#30 Every Rodeo Has a First Day

Story 1

I like to drive older cars. There’s something about fixing them that makes it even more fun to drive them. Being in tune with a car is like being in tune with your body, except sometimes the previous owner forgot to change the blood enough.

Anyway, this winter I was struggling to replace an axle. What should’ve been 45 minutes of quiet time in the garage had turned into a month. 

More than six suppliers identified the wrong axle, or no axle. (You can’t fit 26 splines into a differential with 28. Shapes and holes, my toddler knows this.)

I spent hours on the phone, on Google, Reddit, and collector forums.

Even Volvo Parts told me the axle I was trying to replace never even existed in the first place! I had to email a photo of their own logo on it for them to at least believe me enough to apologize, before they politely wished me luck.

So I asked Perplexity.

And TWENTY SECONDS LATER, the right part was en route.   

Story 2.  

A friend of mine (and remarkable C-something) recently reported from a CMO summit where one prominent F500 CMO broke from her speech and said frankly to the attendees: “If you’re not using Perplexity, you’re a dope.”

Story 3. 

How did I start using Perplexity? Early, and luckily.

A lot of people think writing is hard, but there's plenty of jackasses who didn't borrow a quarter million dollars like me to learn how to do it.

Turns out, you can just sit down and type stuff!!! 

Here's the catch, though. Having employed, hired, or managed now hundreds of writers in my career, this is something I can tell you: the best “writers” are actually just great researchers. 

It has always been this way.  The word "authority" comes from the word "author," not the other way around. Great writers are people who are: 

A. Excellent at learning, knowing, and discovering ZOUNDS of stuff. And,

B. Connecting the dots of it. 

In other words, they're curious. Which has made them very good at research. Which is the main only thing that makes them valuable.

I’ve worked on books where 80 hours of research resulted in a single sentence. (There’s about 3,000 sentences in an average nonfiction book by a first-time author.)

Perplexity changed this for Publera overnight. We can now research any assertion in minutes, versus weeks. And we can verify or improve every sentence just as fast.

While ChatGPT evaporated the “bullshit” (SEO and blog content) side of our business in 5 fast months, Perplexity amplified our helpful, additive, and valuable work by 10X in less than a week. (And obviously expanded our margins on it.)

Story 4. 

What am I doing here? 

This remains to be told! In general, I have a dim view of comms leaders who push press releases about their own appointment, but there’s a utility to it so who knows. Either way our work will be busy–there are a lot of stories to be told in any great startup, and even more people with questions for their own stories.

I fondly remember having to tell people what a facebook was. So I hope you’ll ask me what the heck that P word is again. I’ll be here.

So, more soon. And onward to the actual topic today.

In the meantime, if you're not using Perplexity, you might be a dope!

Breaking C-Something news:

Earlier this month, Puma "parted ways" with CEO Arne Freundt (e.g. "Arne gave up some measurable amount of cash in his separation agreement for them not to use the word 'fired'"), after 14 years at Puma and 2.5 of them as CEO.  

How does this affect you?? 

Well, there's a probably a question to ask about the dollar value of the F word in a contract, but the truth is I only mentioned that news because if I HADN’T, then I never would've been able to make that great Puma Pants joke.

I live to give. You’re welcome.

Moving on:

Attached in the LINKZ section is a quick look at some C-Something emails that came out in US v Meta this month. 

One thing I didn't mention in the pdf comments is to notice how much effort Mark and his lieutenants are putting into parsing Evan Spiegel's negotiation strategy.  

They determined he was trying to make about $2B pre-tax, $1B post. 

As I point out in the doc (with 2 minutes of Perplexity work versus 4 hours in EDGAR), it’s sort of funny that if Evan had taken his first stock sale of SNAP in 2017 of about $250M and just bought some FB with it, he’d have about $1.5B today and still be doing what he's doing.  (Instead, all 20 of Evan's post-IPO stock sales have only amounted to about $817M.)

That's just some lolz. In real life, go Evan(!). That’s a hard scenario for anyone.

The funnier math is if he'd taken the deal Zuck offered it would have made him about $17.39B by today.

In other words, Mark's idea was right.

It’s important to notice that Mark is genuinely trying to think of a good deal that met his own interests and Evan's. 

The great negotiators and dealmakers I've had bench seats to all do this–it's natural to them.

What Mark got wrong?? He was too good at dealmaking. Too sophisticated. Sure, Evan might have been playing games, but it was his first time.  He didn’t even know what game board looks like.

What’s crazy is I've seen some of the best deal-makers I know make this exact same mistake more times than I can count: Moving too fast to the actual best solution without taking enough time to help the other side get there (and trust it).

Sometimes you’re just too good for your own good.

It reminds me of one of my favorite memories of working on teams under Mark. (And one of the only 2 or 3 personal stories I'll ever share about Zuckerberg.) 

He was laughing one Friday—everyone was—after someone in the comms team had pointed out something he probably shouldn't have said as a CEO, which, after considering it, he agreed. 

But it was a trivial mistake, funny for some nonsensical reason like phrasing.  So the mood was to brush it off, and he said:

 "Hey, I didn't know. This is my first job!"

I suppose we're all always new to something,
Jesse

PS: LINKZ! 

• As promised: C-something emails recently released in US v. Meta. It’s a good thread, if you’re into those kinds of things, which you probably are if you read this.

• You can also donate to Parkinsons research without giving me 25K (see WARNING below), if you want. This is something that’s become a part of our lives in the last few years, and MJFF is really a cool organization.

• If any of you don’t live in SF and want to see what their bread hype is about, here’s the best way to get it freshly. If you DO live in SF and want to have any real bread, better bread, the best bread, located in Vermont? Haaahahahah you can’t get there from here I mean good luck I mean go find a Volvo axle.

• In all seriousness, if you’re in SF, the best east coast carbohydrate you could order is Dominque Ansel’s cronut. They make nice gifts, and the flavor this month seems especially prudent for Mother’s Day.

• First days of anything are classic Homer Simpson

• Finally, this story of Tony Hsieh’s recently discovered will is just wild. He was remarkable.

Instead of turning subscriptions off to this newsletter, I'm just going to start charging for them.

If you're already subscribed, this newsletter will be free for you forever. 

For anyone who joins after next week, the cost of a subscription will increase to $25,000.00 USD. 

I hear you. Is this newsletter even worth $25K?

Is anything? I've definitely charged hundreds of K's for some of the exact insights we've covered in the first 28 issues. And, yes, you can save or make that much easily by executing on any one of them.

But from an entertainment perspective, that'd be like a Netflix family plan if you had 228 kids!!  (Imagine the chicky nuggie budget on that.)

So if anyone ever subscribes at that price wall (they won’t), C-Something will donate $25,000.00 to The Michael J. Fox Foundation.  Let’s get weird.

PSSSSSS: Here's the share link. This is your last chance. Nay, THEIR last chance!  (See above)