You need to meet more people, my dude

Or "brave" doesn't think what you think it means

That word doesn’t mean what you think it does

Last week New York Times’s DealBook Summit took place in New York, hosted by DealBook’s founder (and former interviewer of yours truly on CNBC’s SquawkBox), Andrew Ross Sorkin.

The DealBook newsletter shared a list of its top speakers (10/11 men and 10/11 white) and numerous pithy quotes from said guests. In case you want to complain about the “liberal” NY Times it’s probably germane to note those top speakers included fascist-in-the-coalmine Benjamin Netanyahu, the guy who would prefer to literally die vs. criticize his former boss Mike Pence, and at best amoral techies like the CEOs of Meta and Amazon.

I confess to skimming the scintillating excerpts from this limited gene pool of commentary, but this excerpt from an interview with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings couldn’t help but catch my eye:

Hastings also defended Musk’s contentious acquisition of Twitter, saying he was “excited” to see what the Tesla C.E.O. does with the social media platform. “Elon Musk is the bravest, most creative person on the planet,” he said, adding, “I’m 100 percent convinced that he is trying to help the world in all of his endeavors.”

Brave. Brave?

This in a week/month/year when El0n Mu$k when the guy shared alt-right memes and conspiracy theories? When he suspended accounts if they mocked him? Is it now brave to make light of laying off thousands of workers, treating them like absolute crap? Was it creative to find exactly the most discombobulated and inhumane way to handle those layoffs? Is it super creative to cook up stupid visual puns as you enter a building to decimate teams and to create bizarre “hardcore” pledges that drives another chunk of people away? (And by the looks of it, that exodus included anyone who might actually bring diversity of thought…that special kind of diversity white dudes like this guy always say should #matter.) Is it helping the planet to go out of one’s way to restore more bigotry to Twitter and advocate voting for the party who denies climate change is real?

All I could think is that Mr. Hastings needs to get out more.

All I could think was, “You need to meet more people, my dude.”

All I could think was, “that’s not gonna age well.”

All I could really think was: Give me a fucking break.

Who defines “bravest” this way? I could think of countless people more brave. It’s almost insulting to list them, from freedom fighters to first responders.

What’s really disturbing though is how Hastings’s comments illustrate the uni-dimensional thinking of an entire swath of people who carry considerable power in this country. How they don’t think twice about it.

As another example: Facebook and Twitter are laying off large numbers of people because of a bad bet and bad debt respectively. I have been speaking about those tech layoffs as being the beginning of a layoff contagion…and sure enough it took only moments for folks from VC-land to praise these layoffs, particularly Twitter’s, as smart and hardcore, not as the result of bad decision-making on the part of the people running the show. Read that linked thread and weep. (It’s all a bit rich coming from VCs who get to pay only capital gains tax on their performance-based gains, instead of income tax, even if none of the capital invested was their own.)

These are our Masters of the Universe. Who hold each other in the highest esteem.

Feh.

Am I over-reacting? What do you think? And who do you think of as braver? And more creative?

What else is going on?

I have experimented a tiny bit with Substack’s chat function, without much success (and I don’t see a lot going on with the other creators I follow and their attempts to get chats going). If you’re interested you have to use the Substack app…instructions in this post here. If you were going to chat with me, what would you want to chat about?

New York Times’s California correspondent Farad Manjoo published an entire guide to trying to contribute to alleviating the state’s homelessness crisis, which is the one local issue that stands well above any others in its importance. I am bookmarking it and acting on it. Just call my a YIMBY proponent. (And here’s a link to a video that explains how homelessness is a housing problem. Yes, even when it comes to people who need others kinds of social services.)

It’s baby elephant seal season at Point Año Nuevo! Sign up for a guided walk now through late March. Totally worth it.

Bros is now streaming on Peacock, and I predict it will have a nice long and profitable life streaming. It’s funny, charming, educational, romantic, wry, witty, poignant, and all the rest. Critics who complained that Bros tried to do too much or tackle too many issues or had too many different tones don’t get it: Life is too much. Our lives require us to hold a multitude of truths at one time, and they require us to strike a multitude of tones, often in one conversation. I was here for it. Even its flaws. Because GOD KNOWS I have already watched many flawed romantic comedies, especially during the holiday season, and if the actors are charming, and the ending is happy, I AM HERE FOR IT. (Case in point: It’s way better than Love, Actually, which I watched for the first time in almost 20 years because I didn’t remember a thing about it, and all I can say is: That is a really weird movie that also has so many different tones, it’s like a Schoenberg piece. Fight me.)

Until next time, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on any or all of the above. This is basically my blog now! And as always I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast.

And if I can help you break through the things that are keeping you stuck, set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly. And you can always check out my new LinkedIn Learning Course, Telling Stories That Stick, a 57 minute course on crafting your stories for different audiences (media, investors, prospects, hiring managers) and making sure those stories stick…and convey exactly what you hope to convey.