David Spinks

Coach for community leaders and execs.

Not really on X much anymore but sometimes I pop in to see what people are yelling about these days.

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

maybe intead of making a "dent" in the world (kind of aggressive) we just took care of the people around us?

how many problems in the world would go away if we did this?

[Divot @Divotdotorg]

What if the world's problems didn't need a grand tech solution?

They just needed people to show up for each other.

@DavidSpinks co-founded @CMX, helped define the community-building industry in Silicon Valley, and wrote the book Business of Belonging, reflecting on what the world could look like if everyone just took care of the people around them.

Watch the full conversation with @DerekjAndersen, link in the replies.

[Divot @Divotdotorg]

Shared values aren't enough for true belonging. What matters is feeling safe enough to be exactly who you are.

@DavidSpinks built @CMX, wrote the book Business of Belonging, and became one of the defining voices of the community-building industry in Silicon Valley.

Watch the full conversation with @DerekjAndersen. Link in the replies.

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

If you struggle to make decisions, it's probably because you're trying to find the right answer in an inherently complex situation that doesn't have one.

The way forward with complex decisions isn't to find the right answer. It's to form a hypothesis and test it.

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

every community builder should take this advice to heart.

because community is ultimately immeasurable.

only companies that are comfortable not using metrics as pure measures of success will be able to properly invest in community.

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke explains Goodhart’s law and why he doesn’t like KPIs or OKRs

“Goodhart’s law is real. The moment a metric becomes a goal, it’s no longer a useful metric… No metric by itself is a complete heuristic for a complex business. There’s a million different tensions in a company, and you can’t keep all of them in harmony by optimizing for one thing.”

For this reason, Shopify doesn’t use KPIs or OKRs. But as Tobi explains, this doesn’t mean they don’t value data and metrics.

“We are extremely data informed. We have invested enormous amounts of money and time into systems that give us basically everything at our fingertips… But what Shopify attempts to do is just not over-fit for what’s quantifiable.”

People love optimizing for highly-quantifiable things because there’s immediate gratification that comes from seeing a number go up. But Tobi thinks that the most important aspects of a product are rarely quantifiable:

“The overlap of the most valuable things you can do with a product and the things that happen to be fully quantifiable are like maybe 20%. Which leaves 80% of a value space unaddressable by the people who only look at quantifiable things.”

He continues:

“Shopify is comfortable with unquantifiable things like taste, quality, passion, love, hate… The sort of deep satisfaction that a craftsperson feels when they’ve done a job well is actually a better proxy if you allow it to be.”

They then have robust analytics systems that tell the company if something’s wrong or a new rollout breaks something.

“We think about it as a cockpit for a pilot. The decisions are still made by pilots, and we think this leads to better results… I think there needs to be more acceptance in business of unquantifiable things… And then metrics take a support function.”

Source: @lennysan (Feb 2025)

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@MitchAll2gether @DerekjAndersen @Divotdotorg so happy this found you at the right time mitch!

[Divot @Divotdotorg]

True belonging is knowing that a group of people will hold you in a relationship no matter what mistakes you make, with accountability, but without ever letting go.

@DavidSpinks co-founded @CMX, helped define the community-building industry in Silicon Valley, and wrote the book Business of Belonging.

In conversation with @DerekjAndersen.
Link in the replies.

[Divot @Divotdotorg]

Most people ask how much to sacrifice for their dreams.
The better question is what's really driving that ambition in the first place.

@DavidSpinks co-founded @CMX, helped define the community-building industry in Silicon Valley, and wrote the book Business of Belonging.

Watch the full conversation with @DerekjAndersen. Link in the replies.

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

It's out! This might just be my favorite podcast I've ever done. I hope you enjoy it.

Big thanks to @DerekjAndersen and the @Divotdotorg team for having me.

[Derek Andersen @DerekjAndersen]

This week on @Divotdotorg I interviewed @DavidSpinks, author of The Business of Belonging and one of the world's biggest experts on building community. We talked about success, loneliness, ambition, why high performers often feel inadequate, and if making a dent in the universe is worth the cost.

Timestamps:
03:11 — What Community & Belonging Really Mean
04:34 — The Loneliness Epidemic & Social Media Addiction
06:40 — What It Truly Means to Feel Like You Belong
12:33 — Can Businesses Ever Replace Real Community?
15:39 — How Communities Mirror Human Nature & Leadership
19:40 — Silicon Valley, Success & the Need to Prove Yourself
23:51 — Why Success Never Makes You Feel “Enough”
24:19 — The False Tradeoff Between Ambition & Happiness
28:00 — Elon Musk, Steve Jobs & the Price of Greatness
31:37 — Is Making a Dent in the Universe Worth the Cost?
36:20 — Why “Saving the World” Often Starts at Home
41:04 — The Hardest Lesson: You Are Already Enough
44:22 — The One Idea David Wishes Everyone Believed
45:19 — Best Advice for Overcoming Fear & Hard Things
46:03 — Fatherhood, Presence & What Really Matters
47:27 — Why Measuring Your Life Can Be Dangerous

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

gold

[Joe Hudson @FU_joehudson]

Decades of studying and teaching emotional intelligence, condensed into a single page:

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

Lately, I’ve been wondering if I ever truly wanted to be a CEO.

Did I want to start companies? Did I want to build something massive? Or were these stories handed to me?

I shared my reflections in my newsletter today.

https://t.co/QaS2zDNrXw

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

step 1: burn out
step 2: heal
step 3: teach others how to not burn out
step 4: realize it's hard to make a living doing that
step 5: work harder to make it work anyway
step 6: burn out

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@robbiebent1 can't wait to visit!

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@eriktorenberg there's a renaissance of these kinds of clubs happening right now

check the participants in the BuildIRL program in SF as an example

[Hiten Shah @hnshah]

https://t.co/Mls712RhrU

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@winslow_strong Really excited to see this in the world

[Winslow.Ξ @winslow_strong]

Today we are announcing The Consciousness Foundation (https://t.co/MqwcrC04KU), a public charity whose purpose is to advance the scientific understanding of consciousness and foster consciousness development, ie things like awakening, healing, and inner development.

Why?

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@eriktorenberg What was it like for him growing up in Long Beach, NY? (my hometown!)

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

Challenge: Write a comment on this post, but make it sound like you used AI (without using AI).

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

Buying a house and I can't imagine doing this without AI.

Reviewing contracts, explaining things, walking me through processes...

It's been absolutely gamechanging.

[David Spinks @DavidSpinks]

@dremilyanhalt wow this is good