The Invisible Hand

Before you can tell a good story, you need to know who the characters are.

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

"Who Are You?" That's the a surprisingly difficult question for companies to answer. #storytelling #contentmarketing

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

@nydeinteriors I love this light so much that I bought one last year.

But @muutodesign failed include the mounting bracket and as of today they still haven't sent a replacement.

Now they want a photo of the box it came in . . . five months ago!?!

Just send me the bracket!

[J.C. Bradbury @jc_bradbury]

Once again, unsubstantiated claim about a stadium being an "economic engine" despite the fact that all evidence shows the opposite. No follow up. Journalists have to do better.

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren posted identical videos—word for word—right before Trump’s speech.

[Arthur Schwartz @ArthurSchwartz]

The Guardian’s @mirandeee is about to break news on a huge new Don Trump Jr scandal.

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

@katrosenfield Germans are so literal.

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

This is what the Old Guard fails to understand. If your plan is to go into the office 16 hours after these things, have your staff type up a press release for you to approve which goes out a few hours later, then you need to give up your seat to someone who understands it’s 2025.

[Kat Rosenfield @katrosenfield]

And voila

[Kat Rosenfield @katrosenfield]

ah yes, why observe that Hollywood celebrities employ teams of handsomely paid people to manipulate public sentiment on their behalf so random strangers will hurl themselves into battle to defend their honor! definitely no way this information might be useful to you in particular

[Danielle Fong 🔆 @DanielleFong]

journo on my last company:

we built you up, so we can tear you down. that’s part of the deal

(can you believe it? someone actually said this to me, and then published lies and petty accusations on their website)

i saw the same dynamic play out with many, many founders, and extremely on female founders, who collectively the media Loved to build up and then tear down.

this is a shit deal. going direct is 1000x better. in addition to telling your own story, you can do it over the long haul. whereas once you’re a legible target, journos will prefer to say nothing, or cheer on your fall. pretty fucking unreliable.

go direct.

[Lulu Cheng Meservey @lulumeservey]

GO DIRECT: THE MANIFESTO

I. TRADITIONAL PR IS DEAD.

For too long, founders have yielded control over their narratives to media and middlemen.

Before the internet, it was by necessity. The way to reach large audiences was through the media, and the way to get media coverage was through professional publicists.

Today, most of the planet is directly reachable by social media or email. There’s no longer a need to go through traditional gatekeepers of information and brokers of reputation — especially as their own credibility has plummeted.

The old PR playbook of relying on third parties with misaligned interests is obsolete.

But while the world has changed, comms norms have not. Still encased in amber are the old habits: prioritizing media over social media, fishing for clicks instead of fostering communities, and avoiding risk by recycling worn-out tactics.

“Corporate communications” itself is now an oxymoron, as nothing meaningful can be communicated by a faceless committee. If press releases read like they were written by a baker’s dozen of middle managers, that’s because they were. Their only discernible purpose seems to be to avoid upsetting anyone and jeopardizing the future job prospects of those middle managers.

The resulting stories are bland and generic, with passion reduced to pablum. Traditional comms is an anachronism.

II. COMMUNICATION IS THE FOUNDER’S JOB.

For a decade, we’ve been told that tech founders are cartoon villains, venture-funded startups are grifts, and new technologies will destroy us all.

Maybe there was a time when founders could just focus on building — they were seen by the media establishment as a curiosity, not a threat to the natural hierarchy who needed to be put in their place. But if that time ever existed, it is now long gone.

You may not be interested in The Discourse, but it is interested in you. And if you bow out, you are forfeiting your license to build a movement and thus build a company.

Building a movement is hard, but it must be done, and it must be done by founders. A founder’s passion, vision, and conviction can’t be simulated by others — least of all the press-release-enjoying middle managers already scouting for their next jobs.

The best spokesperson for any endeavor is not the one who has the most polish, the longest tenure, or the “right” credentials. It’s the person who holds the secret knowledge upon which the enterprise is built, the person who can not only describe the idea but, in the face of inevitable opposition, fight for it and win.

Founders need to take their narrative as seriously as they take the rockets or robots. They would never outsource their product — and when it comes to convincing others to support the mission, the story is the product. Outsourcing comms is as bad as outsourcing code.

As evangelists, founders are irreplaceable.

III. GO DIRECT OR GO HOME.

Going direct to the people who matter is how founders retain control over their narratives and preserve their companies’ uniqueness. Those who are stubborn, unorthodox, and disagreeable should never have their edges filed down for fear of offending entrenched interests.

But going direct doesn’t mean going it alone. It doesn’t mean refusing help or spurning others who can amplify your message. And it certainly doesn’t mean just poasting more.

Going direct means crafting and telling your own story, without being dependent on intermediaries.

Just as founders might have more natural talents at product, management, or engineering, some founders will be naturals at communicating while others have a harder time.

The good news is that going direct and building a movement, while not easy, are skills that can be developed with discipline and time. The bad news is that, unlike with engineering or management, communications failures are immediately public and personally humiliating. It’s not surprising that many are loathe to take on this responsibility.

At the same time, founders willing to pick up that gauntlet will find that it gives them a massive edge in recruiting, fundraising, selling, and shaping the information environment needed for their companies to thrive.

IV. IT’S TIME TO REBUILD THE ROSTRA.

At the center of Rome, as it transitioned from a Republic to an Empire, stood a speaker’s platform from which the city’s leaders would address the public directly.

It was called the Rostra, so named because it stood atop the captured battle rams (or rostrums) of enemy warships. From here, speeches were given that would sway opinion, change regimes, and alter history.

That physical structure has been lost to time, but we now have something much more powerful: a free and open internet with which to build a speaker’s platform of limitless scale. All we need is the will to build it.

The conventional way of communicating has its allure. Outsource your message, let some removed third party go through the motions of getting “impressions,” and spare yourself the risks and discomfort that come with putting your own name on the line.

But that way is incompatible with greatness.

Reject convention — build your own platform, build your own audience, and build your own narrative.

Go direct.

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

@jasonwhitlock What was the agency?

[Arts & Letters Daily @aldaily]

Journalists were once skeptical of big words and complex theories. They were anti-intellectual. Now they are something worse: pseudo-intellectual https://t.co/hz2WNmFbwE

[Mike Benz @MikeBenzCyber]

Narrative Beats Facts, Vibe Beats Narrative

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

Meritocracy vs Corruption https://t.co/v47XOumFEt

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

Prager U surgically fisks some dishonest reporting at NBC.

This is how it's done. https://t.co/DBjq96AUju

[The Dark Fiddling Pirate Jussim @PsychRabble]

"the lack of gender parity in STEM continues to cause handwringing, while men’s under-representation in Health, Education, Administration, & Literacy occupations has substantially worsened since 1980...yet continues to receive very little attention."
https://t.co/iO0KDjWuMN

[Title IX for All @TitleIXforAll]

Accused student at @Macalester had "only minutes" to review accuser's statements presented via Zoom. He turned off his camera, so the school booted him from the call. He apparently screenshotted the statements so he could respond in detail - which Macalester didn't like.

[The Invisible Hand @ThInvisibleHand]

https://t.co/L3ySTA6Xn5

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

“Before the 2016 election, most Americans trusted the traditional media and the trend was positive…Today, the US media has the lowest credibility—26 percent—among forty-six nations”

Russia collusion hoax had a lot to do with it

https://t.co/zv29iFHdbL

[Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze]

They went along with whatever Twitter told them. Didn't didn't ask the questions or investigate it themselves.