The Weirdness of Tech, Storytelling and Putin

The story you tell yourself determines your future.

Right now, horrible war crimes are being committed because of the story that Vladimir Putin has told himself. In his mind, he is a tzar who will reunify the old USSR, and will consequently go down in history as a great, powerful man. Though the validity of his story is questionable, we can be sure that the story he has told himself is the motivation behind the actions he has taken. Ultimately, it will define his future.

Stories are important. They are far more powerful than the truth. If we take a story to be true, then we’ll find ways to justify it, define it, and eventually act it out. As our minds think, eventually we become.

Now, let’s take the story of Elon Musk. No doubt – he is a genius, though he does act irrationally at times. He has certainly changed the world through electrifying transport and putting satellites into orbit. Musk has also made several stupid comments, accumulated US$40 million in fines for securities fraud and left in his wake a long list of broken promises, including putting 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020. Today, he still can’t scale up to more than 750,000 cars a year, and there are exactly zero robotaxis on the road three years later. His promise of a Hyperloop is equally foolish when you realise he has basically rehashed an inferior version of a train.

But the Cult of Musk is stronger than the truth. Say a single negative word about him in any social forum, and his acolytes will attack you like a pack of wild dogs, accusing you of being a Luddite and not getting it. It doesn’t matter what the truth is. Musk’s story galvanises his fans with a real sense of religiosity. Recently I commented on a TikTok video featuring Musk proclaiming degrees are worthless and that you can learn anything without it. I agree – in many cases this is true. However, I made the mistake of posting a comment that I prefer my doctors to have medical degrees. I had 43 comments rain down on me that varied from accusing me of jealousy to claiming the entire medical industry is a scam. You should try it – click here and make a comment about an Elon tweet that doesn’t support his views, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s also a chance you’re reading this and thinking, ‘I thought Samma was into tech…. wow, I’m surprised’. Let me reiterate. I’m into science, humans flourishing and pointing out our foibles along the way. Storytelling is a powerful force that, like any technology, can be used to emancipate or fool people.

What’s most interesting is that it isn’t just individuals who can buy into a fantasy. We can have collective hallucinations. As I write this, the market value of Tesla is greater than the combined market value of the ten next biggest car companies. While Tesla had an early lead in EVs and autonomous vehicles, it’s now clear they have very little, if any, advantage. This is the financial value of story. I often say that Tesla is the world’s first trillion dollar story. If I had the choice to own either Tesla, or the ten next biggest companies that includes Ford, Toyota, GM, Daimler, BMW, Honda, and Volkswagen, I know what I’d choose. Without a question, it would be the ten auto manufacturers that collectively produce more than 50 million cars a year. The share market – which is meant to be a rational means of capital allocation – says Elon’s 705k annual production and ‘story’ is worth more.

Thought for the day: The story is always more profitable than the truth.

Now to you. What story do you tell yourself? The story of your capability, where you are going, and why you belong there? I tell my clients this all the time – they believe what you believe. The market looks to your story – the one you tell yourself first. By inference, this will the same story you are telling them, and often they put a value on that story.

Stories are what humanity buys into, simply because anything physical in nature starts as an idea or blueprint first. From building a house to putting a man on the moon. Our trajectory depends on our personal stories more than we give them credit for.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

Touch Down – Super Bowl hits & misses

It’s very difficult for standup comedians to maintain their edge once they become super stars. It’s not that they stop being funny people, or lose their stage mojo, it’s that they often lose touch with their audience. It’s hard to relate to ‘the people’ once you drive a Ferrari and live in a mansion. Their stories and anecdotes become distant, even foreign. The same thing happens to successful companies and it’s happening to Meta.

This week the Super Bowl happened in the USA. The capstone event of not just American Football, but advertising. At US$7 million for 30 seconds – it’s quite an investment. Despite US centricity, it also serves as a barometer for technology and the global economy. You can see all the ads here.

As expected we saw adverts for snacks, beer and automobiles. The latter was all about our all electric car future. In the US, electric cars are 9% of sales, yet they are getting close to 100% of the attention. By my reckoning, we’ll all be driving electric long before government regulations make it mandatory. There was even an advertisement for an electric car charger! In Australia alone, this install market is a AUD$40 billion opportunity (20m cars @ $2000 per charger). And yes, every car will have its own charger.

Dropping the ball

Big budgets doesn’t always translate to great stories. Two of the tech titans, Meta and Amazon, had terrible advertisements. Their ads felt like public service announcements of why we need to be suspicious about them. I’ll start with Meta. If you haven’t seen their Super Bowl advertisement already, watch this, and I’ll see you in 60 seconds….

Here’s my outtake:

“When the real world really blows – just sub into the metaverse”.

Is that a subliminal message from the Zuck himself? Is he admitting his contribution to the decline of civilisation? It seems his most loyal lieutenants didn’t have the courage to tell him he’s lost touch.

Now onto Uncle Jeff’s empire, Amazon. Their ad, which can be seen here was unironically called Mind Reader. It features Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost using their Alexa. This one is kinda real, and even a little funny, but mostly unsettling. While the device can’t quite mind read yet, the biggest fear most people have about always-on, always-listening devices like Alexa is that the system is gathering far more personal information than we want. Another great antidote to buying what they are actually selling.

If you ever wanted a clear idea, then Coinbase delivered. While they are not about to win any story telling or creative awards for this piece, it was very clever. Running a floating QR code for 30 seconds at a cost of US$7 million has to be the most single minded marketing proposition of all time…. and people took action. It had a whopping 20 million hits within 1 minute. A twenty percent success ratio – unheard of in advertising in the modern era.

The Touchdown!

For me the touch down went to Salesforce. Their ad took a shot across the bow of their technology brethren. While every other tech firm and billionaire seems to be trying escape from the messiness of earth to mars or the metaverse – Salesforce had this message. Brilliant.

One of the most promising brand plays today is to tell people how and why you don’t act like big tech. There’s a real movement against them, and it’s gathering pace. It’s going to be a long war before we get back our data, our humanity and long needed regulation – but in the interim, not doing many of the things they do, and telling people about it can be a bankable strategy.

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Keep thinking,

Steve.

You’re the Movie Star Now

If you think our self-obsessed society couldn’t get any more obsessed with our self image, then hold on tight. We’re about turn this gig up to eleven. While we rarely admit it, everyone’s favourite topic is themselves. Now, if you could imagine for a moment what celebrity culture mashed up with self-obsession might look like, then you’ve taken a sneak peak at what’s next – Everyday Movie Stars.

No, I’m not talking about low-quality, bottom-feeding, Reality TV melodrama. I’m talking about Big Budget Films From Hollywood starring you. The GIF above is from a face-swapping app coming out of China call ZAO. This app utilises deep fake technology to allow anyone to impose their face onto any video – including those with celebrities. Mind you, this is a ‘free’ (for the price of your personal data) app on a smart phone – and it’s quite impressive. Now, imagine what could be done a couple of years from now with improved AI, deep fake algorithmic improvement and even better camera technology. It isn’t hard to see where this is going. You, me and everyone else will be able to slot ourselves into any movie we please. We’ll sit down on a Friday night with our popcorn to watch ourselves in an Oscar-winning performance on Netflix with no noticeable difference. That’s next level narcissism, but I promise you it will happen within the decade.

In the first instance, we’ll probably have to go to the cinema and watch ourselves through augmented glasses and pay a premium for the privilege. With enough imagination, disruptive technology like this always represents new revenue opportunities. Technology has a way of democratising everything – and it’s about to democratise starring in high-budget Hollywood movies. But every shift in tech has losers too. It makes me wonder whether the stars of Hollywood will have to step aside as Joe and Jane Average are patched in via AI. Don’t worry Leo, I think it’s pretty safe to say most people would rather star with you, than replace you. Besides, who we are ‘in the movie’ with is just as important as how good it is.

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Bonus content:

Short video interviews featuring me discussing:

 

60 seconds on the web

The world moves fast. When we we’re unconnected the speed of change went unnoticed. Now that we all have digital footprints, we can track all that happens. This amazing and statistically rich infographic is solid reminder of the world we live in. It’s also very cool that most of these business are startups that aren’t even teenagers yet. I’ve pulled out the numbers and got the pic below.

60 seconds on the web:

  • 12,000+ new ads posted on Craigslist
  • 370,000+ minutes of voice calls on Skype
  • 98,000+ tweets
  • 320+ new twitter accounts
  • 100+ new Linkedin accounts
  • 6,600+ photos uploaded to Flickr
  • 50+ wordpress CMS downloads & 125+ plugins
  • 695,000 facebook status updates, 80,000 wall posts and 510,040 comments
  • 1,700 firefox downloads
  • 694,445 google searches
  • 168 million emails sent (of which 92% is spam)
  • 60+ new blogs & 1500+ new blog posts
  • 70+ new domains are registered
  • 600+ new Youtube videos are uploaded. 25+ hours in duration
  • 150+ questions are asked in Question forums
  • 13,000+ iPhone apps are downloaded
  • 20,000 new posts on Tumblr.
  • I new definition added to Urban Dictionary 
  • 1,600+ reads on Scribd.

And here is what it looks like:

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Media Exponential

The speed at which media consumption has grown is mind boggling. So I thought I’d pull together a little info graphic titled Media Exponential using my Artline 725. Makes you wonder what’s next? Answer = what we create.

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How to win a debate

Winning a debate isn’t about proving the other party is wrong. It’s about proving you are right. In fact it’s about proving that you are more correct, even a little bit.

Then, by inference the other party must be wrong.

Although that’s a nice tip, debating is hardly the approach we need in any part of a startup business. The best advice we can give here is to never enter a debate, and let the other party believe they are right. Startups are about building relationships, not sabotaging them.

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Revolutions and pleasure

In the October 1994 Issue of Wired, Gary Wolfe said in an article,  article about Mosiac (the worlds first GUI web browser) and the coming internet revolution.

“When it comes to smashing a paradigm, pleasure is not the most important thing…

it is the only thing.”

Startup blog asks this:

What kind of pleasure is your startup bringing to its people?

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