Sahil Bloom is Vice President at Altamont Capital Partners, a generalist investment fund managing over $2.5 billion in capital. At Altamont, Sahil helps lead the consumer products and services sector. Sahil also participates in board activities at Altamont’s portfolio companies Fox Racing, and Brixton.
Sahil is an angel investor in over 25 tech startups. He works with entrepreneurs and founders to build scalable and sustainable value for all stakeholders. Sahil also publishes a popular newsletter about business, mental models, economics, and more.
Sahil graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in economics & sociology, and holds a master’s degree in public policy. While at Stanford, Sahil was a four-year member of the Stanford baseball team. Sahil is also a two-time recipient of the Bruce R. Cameron Memorial Award. This award honors students exhibiting excellence in athletics, academics, and leadership.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How Sahil went from 500 to 200,000 followers on Twitter in one year
- The emerging seven-figure opportunity Sahil sees for localized newsletters
- Sahil’s system for writing exceptional content
- The key difference between income-producing activities and wealth-producing activities
Links & Resources
- Packy McCormick
- Mario Gabriele
- Anthony Pompliano
- Fred Wilson
- Tomas Gomez
- a16z
- Future
- Synthesis School
- Hone
- Sequoia
- Benchmark
- QED Investors
- Ryan Holiday
- Notion
- Clayton Christensen Institute
- Pallet
- Patrick O’Shaughnessy
- Ben Thompson
Sahil’s Links
- Follow Sahil on Twitter: @SahilBloom
- The Curiosity Chronicle
Episode Transcript
Sahil: [00:00:00]
I think of writing and storytelling as foundational skills to your entire life. I mean, if you write well, it makes you better in every other area of your life. I think more clearly it exposes the gaps in your thinking so quickly. And that happened to me all on the way. Like the amount that I learned about investing by writing about investing was insane.
Nathan: [00:00:27]
This episode is with Sahil Bloom. So, Sahil, full-time is an investor. He’s a vice president at Altamont Capital Partners. On the side he has built a massive Twitter following over just the last year before we started the interview.
I had no idea that his 200,000 plus Twitter followers have been in the last 14 months, basically since COVID.
So, in this episode, we talk about growing a Twitter audience. We talk about all kinds of things. Sahil was a baseball pitcher for Stanford. And so we get into the new name/image/likeness rules for the NCAA.
What else? There’s all kinds of good stuf: his creative writing process, his mental models, how he thinks about income versus wealth. It’s the kind of episode that I absolutely love some.
So I’m going to get out of the way and let you listen to it. But really quick, if you’d do me a favor and go ahead and subscribe on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to the podcast, and then write a review, I’d appreciate it. It will help the podcast reach a few more people.
So, all right. Let’s dive in.
Sahil, thanks for joining me.
Sahil: [00:01:34]
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Nathan: [00:01:35]
Okay. So, I want to start with what you put in your bio, which is just three words, investor, educator, and storyteller. I like how concise you’ve got this down to things that describe you, but how do you think about the way that those three interact with you?
Sahil: [00:01:50]
You know, it’s it’s interesting. I tend to think that there is like a natural flywheel that is being created in real time around the universe of like investing, in the universe of creating. And you’re seeing it in real time with some of these, you know, creative capitalists for lack of a better way to put it.
Like Packy is one of my favorite writers, does an incredible job. Mario, over at the The Generalist. A lot of these folks, I mean, Pomp was one of the early ones to do it. A lot of these folks have built these scale platforms, these audiences, and then as a result of that, and as a result of the reach and the leverage that they’re able to get on, having that kind of owned audience in a certain extent, to a certain extent, they’re able to really support these companies.
And so, as an investor, as an advisor, you can kind of just create this natural flywheel around it, where your content creation and the creative work is the leading into, these really interesting investment and capitalists opportunities. And then because of those, you’re actually getting more content to write about.
It actually is creating this really unique, flywheel that I think we’re really in the early days of candidly, like, we’ve seen a lot of people starting to do it, but it’s very much the first inning in my opinion. And I think there’s a massive shakeout happening in the investment world because of it.
All of the VC is, and all of these growth equity funds are just starting to realize that in order to win deals, in order to be a part of these cap tables and really provide value, you know, they’ve said, how can we be helpful as like the joke moniker for a long time, but in order to really be helpful, you need to be able to do tangible things for the companies that you’re supporting and investing in.
And these creator capitalists, I do feel like have figured that out and I don’t put myself in the same ranks as those people that I mentioned at all. I’m kind of very green and new to this, but, it’s been fun to start see the early fruits of that.
Nathan: [00:03:42]
Yeah. It’s interesting to me. Cause you’ve seen for a long time, investors like, Fred Wilson, Tomas Gomez and others, like have these blogs or newsletters, you know, for a long time. And it’s gotten them incredible deal flow and reputation and everything else, but it does seem like there’s a new wave.
I don’t know if it’s just the next generation of creators doing this, but it’s much more Twitter forward rather than starting with a blog and a Twitter, a newsletter. do you see other continuations or differences between like sort of the previous generation in the second generation.
Sahil: [00:04:17]
Yeah. I mean, I think that the VC world has known this for a long time. like the early stage VCs in particular have known that. Audience and reach was a wedge for deal flow. And so like, you look at the of the world, they built from the early days, really like a content house, right? Like they put out incredible thought pieces.
You know, they recently launched this thing, Future, which is really just like a content ecosystem that they’re going to continue to expand on. So there are certain firms that have been doing this for a long time, or to your point, there are certain investors who have been doing this for a long time. I think the scale of it has changed, discovery and the algorithms have been dramatically improving.
And so, you’re able to generate just a much larger following and a much more engaged following. And so the people that are consistently putting things out, it’s not one piece every six months, it’s, you know, you’re capturing attention because you’re consistently putting out great content that captures eyeballs.
Those are the people that are actually able to generate leverage on that audience. And as a result, create value for the companies that they’re investing in. Synthesis School. I think is a great example of it. It’s this really cool education technology platform. They have a long list of amazing investors, all of whom are kind of individual creator, capitalists, and you know, people on Twitter that are big Twitter personalities.
And so, they’re able to just basically have this like narrative domination effect where on Twitter, you constantly are seeing content and people posting about this. And you’re like, what the heck is that? What is that business? And it just creates this massive advantage for a business like that. That’s able to capture that mind share and become a like cognitive reference, for lack of a better way to put it for education disruptive.
Nathan: [00:05:59]
So do you think when, when someone’s looking to take money from, from you as an investor from, you know, someone like Paki or anyone else, who has these audiences, how much is it? The, like the reputation and the brand of that person that I love the term creative capitalist. Cause it sort of differentiates here, but, which is that reputation and brand versus like what they’ll, what that credit capitals will do as far as audience and reach later, like for example, the men’s health, sort of raw, what is it?
Brown home. There you go. Ron is a different Rona’s AI is a clothing brand .
Yeah, exactly. also a solid company,
Sahil: [00:06:44]
Cool brand. Yeah.
Nathan: [00:06:46]
Hone you like I think it was just yesterday that they had these pieces kind of going up everywhere and it was basically all of their, you know, creator, capitalist investors who have these audiences who coordinated some level of a launch.
And so I’m curious as people are taking this money, Is it like, Hey, you’re going to be useful as an advisor or is it really like, your money is quite a bit better than someone else’s because you’re also going to promote and put out this link pieces and link to it in your, in your content.
Sahil: [00:07:17]
Yeah. I think the way that founders are thinking about it, and this is, you know, informed partially by my own perspective, partially from talking to a lot of these founders. So you have a $5 million round, you know, it used to be that you kind of get your anchor like some lead and, you know, hopefully that’s like a tier one VC, a Sequoia benchmark, a 16 Z you know, QED, whoever it might be.
And you kind of then have the rest of that round to fill out. And normally you bring on, you know, someone that’s not the lead, maybe a couple of other VCs, but then you have this like million dollar set it’s on the tail. End of it. That’s left. And now you’re deciding between, do I take on a tier two tier three VC to like fill out this round, basically the VCs that are willing to write a smaller check behind a bunch of other people that are leading.
Or do I go bring on 10 people at a hundred K each or at smaller checks that can really meaningfully accelerate and allow me to achieve escape velocity. And for these early companies, especially the ones that are consumer facing that like getting eyeballs on their product or on their service, whatever they’re creating is meaningfully differentiating in terms of the trajectory of what the creating.
I think it’s a no brainer. I mean, for a lot of these, especially at seed and a stage, like just getting them traction in the early days from a revenue growth perspective is so important because it allows you to go raise your next round and basically push out competition because the way these markets work is like capital flows, especially in technology.
When you have potential and of one place there’s capital is flowing to the people who can really meaningfully accelerate and get to that end point and you fall a little bit behind. You’ll find that the capital markets are really pinching for you, and you’re no longer able to raise money. And so. That’s kind of how I think about it is like, if we can go take on that last chunk and for a small amount of dilution, add a tremendous amount of value.
That’s a real differentiator relative to taking on another VC on the backend of your, of your cap table.
Nathan: [00:09:10]
Yeah, that makes sense. So I want to go back to maybe pre Twitter, famous Sahil, like, cause you’re thinking about going into, because you have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter now, like it’s turned into a pretty massive audience. What were like, was that a deliberate decision to say, okay, I’m going to go all in.
I’m going to build this public persona or this public audience, or did it happen more gradually over time?
Sahil: [00:09:38]
Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, look, I, I played baseball in college. I was solid. I wasn’t great. Like I was never the star, so I never had some big following, like the college athletes of today that are the stars and have these massive, massive followings. So I had a Twitter account had never really used it.
I kind of. Looked at funny stuff on there and, you know, would see news and things like that. COVID hit in March, 2020, and suddenly I wasn’t commuting, you know, my job, which I was normally on the road three or four days a week for, I wasn’t traveling. I had like all this time that just got unlocked all of a sudden.
And I couldn’t figure out like what to do with it. And what I realized was there was all these people, that were so confused about what was happening in the world of like finance business market. and what I like the realization I had fundamentally was that there were kind of two ends of the spectrum of financial education.
There was like the, you know, very low end, like tic talkers, talking to you about like random options you should yellow into. And I didn’t view that as particularly socially. Good. And then there was like the high end, which is the establishment financial educators who are basically just throwing a ton of jargon at people, trying to make them feel dumb.
It’s like, let me make you, realize that you need to hire me to pay, to manage your money by throwing a bunch of jargon, throwing a bunch of terms at you that you don’t understand. And so what I said was like, I’m going to do neither of those things. I’m going to go straight down the middle. I’m going to be the light Toyota Camry of this market.
And just say things in a way that anyone can understand no jargon, no complex terms, just like make it for everybody so that it’s accessible. Digestible. And so I started just writing. it was may of 2020. I wrote my first thread had like 500 followers at the time on Twitter. Didn’t really know what to make of it.
I knew that it was a pretty good thread. And I said to my wife, jokingly that I thought it was going to go viral. And she like rolled her eyes at me. And, you know, whatever happened. it started to kind of pick up steam, like tweeted one of my things, mark Cuban retweeted, one of my things. And it was shocking to me, but pretty cool.
Cause I saw it start to gain traction and I realized, okay, maybe there’s something to this. but the reality for me was like, there was never a grand strategy to it. I never intended to build some huge audience. Like I thought it was amazing when I got to 4,000 followers. I remember thinking like, this is insane that I have this many people following me that care about what I think.
And I kind of just kept putting out content. I mean, over the last year and two months or whatever, it’s been since I started I’ve written. A hundred, 1,314 threads, 90,000 words. mean, it’s just been consistency over anything else, candidly? I never had like one piece that blew me up over the, 20,000 followers or something.
It’s just been like a steady grind of just putting things out, kind of a slow drip effect.
Nathan: [00:12:22]
So that points to us to get a schedule. Are you basically putting out two threads a week? Is that the case?
Sahil: [00:12:28]
Yeah. I would say in the early days I was like, I had more time cause COVID and everything going on and I was kind of like probably doing three. There were probably times when I put out four things a week, because I had more time, but in the early days too, it was taking me a lot more time to write these things.
Because I hadn’t figured out what worked and what didn’t. And so I was like in test and learn mode, it was taking me a ton of time to research and like figure out the right hooks and the way to write things and the style of writing that worked on Twitter. And so I spent, I mean, hundreds of hours over the course of the last year on the weekends, like sitting around, pounding my head into a wall, figuring it out.
More recently I’ve kind of gotten into a cadence of like one piece of writing a week. and then with the newsletter I have, you know, I usually expand on that one thread and kind of a more robust newsletter. And then I have the Friday piece, which is a curation thing to kind of help promote other creators.
Nathan: [00:13:20]
Yeah. So I’m curious, what are some of the things that. That changed as you, well, may, maybe we’ll start with the amount of times, like when you’re putting, let’s go to a single thread, maybe in the early days, how much time was one of those threads taking, and then, you know, now how much time does it take to put together a thread?
Sahil: [00:13:39]
Yeah. So in the early days, I would say I was doing a lot of like deep research based writing. you know, like I do take an example. Like I did a thread on the game stop thing in January, and like GameStop was, you know, rip roaring. Everyone was wondering what was going on, what had happened, how could that happen?
Et cetera. And so I sort of like went into a, down a rabbit hole on understanding, short squeezes and gamma squeezes, and all these complex finance things. And that took me a long time because basically I had to figure out the concept of a gamma squeeze and, you know, the, and how that can be disseminated in a way that anyone can understand, which is like much easier said than done.
And I might’ve rethought it if I had, if I had known how long it was gonna take me to figure that out, but that early stuff I would say. You know, would take me kind of five to six hours probably to like research, write, edit, and kind of refine those pieces. Similarly with those like early, like more story-based threads that I was doing, kind of the stories of people’s lives that you see a lot of now on Twitter, less of back when I was doing it, those would take me six, seven hours, cause I was going deep, you know, into these people’s lives and figuring it out.
And it was really driven by my curiosity. Like I just love learning about these things. And so I would write about things that I genuinely wanted to go learn about and that made it a lot easier. Cause it didn’t feel like, oh, this is a waste of time. If it doesn’t take off and go viral, you know, at worst I learned a lot and at best I learned a lot and it went viral and got me a bunch of followers.
And now more recently, I mean, I’d say I’m in a good cadence of it where it’s like, you know, one of my more kind of like mental models, decision-making frameworks thinking, frameworks type threads probably takes two to four hours depending on what I’m writing. But I have this, like, we can get into it, but I have this just massive repository of like content ideas, notes that I’ve kind of dropped in there over time.
So when I actually go to write something, a lot of it’s just there and I just need
Nathan: [00:15:38]
Right.
Sahil: [00:15:38]
How to construct it.
Nathan: [00:15:40]
Okay. Yeah. Let’s, let’s focus on that because I think so many people wonder about writing habits and they’re like, how do you weave these things together? You know, like I read one of Ryan holiday’s books as an example, and he, I’m always amazed at his ability to pull in. Like reference some historical figure creator, author, any anybody tell their story, make his point move on.
And you’re like, oh, that was so good. Wait, you did that in two sentences. You know, you did that, like in his really concise way, he’s got these perfect examples, but if you ever hang out with Ryan or visit him at his house, he has this like ridiculous collection of no cards. You know, it’s like boxes of note cards per book, and, you know, it’s as crazy process and really every successful author, every school writer that I’ve worked with has some really great organization process.
So I’d love to hear more about,
Sahil: [00:16:34]
Yeah, I love that story about Ryan. That’s a cool one. I’ll keep that for later. yeah, so I mean, my, my strategy with it has evolved over time, but th the way I generally think about it is you kind of have a proprietary content engine, and what that is differs for everybody. Like it, that’s kind of the inputs.
So that’s, what are you reading on a daily basis? What are you watching? What are you listening to? All of those things are kind of like your content engine, because those are, what’s giving you ideas, things that are coming up. That’s like all the stuff you’re consuming on a daily basis, and then you have the outputs and that’s like, how do you turn that?
Like, put it into your little meat grinder and like, turn that into what you’re writing about. And so the way I generally think about it is. Part of my daily habit as I’m reading and consuming interesting content. and it might be newsletters, blogs, podcasts, tweets that people send me, like all of this stuff goes into my content engine.
What I do personally is I have a notion, page that’s a board and it’s, I just have it set up as like, a few columns where I have kind of like, you know, ideas that I have, like, you know, things I’m going to write about soon. Then I have things I’ve started and then like finished pieces that I haven’t posted yet.
And then all of the stuff that’s posted and done. And so when I have something I’m reading and it peaks my curiosity, or it’s like, oh, this is a cool concept, whatever it might be. Like, I recently wrote a thread on, the concept of like the Fox and the hedgehog. and that was the one that, like, I had just been reading something on a friend’s, VC funds page.
And it was like, oh, this is an interesting concept. Let me throw this into my notion doc. And so I had Fox and hedgehog in there. I linked. Article I’ve been reading. and then like a few weeks later, I kind of got it to learn more about that. And so I went and read some things and I dropped in some notes and dropped in a few more articles and pieces where I had heard people see, you know, or talk about it.
And now suddenly when I go to write about it, the next day I have like four sources. I have a bunch of notes sitting there of like things that had come to my mind in the moment when I was interested about it. I kind of had a framework for how I wanted to think or write about it. And so it made the process of starting much easier because I already had all that stuff sitting there.
I wasn’t starting from a dead stop and saying like, I need to write this great piece on foxes and hedgehogs. I had all this stuff and I just needed to figure out how to craft it, like sculpt it into what I wanted. So that’s kind of how I think about the process. It’s like, you’re consuming mean things on a daily basis.
Figure out what those are. It doesn’t have to be like smart stuff is whatever you’re consuming. It shouldn’t feel. And take that and leverage it into creating this like repository of interesting ideas, because like when you do it that way, you never run out of stuff to write about. I get asked that a lot.
Like how do you write something every week? Or how do you not run out of things? And my, my answer is like, there’s an endless amount of interesting stuff out there in the world. And it’s just a matter of like opening your kind of content engine to all of that so that you can then go and write and comment on these things and, and share about it.
So that’s kind of how I think about it generally. It’s like kind of, you have the inputs and the output, so you need to figure out what your kind of middle is your middle layer, so that you can turn the inputs into the outcome.
Nathan: [00:19:44]
Okay. This is a little bit off topic, but when you were. Starting school, you know, going to school at Sanford for like economics and sociology and then getting a master’s in public policy and you’re getting into investing and starting your career there. Did you ever think that you’d be a writer like that?
That would be the primary, source. It’s just so interesting the way these worlds overlap.
Sahil: [00:20:08]
The short answer is no, I never considered myself a good writer. I don’t know, I still don’t consider myself that great of a writer to be honest, like people like my writing, which makes me think maybe I write reasonably well, but I think it’s just effort. Like I’ve just spent more time on it over the last year, a lot of people, but, no, I never really thought I would kind of be able to like create something that had value around creative work that was never in the scope of what I thought about my primary job is still as an investor.
Like, and I think we’ll continue to be. And I, and I still think of like investing and advising as kind of like the primary, kind of part of my ecosystem that I’m creating the creative work is becoming a bigger and bigger part of what makes me a unique and interesting investor. and I love it. I mean, that’s the thing for me is. I get so much energy out of the fact that I get to spend time on writing and content creation on a daily basis. I love doing it. You know, I’m starting to do more video stuff. I’m going to be engaging more in that realm, but like the fact that I get to write think read, and that’s kind of part of my job.
Like that’s a really, really cool thing to me. And I never really thought, you know, going to school or whatever I thought I was going to do next. It definitely didn’t come within the realm of what I’m actually getting to work on.
Nathan: [00:21:23]
Yeah, I think it’s so interesting. Like I never thought that I would be a writer and I remember like specifically telling my parents, like, I hate writing. Like why would I ever, you know, why do I have to do so much of this in school and all of that? my mom was an English major, you know, and like big advocate for, writing and all of that, which I now am very grateful for.
But it’s amazing the number of people now that, that we think of that are like really quite effective writers that never started there never expected that.
Sahil: [00:21:54]
Yeah. I mean, I think of, I think of writing and storytelling as well. Foundational skills to your entire life. I mean, if you write well, it makes you better in every other area of your life. Like since I’ve spent more time on writing and have a writing habit that is making me a better writer, I’ve become veteran every other area of my life.
Like I think more clearly it exposes the gaps in your thinking so quickly. Like if you, if you sit down and you think you understand something and you try to write it down in a way that, you know, a kid could pick it up and understand it, you very quickly realize if you don’t understand that thing. and that happened to me all on the way, like the amount that I learned about investing by writing about investing was insane because I had to sit down and try to explain it to a five-year-old basically with my tweet threads.
And when I didn’t understand the thing, like the gap was like a blaring thing in front of me and I had to go research it more and dig into it and understand it. And so I just think that like, when you write, you expose flaws in your thinking, and that causes you to go down the rabbit hole and learn more about whatever it might.
Nathan: [00:22:58]
Yeah. That’s good. Is there anything, any resources or things you paid attention to to get better at writing? Like, do you read any of the traditional, you know, and Lamont bird by bird?
Sahil: [00:23:07]
Yeah, I read elements of style. when I was younger, like I think in high school, I read that and that stuck with me. you know, candidly, like I just study some people that I respect and think of as great writers. Like David Perell has become a friend and I feel very lucky for that, but I just thought of him as a great writer and the things that he put out in his, the elegance of his writing and the different, you know, ways that he was writing things on a, for brig, has become a friend.
I think she writes exceptionally well on, on education and some of these topics. I just think that there’s a wealth of unbelievable, talented, people out there that like are publishing things that anyone can read and you don’t have to pay. Like you can go see it, learn from it. And so I try to be a student of the internet in that regard.
Nathan: [00:23:53]
Yeah, no, that’s good. okay. So since you’ve built such a massive audience so quickly on Twitter with threads, I’m curious, what have you found? What are the things that are really working? What makes a good thread? You know, now you’re writing to those things that, that resonate right away, you know, and you’re like, oh, I can cut out all of that, that I was doing before.
Sahil: [00:24:13]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:24:14]
What’s working. What have you.
Sahil: [00:24:15]
Yeah. I mean, I would say there’s like a handful of principals that I think were quite well. you know, number one is like, if you’re writing a thread, the hook has to be good. because you need to give people a reason to click and convert and, and, and kind of look through to whatever you’re writing.
I do think, you know, now more than ever threads are like a somewhat saturated game, so to speak because people realize, I mean, I, when I first started writing them, very few people were writing threads. Twitter didn’t even have like infrastructure built around long form content. It was pretty janky. You had.
Manually add a tweet under each one and copy and paste it in. And now they, they realize that it keeps people on the platform, then it’s a great mechanism for them. And so the algorithms prioritize it. People realize it’s a growth hack, you know, like really is much better for growth than single tweets.
And so it’s become a bit saturated, I would say. And so, as a result of that, I think the burden of proof is higher on like the quality of the content that you should be putting out. I think there’s a risk of like losing high quality followers. you know, by just like over, you know, just putting out too many threads that aren’t really high quality.
And so my best advice is like, make the hook rate, make sure the hook is like really catchy and draws people in and then just make sure that quality is like exceptional and something. You can be proud of. My whole thesis all along with my Twitter was, you know, there’s like a spectrum of kind of posting frequencies.
You have the like, pump who has been exceptionally successful. Every single day, he’s all over it. He’s posting a lot, you know, high frequency. And then I’m on the other end of the spectrum, like a Julian Shapiro’s on the other end of the spectrum. People like that, that like right every now and then, you know, it might be once a week.
It might be once every couple of weeks. but what you, what you’re putting out is like, I stand behind every single thing that I’ve ever written on Twitter. you know, from a thread perspective, because I know that I spent a bunch of time on it. I really thought it through, if I didn’t understand something, I was getting it vetted.
I was having someone review it. I mean, I just, the internet is permanent. Right. And so I like it’s my personal capital on the line and I wanted to make sure everything was really, really good. And so, that’s important as you, as you put things out there is just like, make sure you feel really good about the quality of what you’re writing.
Nathan: [00:26:31]
Yeah, that’s a good point that if you’re doing the approach of, like, I went to a Wikipedia article and like made a thread of the content that’s in there, which is a lot of threads that you come across as, that’s a genuine question that I
Sahil: [00:26:44]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:26:45]
Reading some of them. the quality really matters.
Sahil: [00:26:47]
Yeah. I agree. And I go both ways on that. Right. Like I did, you know, a bunch of like, in my early days, especially I did a bunch of what people would have thrown into that bucket of like Wikipedia threads, my perspective on it was always, great. The Wikipedia articles there. but if you wouldn’t have seen it, and it’s a really interesting story and I’m packaging it into something that makes it more broadly disseminated, that’s a value added service that I just brought to the table.
And so like, I don’t know, like Morris Chang, I wrote a thread on he’s a founder of Taiwan, semiconductor manufacturing company, amazing guy, incredible story. Does he have like, you know, information on Wikipedia about him? Sure. But like I posted it and 17,000 people liked it and saw, you know, 5 million people saw it that most of them probably didn’t know who the hell he was because they were never going to go to that Wikipedia page.
And so I kind of go both ways on that criticism. The reality is that type of thread has become a bit of like a meme where, you know, there’s clearly broad push back against it and, and, you know, it’s become a little bit of a meme of itself. And so I do think it’s worth being kind of wary about regularly publishing that type of content.
Nathan: [00:27:55]
I think it probably comes down to how unique the story is that you’re sharing. Like maybe it is on Wikipedia, but, well, exactly what you’re saying. That is not someone that I would have gone to look for, but I read and enjoyed that thread. Whereas if you’re just like, here’s this thing about Steve jobs is like, you mean the Steve jobs story that everyone
Sahil: [00:28:15]
Yes,
Nathan: [00:28:16]
Heard a hundred times then it’s very different,
Sahil: [00:28:18]
I totally agree with that. I mean, like if you’re going to go tell the story of. You know, Elon Musk, how he, you know, started space or whatever, like start Tesla or something like, yeah, everyone kind of knows that and it’s, it’s a little bit played up and, and people understand it. And so I just think it’s worth balancing with your own unique content.
And that was how I always did it. Whereas like, if I was going to post in one of those stories, I was going to post something that I like deeply researched and did unique educational content and just kind of balance the two. And I think that would like, that worked for me. I think it probably works for others.
Nathan: [00:28:51]
How do you think about the intersection between your Twitter following and your newsletter? Like as you’ve built that over the last year.
Sahil: [00:28:59]
Yeah. I started the newsletter. Yeah. I first just created it in January of this year. and I originally just created it because there were a lot of people on Twitter who wanted to get my threads in their inbox. Like didn’t like the Twitter format for them and wanted to just have it in a nicer format.
And so for the first, five months of it, like through mid may, all it was was just me sending out my threads the day later, with, you know, just like a nicer format. And so the newsletter list grew to something like 13,000 people just from that, which I was pretty amazed by honestly, you know, more recently.
So mid may I decided to do the Friday, I’m calling it the Friday five now, but basically curation focused, five pieces of interesting things that I consumed, like my content engine during the week. and really focused on promoting other creators. that was like, I really wanted it to be a positive, some thing.
I’m creating this list and I want to help use it to kind of promote others that are creating great content that need help with discovery that maybe they’re smaller. They need more eyes on their things. They’re putting out great things, but sometimes it’s hard, it’s going into the abyss. And so I’m helping with discovery for them.
And so I launched that. and then I’ve recently started just more expanding on the concepts that are my threads. And so it’s sort of like, I think of the threads as sort of a taken down version of a longer form newsletter piece as I’ve prioritized the newsletter. and I, you know, I really use Twitter for like, it’s a discovery mechanism for the newsletter.
The reality of newsletters as you know, is that discovery is really, really hard and it’s cobbled together and there’s no like central, kind of authority for discovery right now. And so you need to kind of hack it together and figure out how do you make your newsletter really shareable? How do you drive new eyeballs to it?
How do you kind of like generate growth over time? Because. You know, if your Twitter is growing at 15, 20,000 a month, you know, of new followers and your newsletters growing out, like, you know, 50 that’s kind of a problem. and so driving people through and like figuring out how to convert that funnel is like really what I’m trying to figure out and understand right now.
Nathan: [00:31:07]
Yeah. I think that what I mean exactly the point that you made newsletters don’t have any. You people talking about like, there’s no algorithm for newsletters, so you’re not having to fight to, I read your, your readers. And it’s like, yes, absolutely. You’re spot on. Also, there’s no algorithm for newsletters.
And so there’s no distribution, you know, there are, there’s no discovery. And so you’re having to use outside channels, like the newsletter authors from 5, 10, 15 years ago. they use their blogs and, you know, sites like dig and hacker news and others to get along new followers, but also just search, you know, having the, the, long form articles that were ranking really well on Google.
And, and I feel like very much the newsletter creators of today are all in on Twitter
Sahil: [00:31:56]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:31:56]
Yeah.
Yeah. There’s but like very much on Twitter to get that discovery.
Sahil: [00:32:00]
Yeah. I agree with that. And it’s, it’s going to be interesting to see how the, like the newsletter wars continue to play out. Right? Because all of these platforms are realizing and Twitter realized it. I’m sure Facebook realized it with their recent launch that way. They are providing discovery for a lot of people that are then going off platform with their longer form content.
And so Twitter acquired review, you know, Facebook has their new launch and it’s just, it’ll be interesting to see kind of how that plays out in terms of, you know, where people go with their, you know, with their newsletters and how it all kind of, how it all shakes out in the coming months and year.
Nathan: [00:32:35]
Yeah. Well, let’s dig in there more. Cause like I obviously care about that space a lot being in the middle of it. And you see, you mentioned Twitter and Facebook. Spotify is in the mix. They reached out to us. I don’t know, two months ago about, you know, acquiring ConvertKit oddly, they were more, I thought that it was, they were interested in us because of the music side of things, as we’ve made acquisitions in the music space and all of that turns out, they were more way more interested in the podcast side of things.
Like then we have the Tim Ferriss of the world, you know, a lot of top podcasts using ConvertKit. And so I’m curious where all of this goes. I think, you know, like everything five years from now, 10 years from now, we’ll look back and the path that ended up becoming most common, you know, whichever platform dominates or if it stays fragmented, you know, we’ll look back and be like, oh, that was obvious.
But in this moment, I think it’s actually fairly up in the air of like, is sub stack going to continue to rise? Will it be review, will bulletin. I mean, that’s what Facebook’s is
Sahil: [00:33:33]
Yep.
Nathan: [00:33:34]
Be a flash in the pan or will it actually
Sahil: [00:33:38]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:33:39]
Six around.
Sahil: [00:33:40]
Yeah. I mean, I think if I had to guess, I think Twitter is in the pole position on it. And the only reason I say that is. they are the main mode of discovery for most writers. And so if they can do anything with the algorithms to prioritize discovery, to review newsletters, that’s a massive advantage.
Embedded, you know, just because they already have people on the platform. And so th that’d be like it from an investor standpoint, that would be my guess is just that continues to try to ship product that allows them to capture more of the value that their platform is actually been creating for the last 10 years that they’ve captured none of,
I mean, like Twitter has been abysmal at capturing the value that’s created through Like, I mean the amount of value that I have flowing through Twitter broadly speaking, Twitter’s capturing $0 of, and that’s sort of a travesty just from a business standpoint. And like, as an investor, you look at that and you’re like, man, that’s a huge opportunity if they can figure out how to capture of that.
Nathan: [00:34:35]
Will you see it reflected in their market cap versus Facebook’s Write of like, I mean, I I don’t even know what Twitter’s market cap is, but it’s yeah Twitter’s market
Sahil: [00:34:45]
Cap caps like 55 billion, I think, but like the, yeah, I mean, Twitter is Twitter’s ad product is also just pretty bad relative to, you know, relative to Snapchat or Facebook, but I think it should improve. I mean, as they do more of the creator economy and as they spend more time, you know, actually capturing some of this value, the quality of their ads and the ability to target and all of those things should just get a lot better, which makes their ad monetization better.
And that drives the whole engine. So, I mean, I personally, like I’m on Twitter and their opportunity around all of it. I’m also like native creator. I mean, I basically wrote a blog on Twitter over the last year. I’d be like, create these content loops and I’m linking back through the old threads.
And like, I sort of do a Ben Thompson does what Stratec Curry, but I do that on Twitter, in
Nathan: [00:35:29]
That’s super interesting. I’m looking at it from the perspective of, if it’s going to be. Like a major platform, like as we look at newsletters, will it be basically Facebook or Twitter at this point that, that dominates that with reviewer bulletin? Or will it be still a mix of the subset convert kit?
That kind of thing, like will creators end up starting on review and be like, oh, you know, I wrote some dreads, I got a thousand followers, Twitter like pops up and says like, Hey, you should do a newsletter. You know? And so they start that and then maybe they want more functionality and then they move to a, you know, a ConvertKit or another platform, or if the distribution will become so powerful, that, and the discovery is so powerful that there’s a real reason to stay on,
Sahil: [00:36:14]
Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of like the. The Clayton Christiansen, model of like disruption and innovation, where you like you, you know, the, the, the platforms that are like very newsletter specific are going to be able to provide a better solution for the full range of potential creators that are on the platform, because that’s their entire focus.
Like that’s all they spend time on and, you know, newsletters are never going to be Twitter’s sole focus and they, you know, need to get better at shipping product. And they have a bunch of different areas they’re working on and focused on. I’m sure they have a team that’s focused on newsletters and long form, and I’m sure that team is great and have great engineers, but, if you can be a player that is like newsletter specific and you can provide an amazing solution for every kind of type of creator and archetype that sits on your platform, that’s a real way that you can create a wedge and create a sticky customer base there.
Nathan: [00:37:06]
Yeah. We’ll see how it plays out because, one thing is that email has never been a winner take all market. You know, we look at like, MailChimp’s the biggest player by far, but even then, I don’t know what their eight or 900 million a year in revenue, something like that.
Sahil: [00:37:20]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:37:20]
And, and you’ve got plenty of players that are, you know, like
Sahil: [00:37:23]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:37:24]
Campaign monitors and others in the hundreds of millions of, yeah.
Sahil: [00:37:26]
Yeah. It’s also going to be a long tail market. I think the most interesting part of the greater economy are going to be these like micro creators actually that are like hyper-local and writing about, you know, interesting local news as an example where they’re not trying to get the like biggest following in the world, their goal is not to have a hundred thousand newsletter subs.
It’s to have like a thousand true fans, you know, that And so I think that that market is probably the most interesting, like there’s going to be a ton. A hundred thousand dollars a year earners that are basically writing like the defacto newsletter for news in, you know, X part of the bay area, or for news in, you know, Westchester county or whatever it might be like.
There’s going to be all of these people that rise that are doing that. and making a six figure salary and working from home. And it’s an amazing setup. And so I, I’m actually more interested in that than I am in the like macro influencer world of the creator economy, to people that are going to be making seven figures on all of this.
Nathan: [00:38:27]
Yeah. And you see all kinds of that. cause it happens not just in the local news side of things or basically people finding a niche based on geography, but it happens a lot with a niche based on, you know, topic or, or where like we’ve seen people, artists talking about very specific things and you’re like, there’s an audience for that.
And digging like sure enough, 8,000 subscribers and 50 or a hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue. And, that’s actually a good transition to talk about monetization. So you, you know, you have a, all your content is free. I don’t think you have any paid content out there is that.
But you monetize through ads through a job board, as, as you’re looking at, or ads being sponsored content or, or, sponsorships, I should say. yeah. How do you think about monetizing your content and
Sahil: [00:39:19]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:39:20]
You played with and, and why have you settled on
Sahil: [00:39:22]
I mean, I’d say I’m in the very early days of figuring all of this out and testing things. My operating premise has always been to never charge people for anything, like never charge people. I just, and it goes back to like, when I first started doing this and writing, it was about education and it was about giving people, empowering people with information that they otherwise wouldn’t have had and making them feel happy or inspired or whatever it might be.
And so that doesn’t rely on me charging people for things. I think if I ever. Did something like that was going to take a ton of time. And I was going to have to spend a lot more energy or effort on it maybe, but I can’t really see myself, charging people for anything. So as a result, the flip side of it is like I have all these eyeballs.
I have a lot of people that this goes out to. And so sponsors are, you know, willing to kind of support that and have their product or whatever it might be, get seen by all of these people and hopefully clicked on. And, you know, I have a high burden, I would say for like the type of companies that I would work with on that.
Because I just want it to be brand right. And people, you know, companies that I’m excited about or would support either way and not just. Hey, some oil and gas company wants to sponsor me, so I’m going to take it on. And so that kind of flows through both, you know, the sponsors for the newsletter, which have been great and companies I feel strongly about, and also to the job board where it’s kind of a natural flow through of like I have this platform, I have all these amazing people that are, that are following me and have gifted me with their attention.
A lot of whom are like looking to kind of grow and level up their life and, you know, take on new adventures. and then I had on the other side, all of these amazing companies that are trying to find those types of people and these amazing, you know, this amazing, new group of talent. And so I’m kind of sitting in the middle where like, it used to be that LinkedIn was that person sitting in the middle cause they had gathered all this demand.
And so how can I dis-intermediate that? And this amazing company palette came along and it’s doing it disclosure, I’m an investor in palette. I think it’s an amazing company. but they kind of enabled that infrastructure. And so creators can be the kind of direct conduit between companies and between their audiences.
And there’s going to be a bunch of flavors of it. I mean, for me, It’s kind of a large audience and I get you access to a lot of people. And it’s a little bit of top of funnel marketing for the featured companies, because I tweet about them. And so you get kind of a social proof that comes with being included and that I included you on the list.
But for me, it’s like, I think it’s a really cool thing. I mean, there’ve been people that have gotten jobs through the board and now that’s like, wow, that’s a really neat thing that I was a part of somebody who’s kind of acceleration of whatever path they are on.
Nathan: [00:41:55]
Yeah, it’s another part of the flywheel for the, I don’t know, your ecosystem, your community, and all of that, where you like someone is going to go from a fan of your work to like, I don’t know, a super fan of some in some way, if they got a job through, through that. And like every company is going to keep track of that.
Like hiring and recruiting every person that we’ve ended up hiring, we know exactly where they came from. Cause we’re looking for those, those trends, not that like out of 65 or a hundred people, you’re seeing like massive trends, you know, or statistical significance, but you’re seeing like, okay, This didn’t come from a giant job board.
This came from a referral or from, you know, a nice job
Sahil: [00:42:34]
Yep.
Nathan: [00:42:35]
Creator.
Sahil: [00:42:35]
Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly right. I mean, I think it’s just like trying to figure out now, what is the model that works with these boards? Because for me, like what I want to move towards is fewer and fewer jobs on the board, but make them like really exclusive, almost like a limited edition drop every month that you have like 10 companies that like this month, I’m really going to push and promote and kind of, cause I think these roles are amazing and these companies are amazing and I want my audience to see them versus the like, you know, 200 jobs on a board and you hope people scroll through it and find the thing that they’re looking for.
And so I’m sort of like toying with what’s the right model. What’s going to drive the most eyeballs for the companies, so that it’s really beneficial for them. And what’s going to drive the best outcomes for my followers, where like they’re finding unique jobs and getting access to things they otherwise wouldn’t.
The other. Great tailwind is that more and more companies are starting to believe in open access, hiring, recruiting, diversity, all of these things that I think and believe very deeply from a values perspective. And so the fact that I can create something to, further kind of progress, that trend, is really meaningful to me, just on a, from a social perspective.
Nathan: [00:43:45]
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. And I think that we’re going to see a lot more interesting monetization methods. Like I saw people running job boards as a separate business, you know, years ago, whether it’s like we work remotely or authentic jobs, or like in specific niches, like authentic jobs, for example, you know, really got going in the designer like designer and web developer, ecosystem.
But now that’s very much a trend of like creators running their own job board. And I mean, palette is driving that a lot. actually I guess this is one of those places where right. You’re, you’re providing real value as an investor. Not like the thing that we make fun of, of like, oh, how can I be helpful? it’s like, you’re actually running on a job board using
Sahil: [00:44:32]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:44:32]
Advertising it,
Sahil: [00:44:33]
Yeah. And helping them figure out what’s working, what isn’t like, what could creators use more of different features? You know, frankly, they have a great growth loop. And the fact that like every time I promote a job, that’s featured on my board, it’s a pallet link. That’s getting shared on Twitter and more and more people are seeing palette.
And you’re like, what is that? And that includes investors that follow me. It includes, you know, other founders that are looking to promote roles. And so, they have a cool kind of endemic little growth loop gone, and they’re doing really well around it. But to your point earlier, like the sky’s the limit for that type of thing, because as you can.
Do more and more of like figuring out how to get to that warm lead that referral-based, the talent pool, where like people are vetted and you’re kind of like really high quality leads on a certain role. the better the quality of the outcomes are going to be for the companies. And so they’re working on things around that, which I think are really exciting because then you stop getting the, like, you know, you’re not just going to the large mass audience, it becomes this like really curated, interesting pool of talent that you’re like linking directly and that companies can have access to.
So I’m just really excited about the future of like opening access to, to hiring and disrupting, you know, the, the kind of incumbents like a LinkedIn who I think have just been asleep at the wheel in that market.
Nathan: [00:45:49]
Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of that. okay. I want to talk about something that maybe is more specific to you. you have this term creative capitalist, which I really like, I’m going to start using more because I feel like it describes, you know, a very specific type of creator, that I, I love to follow.
But I’m curious with your background in, playing college sports, as, as a pitcher for Stanford, and then, what you’re seeing, basically, we’re going to see this wave of creator athletes. You know, now that the NCAA has made the changes where you can actually, profit from, name, image, name, image, likeness.
Sahil: [00:46:30]
Yep.
Nathan: [00:46:32]
What do you think there? And what, like, what trends do you think are going to come from that? As we have a whole new wave of creators able to.
Sahil: [00:46:40]
Yeah. I mean, first off, I think it’s amazing. And I think it’s a long time coming. I played college sports from oh nine to 13 and it was like always a topic of discussion. It has been for the last 20 plus years. I think it’s way overdue. I mean, I think it’s a massive disservice to a lot of athletes.
It was the one time in their life that they could have made a lot of money off of a very unique skill. And then whether they got injured or it didn’t pan out, I think it’s a travesty that it has been this way for as long as it has. I’m glad it’s finally changed. and I think it’s like a classic example.
You know, kind of like a regulatory disruption that unlocks a massive new market, gambling has had the same thing like sports betting, I think probably in the early days of having a similar thing as it gets legalized, but you basically just had regulation that was holding back. a huge market and now it’s come, it’s gone away and you have this huge inflow of talented people that have huge audiences that people feel a high degree of affinity towards.
And so it’s a, it’s a huge inflow of new creators basically. And people that, you know, previously didn’t have access to these markets until they got done with school. and the reality of a lot of them is they’re not going to play professional sports. They’re going to be highly, highly relevant for their handful of years that they’re in college.
And this is their one chance to capitalize on that. And so I think it’s, I think it’s great. I think there’s going to be a ton of cool business model. that come up around it obviously like agents, they’re probably frothing at the mouth trying to figure out how to go capture this, media studios, brand studios, all of that.
I mean, I think there’s just a huge unlock for a lot of these student athletes. and it’s going to be cool to see how it flows. I mean, I think the general way these things will work is that it like probably over-correct where you have people spending too much on these athletes and like the market gets a little frothy and then they realize the ROI is not good.
And so it kind of swings back, sort of like, you know, ad monetization on all of these social platforms. Like when they get started, people freak out and throw all the money at the like one thing and it squeezes out the return within that as always happens. And so then you kind of come down to a baseline.
I imagine that happens with the athlete market.
If I were still an athlete, if I had been anything, I would be all over it. and I think a lot of them should be.
Nathan: [00:48:56]
So going back, let’s say, yeah, let’s say you were an athlete today. When, when those changes were put in place, what are the things that you’d be doing? You know, what you know now about like growing an audience and monetizing on platforms and stuff like that, you
Sahil: [00:49:11]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:49:12]
What would you do?
Sahil: [00:49:13]
Yeah. I mean, I guess my best advice is like focus on long-term value and owned audience over just like fleeting little like brand deals and promotions. like what value I, my, my mental model around all of this has always been like value capture. if you are creating a lot of value, you should be trying to capture a decent amount of that value you’re creating.
And the reality of most of the. Like one-off influencer deals and things like that is you’re actually creating a lot more value than you’re capturing. And it’s not a great mechanism for long-term value or longterm wealth creation. I think Warren buffet said when it’s raining gold, you put out a bucket, not a thimble.
And I always loved that quote. I think it’s like very, various student and very relevant for these kids and young, young men and women that are going to be out in this market. It’s like, it’s raining gold right now in a lot of cases for you. but you want to make sure you’re setting up infrastructure in setting yourself up in a way that allows you to capture it for the longterm and to capture a good proportion of what you’re creating for the longterm.
And so if that’s, you know, rather than doing an influencer deal, it’s like starting your own thing or having your own ownership of something. You’ve seen some of the tech talk influencers doing that Tik TOK creators, realizing that like equity is much more valuable to them than just taking a $10,000 put up a post, whatever it might be.
Spencer rattler the quarterback for Oklahoma. It was like starting a merchandise line and it’s his own thing. And he’s like, I think that that is really interesting. and you’re going to see a lot of cool, it’s going to be a great like idea lab, which I’m just excited to be around for, to learn from, because people are going to test and learn a million different things with all of these athletes that are around, trying and seeing what works.
Nathan: [00:50:55]
Yeah, it’s really going to be all the same principles, but you know, over again with a new, a new group of people, right? Like I wrote an article called the billion dollar creator, and it was basically about those who go from an, a specific, like how I might’ve had my audience by selling with a one-time thing.
That would be the brand sponsorship, the other deal, you know, something like that. And instead, focusing on the ones who like really build equity in something they’re starting a company, they’re saying like, great. Instead of letting someone else sponsor my audience, I’m going to be the one selling that product, you know?
And so it’s the, like glossy is an honest company and you know, these other ones where. You know, the individual creators, like
Sahil: [00:51:40]
Yep.
Nathan: [00:51:40]
Capture all of that value rather than say like, great, I’ll get paid 10,000 or a million dollars. You know what, depending on your influence level for a one-time thing.
Sahil: [00:51:50]
I totally agree. It’s something I think about constantly too, is like, you know, as I continue to progress in this world, you know, what am I actually building equity in versus earning income around. And I think you see it, you know, like creators have figured it out. Ben Thompson, you know, with launching his passport thing where he’s kind of creating a platform for people to engage and he’s creating equity around it and trying to build something Patrick O’Shaughnessy, you know, with the Colossus platform and kind of being the go-to place for, for business ideas and business breakdowns and investing.
I think a lot of people are doing that. I have something in the works right now with a good friend and, that we’re partnering on that I think is kind of in that vein that I’m really excited about. But, it’s definitely something that people should be thinking about in real time.
Nathan: [00:52:33]
Is that the, when, when people ask on Twitter, like what are you most excited about? And you answered the thing that I, that I can’t talk about yet.
Sahil: [00:52:39]
Yeah. Yeah. We’re close to being able to talk about it, which is exciting and it’s coming soon. but we’ve got, a couple of people that are going to be really, really cool to be involved with on a project. it’s going to be dope. I’m super excited.
Nathan: [00:52:52]
Nice. Yeah. I mean the biggest thing, like going back to monetization, you know, just for creators in general is really looking at what do you own long-term what do you have equity in? Right. Cause the sponsorships even, well, the job board, right? It’s something that you’re building equity in. Right. And so I like that.
Cause it, it builds this reputation. Sponsorships are a great way to drive revenue and be more connected with companies build relationships. But like that’s not a. That is just cash.
Sahil: [00:53:23]
Yeah,
Nathan: [00:53:24]
Doesn’t, it doesn’t build equity. And so I’m, I’m super
Sahil: [00:53:27]
Yeah,
Nathan: [00:53:28]
Like this is the thing that I preach all the time when I’m talking.
I guess I don’t preach it publicly as much.
Sahil: [00:53:32]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:53:32]
That I preach behind the scenes all
Sahil: [00:53:34]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:53:34]
You’re talking one on one.
Sahil: [00:53:35]
Back to me mental models, just cause I about these things a lot, my mental model for this one is like, you kind of have there’s there’s two sides to your life. You kind of have like income producing activities and then wealth producing active. and the way you want to set it up, you know, like how I think about it is you need an income producing activities because you need to pay bills.
Like you need to pay your mortgage or buy groceries, like car bill, all of those things. That’s like you have income producing assets. Any, Delta between your kind of expenses and what you’re producing from an income producing activity standpoint should be funneled into wealth producing activities. so that you’re actually building wealth and equity and whatever is.
And so wealth producing activities can be as simple as investing in the stock market or in whatever you’re investing in. Or it can be like further along on the risk curve where you’re starting a startup, you’re building something you’re, you know, investing in startups, you’re, you know, trading in crypto, whatever it might be.
It’s like here, you’re taking, you know, one end of the, like flywheel of your personal kind of financial ecosystem and using one end to kind of fund the other and actually build long-term equity and wealth in something. That’s how I tend to think about it is like you need income producing activities and any excess that exists on that side and people should strive.
I think, to live within their means any excess is, you know, used and funneled into wealth, producing active.
Nathan: [00:54:54]
Yeah. I love that. you and I share a passion for helping people build income, build wealth and all of that. And so I’m going to use that simple model
Sahil: [00:55:04]
Yeah, love it
Nathan: [00:55:04]
Lot. It’s good.
Sahil: [00:55:05]
Good.
Nathan: [00:55:07]
If someone asks them to put her in. And I was curious about this as well. going back to the investing side, if you’d only invest in two companies, public or private and what would they be?
Why?
Sahil: [00:55:15]
That’s a tough one. I don’t want to spend too much time on, on private cause I’ve already probably invested in some of these, you know, pallet is probably one of those for me right now. Like I just, I think palette’s an amazing company and I’m huge, huge fan of what they’re building. I, on the public side, honestly, Twitter could be one of the companies I would invest in today.
I just think the potential and. The external perception of Twitter is very different from my perspective on it. And so I think I have a variant perception of the future that, you know, that would allow me to capture a lot of value if it goes, if, you know, if I’m proven right. in the future, Synthesis School, I, again, disclosure, I’m an investor in that business.
I just want that business to succeed because I think the world is a better place if it succeeds. And I want my kids to be in it and taking classes it and being a part of it. and so I just want that business to succeed so badly, whether my investment ends up being an amazing one or not because of, you know, for whatever reason, I just want that business to win. And so I, I would invest in that 10 times out of 10 I’m sure.
Nathan: [00:56:18]
Just for everyone listening, give like the 62nd 32nd pitch on synthesis
Sahil: [00:56:23]
Yeah. Synthesis School is a kind of alternative education program for children. And basically the whole idea is that like our school systems are flawed. They don’t teach kids how to think. We created a school system that was based for the industrial age and not for innovation and creativity and the digital age.
And so Synthesis School originally was started for Elon Musk’s kids, at space X, it was called Ad Astra. They productized it, spun it out. It’s now an online based learning program that is team-based cohort-based, and creates this amazing learning experience for kids. It’s like two days after school, per week.
And some of the best kind of thinkers and doers in the world have their kids in it already, which has been a really cool proof of concept for it. but it’s just an amazing program. and you, you can look them up. I think they’re at synthesis.is and, on Twitter as well. You can find them, Synthesis School.
Nathan: [00:57:17]
Nice. Yeah, I’m a huge fan of alternative education. I was homeschooled. And so I had a very, very different path. And so programs like Synthesis and other friend is working on one called primer.
Sahil: [00:57:29]
Yep.
Nathan: [00:57:30]
That’s coming along really well. So I mean, just seeing all of these, these options
Sahil: [00:57:33]
Yeah,
Nathan: [00:57:34]
Of people basically changing up the model, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be good,
Sahil: [00:57:37]
Yeah. Try different things. It’s like the whole idea of the ideal lab, right? Try different things. See what works and see what drives the best outcomes, and whatever that is, let’s pour money into and end up with, you know, kids that are much better off than we were.
Nathan: [00:57:49]
Yeah. As we wrap up, one last question that I’m curious about is, as you built the audience, especially cause it’s growing so quickly, right over the last, you know, basically zero to 200,000 plus followers, and in a little over a year, what’s been like a favorite moment or a favorite opportunity that’s come about from it where you’re like, wow, okay, two years ago, this would never have come in the door without having like gone down this creator path.
Sahil: [00:58:14]
There’ve been so many man. It’s blown me away. I mean, it’s really the access to amazing people that I think is so incredible about the whole thing of being a greater and audience building. I mean, I don’t know, like DM-ing Toby, the CEO of Shopify and having him respond is like one of the coolest moments, you know, my life at the time when it, when it happened or, you know, having mark Cuban share one of my things and then respond to a DM I sent him, thanking him.
Like that was just so neat to me, that I have access to these people because I have spent time on this and have built around it. So, you know, I just think it’s incredible, and I’m so grateful for it. I still kind of pinch myself cause I just think it’s, it’s really neat and I’m excited that it’s happened because people think I’ve created value for them.
And so hopefully I can continue to do that and continue to grow, but, that’s the burden that I need to continue.
Nathan: [00:59:07]
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I mean, it’s just, it’s the power of light but consistent writing, creating habit, and then applying it in a way you’re making that flywheel of like better content, keep learning, figure out better ways of distribution, and I’m impressed with how quickly you’ve spun that flywheel.
But, for anyone listening and following along, like, okay, say that took two years, five years to get, you know, even 10 years to get to the point it’s a hundred percent worth it.
And it’s a great thing to pursue.
Sahil: [00:59:36]
Yep, absolutely.
Nathan: [00:59:37]
All right, where should people go to follow you on Twitter? Subscribe to the newsletter? All the things.
Sahil: [00:59:43]
Yeah. I’m at Sahil Bloom on Twitter. You can find all of my content there and links to all of the other things. That’s probably the central repository for me and I appreciate everybody and I, my DMs are open. So if you have any questions or things come up, I try to respond to everything.
Sometimes it takes me a couple of days cause they get flooded, but, I will get back to you. So thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple
