Episode 10 with Kat Cole

Hello everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of Building in Public podcast. I'm super excited today. I've been waiting for this interview for a while now. Today I'm joined by a very special guest from Atlanta, which is, you know, where I live into. It's Kat Cole. Welcome to the show, Kat.

Thanks for having me.

Kat, I've been a big fan of your story, of your example, and the leadership principles and traits that you embody. And ever since I got to know you, which is not that long, only been less than a year, as I said at the beginning, but I think diving into your content and your interviews really showed me many of the principles that I believe in, which is to believe in public and and being a bold leader in front of the community has been fascinating. So I just want to start right off the bat, say I've been a big fan of your work, for example. But I also am curious where this all began. And I know you've covered this in many interviews about your origin story in Hooters, but also all the way back to your childhood. But I'm curious if you had a specific inflection moment in your career or life Where you knew that, all right, this is a special moment, and I know after this, I'm on the path of greatness?

I don't know that I had a moment that led to, I'm on the path to greatness, thought. That's pretty bold. But as I reflect, there were many moments where I realized part of What my superpowers are, or a special muscle that I had, or kind of capability market fit, you know, if you will. And those moments were many. There wasn't one where it was a giant bright light bulb. It was moments where, you know, we— I have these cool Edison bulb lamps at home with a slow dial, and it was like turning that dial, click, slow Click, click, where it wasn't a new realization over time. It was one realization when I was in junior high and taking care of my sisters, and another realization when I was in high school and realizing I was different and how I stuck up for my friends. And then when I started working early and took on many jobs in the restaurant, which I've talked about, you know, each one of those were a further dialing of of that dial where the light definitely got brighter, where I don't know that it made me think I'm on the path to greatness, but it definitely lit up the path to greatness.

It's interesting that you say that because I think what I'm curious to see now, I mean, kind of curious about, curious to find out now is, like, in your Twitter bio, you have a line that says something about helping people see that they can be more than what they believe. I think something along those lines.

Helping people realize they're capable of more than they know.

Yeah. I'm sure that was put in there for a specific reason, right? Why and what?

I mean, that is my purpose. That is my superpower. It is my magic. It is my answer to the question, what do you want to be remembered for? It's, it's the thing. And it did take a while for me to put it into words and to do so succinctly, but it became apparent at some point That really, that's all I'm doing. When I was the president of a $5 billion company, leading other presidents, I'm helping people realize they're capable of more than they know. And part of doing that is, you know, a lot of strategic thinking, setting vision, building great talent, allocating resources in an appropriate way. You know, helping people realize they're capable of more than they know is more than just what it sounds like on the surface. It's more than, It is, in fact, being in the trenches sometimes. It is firing people sometimes. It's hiring people sometimes. It's saying I'm wrong, you know, on occasion. And so, what goes under that is far more nuanced and complex and can look like being a great mom, or being a good friend, or being a kick-ass executive, or being a really involved investor or advisor to high-growth companies, which I am today. The titles look different and the groups and stakeholders may evolve, but really, that is the through line. That's the thread that goes through everything that I'm doing. And as long as I'm doing that to my fullest potential, I'm on purpose in both ways people may hear that phrase. I am on purpose, meaning I'm being the most intentional.

Right.

And I am on my purpose, living in line with my superpowers and my magic and the things that come to me more easily than others. Less effort and greater outcomes. So, that's what it means.

I love that. And then, I have to wonder if it ties all the way back to one of the concepts that you mentioned in one of the interviews that I resonated deeply with, the concept of positivity lens versus possibility lens. I thought that was fascinating. And I have an add-on to talk about that, but I want to, for the audience, for the listeners, the founders and everybody here, how would you define it if you have to quickly, succinctly define the possibility versus positivity lens?

Yeah, we just went deep into this on Shane Parrish's podcast, The Knowledge Project. And I think it was a version of the title of the episode. And it's something I've talked about a lot, the power of possible. And the reason I talk about it often in contrast to positivity Is that I'm often asked, because of the turnaround situations I've been in, or tough personal moments, or organizational moments, I'm often asked, you know, how do you stay positive? How do you stay positive at all? And then how do you stay so positive? Because I am certainly known as being positive. But I'm more of a pragmatic optimist or an optimistic realist. You know, I'm some hybrid of those. And what I've learned is during really tough times, or not even tough, just complex, you know, and heavy, I've found that positivity can sometimes be the most disconnected, unhelpful thing you can sort of demonstrate. And that— but then people say, well, if not for positivity, then what, negativity? Well, no, of course not. But it's Instead of being positive or creating positivity where others may struggle to see through the fog or the moment, I've learned to focus on possibility. So, instead of being positive, that might be disingenuous or uncalled for or tone deaf, you know, given what stakeholders are experiencing, instead, focus on what's possible. And of course, there's optimism within that, but it doesn't feel like rainbows and butterflies amidst a battlefield.

Right.

And that would just be very odd. And a few people would enjoy it, but many people, you know, would say, that's not real, right? That's not a mirage. So, the idea of understanding what's possible, which takes confronting reality, having perspective of things outside of your universe, and then connecting sort of the present and the future, or your scenario and many others, and mapping those together to demonstrate what's possible far enough out that it's aspirational, but close enough in that it is visible and believable, and then rallying people, you know, with a compass, not a roadmap, but a compass to say, that's the direction that we're heading. And that, as a muscle and a mindset, translates across any scale, any position in a job or in a company, and certainly almost any situation.

So, when you apply this framework on talent people, I think it takes a whole new spin. To me, what stuck out when I heard about this phrase and this beautiful explanation on that other podcast too is around when you meet someone new, especially as an investor now, or when I meet somebody new as the director here, we have so little data on that person, so it's easy to simply jump into a blanket positivity as opposed to finding out, digging deeper, and understanding the nuance. And there's, to your point, superpowers, or there's things that they may really crush at. They're really good at it, but maybe they don't know it. And then actually believing in them, leaning into them. And this turns into a massive boost for them. And I've had so many experiences of that concept. I call it the belief capital. Where so many times early-stage founders are not looking for that first check at the $10,000, $20,000, $30,000. It's not going to change that much dramatically of their trajectory. But if a powerful, influential person looks straight in their eye and says, I believe in you, I believe in what you're working on, that can be a whole different ballgame for them, right? So I wonder, in your recent experience or in your, I don't know, last 2, 3 years experience, where have you felt that you've been able to apply This possibility or this positivity lens?

Well, certainly, to early-stage angel investing, you know, to your point, because you, you know, you need to connect what you're interpreting from individuals that you likely have never met before,

right,

with signals in the marketplace. And then the understanding, and this is where maturity and scar tissue and experience come in handy, understanding the storylines of many other companies and founders. And it's easier to be a believer when you have more context of how the movies end.

Right.

You know, in similar genres. And you're less likely to get freaked out when there are bumps because you've been over the bumps. And you're more likely to be encouraging because you can see over the hill that they can't, you know, at this point. So, my possibility lens has certainly been put to work most by early-stage angel investing in the recent years. But I would even say it's been put to work for myself, for me, as I've evolved from being primarily a top executive running these large companies with angel investing, advising, board work, and speaking in the background. And now those things have flipped. And I'm spending all of my time advising, board work, investing, writing, you know, content. So even for me, redefining what's possible and thinking about what that looks like and how these worlds come together. And same thing, right? There are certain hills I can't see over, but someone else can. And so I can be my own kind of possibility coach. Mm-hmm. And I know to connect with other people that can help me think about different versions of You know, of reality that could come true if I leaned in one way versus the other. So, it's a tool I've learned to use for myself in addition to other people.

Awesome. I mean, you kind of touched on something that I will use as a segue to ask you about. So, part of your story, part of your presence, at least on Twitter and persona, to me, feels like you're hyper-curious. And I love that in a business leader and an executive. So 2 moments that I want to highlight. One, when Clubhouse broke out, right? 2020, March, April-ish, you went all in. You were early and you were all in, right? And you were curious and you were present. You were not just on the sidelines. You were actually in the arena hosting shows and just became really prolific at it. I want to ask you about what that experience was like. What did it teach you? But then that's part one. The part 2 of the question is with the NFTs too. And I think, again, the same story, right? You're very early, you're relatively early compared to the mainstream Fortune 500 America. But again, learning by doing. So what have you learned from these 2 unique experiences?

They're both— they're quite similar, actually. I think it's really great that you've connected those dots. I mean, we all have ego, but my ego is more tied to the journey and discovering and productive change over time than it is tied to looking like I know what I'm doing. And that is important foundational context because doing what I do in the way that I do it requires that. Otherwise, people would never put themselves out there to go that deep, that fast, tie their reputations, you know, to different experiences and platforms and communities. And I have enough belief that I can figure it out. I have enough belief in my Spidey sense, you know, my informed intuition around what is worth leaning into. So I do have a level of belief in what I lean into. There are many things I don't, right? Tried Snapchat. It's huge. It's enormous. Not, not my thing. I do have an account if anyone wants to like beep beep, say hi. But I am an early adopter. That— I am that in the world. On the curve, you know, I'm the beginning of the curve. I might not be the first notch, but I'm probably the second. And that is because I'm, one, I'm plugged into communities of other curious people. That's how I hear about these things. I see the excitement. And then I try to filter the noise for what is hype versus potential. And then over time, doing this a lot, I'm also appreciating what it's like to be early in anything big.

Right.

And it's messy and it's noisy and there's as much, if not more, BS, you know, than there is quality. And so, when you know that and you appreciate it, it's like, okay, this part of the pond is muddy. I'm probably not going to be able to avoid walking through some of it.

Right.

But I know how to look out for it and I'm going to try and I'm going to put on waders, you know, to walk through. And so, you just— it's a— It's a filtering mechanism and a decision-making mechanism that I also used in really old-school IRL ways, like picking real estate and selecting franchisees. And when we would acquire a brand into our portfolio, I mean, a lot of this is the ability to say, is the juice worth the squeeze? Right. Which requires you have a pretty deep understanding of the juice and the squeeze. And Clubhouse was very interesting and similar in so many ways. to NFTs in that what was tied to the product experience and learning and discovery was community.

Right.

I mean, they are identical in that way, and that sets them apart from other things I've been early in. Even Twitter and Instagram, you know, social platforms that where I was an early adopter, certainly as an executive of a large company, I was like on an island. Right. They still didn't have the same feeling of community that these do. So these get Stickier, faster. That also means it's harder to sort through the hype and the noise.

Yeah.

You know, because there's a reinforcing energy around it as opposed to solo navigation.

Right.

And so, appreciating when solo navigation is the way and when sort of group community navigation is the way, which just means, for me, I have to be more comfortable, even more comfortable, asking for help very quickly. I follow the tutorials, I watch the videos, I learn by doing, to your point. I buy, I wait, I mint, I lose my gas. Those are all NFT terms. I get stuck, I ask for help. You know, I say, GM, help friends, you know, in the Discord. And usually there's some cool cat— that's a reference to Cool Cats— usually there's some cool cat who's like, here's a tip. And rarely are people overly helpful because there's a bazillion people like me coming into the space every day. But usually there's one or two people who are And I try to be helpful in my own way. Hey, does anyone need some thinking around brand or IP? I know that space. If anyone needs help in public speaking or decision-making or leadership, or you have a tough interpersonal situation, let me know. You know, it's my currency. That's what I can offer.

Right.

That's your token. Yeah, that's my token. And then some, it's like, I need to do a little, like, dollar sign LDR, like, leader token. But it is, These communities, these community-based platforms, there is just a human joy in being a part of them. And I've learned to have a sense of what am I willing to stake, right? That could be money, it could be time, it could be reputation. Typically, I go pretty deep in these platforms timewise for at least a couple of weeks. Again, my husband is amazing, very patient. In those early days, I can remember he'd be like, are you on Clubhouse again?

Clubhouse again?

And, but then he appreciated what value it was creating. And I moderated my schedule very quickly. Same thing with NFTs. He's like, are you on OpenSea again?

Shout out, Daley, if he's listening.

Yeah, shout out to Daley, my husband. And my kids know what Clubhouse sounds like. They're like, oh, that's Clubhouse. And my kids now know some of the NFTs, you know, the cats and the creatures and the frogs. I think maybe I just gravitate toward the kid-friendly ones. But that, it is me. And but I don't stay in those deep, deep phases very long. I go deep, I learn, I realize where my no-go zones are. You know, NFTs, I'm not a minter. I don't mint. I've lost money on minting. I don't have the time to focus. I'm going to let other people mint. I'll be your first buyer on secondary. But I learned because I lost time and energy and money attempting it and realized that there are people who are going to go deep into that, and that's not for me. Same thing with Clubhouse. I realized what rooms I wanted to create, what rooms I didn't. I invited people onto the platform that would reflect more of the Clubhouse I wanted to see in the world.

Yeah.

A lot of the leadership speakers and academics and thinkers. And then I dip out if it's not me, and I stay in if it is, but in a more moderated, thoughtful, you know, way that makes sense for my life, my personal life, my schedule, and my public persona. But it is funny, people who met me for the first time during that Clubhouse season, or if someone's encountering me for the first time now on Twitter, many of them have no idea what my background is. They just think I'm an NFT head, right? And there's a part of me that thinks, oh, man, is that going to confuse people about, you know, my business credibility and my leadership acumen? But then, My F-you energy is really high.

I'm just like, I don't

care.

I mean, it could be just one person, but I think to me, take one person's opinion, I think it just makes you cooler. And as a business person, business leader, and then partly what prompted me to reach out to you for this podcast is the fact that you had such a multi-hyphenate personality and you were not sort of hiding it or not sort of afraid to try something new like NFTs or 'Cause there's, like you said, to your point, like there's so much hype about these emerging, there always is, right? Like in 2008, it was about social media. You know, Snapchat broke out, Periscope broke out. There's always hype, but at the same time, there's also potential and there is opportunity. And like social audio now is a thing, right? Thanks to Clubhouse. Well, there's 7 other options too, but like at least that category has been created. The same thing with like, you know, CBCs, thanks to Maven, is now a thing, right?

That's right. And I've got a course that I'm building on Maven, so I'm excited. Really? Okay, sure.

We'll put that at the end. So I think going back to exploring curiosity, I think to me what's been interesting about your story is the fact that it's like a cyclical thing. It's like an infinite loop. And some of the greatest thinkers and creators of our generation and founders to me have always reserved time, energy, and bandwidth to do that. And so I'm very happy to know that you're on the same path. Jumping gears to a couple other topics here. Actually, we haven't covered this at the beginning, but I want to ask you this. What are you currently building and focusing on as not NFTs, but like more full-time, I guess?

Yeah, it really is just like we're in Web 3.0. It's sort of maybe it's Catcall 3.0, and it is a lot like the evolution of these other you know, parts of our lives where far more angel investing, a ton of advising high-growth founders, and my board work. I'm on the board of Slice, a technology company, HumanCo, a wellness SPAC, Milk Bar, an omnichannel dessert brand. They're all founder-led still, you know, many years in. And so, I have this deep love for founder CEOs and the journeys that they're on. And I seem to be attracting the ones that are between the 8 and 10-year mark because they hit some pretty big milestones in their companies. I'm a heavily involved advisor of Athletic Greens, also, you know, founder-led bootstrap to well over $100 million in annual sales. Big things coming up from them. And then lots of earlier-stage companies, Lunchbox and Vacation, the sunscreen company, and raised an SPV for House of Wise, the digitally native CBD brand. And so, this idea of I'm, you know, an advisory shop in a way. And my goal for this season, and that's what it is, they're all just seasons. Right. This season, post-Focus Brands, post being president and COO of that company, is about helping other people build their businesses. And in the first 3 months, it was literally like volunteer work. I just wanted to help anyone and everyone that wanted or needed my help. And then what that led to is a lot more inbound from funds and founders. And, you know, Clubhouse certainly was a part of that, that visibility from that platform. And then angel investing and advising leads to more opportunities to invest and advise. And then by May, my husband and I realized we've invested 3 times more than we typically do in a full year by May. So, the powder was like, at least dry for now, or gone for now. And but the advisory work had really changed to more meaningful work. And now it's my job.

Mm-hmm.

I have amazing, amazing advisory roles and have room for more, but I'm very involved. And so, it's not like, hey, we'll throw you a fraction of a point of equity and spend a bunch of time with us and maybe down the road it turns into something. This is my work right now. So, these are highly paid, highly invested advisory roles where it's my job. And so, by day, if you want to think of it that way, although it doesn't split up day and night, by day, I am a full-time advisor and board member. I've considered raising my own fund, but I think I'll leave that for another day. I am not trying to—

Another season.

Yeah, another season. Another season. I am not leaning into operating another big thing right away. It's always an option. It's a possibility, but not some. I've turned down some really cool ones. So, it's definitely not the season for that. And I want to spend at least a year, which I'm now 9 months into, 8 and a half months into, at least a year just advising, investing, and board work. And I'm enjoying this so much, it looks like it may become a prolonged season. And it's my gig for now.

It's so Coincidental that you brought up the concept of a season. And then frankly, I haven't heard that phrase being used in business as much, but it kind of makes sense, a ton of sense if you think about it. Because if you compare it to any major league sports like the NBA and you see some of these great talent, they have seasons at different championship teams or whatever teams, and they're there for specific reasons. You could be, for example, when LeBron came back to Cleveland, there was a specific reason he wanted to bring the championship home. And again, so on and so forth. And I wonder if executives and people in tech can think of their journey not just as a linear career of 15 years, 10 years in DTC or 11 years in VC-backed startups, but like, hey, this season I'm going to explore NFTs. I'm going to go all in. You're going to find me doing a bunch of podcasts. You're going to find me doing Clubhouse shows. You're going to see me on a Discord server. And then once you've hit a certain level of curiosity saturation, you're like, okay, what's next? And maybe then you can take an operational role or be an operator at a venture-led growth stage company and then switch again. You know what I mean? I think I'm curious about this as a phenomenon and I'll certainly at least look into it as a phenomenon myself. I felt like my story had seasons. I remember just like your Clubhouse I had a no-code season where I was like complete nobody, noob in the world, but I was very early, early enough to go actually build stuff. I built 13 no-code projects. I went from nobody to someone who actually understands the game and has skin in the game and played in the arena. And then I got into the Twitter building public game. So I had a second season, right? And so on and so forth. So definitely interesting to think like that. So I have a couple habits, lifestyle questions for you. So what helps you stay in a state of flow?

One is getting enough time with my husband. It is very difficult for me to really be in a true flow state if I'm not feeling connected to him. So our coffee dates, Our long weekends together when we can get one. We have a specific amount throughout the year where we go on solo weekends and vacations together. But it's the coffee dates. It's the little bit of time in the morning and a little bit in the evening around our 2- and 4-year-olds. That's a big part for me. The other is making sure that what I'm spending my energy on, the energy economics, Of my week net out to being more energy-creating than energy-draining. Right. And so, what I didn't say is everything gives me life, right? Because not everything gives me life. And so, that's incredibly important. Breathing exercises is huge for me. Overall sense of well-being. And so, am I, again, on the whole, I have a pretty balanced view of wellness and health and energy economics. It's like on the net, right? Not everything has to be perfect. I'm not an extremist in almost any part of my life, but I am very conscious of, on the whole, what's going on. And I don't know who I was just reading or listening to that made the point that said we think a lot of our future selves, so we might make a not-so-great decision now because we're assuming our future self tomorrow will make far better. Right. And then, we're that same person in the moment that we were yesterday in the moment. And, I try to really keep that in perspective of how are my decisions on what I'm saying yes to, what I'm saying no to, what I'm putting in my body, how I'm moving or not moving, what are the economics of that over the course of a week. The week is my kind of economic window. And, that really helps me be a better person in the moment in terms of my decisions. That lead to being more in a state of flow. I mean, simply stated, when I am speaking, especially in public to large groups, I am in the most technical state of flow possible. It requires no effort. I barely remember it after. I am not nervous. I am where I am supposed to be. The idea of connecting with many is what brings about my most natural flow state. Even if I haven't seen my husband, taking care of myself, you know, whatever. But all the other kind of normal day-to-day activities, that helps me be in more of a flow state and remembering to have rest periods. Yeah. Which might just be a walk around the house or time with the kids, or as frustrated as I may be that I can't unlock my ETH from Coinbase to my wallet to get that NFT that's at the floor that I want. And And it gets locked up and then the floor is exploding, which has just happened over the last few days, and it makes my brain hurt. That is when I know the moment has gone. I close the computer. I hang out with my friends. Thanks for the loophole. I have no FOMO. I have peace with it. I celebrate those who got it. Another one will come. And it's just like having that command though, right? The ability to bring yourself to peace And not get spooled up. And again, not risking things I shouldn't risk.

Yeah.

Not risking time I shouldn't risk because it belongs to my children or my husband or to me alone, not risking money or relationships or reputation. I mean, having a good stronghold on what you shouldn't just throw out there helps protect energy and confidence, you know, to maintain that flow state in peak moments.

Have you found that while you communicate, while you talk, have you found that it certainly also helps you think and brainstorm in public?

When I'm— no, when I'm giving speeches, which always come from the heart, and I don't write scripts, I have a framework in my mind because I work with the client on what they're looking for. And then I have certain kind of touchstone tentpole stories and lessons that can frame a journey that's appropriate for that audience. Those moments are not thinking and brainstorming. One-on-one, yes. You know, I am a talking thinker, but I'm also part processor. Like, I like to listen to other people speak and then noodle and think and then make a few notes and then talk about— React. One-on-one or in small groups. But my public speaking, when I'm in that deep, deep, deep flow state, no, I am so focused on the audience and on Giving and sharing what it seems we've agreed is important for them to know that I have no other capacity for creativity, or it's like all going that way.

Right. So you— we touched on— my follow-up was going to be about your habits and rituals that help you maintain focus, but I think you kind of touched on a few. But I wanna ask a little bit of an interesting question. Like, what habits did you form as a kid that are still part of your daily life?

You know what's interesting? I was talking to someone else about this recently. Because I came from such a troubled childhood, we didn't have a lot of family rituals. We weren't particularly religious, so we didn't even have those rituals. I mean, a few when I was younger. My mom, you know, made an effort to get us to like church and school and groups, but it sort of fell apart pretty quickly when we left my dad and we were on our own. And we had a few family rituals, like very particular things my mom cooks during holidays that are sacred to me. But outside of that, the downside is I didn't grow up with routines and rituals. The upside is I was able to create many as I got older, as I traveled around the world, which I started doing when I was 19. And so, you know, by the time I was 30, I had been all over the world. By the time I was 40, I'm 43 now, I doubled down on these other parts of the world. And so now the rituals that I have, albeit created a little later in life, so I can't think of one that comes from my childhood except eating sweet potato soufflé a couple of times a year. That's my mom's recipe, but not like daily ritual. Those came later. Stretching.

So the meditation practice and all that stuff later. Yeah.

Stretching, Athletic Greens in the morning. Mini meditations, my weekly hotshot rule that I often talk about, those all were formed in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. And so, I'd say for anyone listening who's like, ugh, it's okay if you don't follow Miracle Mornings to a T.

Yeah.

Ritual and routine certainly helps. We are creatures of habit. I see that now with my children, how well they function With consistency and routine. And I think in some ways it was a disadvantage, you know, that I didn't have routine, that I was a bit scattered. But it also certainly built a muscle of creativity and left the opportunity for me to build new rituals, which I now have with my children and my husband. So, my husband and I have a monthly check-in with each other where we check in on our relationship, which I talk about often. On Sundays, we do Sunday dance party, you know, no iPads, no TVs, It's like our little mini Burning Man. We do Sunday dance party, and now we've started Sunday speeches where everyone in the family stands up in front of the family on the couch and does a couple of minutes about what they loved most about the weekend. And my hope is it makes them really comfortable talking about things in front of people and spending time with family. So, I didn't have a ton that were formed in my childhood. I'm trying to do a better job, my husband and I. at creating some of those habits, rituals, you know, that will last for them, but leaving enough space for them to make their own in the way that we have.

Excellent. So let's talk about audience for a second. And I have a couple of questions on the power of building and growing an audience. And you are certainly one of the, one of the really great examples on that. Why do you believe, first of all, do you believe that it is an important intentional choice To build and grow a community? And if so, then why is it important for execs and founders to actually invest time in it?

I hope that executives, founders, leaders first think really deeply about the difference between audience and community. They are different.

How would you distinguish them?

I mean, I've seen other people who specialize in this space go deep, so I would encourage people to Google these discussions. But in general, You know, an audience listens, a community engages. And a community is an audience, but an audience is not a community. And so, it's almost like this continuum, right, where people see you, they're aware of you. It's just like the consumer continuum, which is awareness, consideration, trial, repeat. Right. You know, think of that as a human continuum of people who are around you, around a person as a brand. And so, there's awareness, Consideration, like, do I want to engage? Maybe I follow, I like, I engage a little bit. And trial. So that might be, I am a subscriber to your free Substack, but not the paid one with engaged. Or I occasionally pop into your Clubhouse rooms. I don't regularly attend and raise my hand to come up. I read things about you if I see them, but I don't you know, I don't sign up to take your Maven course, right? And so, and then I don't tell other people about it. So, there's this continuum, and they're all important. I mean, I've seen Alexis Ohanian tweet about this several times recently, you know, the prophecy essentially that many firms, whether they're venture firms, private equity firms, or companies, will be as defined, if not more so, by the reputation of the brands Of their principals, you know, of their managers, as they are of their entity brand over time. Yes. And I have always believed that is true and certainly have experienced that. I've also seen people go to the dark side of that belief system and spend too much time and energy trying to build audience or community or reputation or brand or whatever you want to call it at the expense of the focus on themselves and their company and their most important stakeholders. But I don't think that's the majority of the problem, right? The majority of the opportunity is for people to realize there is value in audience and community, and to think about how to authentically build those things in a way that does not happen at the expense of their core priorities, but rather happens at the enhancement of those core focuses and priorities. But it starts with— Being vulnerable, being comfortable. You know, there's a lot of many reasons people don't put themselves out there. And one of them is the crowds are not kind.

Right.

And when you are not perfect and you misstep and you make mistakes, it's very easy to tear people down when they've made themselves more public. And so, it doesn't come without risks. But I do believe the, you know, the risks are worth it if you can think about doing it in the right way and not do it alone.

Right.

Do it in group, do it in community, be of service to others, and maybe most importantly, help others do the same along the journey, right? It's not me building my audience at the expense of others building their audience, but this is this high, this abundance mindset.

It's a positive sum, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's like community leads to community leads to community, and you are seeing that so clearly in the NFT space,

right?

People in one Discord are focused on this NFT, but they're communicating about the next, and then you get a heads about, you get a little alpha, you know, for the next one. And then somebody says, oh, I really need liquidity. Hey, I got you. I wasn't looking to buy right now, but that's great. And you really see this is community with a capital C, you know, in these, in these Discords and in these NFT communities. And there's a lot people could learn. Again, a lot of mess, a lot of spam, a lot of noise, a lot of drama, but there's a lot of beauty. Right. in community with a big C and thinking about what it takes to really build that. And I've been in some of these NFT projects to see lots of potential, lots of hype. They didn't take care of the community, did not have good— there's not a lot of, like, corporate executives or seasoned communicators in some of these builder teams. Right. And so, some of them figure out their way through it and then they do an amazing job, but others, have a ton of potential, they're great artists, they have a good heart, but they just don't have the capability on communication and thoughtfulness and community building, and then the community will eat them alive.

Yeah.

Very quickly. I've been a part of a few of those, and I'm not part of the mob, but I understand why it's happening. So, I do hope that modern leaders— I have this deep belief around modern leadership and the variables in that equation. And one of those variables is understanding the difference between audience and community, and then thinking about a way, thinking about how community, little c community and big C Community, what does it mean? What are the opportunities for you as an individual and also for your company or whatever it is that you're building?

I certainly hope that with Web 3.0, I mean, it's kind of like how with Clubhouse, The whole craze and the frenzy about Clubhouse still left the world and our economy with this new category creation called social audio, right? Where now it's a category, there's other people building on top of that category, and it's almost become like part of a playbook now going forward. I'm hoping that with Web 3.0 and all the experiments we're seeing, community becomes no longer just an optional afterthought while company building early days, And it becomes quite integral to the next generation of companies. And whatever happens in the NFT space, whoever wins, whoever loses, whoever fizzles out, that's probably going to be a small footnote in history. Yeah. But the fact that this will be maybe, hopefully, an addition of community into the big leagues, and that's what I'm excited about, frankly. I don't care if Lazy Lions lose or if another cats win, but I'm really rooting for community to be super high up next to product because forever, for the longest time in tech, at least in Silicon Valley, product was number one, right? You didn't have to build community. Mark Zuckerberg didn't have to worry about community from day one. But the next Web 3.0 founder has to take care of their first 50, 60, 100, 200 early believers because clearly they own the tokens. So it's very important that they believe in them.

Yeah. Again, not to be such an NFT head, but being in these communities, in the Discords, it's like the mechanics of community on bright display.

Yeah.

That translate to so many other things and verticals. And this idea, Jack Butcher just tweeted the other day, you know, from me economy to we economy. And he's not the first person to say it, but it was a very succinct tweet and the idea that, you know, Web 2.0 was other people kind of owning us with our data and Web 3.0 is we own. And it only succeeds if we own. And what happens when people have ownership? It's bananas, man. And people who've had equity in companies know what it does.

Right.

But that has not largely been accessible to people around the world. And now we're seeing, I mean, again, those involved, I know this is still a very small world. It feels huge because I'm like in the bubble, but I know it's very small. But there are little sparks, little smoke signals, little things that will translate into more scaled parts of society and industries. And Pomp just had a really great tweet about this where he was very early to crypto and certainly early to NFTs. And he just had another tweet where he talked about you know, how this will kind of shape and shake every industry. And I think he's dead on. And so, I really do hope modern leaders, those who are maybe in the middle of their leadership journey, so they were born of a different era, needing to evolve into this modern leadership era, you know, I hope they make the leap. I hope they feel comfortable enough in their own skin, with their egos, their reputations, to Evolve. Many will, some won't. And I hope those who are just entering the economy, the workforce, positions of leadership, that they respect that there are some muscles that come from different ways of working that they may not need right away when they're building communities and building a modern business, but to scale, they're going to need it. So, it's like these generations and worlds and different ways of working are going to need each other, you know, to work really well. Over time, as much as we love decentralization, if anyone's been part of a DAO, many of them are a hot mess because there's such a fear of organization in some that they're missing the framework. There's freedom in a framework. They're missing the framework. So, in a pursuit of decentralization, sometimes we can miss that some latticing and some framework is really helpful. You know, for the vines to grow properly. Everybody's still an individual vine. You're totally decentralized, but you need some structure and some boundaries. And so there is a nice kind of melding of those worlds I'm starting to see.

It's interesting that you mentioned the DAOs, because I wonder if the world of decentralization is skipping over the benefits of structure and organization, because I think you can still have a decentralized space with some sort of structure and organization, because organization doesn't equal centralization.

Yeah,

right. Organization can be like me being myself, being organized and being thoughtful around how I communicate, interact, engage, and transact, as opposed to being a wild, wild west, which many times it is. So

the really good DAOs have that structure. And then I've seen some really cool visions of some of what these folks are building, future cities, What Naval and others have talked about for quite some time, and many other great thinkers in that space talking about sort of like, you know, virtual cities.

I read this tweet from Balaji that sort of blew my mind.

Yeah, I love what Balaji has said over the years.

Oh my God, he's just like, he's living in 2050, you know, and we're all like 2020. My favorite part was 2 days ago, he said something around the lines of like how to build the next city.

Yes.

Just start on the internet. You probably saw that. Yeah. And he said, buying real estate for actually manifesting that into a city is the last step. Just do everything on the cloud, on a Discord server.

I love following Balaji's advice.

And I was like, oh my God, that is so true. And I was also a little bit concerned. I'm not concerned, but a little bit terrified of the spooky nature of, what if somebody takes this playbook? and literally builds like a giant city out there somewhere in LATAM or Africa or wherever, and that person has bad intentions. I was like,

oh,

that could work,

right? It will. Again, when you're early in this space, there will be, right, negative, dark and light, right, noise. But the beauty is you don't have to go there, you know? And, um, and the housing country can decide to have values in which they evaluate what type of cities can pop up. I first heard Balaji talking about this on Clubhouse,

right?

And then followed him after very closely. And yeah, some parts—

Have you done a content piece with him? I think that would be terrific.

No, no, I've never done it. I'm just a fan of, you know, of his thinking and perspective broadly. And, you know, while it does look like 2050, the year 3000, you know, it seems crazy, in many ways it doesn't. And the more—

That's why I was worried, because I was like, This is clearly happening. Clearly, it's very possible, right? When you see the DAOs, the NFTs, and you're like, wow, it is very possible.

And there are real initiatives with real architects, right? Real money. Yeah.

Going in like the Jet.com founder building a city. And it's like, it is happening as we speak.

I posted following closely.

Right.

So energized. Of course, they have I think Bjarke Ingels doing the architecture. Yeah,

it's fascinating. Anyway, so thank you so much, Kat. I don't want to take more of your time, but this was incredible. I really enjoyed just talking to you about things that you care about, things that you're passionate about. Clearly, there's so much passion that I love that you bring to every interview. I'm grateful that you are here. We'd love to keep in touch and have you back on for, for a future session sometime.

Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks so much.