What’s on my mind — 01/06/20
Some things I’ve been thinking about
1. The IRL Social Experience —
The Wing. Soho House. Ethel’s Club. Chief.
What’s old is new again. As our social lives have migrated online over the last decade, it seems increasingly novel to create a dedicated, physical place to meet — and meet up with — others . A confluence of factors (disillusionment with FB, the “loneliness epidemic”, and the success of the early leaders named above) is spurring a new explosion of activity in creating social spaces and experiences. Hell, even my brother’s menswear line has its own clubhouse!
There are a lot of different ways to think about this trend.
What I’ve listed so far are the brick-and-mortar social clubs, but there are also the platform plays: the online facilitators of in-real-life interactions, which includes everything from Tinder to Meetup.com.
There are those players that are community-first, focused primarily on the social experience, as with the Wing and those that lead with a different emphasis or product, but for whom the social experience is integral, like Chief with its focus on career and mentorship.
The theme of IRL social experiences also intersects with lots of other trends, from mental health and wellness to remote work. While the former is obvious, the latter is less so. 19% of remote workers cite loneliness as their biggest struggle with remote work. The growing remote workforce is going to need places to go to have human interaction over and above that which they get with their baristas!
This may even end up playing into what the future of office space looks like — offices may become primarily social spaces for key meetings and water cooler conversation while everyone goes home to do their actual work.
2. Loudspeakers —
So maybe you’ve noticed, but Twitter has become, over the last 3 years, the loudspeaker of the Oval Office.
Like, diplomacy, foreign relations, as well as domestic legal and policy formation (if you can call it that) is not just being discussed on Twitter — it’s happening there.
I can’t help but wonder if this is fully priced into Twitter’s share price… and also how Twitter’s moderators (and Twitter’s algorithms!) will handle this trend as it continues and becomes more pronounced.
Elsewhere, I’ve been thinking about the other loudspeakers and soapboxes we use. I’m posting this on Medium right now but I hate Medium, especially since they started paywalling in a bid to monetize. I am 80% of the way through setting up a ghost site (it’s not hard, I just haven’t prioritized it). Last year it seemed like everyone I knew (including myself) had started a podcast. Right now, it seems like everyone I know is starting their own newsletter on Substack.
Lots of dynamics to explore here, but today I’ll just start with some questions:
- For content platforms, what business models work to capture value while still allowing the content creators to monetize?
- How do big players like the White House think about deplatforming? Not just the issue of potential policy violations, but also, in the very very long term case the site gets taken down altogether…?
- And how do platforms continue to evolve and enforce their policies? This is obviously a bigger, much-discussed, and well documented free speech issue.
- What medium will be stickiest for creators? Video, voice, writing. These will all coexist as they have for decades, but I expect there to be ebbs and flows in terms of popularity amongst creators and in terms of demand from audience. The former will largely be driven by accessibility and delightfulness of creation tools while the latter will be driven by bigger social and technological trends.
- And finally, how are audiences supposed to filter and discover the content they want? Today we are all trapped in the algorithms that our platform overlords have determined for us. Discoverability is a huge opportunity.
3. The UX of travel —
Particularly air travel. Long lines for everything from boarding to passport control. Lack of standardization around everything from check in to security renders everything an unpleasant surprise. And we do all this (and pay through the nose) to sit in a cramped, tiny seat on top of strangers for 10 hours.
These complaints are not specific to me, nor to any given airport or airline. Unless you are flying private, it’s bad across the board. And given that the average wealth of the person who flies private on any regular basis clocks in at $670mm, this means that it’s bad for just about everyone, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. Sure, that lie-down seat in 1A is going to be a bit more comfortable, but that doesn’t rescue you from the airport nightmare.
This all seems insane to me. And based on my research, there’s not all that much innovation happening in this space! I chalk it up to regulations, oligopolies, and security theater having become de rigeur. Would love to hear where I’m wrong here, who is working on this (whether as a startup or in the policy space), and what the future looks like (please tell me it’s better).
4. Climate change —
I’ll admit it: I’ve always cared about the environment, but never took the time to really deep dive, research, or pro-actively change my habits. I’ve always wanted to think this was a bit like all the fear in the US in the early 2000’s around oil shortages… a big technological breakthrough will just happen (in the case of oil: fracking) that, deus ex machina, will save us all.
But spending the holiday in a rapidly warming Arctic region was a wake up call to me. Couple that with increasingly desperate headlines out of Australia and it was all thrown into focus.
I’m trying to learn as much as possible about nuclear fusion as well as which short term, individual actions are highest leverage (including buying carbon offsets for the aforementioned air travel). I’m also taking Albert Wenger’s advice and picking up a copy of The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
5. Follow through
I, like most of you, set a few goals and resolutions for the new year. I also set one meta-goal: follow through. Follow through on the goals, but also follow through on the little commitments I make every day and every week. It feels like too often I am (and we all are) just talk.
One of the punchlines behind the VC meme, “How Can I Be Helpful?”, is that these offers to be helpful are too seldom followed up with little to no action. Certainly I, in too many instances, have been guilty of this. So if I owe you something, know that this is a priority of mine and don’t be shy about holding me accountable.
And separately, if you have thoughts, techniques, or resources on how to best follow through… I’m all ears!
