Technologist and VC Sam Lessin on why you should go for trust as a creator, not attention:
Sam:
So, I actually— I mean this is why I would never invest in like MrBeast or anyone who’s in the attention game, right? I actually think that that is a total war of attrition and not winnable, long term.
There’ll always be someone else trying to grab attention by being hotter, or being sillier, or things like that for general eyeballs and attention.
What I think is not a war of attrition and where you can get real lock-in — and what we actually spend time investing in — is vertical creators who own a niche with trust, right? So, you are the god of lawn care. you are the god of terrariums, like something we looked at. Like, you’re someone who, like, is deeply trusted in a specific domain niche audience who loves you and trusts your judgment. It’s actually less about the content, right, and more about actually the trust and the— the— we’ll call it the— what do they— the um— the semi social relationship, or the— that you kind of create with a community of— of high trust—
Dave:
Parasocial—
Sam:
…thank you — parasocial relationship than it is the content. I think the content is a pure war of attrition.
Dave:
Isn’t the distribution of that trust, up against the distribution in the attention game, just like any other? Like, they have to compete in the algorithm to get the attention of their trusted community just like everybody else.
Sam:
Yeah, I think that there— you can use algorithms, to a point, to grow. But actually the best creators are not intermediated by algorithms. There are people that actually you like so much that if they weren’t in the algorithm you’d go seek them out on a specific domain, right?
Dave:
Hmm. Fair.
Sam:
So, someone who’s like— if you’re the person I really trust about flying Cirrus aircraft, and like, all the latest gadgets for Cirrus, I will seek you out. I might discover you through the algorithm, and there is a competition for that temperature always rising, but that, I actually think, is like, the true sign of a real relationship is— is, it may come through the algorithm — you may discover it that way — but that’s not where it actually is— lives, um, so to speak. And I think—
Dave:
And I guess, to answer Brit’s question, your point, then, is that those creators have no use for Sora because they don’t need to create the 10,000 extra video clips. They only need to create the one that you, Sam, want to see for the niche interest you’re into.
Sam:
To be clear, they probably do have to create the 10,000 clips to compete with everyone else for some sort of initial attention, but the value is not in the 10,000 clips, right? The value— everything else is a war of attrition. The value is in when something amazing happens… there’s a new device… there’s a question I have… there’s someone I go to, right, effectively as a trusted friend and representative of the community that I care about, and they’re the person that I listen to, right? It’s trust. And there’s a very big difference between economics based on attention, right, versus economics that are based on like trust and identity. And I actually think real creators build their businesses around trust and identity, not around attention.
— end of vid clip: @ minute 15:55
Spot-on.
The value is also in unencumbered access to that audience you’ve built the trust with.
— Tang
