Turns out, there’s still a line (don’t mock the pope)

0:05This week on Great Chat, we explore the limits of going direct. Maybe building in public isn't so great after all. I'm Ashley and this week I'm joined by Angela and Helen. Great chat is brought to you by Mercury, the fintech used by entrepreneurs through every stage of company building. We use Mercury to run this podcast and love recommending it to other founders and fund managers. Try it for yourself. Visit mercury.com to join over 200 ,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to make managing their money unbelievably simple. Hi. Hey everyone. hi a lot has happened in the past week like too much i think too much has happened if you're very online that's true as if you're very offline probably nothing has happened so yeah exactly i mean like if it's if it's not on twitter is it even real no if it's offline we were just going over like what happened to like you know what happened in the world of of normal people um and two things right government shutdown and kris jenner's 70th birthday party exactly exactly um the non-tech twitter ashley i only saw that photo of her with the gloves and it was a comment about how she never shows her hands because i think you really show age with hands in a way that you can't neck mask and hand yeah neck and hands yes she was not wearing a turtleneck dress so she she let the neck ride i hated the gloves i mean the dress was great but the the black gloves just like i thought she was was she like giving a magic show or something maybe who was maybe angela were you there no i was focused on her face i mean she looks amazing and it gives everyone hope that you can get amazing work done in the u.s you don't have to move to korea for three months to get this done you can just stay stay inside we're bringing bringing the important we're reshoring the important skills here in the u.s which include plastic surgery there was a tech crossover though because mark zuckerberg and priscilla chan were at her birthday as well and it was hosted at jeff bezos's residence so there was there's some crossover for the tech crowd Oh, I didn't realize it was at Jeff's house.

2:29That's so random. I mean, I guess they were at his wedding. He's hosting the birthday. I was really thinking like, man, the Kardashians have had so much more staying power than I would have imagined like a couple decades ago when the whole thing was like, oh, these people are famous for being famous. And they have shown real longevity. And I'm impressed. Okay. what was that what was a tech head yeah so i think there were a lot of comments about like yeah because me texting you guys filling you in like the nine part monogamy ish guy what corner of twitter was that because i i don't know angela it was my entire feed i don't know what the algorithm okay good thank you i wasn't the only one because you didn't chime in and everyone's like what i'm like i can't give it never mind maybe we can give like a really quick tldr there was this guy who declared that you know he's been looking for a spouse and if he can't find one he's gonna have babies on his own obviously be a surrogate and he really wants to be a dad and as a lot of twitter moments go like at first it was like super positive yeah the arc oh like arc yeah actually very important detail his twitter bio is aspiring wife guy yeah it actually was wife guy and then someone was like this is confusing if you're trying oh then you put it aspiring aspiring i'm telling you i've gone way too deep on this also just a weird thing to put into it like it's like that it's just like an interesting message to put out there you know oh no this is his whole personality that's fine i thought that was fine angela the thing to know this is like his mission in life.

4:15Like he, I guess he's not really working because he has a company that he. No, he's a venture back founder. Obviously this was going that direction. Yeah. He doesn't have to work for money. Um, he has a lot of time. He lives in Massachusetts near his family and like all he wants is to get married and have babies. And, um, he has this like date me doc, which I think is a newer trend. I like, I was dating before even like mobile dating apps. So I don't really know, but it basically is like notion doc with like everything about him. And he sounded like kind of a catch despite maybe being a little bit on the desperate side.

4:52Six foot four. Six foot four. Wait, what? Okay, but can we just take a, like, how is it possible that he is not, like, I just don't believe that like he can't reveal that. In like Twitter back and forth, it comes out that he's not exactly monogamous. And what he would like is to have a wife and kids, but also be able to have sex with other people. And so that was not in his doc anywhere. Like the internet's losing its mind. It's like, of course, of course you can't find anyone. I think specifically people, Twitter did what it did, which they're like combing through his tweets from like 2017, you know, like.

5:29No, no, he was like, these were like live replies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty of like very recent material, but then like, you know, they were finding stuff from all years. So guys, he updated his doc. There are now some bullets on how together he and his future spouse are going to figure out what feels great to them for an open relationship. And he went private on Twitter. So that is the end of the story. But it's like, yeah, it's like, it was like a, you know, the classic, like, build up and then crash. And just the time period in which this happens. Traditional news doesn't stand a chance.

6:11Like, how do you even cover that? Like, by the time this this podcast airs, there will be is there going to be a redemption arc, though? Like this? Great question, Angela. Great question. The hero's journey, the build up the takedown like we need we need the redemption. he'll be married he'll be married by the time this podcast comes out and we will all have been wrong you can have your cake and eat it too i just want to point out that this is the second time this year that a boston-based founder ceo has made headlines where everyone's like what does this company do astronomer and this guy yeah both times i'm like wait what um oh that's what the company does okay I'm definitely not going to invest any Boston-based companies.

6:56It's too risky. Unforced. It's a great tech hub. But to your point around, like, the craziness of news cycles and following something, like, I mean, this isn't even news. It's just, like, I felt the same way about the Pope and Marc Andreessen. Oh, Pope Twitter. And the Sidney Sweeney meme. Wait, I missed all of this? Can some, like, I saw the notes in the chat about the Marc-Pope tweet, but, like, what what happened and what was the tweet so there was this interview I forgot what the publication was was it Vanity Fair it was it was it was some magazine um and it was this woman and she was interviewing Sidney Sweeney and I think she sort of egged her on a little bit about like asking her to defend sort of the the defense of the American Eagle like good genes campaign and you know i think sydney sweeney just didn't take the bait i think people are actually over if you actually watch the clip they're over glorifying how how like excellent she was of a comms professional of not taking the bait i think oh i don't think anyone thought she was excellent she just kind of seemed like a petulant teenager there were a lot of people who were like 10 out of 10 no notes and i'm like no she just seems frozen she seems really freaked out like anyways So there are a lot of screenshots of Sydney Sweeney doing like this, like, you know, ice face and not giving it to the interviewer who's sort of giving this kind of like patronizing, eyebrow raising look that Marc Andreessen screenshotted.

8:32Right. You know, she was kind of like, you know, I want to give you a chance. Like, I feel like you really deserve. It was super patronizing. Yeah, very inauthentic. authentic. And so it was kind of like the perfect juxtaposition of, especially at this like anti-media time of this like journalist being very patronizing, being very condescending. And Sydney just like looking at her like, like a bored teenager. And this meme became a big thing before Mark, um, before Mark used it. Um, so it was like all over my feed and people were, were having a lot of fun with it with like the journalist face juxtaposed with like sydney sweeney's face it's been a while since we had a good like new meme anyways the pope the pope tweeted something and this is this is a tweeting pope oh i saw that that was like ethical ai and and we should think about humans and yeah i thought it was a great tweet i was i was thrilled to see it but mark andreason retweeted it with the screenshot of the woman's face that was like sort of like you know the the eyebrow raising sort of like patronizing thing and i think a bunch of people like you know meme accounts like growing daniel were like don't walk the pope and then he deleted it and so i think people then read into that as this like oh there's a line you know well the funny thing is it's hard to say what the bigger what the bigger sin was mark andreessen mocking the pope or mark andreessen getting the meme wrong.

10:05He got the meme wrong. He got the meme wrong. And it's like, and I think it was like, I honestly, my feed was, was going to town on both. And then yes, you also got like growing Daniel, you know, he was defending the Pope, but then other people were critiquing the meme. And it was just like this, such an online moment. It sounds insane to even try to talk about it. So what was the right way of using the meme? And what was the wrong way of using the mean like what what did he do and what should he have done so he probably should have used the sydney sweeney face like the the pope is like oh you should you know you should be ethical in your use of ai and try to make the world a better place and probably the right use would be to have like the sort of petulant like oh like eye-rolling sydney sweeney face but instead he had the ingratiating journalist face, which like didn't quite work.

11:03Although some people were trying to stretch and make that fit. So anyways, I mean, I empathize. I'm like terrified of using memes wrong. So I only do it after. I'm sure I like fully understand. 100 % I'm terrified as well. Did he actually do it or is there some poor intern that's now fired for using the wrong face for the meme? Oh, it was definitely Mark. I don't think an intern is like quote tweeting the Pope with a meme designed to mock him. But then there was this sidebar where people are pointing out that the reason why Mark had a reaction to that at all is that, you know, A, 16 and Z is only funding like vices and things that are net negative for society.

11:44And so it was sort of the first time I'd ever really seen like a little bump of criticism, I think, around a lot of the hype of, you know, A, 16 and Z in its megafund era. Have we found finally the edges of founder mode? Like we thought, but now it's like criticizing the Pope. I think I actually turned to my husband and I was like, oh, turns out one of the edges is mocking the Pope. We found another edge, by the way, guys. And I like, I tried to make a joke and then I decided, you know what, I'm just going to sit this out and not bait the billionaires. But Mark Benioff, another Mark with a C, stepped in it as well when he called for the National Guard to come to San Francisco.

12:26And so I feel like everyone feels like a little bit too safe and risk on. And it turns out there are still some hard lines and the Marks are finding those lines for us. So thank you. Don't mock the Pope. Don't call in the National Guard. And if you're marked with a C, be very careful about what you tweet. Mark my words. That was like my pun I wanted to do. I was like, oh, anytime you are going to tweet something and you're like, I hope this doesn't get engagement, you should just not tweet it. So that was my journey there. I only follow robotics companies and my entire feed is just like robotics.

13:04There was some like good robotics beef on Twitter as well, but I'm missing. What was the robotics beef? There was this company in China that had a humanoid robot that like had the figure of a female, like just like a female anatomy. And it was so lifelike that people were convinced it was like a human that was wearing just the outer skin of the robot. So the founder actually cut open the robot to show people. Oh, God. This was a robot and not a human. It was getting very Westworld. Meanwhile, on robotics Twitter. This reminds me of the most disturbing TikTok and Reels trend I've seen lately, which is people baking these elaborate cakes that look like their pets.

13:49So like a cake that looks a lot like a cat or a cake that looks a lot like a dog. And then having the cat or dog watch as they cut into it. And the animals freak out. Yeah. And like someone would bat the knife away or attack the human. Who wouldn't freak out? oh it's like torture all of those wait this is on your instagram reels yes i think like okay i just said angela yesterday the thing that is all over my instagram reels which is these couples usually asian couple where a woman does her makeup and hair on her significant other and then does a reveal and they fucking look like twins. That's my real.

14:38That's what I get. And that's what you get. Mine is like, hey, you like animals and cake. And here's the most twisted mashup of those categories. This shit's twisted too. I'll send it to you. I don't mean to just send it to Angela. Yeah, please send it to me. My last moment of pop culture, um some of my friends were in china for some off sites and i mean this was a summer of labubu which are over now right well now there's like these extra large labubus that are like you know oh god zamumus i think are what they're called but it's like you know a few hundred dollars and like very very rare they're kind of like birkins like the guidance is if you see one sally for sure already has one.

15:23PSA, if you're in Asia and you see a Zamumu, like buy it. Damn. Okay. It's like the Beanie Baby craze, except it doesn't go on long enough for you to amass wealth. Oh my gosh. What a perfect metaphor for where we're at right now. Like these flash in the pan sort of like, you know, hype moments and then doesn't go on long enough for anyone to amass well. Okay. So back to our good friends, Mark Andreessen and maybe Mark Benioff finding some of the boundaries. I think Helen, it was you in the group chat. It was like, I feel like the vibes have shifted. And one of the other proof points was Cluely, which we've talked about before and is the brash, you know, cheat on everything app, which recently pivoted to an enterprise AI note taker, but the founders started talking about the challenges of like building distribution ahead of product and product market fit.

16:26Same thing with Roloff being so public and on stage ahead of the Sequoia leadership transition. So all of these things are kind of adding up to, is there a limit to building in public, going direct, this sort of mania that we've been in with everyone telling their stories as loudly as possible, because I think we're starting to see some of the downsides or backlashes to that. And so maybe it'd be fun to chat a little bit about, is this a shift? Is this a blip? What's happening? Ashley, you and I got that question, right, at TechCrunch Disrupt, which was like, have we reached the peak? Are we at the top?

17:08And I think you and I had different answers for it. But I think one of the things to look for on whether things are shifting, like the tides are turning or we're swinging the other way, is like a really successful company that was building in private emerges. or a really successfully, you know, building in public company turns out to be, you know, very unsuccessful and like what would have made them more, because they did not pay attention to like fundamentals of like a good product that people love and, you know, retentive customers, all those things. And so I think we started to see some of those pieces last week.

17:49And then that got me wondering, like, yes, had Roloff both not done that podcast, right? Like, would there have been such a stark contrast? Or would there have been such a, would there have been as much chatter about him being caught off guard with the sort of leadership change, right? And it's like, I think before when leaders were measured and there were many more layers between them and going direct, right? There's like a comms, there are many comms people and there's a reporter and there's an editor at the publication, et cetera, et cetera. It's sort of like safeguards for this particular situation.

18:28Because, I mean, the other thing that happened last week was Sam Altman did that podcast, right, with Brad. And people were really dissecting all of his body language and, you know, some of the things that he said. And, you know, I think that that was the we talked about this with Yoni last week where like people were starting to critique like maybe the ways that he's he doesn't answer super truthfully. And then there's this narrative of him not always like lying casually. And then they were using the clips from the, from the podcast to support that. And, you know, so the question was like, would he have just been better off not doing the podcast?

19:06Right. Like, again, like, are there, are we starting to see the cracks in the limitations of going direct and being so accessible, right. To, to your audience all the time. I mean, I think we are starting to see some of the cracks and it's probably really helpful for founders or people who are paying attention and wondering what they should do to see some of these boundaries. My hunch is that this is more of a blip than a shift, especially when it comes to, I don't think things are going to be any less noisy. But I think we've been kind of in a sloppy era of go direct, build in public, founder mode.

19:47Everyone's risk on. I also think like a lot of the antics that have gotten attention over the past six months are starting to feel a little old anyways. And so I think we're just maybe entering like we're going to raise the bar for what is successful when it comes to building in public or when it comes to going direct or telling your story. Like a tighter, more like, you know, a little bit less sloppy. Yeah. But still very direct. this is like um staged candids like if you've ever done a photo shoot it's like staged candids like authentic but like haha pretend like you're honestly I am the worst at staged candids like my wedding photos like the ones that are good are where I'm just like smiling and looking at the camera we're in the staged candids era I love this because have you seen those insane tiktoks of how gen z takes staged candids they are like literally like moving like oh yeah the shuffling the shuffling feet.

20:46And then the photo looks at me. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Great. As an observer of the space, it feels like it, things crescendo and decrease. Like I think a few months ago during the summer when it was like the AI talent wars, it just felt like things had gone totally insane with, you know, Mark and everyone out there talking about it. But even for him, I felt like he was very out there talking about Meta. And then it's kind of been silenced for a while and They've been focused on building their business. So it feels like founders are trying to use it where it benefits them, but then also back away from it.

21:19And I don't know if that's sustainable or not. That's really interesting. And I wonder how much of that is like the whiplash that comes from being like, yeah, I mean, you have to know what game you're playing, especially if you're good at it. Like, because as Mark, you know, Mark Andreessen's very good at internet, but like he made a misstep and now he's deleted all those tweets. And there are definitely like drawbacks to being super public and for being a little bit riskier with how you show up online. And so you have to have the appetite for that if you really want to make this make this core to your strategy.

21:58my hope and I don't know how realistic this is but I feel like a lot of the like the go direct energy has been very self-promotional and hypey which honestly is only interesting to like those teams and their cap tables and I just think we're missing out on like more interesting conversations and points of view and I was thinking back to if you had asked me two years ago who was emblematic of like going direct or building in public, it was Ryan Peterson at Flexport. And he wasn't like hyping Flexport and like making a video about the latest fundraise. He was talking about supply chain disruption and was like driving the entire conversation on that and making Flexport's brand synonymous with this category.

22:49And I don't think anyone's doing that right now. It's more like... I think Ryan Peterson and Aaron Levy, similar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Roughly they stay in this like pretty narrow lane, but they're human and authentic and they'll bring in parts of their life. That's like, to me, like one flavor of going direct. And now we're in this like other. Yeah. And this is where I'm saying like the current era has felt like a, like a little sloppy, a little promotional and that's fine. And I don't even, you know, I think, I think it's great to experiment. I just think in order for that to continue to get attention, people are going to have to raise the bar on the quality of their storytelling.

23:27And that doesn't mean you have to do the Ryan Peterson or Aaron Levy playbook. It just means like you might need to have more to say than like how fast you've grown or the valuation of your latest fundraise. It's hard not to think about this and using that contrast and not think about age and life experience. because I think that Aaron Levy and Ryan Peterson are like experts and they're now seasoned CEOs, you know, seasoned executives in their respective businesses. Whereas a lot of what we've been seeing recently are like younger founders and younger VCs that have like maybe less to draw from.

24:06So it's like the splashiness of it all. I think we're all creatures of the cultural context we exist in, right? And so like, I fully believe that any age, you can have like a big vision or a big point of view that is, that sort of supersedes your product and your company, but that's just not the vibe right now. And so I think the question is, will there be sort of a shift? And, and will we see, like, a sort of a different playbook emerge? And I'm, you know, not because it should, but just because the shtick gets old. I even saw it's, I love it. Like Twitter is so fast to call a vibe shift. And someone the other day was like, now business fundamentals are back.

24:53Like revenue and profitability. And it's like Michael from WorkOS. Yeah. And I, I'm not even like saying that's not true. It's like those, A never went away. And also just because like Mark Andreessen got the Pope, Pope tweet wrong, like, like meme wrong, doesn't mean that suddenly, like the way VCs are evaluated. Anyways, we're, we're, we're very fast to be like, everything's changed because of the online discourse, or because Cluelly is having a hard time hitting its numbers. So, so anyways, so we'll, we'll see, but I think. But how much of this is like, yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about Angela and this like, you know, thing that I always think about as, you know, when late stage or growth stage investors make bets, like, yes, there's a vibes element to it.

25:42But there's also like a data room with 30 docs that they're like combing through and analyzing and, you know, putting up against benchmarks of their own. Whereas earlier stage, it is so much about vibes. And so I think we've just been this like, in this vibes era, and maybe like these later stage investors have just been looking at this phenomenon, like, what the fuck is that anyways, right? And so maybe not so much, maybe things are not actually changing that much. And this was just almost like a weird blip that early stage investing, because it's more art than science, was just going to be subject to.

26:19And we're seeing the boundaries of that. I think you're right. And I think also so much of this is just about how hard it is to see around corners right now. Right. So it's not surprising that like vibes are beating vision personalities beating brands momentum's beating direction like the future feels a little fuzzy it's a little non-linear and so you know clarity of of vision and story and point of view are maybe harder to come by but like telling a story around like momentum and and leaning into founder persona those are things that are more accessible And so I wonder how much of this is a reflection of just this particular platform shift and how hard.

27:06I mean, we were sharing some tweets in the debate of like, should anyone even invest in the application layer because the foundation models are going to eat that whole part of the stack, right? Like that is a very real ongoing debate that founders, investors, everyone in the ecosystem is having. And so if that is an open question, I think it's just reflective of how hard it is collectively to sort of agree on what the future might look like. And in the absence of that, what we have left are vibes. When I left Facebook, so I was at Facebook for five and a half years. And when I left, I remember having this moment where I looked at my Facebook activity and I was like, oh, God, just really horrified.

27:54I mean, as as employees, you are encouraged to just be sharing nonstop all day. Like I would take a photo of my lunch, you know, from the cafeteria and make some joke. I would be like everything. And then I just went like dark for a year. And I felt this sense of just like regret and shame. But also I'm not going to go through and delete every single post. Right. And so I remember that feeling so vividly that I think I'm very careful right now. I'm in my like you know investor era of not being so online because like maybe when I'm you know at my 70th birthday looking snatched with my new face or whatever I'm gonna like not want this you know trail of of of tweets basically I feel like I'm the opposite Helen I'm like embracing the cringe well you have a you have an audience that just you know they're they're dying to see the content like that's that's not me but like that but like I think the other part is um I have like a blog and I try to have real like crazy high standards for every piece I want it to be ever green and for it to be something 10 years from now for it to be to be relevant and resonant and so I used like Twitter almost as like a testing ground for like the does does this resonate is this something you know where it's like then that's all sort of feeding into like what I would do on the blog.

29:13And so that was one way where, you know, cause I, I often ask myself and I get this question all the time. It's like, am I, should I be doing more? What is the right thing? You know, everybody's very online and sharing all the time. Like, should I, I feel guilty that I'm a venture-backed founder and like that I'm not doing that. Do my employees want me to do that? All these, all these questions. So the should questions that we get all the time and the shoulds change and you know I'm just a big fan of like doing what's right for you and whether that's what feels right you know like what's what's honestly the right way to prioritize um your activity and your time and your energy um and so my thing like I've been trying to like be less online which is not evident by this weekend's sort of catch up on this monogamous monogamous guy but I'm just like, I do a couple days on and then a couple days off.

30:05Or like I'll tweet, I'll send something and then I won't check Twitter for like a day or two so that I won't check the engagement with the post or whatever. And so I'm like trying different stuff out, but I don't really know. This makes me think that we should develop an AI agent that just, it's like your internal IR comms person. Each person should just have their own agent that reviews their tweets, tells them the engages, like, sort of, you need to back off. You need to lean in. Like, this is where you should tweet it at. Like, that's what, that's what we're going to create. Okay, but mine is Claude.

30:35I use Claude for that. Okay, well, my problem is Chad CPT thinks everything I suggest is brilliant. And sometimes I'm like, Chad CPT. No, no, no, it's not. It's definitely not. Just accept it. Just accept the roses, Ashley. Everything you say is gold. No, no, no. No, this is like, this is not that my stuff is brilliant. This is, this is, uh, right now our, our, uh, models are a little sycophantic or at least chat CPT still is. So that's why we need to create the agent. This is, this is the first product for great chat enterprises. We should train it on like super skeptical, cynical people. I used to think I could do this as a service, like, you know, pay me a hundred bucks and I'll tell you.

31:18The cringe meter. Yeah. Cringe or like, oh, you're about to step in it. And just because, you know, I can do that all day. I could I could do like 100 of those a day just on my breaks. Anyways, but Helen, I think you're right. Also, this is why it's so fun to be an emerging manager who's also working closely with founders on this stuff, because you have deep empathy, right? Like you're figuring it out for yourself. And then you also have the benefit of looking across the portfolio and seeing, oh, like how visible you are is not like tied to how successful you are. Oh, yeah. One thousand percent.

31:51like examples of companies in my portfolio yeah yeah I mean it's it's it's not it's not indicative at all and so um but I mean there are certain the thing I always say is like if it is an unfair advantage to your business for you to be more visible and if you have the aptitude and appetite appetite it's a shame not to figure out how to be um more online more visible whatever whatever the right channels are. And so, but that's, that's not the case for everyone or every business. And so it's great to have a few cautionary tales. So people take a moment to think like, is this, do I need to be Cluey?

32:30The answer is probably no. Yeah. I like your, your, um, Ashley as a service. It's like, is this a banger? Too bad that's pronounced ass. Okay, guys, we have two questions from one of our listeners. We'll see if we can get through both. The first is I'm working on becoming an accredited investor within the next year or two. My goal is to start angel investing and break into VC. Recently, two emerging manager friends who I admire greatly asked me to be LPs in their fund. I was flattered, but it made me start thinking, is that a good way to get my start in investing? I think Ashley mentioned that's how she started.

33:12Quick fact check. It's not. I started with angel investing directly, but I think I have said that I wish I'd also made a few LP investments earlier, because it just gives you a better sense of like how other people approach it, more of an ecosystem view. But Helen, I mean, you did this. What do you think? Yeah, fund investing, I think, is a good way to get a ton of information. I would then, you know, ask the fund that you're investing in, you know, how they communicate with their LPs. What should I expect? Do you get a, do you send quarterly letters? Can I see a sample of one you've sent in the past and how much detail.