Apollo、Citadel、Blackstone 与 Bridgewater 如何打造品牌
- Prosek Partners 打造的是一套金融业多年来拒绝买单、直到全球金融危机（GFC）将其变成必需品才被接受的进攻型品牌服务。 Prosek说，自己“多年一直在卖没人想买的东西”；随后 Goldman 被贴上“吸血鱿鱼”标签，Lehman 和 Bear 离场，“Goldman 这类机构终于意识到，这不是防守游戏，而是进攻游戏”。公司随后逆势押注私募市场、PE、VC 和信贷，“回报极其丰厚”；Molly 给出的成绩单包括9位数美元营收、并购传播业务全球前三、2026年全球交易量第一，以及客户合计70万亿美元的AUM。
- 新的第一印象，是LLM如何描述你——Prosek称之为“数字眨眼”（digital blink）——而一家100亿美元管理人没能通过这一关。 她差点跳过一家100亿美元管理人的电话，因为这家公司在网上看起来“有点寒酸”；这家由年轻创始人执掌、规模做到90亿美元的机构此前完全没做这件事，“网上的信息全都不准确”。解决方案是在顺风期持续给机器喂“势能内容”，因为第三方媒体（NYT、FT、WSJ，以及排名靠前的播客）在Google和LLM中的排名都高于自有内容。“如果你不给机器喂一点内容，你就什么都控制不了。”
- 唯一“永远不要发生”的危机，是不要让不实叙事凝固成定论。 她举的案例是那位Coldplay演唱会当事人：她估计相关内容获得了80亿次浏览，负面故事持续约9个月不断固化，直到Oprah的一档播客揭示她已与丈夫分居，而且丈夫知道她在现场。对比之下，Ray Dalio（客户关系已持续18年）刊登整版广告，直接写着“这不是真的”，并“开始教会市场，你不必保持沉默”。
- 说服怀疑品牌价值的创始人，靠的是3个词：人才、交易、资本；而募资是最有效的切入口。 “现在募资极其痛苦”，因此把品牌定位为提升募资效率，是最常见的来电原因。预算方面，AUM低于20亿美元的机构不超过25万美元；复杂、全球化、公开市场管理人的预算为50万至400万美元；当上市私募机构通过F1和美国网球公开赛赞助争夺零售客户时，预算可能达到1000万美元。她自己的证明是：7年前参加Ted Seides的Capital Allocators一档播客，累计带来1700万美元费用收入。
- AI的声誉危机，部分源于硅谷先在圈内自说自话，再把“所有人都要失业”的叙事输出到普通社会。 她说，Eric Schmidt曾在她记忆中是一场毕业典礼或毕业演讲上遭到嘘声；当AI话题出现在她女儿的大学时，所有学生都在嘘。她认为应复制Jensen Huang的打法——走访华尔街、华盛顿、欧洲、英国和亚洲，把AI重新包装成提升美国竞争力、创造就业的力量——而Elon的执行“有时比较粗糙……这会留在人们脑子里”。
- 传统金融的讨论提供了一套模板：把强硬和高压转化为令人向往的体验。 Mark Rowan接手后，Apollo成为Leon Black离场后“从一场本可能危及生存的危机中活下来”的“A+案例”；Citadel在Ken Griffin掌舵后，从“古拉格”变成带着笑脸上Instagram、备受尊敬的机构；Bridgewater则把激进透明包装成实现最佳回报的路径。关键在于：“两件看似无法共存的事可以共存”——粗粝、高强度的体验，也可以是“我人生中最好的体验”。
- Meta同时拥有3个品牌：产品、公司和Zuckerberg，且它们处在不同层级。 围绕儿童安全的和解，加上把问题重新定义为“行业问题，而不是Meta的问题”的整版广告，做得“极其漂亮”，把舆论压力转移到了Snapchat及其他竞争对手身上。她对Meta能否在Zuckerberg离开后继续生存的判断带有保留：“我认为可以。但这是我个人的看法。”
- 对VC而言，品牌是获取交易的武器，而过度曝光是最常见的失败方式。 Accel“之所以拿下Cursor交易，是因为内部声誉真的很好”；a16z选择做媒体公司，Thrive走低调奢华路线，Allen & Company则专注于搭建圈层。她给小型机构的建议是：“每季度做1件高质量的事……观察LLM开始如何描述你”，同时删掉那些只有3个赞的帖子。
1. 把进攻卖给只肯买防守的行业
- Prosek的创办逻辑，源于她20多岁时的判断：金融业终有一天会以“进攻的方式”看待品牌；当时这个行业唯一愿意为传播付费的场景，只有危机公关和并购公告。“我们多年一直在卖没人想买的东西。我常常刚走到门口，门就砰地一声关上——‘我们要保持低调……走开。’”在她看来，强品牌首先要有独特叙事，再由真实、使命感或“赢的资格”支撑，最终形成情感上的向往。
- GFC是转折点：Goldman被称为“吸血鱿鱼”，Lehman和Bear消失，普通社会痛恨金融业——“Goldman这类机构终于意识到，这不是防守游戏，而是进攻游戏”，于是开始寻找谁真正懂这一套，“我们当时就说，‘我们多年来一直在讲这个。’”随后她又押注私募市场、VC、PE和信贷，竞争对手曾嘲讽道：“你为什么要和那些奇怪、古怪、又不花钱的创始人打交道？”结果这笔下注“回报极其丰厚”。
- Molly给出的成绩单包括：并购传播业务全球前三，2026年与FGS Global并列全球交易量第一，美元9位数营收，以及客户合计70万亿美元的AUM。Prosek评出的最佳品牌包括最早行动的Blackstone、Goldman和JPMorgan，以及后来者Arctos——“刚被KKR收购……品牌做得非常出色”。她的保留是：“我们是从零开始的……当时又小又丑，还带着一个疯狂想法；很幸运，这个想法奏效了。”
2. 预算，以及说服怀疑者的公式：人才、交易、资本
- 按她给出的预算层级，AUM低于20亿美元的机构，预算大概不超过25万美元；复杂、全球化、多产品、同时覆盖零售和机构客户，或已经上市的管理人，预算为50万至400万美元；一旦上市私募机构通过F1和美国网球公开赛赞助争夺零售客户，“预算可能达到1000万美元”。
- 品牌建设始于内部和外部研究，先把核心叙事钉牢；之后选择媒体、思想领导力、数字和社交渠道，还是保持低调，都应服从公司文化和业务目标。
- 对那些认为品牌是“轻飘飘、摸不着的东西”的创始人，她的说服话术是：人才、交易、资本。品牌能让人才“主动想为你工作，而不是你去求他们”，提升交易来源和竞争力，也能提高募资效率——“这是我们接到最多的电话……现在募资极其痛苦。”
3. 内容策略：播客是资产，社交媒体是免费市场调研
- 面对博客还是播客的形式之争，她的答案不偏不倚：“内容才重要。”应该选择受众有反应、同时又是自己擅长的形式。没有分发能力，内部播客“是一场苦战”——“如果你只能触达5个人，就不值得做”。但一档好的长篇播客“不是一次性采访，而是一项资产”，可以持续推送给投资人、候选人和客户。
- 她的实际回报是：“一档播客已经给我带来1700万美元费用收入。”这档节目是Ted Seides在7年前主持的Capital Allocators，因为Ted搭建了一个聚集资深决策者的LP、创始人与GP市场。Molly补充说，Seides每年都会在Spotify上重新上传这期节目。
- 她的LinkedIn newsletter按有效性排名前三，因为所有数据都可追踪：一夜之间获得10万次浏览，说明“我触达了受众，也知道这条信息应该继续”；1万次浏览则意味着“这东西做得不怎么样”。她的做法是广泛试验，然后“停止做某些事，把资源加倍投向另外一些”。
4. 给机器喂内容：LLM、势能内容与数字眨眼
- 贯穿整期节目的故事是：她差点拒绝一家100亿美元管理人的电话，因为这家公司在网上看起来“有点寒酸”；见面后却发现那是一家“充满活力、令人惊艳的基金”，由一位年轻创始人执掌，规模已经做到90亿美元，却此前什么都没做。“网上的信息全都不准确……老兄，你得把这件事修好。”解决方案是给LLM持续喂“势能内容”；否则“机器只会抓取手边已有的东西，可能是旧的，也可能是错的”。
- 机制在于：第三方媒体在Google和LLM中的排名都高于自有内容，因此NYT、FT、WSJ的引用，或一档排名靠前的播客，才是主要驱动力。她甚至为自己做了一个词云——企业家、连接者——如今当人们在网上询问她是谁时，这些词会“被重新吐出来，用来描述我”。
- 她在节目结尾给这个概念命名为“数字眨眼”。在更新Malcolm Gladwell关于15秒内完成判断的说法后，她说：“如果我不认识Molly O’Shea，我会问LLM她是做什么的……”那一刻形成的印象会被固定下来，之后将非常难以改变。
5. 危机博弈：不要添柴，但绝不能让谎言凝固
- 危机没有标准剧本——“这些棋步非常重要，需要大量判断力”。默认的第一步，是评估回应是否会“增加氧气”，引发下一个新闻周期；很多时候，“新闻周期可能像一阵波浪一样从你身边过去，然后你什么都不做”。但如果新闻周期中的内容既不准确又有损害，就必须参与其中；大多数“真正靠谱”的记者会接受不公开引用的背景信息，而能够证明不实的报道也可以被纠正，因为“故事会永远留在网上”。
- 她所谓“永远不要发生”的案例，是Coldplay演唱会事件。按她的估计，相关内容获得了80亿次浏览，围绕那名女性的“第三者”叙事持续约9个月不断固化，直到她在Oprah Winfrey的一档播客中说明自己已经分居，丈夫也在演唱会现场，而且她收到过死亡威胁——“主要来自女性”。Prosek的判断是：一开始保持低调“可能是对的”，但到了某个节点，她本应主动出击。
- 反向案例是Bridgewater的Dalio：刊登整版广告，写着“这不是真的”，同时直接通过社交媒体面对受众——“他开始教会市场，你不必保持沉默。”至于记者，最好在危机发生前就主动认识几位，因为“关系很重要”，而且大多数记者“其实相对理性”。
6. AI在普通社会面前绊了一跤，Jensen提供了修复模板
- 她对数据中心和AI反弹的判断是：硅谷、华尔街、好莱坞和政界都是相对封闭的生态，“很少”真正互通，而AI把圈内真相直接输出给了外部。在一场AI创始人大会上，主流叙事是：“如果你裁掉团队、提高利润，你就是一个优秀CEO”；随后CEO们又亲自对外传播“所有人都要失业”。结果是，Eric Schmidt在她记忆中的一场毕业典礼或毕业演讲上遭到嘘声；当AI话题出现在她女儿的大学时，所有学生都在嘘。
- 她希望看到的转向，是Jensen Huang“已经走出硅谷”：走访华尔街、华盛顿、欧洲、英国和亚洲，成为“解释AI为什么实际上可能对你有好处的大使”，并把美国竞争力和就业创造作为核心叙事。谈到Jensen和Elon的差别，她欣赏Musk——“也许是有史以来最伟大的工程师”——但“他的执行有时比较粗糙……这会留在人们脑子里”。
7. 首席情商官：说真话的人，以及员工泄密数据
- Prosek把自己的角色描述为“桌上的说真话者”。一次创始人沙龙晚宴后，她不得不打电话给一位聪明但极具支配欲的客人：“你很聪明，我可以把你变成明星，但你不能像在那张桌子上一样支配别人。”结构性问题在于：“你在权力链条上越往上走，越少有人告诉你真话。”她也把这条担忧用来审视自己。
- 有一个值得记住的数字：“超过50%，可能超过75%的负面报道，最初都源于员工泄密。”员工“可以在坏日子里帮你，也可以把你埋掉”，但内部沟通和员工沟通的重要性，往往还排在投资者沟通之后。她所说的低情商行为，是不和员工在一起，忘记每一位领导者的一举一动都在被观察。同样的逻辑也适用于尴尬的真实性表达：“千万别以为某件事很酷，而它其实并不酷……如果不合时宜，真的会把你埋掉。”
8. Meta的三层案例，以及受过伤的创始人该在哪里发声
- 她把品牌拆成3层：产品品牌（Instagram）、公司品牌（Meta）和创始人品牌（Zuckerberg），三者处在不同层级；Kalanick时期的Uber也是如此，“很多人只关心一件事：我喜不喜欢这个产品？”围绕社交媒体与儿童安全的和解案“处理得极其漂亮”：支付数十亿美元、作出补救，然后刊登整版广告，把问题重新定义为“行业问题，而不是Meta的问题——所以所有人都应该加入进来”，将舆论压力推向Snapchat及其他同业。至于创始人能否离开的问题，她的判断带有保留：Meta可以在Zuckerberg离开后继续生存——“我认为可以。但这是我个人的看法。这仍然是一个争议。”
- Zuckerberg的个人品牌“从一开始就很难处理”，只有“在很长一段时间里持续采取不同的行动”才能改变它。对于那些受过伤、因此完全回避媒体的创始人，她给出的替代路径包括播客、自有社交媒体和高规格舞台。“大多数播客都是商界人士在运营……那里有更多同理心。Mark Zuckerberg应该来上你的播客。”案例一是Scott Bessent：特朗普贸易措施令市场下跌后，他在Milken亮相，“我真的认为，他通过这样做让整个金融生态系统平静下来”。案例二是Dalio在《60 Minutes》上谈OceanX和拯救海洋：尽管他掌管着全球最大对冲基金，这仍是一场纯粹的公益胜利。
9. Apollo、Citadel、Bridgewater、Blackstone：把高强度转化为向往
- Apollo曾经“像一个黑箱，神秘莫测”，这种形象一度对它有利，却无法与上市、成为多元化管理人的目标共存；随后Leon Black“因一些相当负面的事情倒下”。Mark Rowan被认为是在同时改变文化、声誉和品牌，让LP留下、顶尖人才加入：“这是一个从本可能危及生存的时刻中活下来的A+案例。”
- Citadel从“古拉格……最糟糕的工作场所、量化交易、黑箱式机构”，变成“备受尊敬”的公司，原因在于Griffin亲自“掌舵品牌”，展示自己在政策和经济学上的判断力，于是市场接收到的信息变成：这里强硬、充满压力——“但这会对我有好处”。Bridgewater更早就完成了同样的转向：把激进的真相和透明度，从近乎邪教式的印象重新定义为取得“最佳回报”的机制。她的公式是：“强悍但平易近人……两件看似无法共存的事可以共存。”
- Blackstone的优势在于行动早，而且每一步背后都有策略：“人们经常对John Gray的跑步视频翻白眼……但这很聪明。这是LinkedIn上最便宜的营销，让全国每一位财务顾问都能看到，而且奏效了。”节日视频服务于文化建设；跑步视频则面向高净值客户和财务顾问，是这家零售业务巨头的营销工具。Gray本人也示范了当下人们期待的领导者形象：极其认真、聪明，但平易近人，也不怕拿自己开玩笑。
10. VC品牌：选好赛道，不要过度曝光，也别抢创始人的功劳
- VC客户潮“都是过去4年才集中涌现”，落后于已经从消费类投资组合中学会品牌建设的PE。不同机构选择了不同赛道：a16z几乎就是一家媒体公司，Thrive走“低调奢华”路线，几乎不做内容，Allen & Company则是纯粹的圈层组织品牌——“所有人都想复制它，但没人能复制”。Prosek自己的路线与之相似：几乎不做媒体，专注于组织活动和主持，因为“销售就是先给予、再获得回报。我不断给予、给予、给予，然后惊喜地发现，我也得到了回报。”
- 至于做得太多，她的判断是：“当受众开始因为你无处不在而翻白眼时，你就做错了。”对小型机构，她的建议是：“每季度做1件高质量的事……观察LLM开始如何描述你”；而对于那些只有3个赞的帖子，她会成为会议室里那个问“我们能不能别再发这个了”的人。
- 真正的问题是交易来源：“为什么我要拿你的支票，而不是别人的？”Molly举的例子是Accel：她甚至叫不出其合伙人的名字，但Accel“之所以拿下Cursor交易，是因为内部声誉真的很好”。至于VC自我庆祝，Molly站在创始人一侧会觉得尴尬，而Prosek的规则是：“谦逊一点对你更有利。”更高级的展示方式，是和被投公司一起上台，让观众自己读出双方之间的化学反应。
完整逐字稿
My name is Jen Prosek. Prosek Partners is known as an integrated market communications firm.
You were top 3 in M&A communications, ranked number 1 globally in deal volume in 2026. You hit 9 figures in revenue. Am I allowed to say that?
Yeah.
That's crazy. You have a clear monopoly on all of the branding and marketing, PR, communications, and strategy behind some of the largest institutions and companies as well. You have $70 trillion in clients' AUM.
It's a lot of money. I started the business in my 20s, and I had this crazy idea that the finance world would care about brand in an offense way. I had this cockamamie idea that we were going to be the firm that did that.
We were selling something no one wanted to buy for years. And then the financial crisis came, and Goldman famously had the vampire squid, and many, many other firms were damaged. Lehman went away. Bear Stearns went away.
So famously, the Goldmans of the world decided this is not a defense game; it's an offense game. They went to the market and said, "Who does this?" And we were like, "We've been talking about this for years."
Today, we're sitting down with Jen Prosek, one of the most influential brand builders in finance and technology. Jen is the founder and managing partner of Prosek Partners, the reputation-management firm behind some of the biggest names across private markets, asset management, venture capital, banking, and tech.
For more than 2 decades, she's advised financial institutions managing hundreds of billions and, in some cases, trillions of dollars, helping them shape their brands, build trust, manage crises, and turn reputation into a competitive advantage. Today, I want to unpack what she's learned from having a front-row seat to some of the most powerful firms and financiers in the world: who has built the best brands, what they got right, what destroys a reputation, how to build one intentionally, and what happens when things go wrong.
Jen Prosek, welcome to Sorcery.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I'm so excited to have you here. We're at the New York Stock Exchange in their IPO Roadshow library.
Nice.
Which is very emblematic of your career—
Yes.
—and all of the huge financial firms that you work with building out the largest brands. So I want to ask you: What makes a good financial brand?
1. Financial Brands Need A Narrative
Well, it's what makes any brand great, but I think first it has a distinctive narrative. We always tell clients, "Before you get out there and say anything, you need to nail the narrative." You have to figure out what is distinctive, interesting, and exciting so that when you say it, and all your people say it, there is some positive effect, right?
Brands typically are somewhat emotional. They're aspirational. All those things are built into nailing the narrative. But I think great brands are—you know, the word "authentic" is always used, but it is true. They're authentic. They have some sort of purpose. They have some sort of reason for being, some right to win.
I think brands are aspirational and emotional. You want to feel, as the customer of a brand, that you are part of it and that it represents you.
So I don't know if you say this, but I'll say it because Prosek pops up in my inbox all the time.
We like that.
You have a clear monopoly on all of the branding and marketing, PR, communications, and strategy behind some of the largest institutions and companies as well. So I think I wrote it down: You have $70 trillion in clients' AUM.
It's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. As we walk through this conversation, I'd love to talk through some core examples.
Sure.
And I know alongside that, there's a handful of stats behind you, but you were top 3 in M&A communications, ranked number 1 globally in deal volume in 2026. You were ranked number 1 alongside FGS Global. You hit 9 figures in revenue. Am I allowed to say that?
Yeah.
That's crazy. Oh my gosh. And you have a long list of clients. But I guess to start, we'll talk through some client cases and some other brands. This might be a big question as well, but who do you think has built some of the best brands in finance?
Well, it's undeniable that the obvious ones have done a good job, right? And, by the way, they started incredibly early. But Blackstone, Goldman, JPMorgan—I mean, these are the obvious players.
There are some financial brands that are newer, that were born only a few years ago, that are excellent brands. One is Arctos. I don't know if you know them, but they just got bought by KKR. I think they have an exceptional brand.
2. The Offense Game Arrived
I've been at this a very long time. I started the business in my 20s, and I had this crazy idea that the finance world would care about brand in an offense way. There was offense and defense. The only dollars spent in the entire industry were if you got in trouble, you would call a crisis firm, or maybe if you did an M&A transaction, but there was no offense game.
I thought—thank God I was young and silly—what if all these investors changed their stance and went on the offense and cared about brand building? There was really no firm in the space that did that. I had this cockamamie idea that we were going to be the firm that did that.
We were selling something no one wanted to buy for years. I would get the door slammed in my face: "We're under the radar. We don't engage with stakeholders outside of our investors. Go away." And then the financial crisis came, and Goldman famously had the vampire squid, and many, many other firms were damaged.
The whole ecosystem knew that they had brand damage. Regular people on Main Street hated finance.
Mm-hmm.
Famously, the Goldmans of the world decided this is not a defense game; it's an offense game. They went to the market and said, "Who does this?" And we were like, "We've been talking about this for years."
So we had our magic moment in the GFC, and then we made a big bet on private markets, VC, PE, and credit. Our competition thought we were crazy. They were like, "Why are you hanging around with those weird, squirrely founder people who don't spend money?" And they didn't at the time.
But we made a long-term bet, which super paid off.
Mm.
Thank you for all those accolades. But I just want the audience to know we started at zero. We started small and ugly with a crazy idea, and we're lucky it hit.
To put some dollars toward these budgets for the different categories, how much does each category of firm typically spend on marketing and branding?
3. Brand Budgets Follow Complexity
Yeah. I would say if you're under $2 billion in AUM, your spend is probably $250,000 or less. I would say the more complex, the more global, and the more multiproduct you are—and also if you're retail and institutional, if you're public, if you start to get complicated—your budgets are probably $500,000 to $4 million. A huge range.
Mm.
It depends. You see, for the first time, publicly traded private-markets firms doing F1 sponsorships and U.S. Open sponsorships.
Yeah.
That's to get to the retail audience, right? That's driven a lot of interest in brand, but it's driven a lot of spend. You could imagine the budgets could be $10 million if you're getting into that kind of marketing.
And so what is the main objective, I guess, to market? Has retail changed the focus?
Definitely. So let's start with a rubric I call "talent, deals, and capital." When a founder is skeptical about the business impact of brand—because the old-schoolers often felt that brand was this fluffy, intangible thing that doesn't deliver ROI—we easily change a founder's mind when we talk about talent, deals, and capital. That's the rubric.
We're going to make people want to work for you because you're a brand instead of you begging them. We're going to help you with deal sourcing. You're going to get better deals. You're going to compete better for deals because people are going to want to be with your firm.
And then we're going to make fundraising more efficient and effective. That's the phone call we get the most, honestly.
Mm-hmm.
Fundraising is torturous right now. So the idea that what we do can create efficiency, effectiveness, and preference in a fundraise is really attractive. That's the speech that gets founders to say, "Okay, maybe I do need to experiment with some of this stuff."
What's the typical process when you onboard a new client and build that brand out? Do you first strategize? Then are you trying to pick who's the key person in the firm who should be an image of it? Is a brand the image of it? How do you decide those components, and what are the steps to build it up?
Yeah. It depends where you are in the journey.
Mm.
But typically speaking, in this world, whether you're—JPMorgan has it pretty much down.
Yeah.
But whether you're a large global financial institution, a technology company, or a startup, it starts with where you are on the journey, and we need to nail the narrative.
Mm.
4. The Narrative Comes First
Most financial firms would say, "We're not good at explaining what we do quickly, easily, with intention, and with excitement," right? That's where we start: How do we figure out that narrative? That's an internal and external research exercise.
At the end of it, we basically tell clients, “If we were you, this is what we would say, how we would say it, and how we would amplify it.” Then you get to the work of amplifying your story and brand, right? There are lots of choices there, and some of the choices are based on what your culture is like, but most of the choices should be about what your business goals are, right?
Yeah.
Should I be doing media? Should I be doing thought leadership and speaking? Digital? Social? Should I stay quiet? I think even the most conservative brands are doing some version of all of this—media, thought leadership, digital, and, of course, fixing crises. But that's the way we look at it.
Do people still need to do blogs? I mean, this is—
Eh.
I feel like podcasts have kind of taken over where blogs were. Internal podcasts, I'm not really a proponent of this because I don't believe everybody needs a podcast, but I understand it creates content.
Yes.
Everyone would make blogs for SEO and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
And so you'd get more traffic. You'd have some collateral in case someone you're hiring or that kind of thing. Do they still matter? What are the key resources?
I would just say content matters, and you have to figure out what kind of content is going to turn your audience on, right?
Mm-hmm.
And what content are you naturally good at? An internal podcast is a really uphill battle for most companies because you need distribution.
Yeah.
You need an audience. If you're reaching 5 people, it's not worth doing.
Yeah.
I'm a huge fan—it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get to know you—of the podcast because it is a long-form asset.
Mm-hmm.
I always say to clients, “This is not a one-and-done interview. This is an asset. If you do this well, you can advance this piece to an investor, a new recruit, or a customer. And if they even listen to half of it, again, that efficiency and effectiveness means they sit down and they're ready to do business. They might even prefer to work with you.”
It's hard to get the story and the perspective of the person without that long-form interview, and people love audio, right? Even investors say, “Don't give me your deck. I'd rather listen while I'm on the treadmill.” People like the portability of audio, so I'm a big fan. But I wouldn't say the blog is in or the blog is out.
I know this audience—your audience hates LinkedIn. I write a LinkedIn newsletter.
Mm.
It's one of the top 3 most effective things I do.
Yeah.
Because if I get 100,000 views overnight on my piece, I know I'm reaching people, and I know that message is something I should continue with, not abandon.
Mm.
If I get 10,000, I know that's a stinker. The market research I get from social platforms is really amazing. So I would say I don't discriminate against any of it, and I'm a big proponent of experimenting.
Yeah.
I tell my clients, “Let's try these things,” because we're going to get a feel for where we're moving hearts and minds, where we're hitting our audience, and where this is having a commercial impact. Then stop doing certain things and double down on the others.
I have a top 3 list of things I do to build my brand and the firm's brand, for commercial reasons, and they might not be someone else's top 3.
Yeah. I love that you love podcasts because—
I do.
I saw the value of it when I started creating mine. Even when I had a tiny audience, I would have startups come on, I'd have funds come on, and they'd be getting customers out of it.
Yes.
They'd be getting, like, $50 million contracts—crazy things. And then they'd get funding out of it, millions of dollars, that kind of stuff.
I'm up to $17 million in fees on 1 podcast.
Really?
Yes.
No.
Yes, and I'll give him a shout. It's the Capital Allocators Podcast with Ted Seides.
Mm.
Ted created an institutional investor marketplace.
Yeah.
LPs and founder GPs listen, and that's a very powerful combination. They're very senior decision-makers. I guess I did the podcast when people were just really starting to think about marketing.
Mm.
But I still get calls from it, and I think that was 7 years ago.
It's incredible.
It's incredible.
When I was doing extra research on this, we sat and had coffee—
Yes.
—in LA, and it was amazing.
It was. It was outside. The sun was out. It was great.
It was beautiful weather all the time.
Yes.
I know you did this, too, and I know that it's become a forcing function for getting to know people and clients ahead of time. Before I interview anyone, I will look up every podcast they've ever gone on.
Yeah, of course.
I'll go right to Spotify. I'll search their name, maybe their company. I'll go to YouTube. I'll search that up, too. But on Spotify, I saw that podcast. He reuploads it every year; he must be that good.
Oh, he does? He didn't tell me.
Yes. No, you can go to Spotify.
That's amazing.
It's up there. It's been replayed 7 times.
I love it.
It's incredible. That's when you know you have a hit piece. For me, it's a goal. I want to be able to create evergreen content that you can replay every year, and it's still a banger.
Yes.
But you clearly—
But that's the thing. People who love your podcast will go back to the library and be like, “I didn't watch this one. I'm going to watch this one.” So the shelf life is actually quite long.
Yeah. But I want to talk about that a little bit more. In terms of the podcast strategy and the content strategy, I want to know when you should play offense, when you should stay on the sidelines, and be quiet, because there's a point at which you're like, “Okay, maybe you don't actually need to do anything.”
Yes.
But there is a point in time when you're like, “Okay, maybe you're growing really fast. Maybe there will be challenges along the way, and maybe you should get ahead of the narratives in whatever way they come at you.” How do you think about that in building out this offensive strategy?
5. The Reputation Machine Needs Feeding
There's an overall brand health you should have, right? It doesn't have to be very complicated, but you should be monitoring: What does my brand look like and feel like to the outside?
And by the way, in the world of LLMs, this happened yesterday. I talked to a $10 billion manager, and I almost didn't take the call because it was like, in LLMs, they look kind of puny, and there wasn't a lot of this and that. I'm like, “Do I need to take this call? Maybe someone else should take this call.”
I get on the phone, and oh my gosh, what a dynamic, incredible fund. A young founder, up to $9 billion, who had, by the way, done none of this stuff.
Wow.
Everything was inaccurate online.
Really?
And I'm like, “Dude, you've got to fix this.” The way to fix it in good times is to feed the machine, right? If you don't feed the machine positive content about you and your brand—what I call momentum content—the machine just grabs what's available. It could be old. It could be wrong.
Outside of bad times and a crisis, you can somewhat manage what the machine is going to say about you. I always say, even with your personal brand, I literally did a word cloud of the words I want people to associate with me: entrepreneur, connector, this, that, and the other. Those words come up in my profile. If you look, those words are coming back and being spit back about me when you ask about me online.
I think there's just a certain amount of this, and it doesn't have to be fancy or complicated. But if you're not feeding the machine a little, you're not controlling anything.
Mm-hmm.
So if something bad happens, what's out there? Only the bad stuff. Offense is a good defense, so I would say to build the muscle of good, positive content.
Obviously, people know this: third-party media ranks higher, whether it's Google or the LLMs. If the media said something nice about you, or you're quoted about something important in The New York Times, the FT, The Wall Street Journal, or your podcast, those things will show up more and be more powerful if they're ranked highly.
I always say to everyone, do just a little bit of hygiene, right? But in terms of when to speak and when not to speak, if you're in a crisis, this is one of the hardest things, by the way.
This is why you need someone who’s done this for 20 years by your side if you end up in a crisis, because these chess moves are so important, and they take a massive amount of judgment. There’s no playbook where you always do this or you always do that.
In general, I would say—I’ll pick a couple of always-dos. If there’s a negative story about your firm, you have to assess whether speaking, participating, or putting out a statement will add fuel or oxygen to the story, causing the next news cycle, or not. I generally say to clients, “Let’s take a deep breath and not react too early. See where the news cycle’s going.” The news cycle might just pass you by like a wave, and then you do nothing.
Mm.
Right? But in a situation where the news cycle is inaccurate or it’s going in a direction that’s going to really damage your reputation, and it’s wrong, you have to participate. Most journalists who are worth their salt will go off the record or on background and let you explain the context of what’s going on, and that will shape whatever story is happening.
So I think—but I would never, ever—
Okay.
…allow a negative reputation that is untrue to calcify around you. A fun example—not so fun for her and him: remember the Coldplay concert?
Mm-hmm.
Okay. I think that was viewed 8 billion times around the world. It became this crazy sensation. You didn’t hear from those people, right? The news cycle was just everyone online talking about this, right?
The narrative that calcified was basically very negative around her because people weren’t sure: Was she divorced? Was she single? Was she this? There was a lot of narrative around who was the homewrecker, who was this, and who was that. Well, guess what? She finally came out, I think 9 months later, and did 1 podcast with Oprah Winfrey.
Oh my gosh.
And it turned out she was separated from her husband. He was at the concert, so he knew she wasn’t cheating. She wasn’t whatever. Anyway, she told her version of the story. She said on the podcast that she received death threats, and what was said about her was horrific. She said it was mostly women.
Yeah, of course.
It was a very sad story, in my view. She was obviously given the PR advice to stay low, and that was probably right in the beginning, but I believe she should have come out swinging at a certain point because this narrative calcified around her. Unless you listened to that Oprah Winfrey podcast many moons later, you still had the old reputation in your head.
That’s a really good point. I want to talk about that a little bit more, and we’ll get into reputation management, but the media can stamp an image of you—
Yes.
…before you stamp it yourself. When is the period of time in which you can come in and disprove that and actually claim—
Well, any time something’s untrue, I think you have to participate. Whether you put out a statement or go off the record with a reporter, you’ve got to not let that calcify. Untrue has to be corrected.
And by the way, if the media writes an untrue story and you can prove that it’s untrue, most of the time they will change certain parts of it, right? Because stories live online forever, that’s very useful.
Mm.
Because what’s living in the digital world matters, so the beauty is that it can be changed, right? I’m a big fan of coming out fighting when it’s not true.
We’ve worked with Ray Dalio for 18 years. He was the master of this back in the day when he was running Bridgewater. He would run full-page ads that said, “This is not true.” He was extremely aggressive, but I think he started to teach the market that you don’t have to stay quiet.
Mm-hmm.
And he had so many friends and fans on LinkedIn—
He’s very popular.
If he speaks directly to his audience on social channels, it’s so effective.
Mm.
It’s like, “This is happening to me in the media. Guess what? It’s not true, all my fans and followers.” So that’s the beautiful thing about having your own social channels. This is what you see on X or what have you. You can speak directly to your people, and Donald Trump figured that one out.
Yeah. People are a little bit quicker on X with—
Yes.
…commentary.
Very.
Another part of talking through this is the journalist aspect of it. How do you actually engage with journalists, and how do you know to trust them or not? Most of the time, especially in the tech world, we’re living in a world where they’re just trying to get you.
Yes. Yeah. I would say that part of that brand-hygiene thing is to pick a few reporters to get to know, because it’s a very simple thing: relationships matter.
If I’ve met you a bunch of times and you have a good impression of me, and we’re in a bad situation, you’re more likely just to talk to me off the record: “You know me. I want to tell you what’s happening.” So having relationships matters.
Whether it’s a relationship for access or a relationship to be able to tell your side of the story, I’m a big fan—I know it takes time—of getting to know a certain number of reasonable journalists. There are always unreasonable journalists, but most of them, I find, are actually relatively reasonable, and most of them really want to learn about the business.
You also get people who are on the retail beat going to the credit beat, the credit beat going to the tech beat. They don’t always have the backstory of everything going on, so I think the education of your business and industry, and the relationships, definitely helps.
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So when you started the firm, finance was going through a hit-piece era.
Yeah.
Everyone was down on finance. “It’s evil. Capitalism, it’s evil.” We’re swinging back into that with the rise of socialism.
Yes.
But I want to talk through that because the narrative right now that the media has taken over is, “Hate on data centers and AI,” right?
Definitely.
So how do you combat something like that, and how do you build back the narrative? They’re pretty deep in right now because they started off so negative.
Yes.
But in terms of that, what happened in the financial era that caused it to wash over, so that now people really look up to some of these firms, versus the shifts that are happening now?
Yeah, so I think—and we work with some data-center builders. The reality is, I believe, that Silicon Valley likes to speak to itself, and that’s a very tight circle. I always say there are very tight ecosystems, right? There’s Silicon Valley, there’s Wall Street, there’s Hollywood, whatever you want to pick, and very seldom do the people in those ecosystems really mix and talk to the people in others. Politics is another ecosystem, right?
Mm.
The problem, I think, began when AI was speaking to its ecosystem about truths that don’t appeal to maybe the political ecosystem or the Main Street ecosystem, right?
So I will tell you, I went to an amazing AI founder conference, and the narrative was, “You are a great CEO if you cut your teams and increase your profits.” Duh, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. But the reality is there are societal impacts of that, et cetera, et cetera.
So I think this narrative grew, and then it started to leak outside of Silicon Valley. Actually, it didn’t leak. The CEOs of Silicon Valley started to say, “Everyone’s going to lose their job.” Not everyone, but it’s like everyone was talking about—
Well, they really needed to—
What percentage.
More of that, yeah.
Yeah. So they created this narrative—
Mm-hmm.
Right? So what happened all of a sudden is Main Street cares. Eric Schmidt gets booed at his convocation speech or whatever it was—graduation speech. My daughter just started college Sunday. The minute AI came in, all the students booed. So you have to look at that and say, “Ooh, we’ve kind of stubbed our toe with students, with regular Main Street people.”
I think there’s always been what we call NIMBY—not in my backyard. People don’t necessarily want construction in their backyard. But I think the bigger deal is this out-of-control narrative on the evils of AI.
Totally.
And I would say, I’ve got to give Jensen Huang some props.
Mm.
He’s been on a roadshow. He’s broken out of Silicon Valley, and he’s talking to Wall Street, Washington, Europe, the UK, and Asia. He has become somewhat of an ambassador for why AI actually could be good for you, and I think that’s the most important thing right now: figuring out how the narrative shifts.
I think people get American competitiveness, good job creation—things that are positive around AI. So I think that’s just the shift that needs to happen.
Yeah. I mean, that’s a good example. Anybody in the Jensen sphere—
Yeah.
—of leaders is super competitive.
Yes.
They’re very competitive, and they all probably have the same components and characteristics of one another, but they are viewed differently externally. So take Jensen as an example. He’s adored. People love him.
Yes.
Meanwhile, Elon—they immediately say he’s evil, even though he’s creating all these sustainable companies—
Yes, yes.
—and has a huge, pure mission and all that kind of stuff. So what would be the difference between a Jensen brand and an Elon brand?
Well, I think Jensen’s been a bit more gentle with his commentary and his messaging. Elon goes on X and just says what’s on his mind, which we all love—I mean, I’m super entertained by it. By the way, I admire Elon Musk so much. I think every entrepreneur does. I think he’s the greatest engineer of all time, maybe. But I think his execution is rough sometimes—
Mm.
—and I think that matters. That sticks in people’s heads.
Mm-hmm. So that’s the biggest difference. Okay, so I think... Oh, yeah, what I wanted to mention on that, walking back to what you just mentioned, is your role in this. You told me this beforehand: you kind of play the role of chief EQ officer.
Sometimes.
What does that actually mean?
I think it means being the truth-teller at the table.
Mm-hmm.
It means sitting beside your very powerful client and pointing out, “If you say this, it may be translated like that. I would do this this way.”
I had to tell a client—a founder. I do these salon dinners for founders, and I moderate the table, and he was so... He’s so smart, but he was so domineering at the table; it was terrible. He just wouldn’t let anyone speak. So afterward, I had to call him and tell him, “You are brilliant, and I can make you a star, but you cannot dominate like you did at that table,” because I got all this feedback.
So telling the truth sometimes is really hard, but it is true—and I worry about this with myself—the higher you go up the food chain, the fewer people are telling you the truth.
Mm-hmm.
So you need somebody not to tell you, “Oh, you’re amazing. You were so great. Your speech was awesome.” You need the person who tells you what you need to improve.
I think the chief EQ officer just means we all are living in our bubble, and it’s our job sometimes to look beyond the bubble and translate what’s happening and how that client can actually function at their highest level in every ecosystem there is.
What are some types of low-EQ moves?
Oh. Well, one—and I should say this—you need to think about your employees a lot. Your employees are your ambassadors, and I would say more than 50%, probably more than 75%, of negative stories start with employees leaking information. So they can help you out in bad times or bury you.
That’s not why you should be great to your employees. You should be great to your employees because they’re so incredibly vital to the lifeblood of your firm. But I think sometimes internal communications and employee communications are not as highly ranked, right—
Mm-hmm.
—as investor communications or whatever. So I think one low-EQ move is just not being present when you’re speaking to employees and understanding that, as the leader, every move you make is watched, right? That seems very obvious, but I see that a lot.
Do you see people double down when they should probably be quiet?
Sometimes, yeah. I think emotions run high when risk goes up and there’s tension. So I think making calm, smart moves—
Do people sometimes not take your advice? I think that’s kind of—
Sure.
—the question. And you’re just like—
Actually, not often—
Really?
—I have to say. No, well, I choose my spots, like everybody else. But yeah, sure. I think especially in a crisis, there’s often pressure to act or react.
Mm-hmm.
Also, if you’re not organized before a crisis happens, you have too many advisors, too much of a mess going on, and mistakes can happen. So yeah, it happens.
Yeah, I want to talk through a couple examples of that. Meta—we were talking about—
Yeah.
Meta.
Meta’s fascinating right now.
What just happened with Meta? Can you explain that a little bit and how they... I mean, they’ve—
Yes.
—been going through stuff for a while now.
6. Meta Has Three Brand Layers
So I’ve thought about this. I think Meta is such a fascinating case study because there are 3 brand and reputation things happening at once.
Mm-hmm.
There’s the product level. If you love Instagram, you love Instagram. I don’t want to say you don’t care about Meta, but there’s a product-level reputation and brand. There’s a corporate-level reputation and brand—that’s Meta—and then there’s a Zuckerberg reputation and brand. I think they’re all at different levels.
I think at the product level, again, it was like Uber. If you loved Uber and it really made your life better, you really didn’t care what was going on with Travis Kalanick at the moment, right? You wanted to take Uber. Now, some people care about that, but a lot of people only care, “Do I like the product?” So I think they’re doing pretty well on the product side. On the corporate side, I think they made... This settlement is smart and—
Could you explain the settlement?
Yeah. Obviously, they settled for billions of dollars in these lawsuits, and obviously it’s all about whether social media harms children, right? But they are making amends, and what they’re doing with the amends—meaning, we’re shutting down likes for this long, and I don’t know all the details—but now they’re asking the entire industry: If we’ve got to make amends, it’s an industry problem. You’ve got to make amends, Snapchat or whoever.
So they’re running full-page ads basically saying it’s an industry problem, not a Meta problem, so everyone should get on board. Some of the heat is now going on the competition because it’s like, “We care about children, and we’re doing these things. Are you doing these things?” So I think that has been masterfully done, honestly.
Right. They’re taking the hit for everyone else.
That’s right. And I think as a corporate and institutional brand, they are creating their sort of right to survive by doing this, right?
But then there’s the Zuckerberg brand, which I think we could all agree started in The Social Network, then there was Cambridge Analytica, then there are the trials, then there’s just hit after hit after hit. But the question is—and this is a question I always ask myself—can Meta survive Zuckerberg going away? I would say yeah.
You think so?
I think so. But this is me.
Okay.
This is a debate. This is always a debate. Can the firm survive the big founder? I think they’ve turned into an institutional corporate entity, in my mind, that can probably survive, and they’re making the right institutional corporate moves.
He’s the one who’s been punished for it more than the brand, is what you’re saying.
Yeah, I think he has had a difficult personal brand since the beginning.
Mm-hmm.
And that has not changed. The only way that would change is through consistent, different actions over a long period of time.
I will say from the consumer standpoint, and as someone who loves technology—
Yes.
—there’s nothing better than when Zuck is just being a bro.
People just love to see it.
Yeah.
And I'm not just saying the MMA stuff, but I think he was wakeboarding with an American flag—
Yes, yes, yes.
On the Fourth of July. People just want to see that more. I don't know. You want to talk about rebuilding your aura—
Yeah.
Be cool.
Yeah.
I don't know. Do some of that. Get on more podcasts. Maybe don't bite your tongue so much.
Yes.
Because some of them will get you in trouble. Because someone who operates at such a high level, who's so tech-focused and in the weeds of engineering—
Yes, that's right.
You know—
He should be loved in your community.
Yeah, you should be loved.
Yeah.
But you also miss some of the social—
The cues.
And what you probably should say and shouldn't say. But he is a quirky guy.
Yes.
He's built an incredible, large company and has impacted many people in many different ways, but for the most part—
It's hard to knock his entrepreneurship, that's for sure.
Yeah, but—
I think everyone agrees with that.
I just wonder how to build his brand up so he can, you know... At that certain point, I'm curious if you have clients like this, getting burned so much—
Yeah.
You don't want to do media. There's no positive benefit for you, so you want to stay hidden.
Yes.
How do you reconcile that tension of being such a big part of the brand but not wanting to do any of it because you've been burned so much?
I think there are alternatives to traditional media now to make impressions on your audience. This podcast, for instance—I'm not saying you're not going to ask hard-hitting questions, but you're more interested in an interesting conversation for your audience than you are in gotcha-ing—
Yeah.
Mark Zuckerberg. So Mark Zuckerberg should come on your podcast.
I agree.
But there are places and spaces. Most podcasts are run by businesspeople—
Yeah.
Actually, so there's more empathy there. So I would not put yourself in harm's way. I agree, there are certain journalists and publications where you're never going to get a fair opportunity, right? But again, you could speak directly to your audience. On X, like you said: an American flag on my surfboard or whatever. That's a direct image and message to your people, right?
Mm-hmm.
So I think social channels, owned media, podcasts, being on stage. Why not go on stage at the most impactful, gravitas-y business conference there is? When Trump did his trade stuff, the stock market tanked and the whole country was worried about it, Scott Bessent showed up at the Milken Conference and got on stage and told everybody why it was going to be okay. Masterful.
Yeah.
Because that conference tends to have a lot of power.
Mm.
CEOs, billionaire investors, tech giants. Everyone talked about it. I really think he just calmed the entire financial ecosystem by doing it. It was so good. So you can really change the tide on something if you perform really well in a situation like that. And I'm sure Mike Milken was probably the moderator. The moderator is not out to get you.
Yeah. Sometimes.
Sometimes. But—
Sometimes you choose the wrong one.
Well—
Sometimes you go to DealBook, and you can just get burned.
A journalist moderator may be, but a Molly moderator isn't.
Yes.
You know? So I think you have to pick your shots really carefully. And in those moments, I do think you have to have a lot of good advice. If you're going to do one thing a year, if you're going to do one big-impact thing to turn the tide, what's it going to be? I mean, I remember when we did 60 Minutes with Ray Dalio on saving the oceans, and you've got to be worried about that because he, at the time, ran the biggest hedge fund in the world. Everybody wants to poke the biggest hedge fund in the world in the eye.
Yeah.
Guess what? The entire thing was just about his philanthropy, saving the oceans, going down in his submarine off his crazy OceanX yacht. It was positive, and everybody thought, “What an amazing human being, saving the oceans”—how incredibly serious he was about that philanthropy.
Mm-hmm.
So you can go into high-stakes situations. Back in the day, 60 Minutes was it—maybe it still is—and you can have a win.
That's good.
Yeah.
7. Finance Rebuilds Its Aura
So I want to dive back into traditional finance.
TradFi.
We're going to go into TradFi.
We are at the New York Stock Exchange.
I know. Because we talked about some really good scenarios beforehand. Why don't we just start with the meatiest one?
Okay.
So let's talk about Apollo.
Okay.
And the resurrection of Apollo—
Yes.
After the Leon Black era.
Yes.
How did they do that?
So I think Apollo always had this sort of black-boxy, I don't want to say negative, but mysterious kind of reputation. Which might have served it well back in the day, by the way. But then, as you know, they wanted to become a diversified asset manager—
Yeah.
And go public, right?
Yeah.
So those 2 things don't really go together. But clearly, it is tough to survive a founder moment like that. Leon Black obviously went down, and he went down for some pretty negative stuff. And I think Mark Rowan came in and decided, “I'm going to change the culture, and the reputation, and the brand of Apollo.” So, of course, they needed the world to understand we're not just in credit or whatever they started their business in. We do all these other things. That's from a business standpoint. But more importantly, I think they had to convince the best people in the world to work there, and they had to convince investors to stay with them.
Mm.
I mean, LPs are extremely sensitive to negative news. Can you imagine what they had to go through with Leon Black, keeping their LPs? And they are just a rocket ship. He has done an amazing job. I think he's accessible. He shows up places. He's easy to talk to. They have really softened their brand and educated the market. I think it's an A-plus case study in surviving what could have been an existential moment.
What about Mark Rowan? His characteristics—do you think it was great that he stepped in?
Yeah. So I don't know him super well, but people who work under him respect him and like him. Again, back to the employees, people are always going to ask your employees, “What is he really like to work with?”
Mm.
Right? The vibe is pretty good, but I see him showing up in the circles I show up in. He is out there as the ambassador of Apollo, and again, he comes across as whip-smart but approachable, and I think that's a nice mix.
What about Ken Griffin of Citadel?
Yeah. So I've been watching Citadel really closely the last few years because I feel like they're another one that went from—I mean, they used to call it the gulag. They went from this reputation of being the worst place to work, quant trading, black-boxy, et cetera, to, I think, being so well respected.
Mm.
And I think, again, this is the founder taking the brand and the reputation by the wheel and deciding, “I'm going to get out there.”
I'm gonna showcase not just what Citadel does, but my smarts in policy, politics, and economics. The guy is so amazing to listen to. So he creates this sort of impression that it might be a tough, intense place, but that's gonna be good for me.
Mm.
And I'm gonna get to work for people like him. And I think he's done it. If you look at their social channels—oh my God—I would've never thought Citadel would have the Instagram they have. It's all happy, smiley people going to work. But I'm not making fun of it. I actually think it's extremely well done.
Yeah.
So I think this whole use of social channels, being more transparent, being out speaking in the places and spaces that matter, I really think they've shifted their reputation. Everyone will still say it's one of the toughest places to work on Wall Street, but I think it has this different, positive twist now that it didn't have before.
Yeah, they come off completely badass, but, like—
Badass.
Somewhere you are inspired by and you want to go work at.
Yeah. But I think that was the trick back in the day for Bridgewater, too.
Mm.
They had a very tough—
Oh, they're very tough.
You know, they had this reputation—
Radical truth and transparency.
Everything you do is taped—
Monitored.
—and monitored. And that was all true. But the thing was, they built a reputation for that radical truth and transparency. There's a reason for it. It leads to the best returns, and the best people are down with it—
Mm.
—because they want to learn. They want to be critiqued.
Yeah.
So I think that was the twist there. They went from a fully culty, negative reputation to admired and respected, and then, of course, Ray had the principles and all that stuff.
Well, that's a fair point because we even see this in the tech world with Anduril, the campaign “Don't Work at Anduril.” If you—
Yeah.
—can't handle it, just don't work here.
Yeah.
But for finance, it's super-hypercompetitive as well.
Yes.
Maybe one of the most competitive places ever. People admire that. They want to go work for a competitive firm. Obviously, you're gonna be slaving away a little bit.
Listen, who would—
It's gonna be hard.
Who wouldn't go work for Elon as an engineer?
Yeah.
You know what you're in for.
Yeah.
But who wouldn't want that?
Yeah.
That's like—
The CEO is sleeping—
—historic.
—on the floor.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So I think intensity. I always say, I had a photographer ask me once, “How do you wanna come across in this picture?” And I was like, “Wow, no one ever asked me that.” And I said, “I wanna be fierce but approachable.” Do those two things go together? Not really. But two things that don't go together can go together.
Mm.
Meaning, a rough, intense experience but the best experience of my life can go together.
Mm.
Yeah.
I was really surprised last year. I moderated a panel at the Citadel Securities Conference with Kalshi's co-founders. First, the room—it was beautiful.
Yeah.
The lineup of people who came to speak, I was so nervous to go moderate there. This was the first big moderating thing that I've done. But I'd worked with Kalshi for a bunch, so I was very comfortable with that. I remember, because I'm putting myself in the shoes of, “Okay, what if I interviewed Ken Griffin?”
Yes.
I'm watching the moderator on stage. I watched that a couple of times afterward, and I'm watching this, and I'm like, “Ken's just gonna say whatever he wants. You just have to assist him.”
But that's another—
At that point, you know—
—great shout-out. He has something to say. And he's pretty direct about it, and people love that. What people hate is corporate speak—
Mm.
—and empty conversation. And I think that's the balance, right, for a Ken or anyone on stage: How do I—I don't wanna get myself in trouble, I'm so edgy—but how do I give the gift of insight and straight talk and entertainment to the audience?
Mm-hmm.
As the moderator, because I do a ton of moderating, that's kind of what I'm trying to draw out of somebody: What's the gift to the audience? What's the insight? What's the takeaway? And I always tell my clients, “Don't even bother taking the stage if you're gonna be empty.”
Yeah.
Because that backfires. People remember. They actually remember who the worst speaker was. They really remember, and they remember a terrible moderator, too.
Completely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
No, this is a good point, too, with the whole podcast movement. If you don't have something to say, I've heard you say this before: Don't do it.
Don't.
I feel the same way. I've had podcasts before. I'm obviously not gonna name names or anything, but I'll run through all the questions in 10 minutes. I'm like, “Well, why aren't you speaking? You asked to come on a podcast.”
Yeah.
“This is to help you. I'm not a gotcha person; I'm just genuinely curious. I wanna learn. If you're not gonna come and speak, why are you doing this?” Come and have something to say.
That's something people who don't moderate a lot don't understand. You could get through 30 questions—I think that's a lot. It's like, no, that could be 15 minutes.
Yes.
I've got 30 more to go.
Yeah.
And guess what? I'm gonna go off-road.
Yes.
I'm always warning people. I'm like, “You know, I know your comms team gave me this stuff, but I know what the most interesting things are. I'm not gonna embarrass you, but let's be interesting on stage.”
Yeah.
We're gonna go off-road.
There was one time I was talking to this very big AI company on stage at their office, to a room of VCs, GPs, some founders. Again, not gonna name names. It was just corporate answer after corporate answer. There was no answer—
Yeah.
—and they were all very short. I'm like, “You know what?” Again, we kind of ran out of questions.
Yes, yes.
“You all signed NDAs. I'm gonna start asking some questions.”
Oh my God, and they all signed NDAs. That's crazy.
It was wild. But to go through some more examples, we have a short bit. I think we have a couple of minutes left. Let's talk—we talked about Bridgewater, we talked about Citadel, we talked about Apollo. I wanna talk about Blackstone.
I knew you were gonna get there. Okay.
Blackstone is the—I don't know what it is—but they've created kind of a fun finance brand—
Yeah.
—because they do some quirky stuff.
Yeah.
So what's going on there?
So first of all, they are the brand fascination of everyone. They've done a great job. First of all, they were early.
Mm-hmm.
I just wanna say, I always make the point, because people say, “Why is Blackstone like this?” These were early marketers. They had a marketing mentality early. But the first big move was when they went public, they had to speak to more audiences, right? You have to worry about your investors—retail, institutional, the whole thing. But then the next move was, “Let's get into retail early.” So people often roll their eyes at the John Gray running videos or whatever. Brilliant. Cheapest marketing ever on LinkedIn, gets to every financial advisor in the country, and it worked.
Yeah.
And so they're spending very little money to reach everybody. They did it early. They were the pioneer. They were unafraid to do their holiday video, and this and that. I think the holiday video is more of a culture play.
It's kind of a meme.
Yeah, but they're really smart. They don't do anything without a strategy, right?
Mm.
People who don't understand what Blackstone is today don't get the running videos, but people who do understand get that this is a retail juggernaut that started early and has probably been the most successful. They are doing high-net-worth and financial-advisor marketing. That's what they're doing.
Yeah. I think it's fascinating to see. They're a good example of how audience has shifted over time as they expand out—
their categories of what they're offering product-wise.
I would also say John Gray kind of represents the leadership people want today.
Mm-hmm.
Like, killer serious and smart, but, again, approachable, funny, and not afraid to make fun of himself.
Yeah.
These are attributes that are attractive to people.
We have to talk about this, though, because sometimes people will take the authentic route—
Yes.
—and say, “Oh, we're cool. We can do a chill video. We can do something a little funny.”
And it goes the wrong way.
And it's just so cringe.
Well, you know what? This is when it comes back to advisors. You have to have people who tell you the truth, because God forbid you think something's cool and it's not.
Okay.
It can be embarrassing for a long time, and these things live on forever. Obviously, they catch fire. If it's cringe, it's one thing. If it's inappropriate, it can really bury you.
Yeah.
8. VC Brands Need Focus
So one of the most interesting asset classes to build their brands, do this marketing, and be external is VC.
Yeah.
I get a lot of inbounds about it.
Yes.
I'm sure you're doing that. You're opening a San Francisco office.
Yes.
There's so much going on there, and they kind of do the same thing.
Mm-hmm.
But there are many different types of brands, right? You have a16z.
Yes.
They're literally a media company.
Yeah.
They will say that.
Yeah.
You have Thrive, which is kind of the quiet luxury of VC. They're a little bit mysterious.
Yes.
Josh completely crushes it. He's the idol. They probably have the biggest aura. Everyone wants to get funding from them. People want to work there. They've built this really interesting brand with very little content.
Yes.
And then there are some other types out there that kind of do the same playbook—
Yes.
—that have a podcast, do conferences, and do these hackathon-type things. So what are you seeing in the VC market?
Overall, I would say that private equity has always been pretty early to all of this marketing because they have portfolio companies that are in consumer, tech, and healthcare, and those are sophisticated brand firms, so they understand the value. They also obviously want to build value into what they're buying and increase the value so they can sell it, so they get that brand as part of the equation. VC was doing stuff, but not as sophisticated as I think it is now.
We have a lot more VC clients than we ever had, and they all kind of popped in in the last 4 years. I think it comes down to what you want to be in the market, what you're trying to accomplish, and which avenues fit your culture, your comfort level, and what you're good at, right?
Mm-hmm.
John Gray's running videos are a great example. If he actually likes to run in cities all over the world, it's real. You can't copycat that now, but it was a simple execution, right? I agree. I think Andreessen is a media company, and that's the route that they've taken. I'm sure they're getting business impact from what they're doing there, while the other firms have different styles.
I think it's really about how you want to be thought of and what you want your brand to stand for. If great content and being a media company are part of that, that's great, but if they're not, you need to choose something else.
What can they learn from TradFi?
Here's a great example: the Allen + Company conference. I don't think Allen + Company is in the news. They do one thing really well, and they got known for it. That's amazing.
Yeah.
They're a convening brand, right? I actually do almost no media myself, partially because the media doesn't like to write about PR firms, but partially because I discovered that convening founders is my superpower. Giving the gift of a network to people who need more network is the most valuable thing I could do in the world.
I always say, “Selling is giving to receive.” I gift, gift, gift, and then, surprise, I get something back because I've done something for someone, right? So convening and moderating have been my chosen ways to build my brand and market. I think it's all choices, but the choices have to be comfortable, and they have to be on-brand for who you are.
Mm-hmm. Allen + Company is a good example.
Yeah.
They've built out a very mysterious—
Early.
Kind of an exclusive brand.
Everyone wants to copy it, but they can't.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Exactly.
Yep.
And what do you think is the point at which these VC firms are doing too much? Because they will just—
Mm-hmm.
—be like, “Give me the whole buffet.”
I think overexposure is generally bad, right?
Okay.
The moment your audiences, or anyone, is eye-rolling you for being everywhere and overexposed, I think you've done something wrong. I always tell smaller clients, “Do 1 quality thing a quarter, and build the muscle for doing that on a repetitious basis. Watch how LLMs start to describe you. Is it making an impact?”
You don't have to do everything. The most embarrassing thing is these posts with 3 likes.
Yeah.
Think about yourself like a teenager. Would you be happy with 3 likes? I don't understand why you keep putting out this content with 3 likes. So I'll be the person in the room to say, “Could we stop with this?” You know?
Yeah.
Because it's just not a good look.
Mm-hmm. It's been interesting to see how some of them pop up and how the different strategies change.
I do think for VCs, though, like private equity, deal sourcing is everything, right? Why does a founder want to work with you? Why do I want your check versus somebody else's? That's really the question. How are you appealing to those founders?
Raising money is one lifeblood, but the other lifeblood is: Do those entrepreneurs want to work with you, and why? I would want to unpack all of that. That's really important.
That's a really good point, because I talk to all these different firms. They ask for help. They ask for advice. Some of them have the world's best performance—
Yes.
—but no one knows who they are. I went to Accel. I'm like, “I don't know who your partners are.” I know of Accel, but it seems like something I knew about 5 years ago, not today. It's not really relevant today. It's okay that I said that.
I went and talked to them. I met with them. Their team is awesome. They're so cool. They won the Cursor deal because they just had a really good internal reputation.
Yeah, that's huge.
And so at that point, how much does internal reputation matter more than external reputation?
So I think one of the most powerful things you can do, whether you're a VC, a PE firm, or me, is get onstage with your portfolio company and tell the story of how you came together, why you came together, and what you've been able to do together. Let the audience see the chemistry. Let the audience see the excitement of the portfolio company.
You don't have to say a word. You can tell by the body language that these people have transformed this company, right?
Hmm.
I think there are all kinds of ways to showcase things subtly.
Yeah.
That's one of those subtle ones. People just rock up because they want to see the conversation, but you're really sending a lot of messages there. You're sending a message about what a great partner you are.
What's interesting is that I came from the investor side. I've been investing my whole career. Now I've been interviewing, and I'm much more of a founder now. I see myself more in the founder realm than on the investor side. I see the complete bifurcation of how each one of them carries the weight.
And so the more I see VC content celebrating themselves—
Yes.
—the more I cringe, because it's like—
Yes.
—you didn't do anything—
Yes.
—I mean, you gave them a check—
Yes.
—but, oh my God, I can't believe how much the founder went through.
Yes.
And so, it's just interesting to see that some VCs still will take credit for the success of the founder and the company.
Yeah, that's a delicate balance.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Do you see that often?
Yeah, sure, and I think you have to be very careful about amplifying—giving yourself too much credit for something you've done. You're better off being a little humble.
Yeah, this is where the chief EQ officer comes in.
Yes, exactly.
So as we close out, I have to ask you. Maybe you have an answer for this, maybe you don't. What is your hottest take right now?
9. The Digital Blink Matters
My hottest take—meaning something I'm obsessed with?
It could be anything. It could be a strong opinion on how people are communicating, who should do it better.
I would call it, “Watch your digital blink.”
Okay.
If you're of my generation, you read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink. It basically says people will size you up in 15 seconds or less.
Now, it's a digital blink. If I don't know Molly O'Shea, I'm going to ask my LLM, “What's she all about?” That's my digital blink. That's what I think about you. That impression is now lodged. It's going to be very hard to change it.
Like you just said about the company you were talking about, if that impression online is out of date, negative, or doesn't represent you, oh my gosh, get it done. So I would just say the digital blink is everything right now.
That's a great place to end.
Yeah.
Well, Jen, this was so much fun. I could probably talk to you for hours.
I could.
I know we're on a time constraint, but we'll probably do this again. So thank you so much.
Thank you.
Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, Sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once-a-week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.