Pseudonyms & Creator-Operators
Reputation in Web 3 + the collaborative nature of the passion economy.
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🎧 Episode #25 | The Pseudonymous Meritocracy with Bored Elon Musk
Listen on Apple, YouTube or Spotify
Bored Elon Musk is one of the largest pseudonyms on Twitter with 1.7 million followers.
Pseudonyms are fictitious identities but they can still build (or lose) reputation.
Bored Elon Musk joins us to discuss the nature of pseudonyms and his investment activity. We also chat about the metaverse, the pseudonymous tech stack, the future of deep fakes, and much more.
Pseudonyms are interesting because they are inherently meritocratic. Bias isn't possible because nobody knows who you really are. As the internet becomes more crypto-native and employment becomes more fluid, pseudonyms will only continue to rise in popularity. Already, DAOs are full of contributors that use pseudonyms.
It's worth noting that pseudonymity is not anonymity. A pseudonym can build reputation that persists through interactions.
Bored Elon is trying to make sure that as one of the first major pseudonyms, he sets the right example with his online reputation. Besides posting memes or tweeting fake startup ideas, Bored Elon is spending a lot of time investing in real companies with bored.fund . Many founders are happy to take his money without knowing who he is - a future where we can interact based on the merits of our activity over our identity is one that will benefit many.
Mentioned in this Episode
Bored Elon suspects that as the pseudonymous tech stack matures, it may become more wallet centric. Right now, he uses Metamask
🎧 Episode #26 | Creator-Operators with Josh Kaplan
Josh Kaplan was an early employee at Morning Brew and was a product manager during their meteoric rise as a media company. Now, he’s taken what he has learned as an operator in a creative space and applied it to his role as co-founder and CEO of Smooth Ops to help content creators scale their businesses.
Today’s conversation is about the deeply challenging logistics involved in the creator economy.
Josh contends that most creators find themselves thinking relatively short-term. While it’s important to focus on producing great content, it’s also crucial to plan for the future—not just the next podcast episode or newsletter. Creators need operators as partners to help them think about and build for the long term, even as they focus on the next project at hand.
This core theme led us in all sorts of interesting directions. We discuss the competition for talented producers on the frontlines of creative markets, how the flow of social relationships has changed, and how to create optionality for content creators throughout their careers.
Josh also gives his optimistic vision for the future and reminds content creators to have fun. This episode was a blast.
Mentioned in this Episode
If you're a content creator, check out what Josh is doing at smoothops.xyz
Who is Michael Ovitz is a book that Marshall & Josh discuss several times throughout the episode.
Scott Galloway is a marketing professor and content creator
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See you next week!
- Jackson
The Deep End is hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by On Deck—where top talent go to accelerate their ideas and careers.