[powerpress]
Everything we do is a story.
What you wear. What you drive. How you talk to people. The tech titans have understood this for decades and they’ve been exploiting it ever since.
I’ve been reading Nick Bilton for years. I read both Hatching Twitter and American Kingpin the moment they were released.
There’s a novelistic quality to the way he writes nonfiction. You feel like you’re inside the story rather than observing it. And his reporting has a way of landing at the precise inflection point where technology and culture collide.
Nick is a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair, a New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He’s currently writing the book and screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film starring Dwayne Johnson.
He’s been in the room with all of them — Jobs, Dorsey, Musk — and he has seen how the myth-making actually works in a way that is clarifying and, frankly, a little unsettling.
Today, we unpack:
- Nick’s Unlikely Path to The New York Times
- Silicon Valley Mythology & the Reality Distortion Field
- Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey & the Stories They Told About Themselves
- The Galaxy Brain Mentality of Billionaires
- AI’s Existential Risks & the Race Toward AGI
- Broken Incentive Structures & the Attention Economy
- How Nick Uses AI as a Creative Tool
- Finding Meaning Amid Uncertainty
For those who prefer a visual experience, the conversation is available on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Peace + Plants,
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