasn't you. And that's just kind of how it worked. And so the whole media strategy basically was just get your name out there without tainting the company to the point where like it could never recover. Uh which is kind of how you got into this very defensive posture because you can never take back anything. That was like a big rule in old media. Then you get to new media and new media is so the opposite in that it's unlimited formats, unlimited channels and the brand is now the person. So it's not like were people talking about like when every Democrat came out and was mad about SpaceX? They weren't. They were mad about Elon because he's a brand and the same thing like is it Palantir or is it Alex? Um and is it Andrew or is it Palmer? And that's just over and over again. So the companies that are winning in marketing, the brand is the person. And I guess like if you had another founder or somebody who is a really permanent fixture and not the CEO, you could imagine that person kind of getting that person off to be the brand, but it's going to be a person. Like I don't think there's a way around that. And then the rule of new media is it has to be interesting because otherwise it's going to get drowned out. And so you have to be, it has to be a person and that person has to be interesting. Uh, which is why old media is so dangerous because the one rule of old media is don't be interesting. Like that's the worst thing you can do. Um, you'll f everything up. And so I don't think a company can get away without it. Now like if you look at like us as a firm, like technically I'm really the CEO, but like Marc is more the brand I would say in terms of he just does way more media than I do. Uh, and that works, but it works because it's Andreessen Horowitz and nobody knows the [__] difference on the outside. It's fine. Um, and there are, you can set up your company that way where they don't have to know how you're run. Like that's fine, but it's got to be somebody who's there kind of forever with uh the organization. It can't be like the vice president of marketing who's here for a three-year run and then is gone. Like that'll never work.
Anduril is another example.
Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite things happens about once a week is when I get somebody congratulates me on writing Ben's book.
Which he always takes full credit for.
I do. I do. I just like I really poured all my blood, sweat, and tears into just I'm so glad somebody finally read it. Um, so um you know, look, so I think there's actually a technological explanation for what Ben said that is actually I think quite important. So you know up until basically what was it, Ben, like the 1930s or something like companies were not, they didn't have corporate brands. You had it was the Ford, you had people, it was the Ford Motor Company.
It was Thomas Edison. Yeah.
It was the Edison Electric Company, right? So it was just like name on the door. It was literally name on the door. It never even, I mean I'm positive it never occurred to Henry Ford to name his company anything other than the Ford Motor Company.
Well, he did have a company before the Ford Motor Company, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which was like I think I can't remember. Somebody's got to look it up. I think it became like Cadillac or something like it was actually like a car company that lasted but he was CTO. He wasn't CEO and he got in such a furious fight because he was a hot-head Henry Ford um with the CEO that he quit his own company.
Yeah. But a lot of those are Chrysler, like Chrysler was one of those guys um you know a lot of the early...
Oh yeah. They're all named after themselves and I think actually maybe it was like Ford and then when he quit they renamed it. That could be it.
Something else. Yeah. So it was like name on the door.
