 Good AM840 here. So I'm looking at an essay called The Great Online Game by Paki McCormick and he's writing about why a tech growth stocks sagging while crypto rolls back and he says well it's just because crypto is more fun. Crypto itself is not the game it's just the in-game currency for a much bigger game played out across the internet that involves CEOs, influencers, artists, researchers, investors and regular people like you and me. So the main value of this show, it's not the show necessarily in and of itself, but the main value of the show is the community that we're building, right? The people who are connecting, people who are hiring each other, people who are starting hedge funds, people who are dating each other, right? The real ethno-stay is the friends we make along the way. So the great strength of this show is the community that we're building. So we're all playing a great online game here and how well we play determines the rewards that we get online and offline. So when I meet up with people I meet through this show I like these people, right? Because we have a similar mindset. Now one aspect of the great online game that's completely ignored in this essay is the downside of playing the great online game. So if you're anti-social then the great online game can be an absolute disaster. So some people have gotten fired from playing the great online game, other people have completely ruined their lives. So this essay is taking the assumption that it's talking to pro-social people who are tuned to what you can and cannot say online. And it just takes that completely for granted because pro-social people, they don't need to even talk about it. They're not even thinking about what's socially appropriate because they have a pro-social orientation. So billions of people are playing the great online game, real-world consequences. Your financial and psychological well-being is at stake but the downside is limited. Well the downside is limited as long as you have a basic pro-social, how can I give value orientation? So healthy people want to help, healthy people want to give to others, healthy people have a pro-social orientation. Unfortunately many of the people who spend the most time on YouTube for example are anti-social. So this essay says the downside is limited. Well the downside is enormous if you have anti-social tendencies. The upside is infinite. Thanks mate. Good to see you Elliot. So interesting essay here. Social media is the clearest manifestation of this metagame. So the essay says the downside is limited. Obviously the downside of social media is enormous. You can get addicted to it. It can bring out your worst tendencies. So what this essay is ignoring is the dangers of the e-personality. People become more spontaneous, more hyperbolic, more grandiose, more narcissistic and they share darker stuff online because they're not getting the immediate feedback that we get in daily life. But if you have that pro-social orientation then you get to skip that. So beginner level Twitter feels weird just a bunch of people exposing their personal thoughts to the world. But if you come to social media as you come to your life with an orientation of what can you give? How can you be a service? Then you get to skip the downsides of social media and playing the online game. Medium level Twitter is threads. Engagement hacks. Twitter mastery is indistinguishable from an ongoing game. So social media is just one part of an interconnected game that spans online and offline spaces and the way you play in one area unlocks opportunities in others. So in 12th step we talk about if you've got a problem in one area of your life it's probably all throughout your life. But if you're unlocking opportunities on Twitter it's going to unlock opportunities in the rest of your life. It's an opportunity to get invited to real world meetups, to a discord. You participate on a discord. You get invited to work on a new project and that new project might make you rich or you might just get more followers on Twitter, more discord invites, more project opportunities, new ideas that you want to explore and send you off in a whole bunch of new paths. But this all presupposes that pro-social orientation of people are coming online with the orientation of what can I give? How can I be a service? What can I contribute? So the great online game is free to play and it starts by realizing that you're playing a game. Every tweet is a free lottery ticket. Every video is a free lottery ticket. That's a big unlock. So I've knocked out 15 minute videos that have ended up bringing me $500. But more important than that, I've knocked out 15 minute videos that have connected me with people who I may very well, I hope, stay connected with for the rest of my life. So anyone can play but really only pro-social people should play because the downsides are playing if you have that dark side where you want to wound and where you want to cause havoc, then the downsides, that's enormous. So you choose how to play given your resources and your skills at the current moment, you can level up fast. So financial and social capital are no longer tied so tightly to where you went to school, who you know, what your boss thinks of you. So this online game has different physics and wormholes through which to jump. It's exponential instead of linear. So I like this. Sometimes it's weird to remember that we're all effectively competing to hit the right keys on our keyboard in the right order and that if we do it for long enough, we can buy a home. So hit the right keys in the right order, make money or hit the right keys in the right order, make connections that help you make money, help make you happy, get you married, join a community. So work is just an often boring sub game within the meta game. So the best games are those that create spaces that bring you into flow. So the best live streams are those that create spaces that bring you into flow. So look at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as games, and the three billion people are playing them actively. They're essentially big layers on top of a slot machine. So Blake Robbins, venture capitalists says, people underestimate still the power of the internet. Twitter has changed my life in many ways. I met many of my closest friends and mentors all through Twitter. So when you get good at the online game and getting good means that you're contributing something of value. And how do you contribute something of value you come from your most authentic place and with the mindset of helping other people. So you get good at the online game, you meet amazing people in online and then offline. So, you know, people reach out for collaboration in your direct messages, you get jobs. Blake, Blake Robbins has successfully translated hanging out on the edges of the internet into a career as a venture capitalist, is a go to source on creators gaming or future internet stuff. And this is his approach, try to add value with no expectation of anything in return, play the long game. So he's playing the infinite game, he's going down rabbit holes, he's learning, he's helping people, he's meeting new people, he's going down more rabbit holes and so on. So the infinite game includes any authentic interaction. So you want to come from your authentic self, your best self, with the attitude of helping other people. So any authentic interaction from touching to culture that changes rules plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. Finite player seeks power at the infinite one that displays self sufficient strength, finite games at theatrical, necessitating an audience, infinite ones are dramatic involving participants. So the great online game plays out constantly across the internet, no longer an avatar on fortnight, you're playing as yourself across Twitter, across YouTube, across discords, across work projects, investments, that people who play the great online game, rack up points, they rack up skills, they develop attributes that they can apply across their digital and their physical lives. Some people start off anonymously and parlay that faceless brilliance into jobs and money. So the game rewards community connections, cooperation over individualism and competition, you get points of being curious for sharing and for helping with no expectation of reciprocity. And by increasing your surface areas, you get, you know, bigger online presence, you open yourself up to serendipity, good things coming together. So for good actors, the game has nearly unlimited upside and practically no downside. So a good actor, someone with the attitude wants to be a service, wants to help other people. You can jump into the great online game at any point, whether it's a total unknown or as an accomplished person. And then you can start building the world that you want to build. And it can take you on many paths. So look at Elon Musk in his Saturday Night Live appearance. No one plays the online game better than Elon Musk. Like he's doing things that people didn't think were physically possible, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink. He's getting away with things that people didn't think were legal, such as pumping Dogecoin. His 420 take private tweet and getting high on Joe Rogan. So he's playing a post-modern game against modern rivals. Musk plays an advanced version of the online game, which builds rocket ships and electric cars and internet satellites. So people start often by tweeting their ideas for businesses or writing about startups. They move on to bubbles of mania. They make connections. They meet new people. They test new ideas. They build a reputation. And all this helps you to find your next thing. You might end up writing a sub-stack newsletter with thousand subscribers, paying subscribers. So Megan Leeds 2018. She was making $400 a month posting YouTube videos. Today she makes millions of dollars a year. Has 3.6 million subscribers. Launched a game studio that will bring in $8 million this year. So she parlayed YouTube's of her self-playing video games into content that makes millions of dollars a year. There you start. You follow your curiosity. You build relationships. You stay open to new opportunities. You keep playing. And a little nut Nass X started messing around online. He started releasing his music online. He came out on the last day of Pride Month and become a successful online personality. He makes music. Some people keep their full-time jobs. Some people run companies with employees. So countless examples of people who played the online game listed here from Kim Kardashian to Donald Glover to Turner Novak to Andrea Hernandez to Harry Stebbins to Alexandria Cazio Cortez to Webb Smith to Deep Effing Value to Soldier Boy to the extended Pompliana universe. All these people are having a blast while they're quite and quite working. So this is an essay from Paki McCormick. What are examples of people who parlayed being great at the Internet into big things. Each personality here is Internet native. Each plays the game. Each has cashed out some Internet points for things like TV shows, Grammy winning records, venture funds, companies, political victories. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez became a Twitter darling last year when he decided to embrace the tech community. So he simply tweeted, how can I help make move my Silicon Valley to Miami? So he's poured a ton of high-growth tech companies into a city. So he's become the go-to example of how to grow a city by playing the great online game. And he's also embraced crypto. So with crypto's ascent, there are now thousands of newly minted millionaires and dozens of billionaires who built fortunes by hanging out on Discord, investing in new coins, playing with new protocols, and treating investing like a game. So crypto is an asset class that rewards participation in the great online game. So to understand what's legitimate, what's not, which coins people are going to buy and which they're going to ignore, you spend time participating and learning online. So the right Discord or Twitter follow is a massive source of power. So crypto is a kind of native token for the great online game. So people in crypto seem to understand better than anyone else that this is all a game. The right meme can send a random coin to the moon, make people seem legitimately rich. Crypto is in-game money for the internet. It rewards participation directly. So the great online game imitates video games. In an open world like the internet, the more you signal who you are, as long as who you are is not repulsive, the more you talk about what you care about, as long as what you care about is socially acceptable, the more you open yourself up to new possibilities. Cost of failure is as close to zero as it's ever been in the history of the world, as long as you have that pro-social orientation. So this is true for entrepreneurship. It's true for the great online games. Entrepreneurs are trying to build businesses. When you start playing the great online game, you're just building options for yourself. Anyone can play the great online game or you need its knowledge and curiosity. So a typical path into the great online game starts out in one niche community. Maybe you start thoughtfully replying to a few people you respect in your field on Twitter. You hop into a Discord, you get a feel for things before you ask questions and you participate. So you have a pro-social orientation. Ask yourself, you know, what am I fascinated about? What am I nerdiest about? And then you go find your fellow nerds. And over time, you go from consumer to creator. You write, you make videos, you lead discussions, you build projects, you collaborate, share your experiences. You can choose to be someone who's a little good at a lot of things or unbelievably good at one thing. So here are the four elements of a successful game design feedback loops. So I don't expect it to be much. You might get a like here, a great point there. But pay attention to what's working and what's not. Don't be too calculating because people can smell that. Metric may not be likes or views. A real conversation with one person you respect may be the best starting point. So my primary metric is not likes or views. The primary metric is, do I respect what I'm doing? And my second primary metric is, you know, what's the quality of the people that I'm attracting to what I'm doing? Then variable outcomes. Some things work, some things don't. If you treat it like a game, that's to be expected. The goal is not perfection. It's to experiment, to play, try new things, some hits and won't keep you hungry. Then sense of control. So the more you practice, the better you get, the better your outcomes. You get what you put in. So you're not just playing the great online game, you're also designing the game you want to play. You pick the things you love the most and you go deep, you learn, you interact, you give value, you keep learning. There's no boss in the great online game. Your success or failure is a direct result of your own skill and your own effort. So the meta game here is your life and your career. The more you evolve, the more you level up, the more you give, the more contributions you make, the more opportunities you'll have. So if you build a following, you'll meet the right people, you'll get involved with the right projects and you put yourself on a whole new trajectory for your life and for your career. And if you do it right, it will feel like a game. You don't have to wait for the perfect moment to jump in. You don't have to quit your job to make your living entirely online. You can play on the side, you can learn things, you can build new hobbies and new relationships. But you can't be a jerk. That can be an easy way to get some attention. But it's the easiest way to lose your life while playing the great online game. So know what's socially acceptable and make sure that you're doing it with the mindset that you want to contribute, you want to give, you want to be a service, you want to help. So Paki says, I started writing this newsletter not boring. Two years ago, bored at my job, I started spending more time online on Twitter, writing a newsletter. I just wanted to meet smart people who are interested in the same things I was. And now he spends his whole life online, writing a newsletter, his whole professional life. He's an investor. He has a community. So playing the game is about having fun opening doors that you didn't even know existed. It's work, but it's fun with exponential upside and compounding returns. So go play the great online game.