Kevin Kelly's Life Lessons — With Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a longtime tech writer who's covered technology for decades. Kelly joins Big Technology Podcast for a fun episode, unpacking a series of lists of advice that he’s written. These lists contain short but insightful observations about life, and Kelly goes through a number of his points at greater length in this show. Stay tuned for the second half, where we discuss his essay about 1,000 true fans — a seminal work that helped launch the passion economy — and how it holds up today. Relevant links: 1,000 True Fans 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice 99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:03Speaker 01

  LinkedIn Presents.

• 1:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Our guest today is Kevin Kelly. He's the founding executive editor of Wired Magazine and a longtime tech luminary, who's been writing about the tech world for decades. Kelly joins us today for a fun episode, unpacking a series of lists of advice that he's written. His lists, and there are three of them to this point, are jam-packed with insights that have helped me live a better life, and I'm sure many others every time that they they read them. And Kelly's also written the seminal essay of the creator economy, the one that's inspired many people like me to decide to go out and become independent. It's called A Thousand True Fans, and I'm sure we're going to get to that in the second half. And so I am excited to welcome Kevin to the show.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Thank you for inviting me. It's a real privilege and honor to be here. I appreciate it.

• 2:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Awesome. Kevin, one of your, one of my favorite essays of yours is this essay called A Thousand True Fans. It talks about how creators just need a thousand true fans to be able to make it. I want to definitely circle back to that. You know, by the end of this conversation, people have asked for it, you know, for your perspective or an updated perspective on it. But before we get there, let's run through the series of advice that you've done. I've highlighted a few, a handful of bits of advice that you've put out there and, you know, would love to just read some of these to you and, and hear your thoughts about how you came to them.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, let me just make another little preference. So, so this began when I was 68, I guess. And I felt, well, I'm getting old and I thought that I would write some advice to my son who's 25. And I would just kind of put down some things that I kind of knew. And I thought it was going to be like a kind of like a birthday present. And I started writing them and then I kind of realized that it was fun and I had more to say than I thought. And the fun part for me was trying to reduce a lot of advice into the smallest possible number of words as I could to make it really kind of like a little seed that might unfold.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  And what we're doing now of expanding them is sort of like, it's going in a different direction than what I was trying to do, which was I'm trying to take all the things we're going to talk about and I wanted to kind of encapsulate it into this really tiny little 10 words. And that was sort of, you know, the tweet metaphor maybe was in my mind, although wasn't conscious of like, can I make this tweetable? So that's what I was doing was, was doing that. And then I found out that the next year I had more to say. And then I did a third version of that. And then parenthetically, I just signed a book deal.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Because I have another bunch. And so we're gonna do a book.

• 4:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Congrats.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  With Penguin.

• 4:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Amazing. Breaking news.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  It is. They designed it yesterday. It'll be coming out in next, next spring. And it's called, right now, it's called Excellent Advice for Living. So that's the origins. Origins was kind of like a, a little gift for my son to kind of encapsulate what I knew. And my intentions always was to reduce this to the smallest possible thing.

• 4:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  And that's, that's why I thought that it would make for a great podcast because I felt that there was so much more.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  We're gonna unpack these.

• 4:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So let's go through as many as we possibly can. I, I really like this one. Don't be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid. Because 99% of the time, everyone else is thinking the same question and is just too embarrassed to ask it. It's such a, it's such a clear thing that's true. Yet, when you're sitting there with that question, you know, the obvious question, it's always so difficult to get it out there.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I don't have the inhibition. And the reason why I mention that is because I am sort of famous for sitting in things and raising my hand and asking the stupid question. That everybody else was saying, I wish, you know, I wanted to ask it. But I don't feel embarrassed about, about that. Yeah. So I, I don't know where that comes from. All I know is that it really does work.

• 5:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you almost always get the most revealing questions. They're most revealing answers from that question.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Right. And, you know, I, I think, I, I, I, I'm sure like all things, you want to do it gracefully. I mean, it's, it's not meant to be an insult. I mean, it could be done as an insult and mean. And that is, you know, that hurts. But I, I do it in the genuine interest of like, I don't understand. Or, you know, let me know. So yeah, I think if done gracefully, it's, it can be very, very powerful. And, you know, all I can say is, is that if you can, you know, get yourself to ask it, everybody will benefit from it.

• 6:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Okay. Here's, here's the next one. I love this one. Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them. They're waiting for you to send them an email. They're waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, it is amazing how much happens if you just ask. You know, I'm not a dating expert. I never dated really very much at all. And but but I hear from very oftentimes very beautiful women that they're always surprised that people don't approach them in in a kind of a natural way. And and and I think that's the same for me in my side of it is, um, you know, when people ask, I'm I'm happy to help. And if they needed help and didn't ask, it's like, why didn't you ask? And so I think that that's generally in my own experience. On the other end, it's also true that that oftentimes, you know, asking appropriately, which we can talk about.

• 7:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  It yields tremendous results. And so the appropriate thing is like, you know, if you're approaching someone, you kind of have to be context aware of like, is this a good time for them? Is this what what I'm asking is it kind of like, can they really? Is this something that they can do? I mean, there's lots of people who ask for things that are just like, why are you asking me? So I think I think um, there is some context awareness necessary for that. But in general, ask for what you want. Ask for it nicely, politely, and and oftentimes, that's all it takes.

• 7:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's interesting because we do have, I feel like we have so much fear in us for for a little reason. And I think there was another one that you I don't have it right in front of me, but you know, you got to realize that the universe is conspiring for you to succeed. And I think that the default position is the universe is conspiring for you to fail, but it's actually the opposite.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, that's called pro noia instead of paranoia. Pro noia is where the universe is conspiring to help you.

• 8:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's so interesting, by the way, that paranoia is a word we all know, but pro noia, not exactly.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Exactly. There's a book written by a guy who popularized the term, it's not my term, called Pro noia, which is kind of about, you know, it's sort of woo woo, new ageish, but he kind of touts out all the the ways in which the universe is trying to um, help you. One of my favorite recent books that I read is called Humankind, and they've given me, I don't remember the author, but it was one of those books that really kind of changed my mind in many ways. And and the basic argument of the book is that By nature, humans are helpful and not selfish, which is contrary to what we're taught.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And he goes through all kinds of evidence, sociological and experimental, et cetera, historical, showing that against our popular conception, the default mode for humans is to help other people, not to be selfish, and particularly in crises when you would think the selfish reflex would engage. And I totally buy that, that, that, that, that we are basically kind of like programmed to help others and that we don't help. We're selfish only in kind of the exceptional cases. And so, um, and so that, that, that switch, I think is very important.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  And, you know, I think I've always operated with that way, but here was sort of like evidence from my, my disposition.

• 9:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right. And speaking of, you know, selflessness, you talk a lot about listening in your, you know, lists of advice. Here's, here's two that I thought were like particularly interesting. Would love to hear how you came to them. So here's the first one. Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you, you love, keep asking them, is there more until there is no more? Man, that's good. And then here's the rule of three in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more, the third time's answer is close to the truth.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. I think, um, I think I got some of this from Ethel Perrell. I think that's her name.

• 10:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Esther Perrell.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Esther Perrell, yeah. Who was, who was a psychologist and a marriage counselor and stuff. And these are the kinds of things that, that. She would counsel and the listening till there's more was a common couples exercise where your partner is just you're listening and the active part of the listening is to so let's say after the first round and say, well, you know, is there more? And usually there is more, there is another thing. And then the really courageous thing is after all that you say, and is there more?

• 11:22Speaker 02

  And that's the kind of going back to that third thing where usually by then you're kind of really getting down to some really fundamental things. And so, yeah, both of those are back active listening, which is you're participating in by helping them, the conversation to go deeper. And in my own experience, it doesn't take a lot of work to go deeper. People really kind of want to, you're kind of just giving them permission to, to do that and by saying, okay, I'm willing, I'm willing to hear now and go deeper. And so I've, you know, done that with people I've just met.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  And you can go very deep, very quickly if you are willing to say, and is there more?

• 12:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right. It's pretty amazing. Like I've done a lot of thinking about listening over the past couple of years, just trying to get better at it. A, it's better for my professional life, B, better for personal life as well. And there's definitely been this profound shift for my thinking where it was like, you know, make space for someone to share what they think about a topic versus, you know, going to the next one. But actually like true listening is trying to figure out what people want to say and then having them say it, you know, giving that space and trying to make sure people can go with the conversation in the way they want. And these are two like really good tricks, this rule of three, ask, ask, ask and keep, and then this other one, ask, is there more? Practicing this to me seems to be like a good way to get, you know, to take the conversation

• 13:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  and shift it into the core of the person.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  A really common trick.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  For people who are listening in this situation you are of the interview setting, I've seen many people use from Terry Groves to my mentors, Stuart Brand, which is just to say, "Tell me about X." Just, you know, maybe something in passing, whatever. It's like, basically, "Tell me a story. Tell me more." And that's what they say. "Tell me more about X." And so, again, you're giving an invitation. You're giving permission. You're making a space. You're empowering that person to kind of say more about that. And that is, again, it's magical.

• 13:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's go to this one. The payoff, for a great payoff, be especially curious about the things you're not interested in. I just find and feel so true, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you came to that conclusion.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  I think, you know, a lot of, maybe my larger theme than preaching is about challenging our own assumptions. And that's a lot of what Futurist's work is about and scenario stuff is really trying to climb out of the little prison that we have by what we assume. And a lot of science. And so, part of those assumptions is what we assume that we like and don't like. And particularly as we get older, we kind of have little ruts in some ways. And so, kind of exploring something that we're pretty sure we're not interested in and becoming curious about it

• 14:51Speaker 02

  is one of those ways to climb out of that, to climb out of that kind of box. And so, that is, you know, maybe a kind of a cute way of describing this is like, you know, things that you aren't interested in and you might want to be curious about because there could be all kinds of things in there that might surprise yourself. So it's a little bit about surprising ourselves. And that's, for me, that's why I do art and other things and write is because I'm trying to surprise myself.

• 15:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, love that. By the way, what is this one? Art is what you leave out.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Art is what you leave out. So in my own, in my own efforts, making art, writing, making stuff, a lot of what I'm trying to do is you're framing things. And as soon as you frame something, you're leaving stuff out, the stuff that's outside the frame. And even within the frame, you're focusing and it's kind of a selection process. That's what editing is about. When I'm editing stuff, I'm basically taking stuff out. You know, it's kind of like the negative space in the sculpture. It's, it's, you can describe, maybe better describe what you're trying to do and trying to select the right thing is, is, you know, you're really trying to leave out

• 16:15Speaker 02

  everything. And so that process of leaving out is, you can arrive at something very similar with just focusing on the leaving out part. That's one of the ways you get to kind of a focus is by subtracting. So art is what you leave out is sort of like you take away anything that's not necessary. And then you have what is necessary, and that's the art. And so it's to, to suggest that this thing of removing, ignoring, subtracting is actually very, very, very important.

• 16:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And it's a great writing tip, too. It's like the more clutter you have, the worse it's gonna read. It actually becomes beautiful to read when you stop trying to like make it flourish and just write it as simple as you can.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Well, it's more than that. I mean, I've turned in pieces to wire. I mean, I've read, I'm both sides of the wire, both as an editor and as a writer. And when I'm writing, I've turned in pieces and they'll say, okay, this wants to be half the length. So we're gonna take out half the words. What? You think half the words, you know, well, half the meaning. No, no, no, no, no, it'll get better. And we're gonna take out half the words and this is gonna be better. And so removing half the words of something is, you know, it's exercise, it's quite an exercise in kind of focusing and deciding what's, what works and what doesn't work. And you can easily,

• 17:49Speaker 02

  can easily take half the words of most things and have it become better.

• 17:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Agreed. I also love your approach to money in these columns. Here's one that I found particularly nice. Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die. It's more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  So fun.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  There are a couple of books where I was given those realizations. One was called Die Broke and the other one was called Die With Zero, I think. And they both really changed my mind about this aspect of trying to be generous while you're alive. Were two things or three things. One is you actually have more control about what the money is used for. And secondly, it's much more fun. And thirdly, it's probably much more useful to the people who are receiving it.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  It's kind of win-win-win all around. And that has, you know, I had a suspicion when I was a kid that I didn't really want to save up all my money and have all my money at the end when I didn't really have any, you know, my feeling well and I don't really have much use for it. That you kind of, you don't want to over-save. You want to balance the use of money and you want to save kind of like just enough. And the rest of it, you want to invest in a certain sense into your life. That it's much better to take that money and invest to things like if you're young, spend money on a course, on experiences in something new that you might want to do

• 19:44Speaker 02

  and a new skill. And so. And so this is kind of an extension of that saying that if you do accumulate something, you kind of want to invest that now rather than later when you don't have control and you don't enjoy it and it's not as useful to someone. So that's been kind of something I've learned in the last 10, 15 years.

• 20:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and it may be a corollary to that. Treating a person, this is another one from you, treating a person to a meal never fails and it's so easy to do. It's powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, nothing makes us happier than helping other people. And I think having a meal, again, it seems like a small trivial thing, but it's really remarkable. We don't do it more often because it is so easy to do. And I was just reminded of this just last night when a person I know had their 70th birthday and their party was to invite other people to dinner with them in small groups. And so they did six meals with six people each and that was their gift on their birthday. And it was just beautiful. It was

• 20:59Speaker 02

  brilliant. It was so fun. And, you know, and easy to do. So that is something that's a reminder to myself in some ways that it always works and I never have had a regret about it.

• 21:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. How about this one? To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out of the window each time they miss a beer. Have you done that? How did you come up with that?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Well, there's one amendment to that. And there's unwrapped candy because I got really, I got pummeled for littering. Well, I mean, I mean, on the internet. You only have to do it once. You only do it one time.

• 21:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  You've done it?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  One time, only one time, because yeah, it's the threat of it that is that works wonders. So, so you don't need to do it more than once.

• 21:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Kevin Kelly is with us. He's the founding editor of Wired Magazine. You can find his work at KK.org, including the series of advice columns. We'll be back after this to go through some more of his bullet points. And if you don't return, we'll throw your candy out the window. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what Avpoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire

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• 23:22Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 24:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Kevin Kelly. He's the founding editor of Wired Magazine. Find his work at KK.org. I thought this distinction between pros and amateurs was really interesting. Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes. What do you mean by that?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  If you watch professional people at work, whether it's someone you hired or you go into YouTube,

• 24:42Speaker 02

  it's amazing how often they make mistakes. And it took me a while to kind of realize that, that they're making mistakes because one, maybe they're moving really fast because they're working fast because time is money. And secondly, because everything you need to fix is kind of a new and original problem. I wasn't really kind of, yes, a lot of it is rote and they've done it before and they know what to do, but there are often and usually some little wrinkle, which is original problem solving. And that's where the mistakes come in. So the point is, is that very, very commonly professionals make goofs, little mistakes because they're working fast, because they, you know, weren't paying attention or they're encountering something new.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  And the difference though, is that they're very quick to recover from them because they have in their bag lots of little tricks to, to recover from, but they, they don't let, slow them down and they kind of expect that in a certain sense. And so what they're really good at is recovering from the mistakes by.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Either some known little trick that they have to hide it or to redo it quickly or whatever. There's lots of different ways. But the point is that they encounter mistakes and are making mistakes all the time. And that professional doesn't mean that you're not making mistakes as perfect. It only means that you are able to recover from these very, really quickly and hide them to, so to speak. Recover is probably a better word.

• 26:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And handling adversity is a big part of these bits of advice that you give. I think one of them is if you want to understand the true character of a person, see how irritated they become with the slow internet connection. And it is like, you can really learn how people respond to a lot about people by how they respond to minor inconveniences.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. I think that you're right, that the sign of an amateur is sort of giving up or becoming flustered or somehow thinking that things have to be perfect. And that's something else I maybe as a general theme is I'm not a big fan of perfectionism. I'm a kind of like good enough-ish person, satisficing, it was called in the technical literature. Enough to satisfy it. And so I think that that is a sign of professionalism as well and kind of an admirable character is somebody who deals with these adversities because they're

• 27:27Speaker 02

  not demanding perfection. And I think there was another bit of advice, which was that something can be really good without being perfect. And weddings was the

• 27:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Signature example of that where brides often demand the perfect wedding, but it's like, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to be good. It's still gonna be wonderful experience without being perfect. So yeah, I'm not a big fan of perfectionism.

• 27:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and there's also, I think you really go out of your way to talk about the need for breaks. Here's another one. Efficiency is highly overrated. Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled Sabbath, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best kind of work ethic requires a good rest ethic. Rest ethic is another one, you know, along with pronoia that I had never heard before. But I think it's so true that, that, you know, people feel like it's their productivity, their self is measured in the hours they work, but actually taking these long breaks seem to go a long way.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. So rest ethic is a term I picked up from a book called, I think, Time Off, that was making some of these same arguments. There's another, I don't know if it's included in this batch or not, but there's another piece, which is that taking a break is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  If you're able to take a break, I mean, you, that's, that's strong. You're, you're, you're, you have confidence, you, it's a sign that you know what you're doing, et cetera. So, so don't think of taking a break. I need a break, it's a sign of weakness. No, no, no, it's, that's, that's very wise. And I, I, I do think that slack is underappreciated. And I don't mean just slack like in taking off, but also.

• 29:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, not the app.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  There was, there was, exactly. But there was a great book, I think it was called Peopleware, I think. But they were making, they were making this case in, in, in terms of teams in the corporate world, that in fact, someone did the study of the most effective teams. And there was like, often in some of the most effective teams, there was one person whose role could not be identified, is how they said it. And that turned out that person, because their role wasn't identified, they kind of like were the slack element, meaning that when the emergency came up and there was something kind of weird, everybody else was like stuffed to the gills with their assigned

• 30:06Speaker 02

  assignments, but this one person.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Was able to turn and do that thing because they had this ill-defined, slightly slacky position. And that you kind of wanted to have slack built into your system in some ways. So that it could be nimble and fast and agile. That that kind of being agile requires to have a certain amount of slack built in. Because if you're kind of tuned up all the way and high strung and you're totally efficient, there's no room to be adaptable and agile and responsive. So, so I think it's more than just kind of like this idea of taking vacations.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's like you, I, I, I think the most creative people have to have a lot of slack in their schedule. You have to have slack in your kind of your, your outlook. You've got to have something to give so that when this big opportunity, which by the way is not going to be labeled a big opportunity, when that comes, you're able to, to move to it because you have some slack. Otherwise, you're just completely bound by what you're currently doing.

• 31:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And this goes along the idea of like, you know, achievement culture where people like feel so pressed to achieve, they forget to live sometimes. And here's another one along those lines. Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear and listen. Nobody talks about the departed's achievements. The only thing people remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  That is so true. And unfortunately, I've had my chance to attend to funerals, particularly as my cohort ages. And it is, I, I, this was born out of my own personal experience. It was amazing to me how infrequently people talked about the achievements of the departed. They always talked about what kind of a person they were. And that's all that they cared and will remember. So the achievements are just basically a way to be. It's a way to, to, you know, to exhibit your beings.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  It's, it's a means to be something and not really the end goal ultimately. And so focusing on that while you're alive is for me, part of what I'm trying to do anyway.

• 32:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, along the line of that, there's, you know, this fame culture that we have. People are obsessed with likes and retweets and followers on Instagram. You have a very good way of looking at this. Cultivate 12 people who love you because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's just um human nature and um liking. And I think somewhere else I say it's like, you know, you don't want people necessarily to like you. You want them to respect you. And I think that's part of what, you know, being close to people is about a different.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  A different kind of relationship than the liking.

• 33:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, say more about that.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Well, um, it's funny because I know lots of families, particularly larger families, where there'll be brothers and sisters and they actually don't like each other, but they love each other and respect each other. And I think, I think liking is, liking is not at the top of the pyramid.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  It's a kind of way, it's a step in towards something much deeper and meaningful, both to both sides of the relationship. And um, and there are people that I kind of admire but don't like. And there's, you know, I'm sure there's people that I like that, that I don't admire. And so I, I, I think we just are confused by, by followers and influence and stuff like that. From, we're confused with, with the other kinds of emotional relationships that we really crave and get more from. And we shouldn't be distracted by that. I'm perfectly fine with having millions of followers.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  I think that's good when people have that, but. It just has to be in the right place and can't be a substitute for other kinds of relationships. And sometimes it is, um, and that's a problem. And other people are able to understand that, you know, you can have a million followers and they're just, they're looking at something different and they're, they, they don't have that meaning. In fact, I have talked to people with a million followers and ask them, what do you get from that? And often it's not very much and sometimes it's a burden. So, so, so it's just less valuable than you might think. And this kind of goes back to something you mentioned earlier about the thousand true fans, which is that, um,

• 35:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Perfect segue. Let's, let's end with this. So go ahead.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  That, that, that, um, you would do much better as a being and as a creator and as a doer, um, to have a thousand people who were true fans than have millions and millions of followers in general. And you actually would get more from that and they would get more from you. And, you know, to, to summarize the, the general theory of a thousand true fans, it says that, um, with the modern technology we have of communications, that you don't need to have millions of followers to have a living.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  That if you have direct contact and relationship and exchanges with true fans, um, meaning you can deliver them what it is that you do. They can respond, they can engage, they give you all the money directly to you. Um, then, um, you don't need more than a thousand or a couple thousand of these to have a livelihood. You're not going to become a millionaire or fortunate, but you can have a livelihood. Because if you could get a true fan to give you a hundred dollars a year, and a true fan should, because a true fan is somebody who will buy whatever you do.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Your total, total best fan, they're going to buy the.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  The single, the double, the box set, they're going to go to every show you put on. They're going to get the paperback and the hardback and the audible version and the merch. You know, that's the true fan. And if you can get a hundred dollars a year, then a hundred times a thousand is a hundred thousand a year. So that's the theory that, that with modern technology, you can bypass labels and studios and publishers and go directly to the fans and you don't need all the extra money that those intermediaries would demand. So you don't need millions, you only need thousands. And when I first proposed this,

• 37:35Speaker 02

  pre Kickstarter and Patreon, it was more of a theory, but it's not a theory because I know, I mean, I've been contacted by hundreds and I know thousands of people who make their living with a thousand true fans. And those are just the true fans. And, you know, there's concentric circles because outside the true fans are the casual fans. And then, you know, and so there's, there's a lot of people and the true fans become evangelists for your other fans and followers. So it's, it's an entirely doable goal, aiming to become,

• 38:19Speaker 02

  to have a million followers, to become a bestseller, to have a golden record with calling platinum and selling millions. That's not really achievable for most people. But having a thousand true fans is a much more achievable goal for many people.

• 38:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Have you been sort of blown away by the fact that after you wrote that essay in 2008, pretty prescient? So have you been blown away that, you know, after that happened, the internet has really enabled all this stuff to come to, come to form?

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, whether it is those that you mentioned, Substack also, you know, what has it been like? And do you have any, any updated thinking on it after you wrote it? Or do you think the, the original essay kind of holds form?

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Um, well, I, I did an original essay and then I did a revised essay, which was prompted by a request from Tim Ferriss. And in that second version, I had a kind of additional epiphany, which is that the thing about a thousand true fans is that in a world, again, enabled by technology, where we have a global market, that almost any interest, even the interest that only would appeal to one in a million people, some obscure hobby, you know, like saltwater jellyfish aquariums, or this is probably pretty big, but I mean, some, the weirdest

• 39:43Speaker 02

  little collectible or cosplay fetish, or whatever it is, even if it appeals to one in a million people, with eight billion people potentially connected, there'll be a thousand people on the planet who will be totally into what you're doing. And so, we just need to connect with them and find them and match the number, which is not a trivial thing to do. But it says that your most interesting person that you can think of and do and think that you're most interested in passionate has the potential to be, to

• 40:26Speaker 02

  support you, because it was, there will probably be a thousand people in the world who will also want that exact same thing as you do. And so, so that's, that's another way in which the thousand true fans is playing out, which is that very, very, very niche things, you know, left-handed fly fishing reels, or whatever it is, you can make a living by, by that because of this new technology will allow you to connect directly with those people.

• 40:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. And one of the lines that runs through all these pieces is just your optimistic viewpoint on life. And, you know, I, I think that it's amazing to look at the world the way that you do. And, you know, I think optimisms are underrated these days. So it's good to hear from you. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing this with us.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  It's been my pleasure. Thank you for asking some great questions. And I really appreciate the chance to share.

• 41:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  And that will do it for us here on Big Technology Podcast. Thanks again to Kevin for joining us. That was awesome. Thank you, Nick Watney, for editing the audio. Thank you to LinkedIn for having me as part of your podcast network. Thanks to all you, the listeners. You know, past few weeks, we've been asking for ratings and it does really make a big difference. And a lot of people have come through, really seen lots of five-star ratings come in. And that means a lot. So I appreciate it. Everyone who's taken the time to do that. We will be back next week for an interview with Mark Bergen, who has a new book about YouTube coming out. It's a great book. I'm about halfway through it. I will be through it by the time the interview comes around. And I guarantee you're going to like this, this new podcast coming up with Mark. He's a reporter at Bloomberg, by

• 42:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  the way, for those who don't know him. And that'll do it for us. Hope your summer's going well. Hope you've enjoyed this sort of lighter content on the, on the pod. We get back to hard news next week. All right. And with that, we will see you next week on Big Technology Podcast.

• 42:28Speaker 03

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