Juan David's Newsletter - January 10, 2020
The Elon Musk vs. Gary Vee Approach
Hi all,
The second semester of college starts next week, and I can’t wait! On the other hand, I’ve been working on a long-form essay to analyze my 2020 and set goals for 2021.
I’m sharing it publicly because I hope it helps someone out there understand that we all face similar struggles, and perhaps it helps them get a refreshed outlook and inspiration on the possibilities.
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This week’s essay will be about finding a curious equilibrium between working on an “important problem” and sharing your ideas online using Elon Musk and Gary Vaynerchuk as examples. Or perhaps how to be both (the one I prefer 😉).
As always, scroll down to find out week’s Curiosities 📹🧐👨🏻🔬
The Elon Musk Vs. Gary Vee Approach
If you prefer, you can read this essay on my website.
If you wanted to be successful and have a positive impact on people, there were a few approaches to do so. And the internet opened up the possibilities even more.
We have to ask ourselves what we want to do with our lives. Recently, I’ve been attempting to answer this question for myself, and I noticed a few paths I’m attracted to such as the strategy I call “Elon Musk Vs. Gary Vee Approach.”
Let’s start with the Elon Musk approach. We all know who he is and his execution strategy can be described as finding a really important problem and dedicating all his time, intellect, and resources to solve it.
We also have the Gary Vee approach, which focuses on the creation of content at a high scale to leverage the attention of social media to create companies and sell products.
The Gary Vee approach is somewhat low risk - high output, and success is more or less guaranteed as long as you create interesting content consistently for a long time.
While the Elon Musk approach is high risk - extremely high output. Success is super unlikely, but if you make it, you really make it, and most importantly you solve an important problem to help society. In Elon’s case, electric cars, reusable rockets, underground tunnels, and a few others more.
If you use the Gary Vee approach, you won’t solve problems as pressing as climate change because you’ll be spending your time on social media creating content. Then, you have “reach” and “impact” that could help fund and promote the “important problems” effort, but you most likely won’t be solving them yourself.
And that’s fine, we need both Elons and Garys in this world.
To me, those two paths are exciting but it seems like you have to pick one over the other but I’ve learned that if I'm thinking of choosing, I should choose both. And here the opportunities get even more interesting, and one more approach opens up.
I call this approach the “Lex Fridman Approach.”
How does Lex fit into the Elon Musk vs. Gary Vee approach?
At first, he used the Gary Vee approach. Lex started making podcasts and creating content across social media, which gained him a formidable audience of almost 2 million (Jan 2021) [1].
He’s been using this method, and it’s working extraordinarily well as he continues to grow.
What does Lex need to transition to the Elon Musk Approach? Not as much as you’d think.
Find an “important problem” and start working towards it through the founding of a company.
Or a simple tweet, like this one, may do, which excited thousands of followers and investors to back him up.
Another example of someone I find using the same or similar approach is David Perell.
David can be described as a citizen of the internet who has leveraged Twitter to have an impact in the world by writing powerful essays, creating life-changing online courses, and recording profound podcasts.
How does David fit into the Elon Musk vs. Gary Vee approach?
It’s the perfect combination.
At first, he started using the Gary Vee approach. David created content on Twitter and wrote essays, which gained him an audience in both social media and his email list.
He followed this method until he had an audience big enough that cared about what David was doing. Then, he created his business called Write of Passage, which teaches people to accelerate their careers by writing online.
Even though David has started investing and doing other things, David hasn’t fully transitioned to the Elon Musk approach, but I would assume he would do so in the next decades as he tries to make Write of Passage the business school of the future.
The Magic Intersection
In this intersection, we find up-and-coming stars such as Lex Fridman, who leverage the use of social media (Twitter, YouTube, etc) and the internet (Podcasting) to perfectly fit the Gary Vee Approach.
Then, after developing this approach, they can transition to the Elon Musk Approach more smoothly and with less risk as they have an audience to whom they can sell to, resources to self-sustain and create companies with, and the arts which they have mastered (writing, speaking, podcasting, etc.)
This Ladies & Gentlemen is a new approach that will create riches, success, and a vast new world of opportunities. Most importantly, I’m sure dreamers and optimists like Lex will have a significant impact on society as they work and solve important problems.
Curiosities 📹🧐👨🏻🔬
To make the newsletter easier to read, I’m thinking of only sharing only 3 Curiosities (as opposed to the usual 5) when I share an essay. What do you think?
1. YouTube Channel to Explore Curiosities
SciShow is the perfect channel to explore science curiosities.
Their goal is to “defy our expectations and make us even more curious.” Check it out!
2. What It Means To Be an Intellectual
A dear friend’s grandpa commented I was intellectual. Instead of thinking, “Oh yeah, I’m so intellectual.” I took the comment as neutral and reflected on what it means to be a person with those qualities.
From The Disadvantages of an Elite Education:
Being an intellectual means thinking your way toward a vision of the good society and then trying to realize that vision by speaking truth to power.
It means going into spiritual exile. It means foreswearing your allegiance, in lonely freedom, to God, to country, and to Yale.
It takes more than just intellect; it takes imagination and courage. “I am not afraid to make a mistake,” Stephen Dedalus says, “even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity, too.”
So am I of those people? Far from it.
But I’m working towards it.
3. Einstein Using Calculus to Discover Laser
This is also an example of science being the engine of technology, entrepreneurship, and the economy.
From Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe:
Albert Einstein applied calculus to a simple model of atomic transitions to predict a remarkable effect called stimulated emission (which is what the s and e stand for in laser, an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
He theorized that under certain circumstances, light passing through matter could stimulate the production of more light at the same wavelength and moving in the same direction, creating a cascade of light through a kind of chain reaction that would result in an intense, coherent beam.
A few decades later, the prediction proved to be accurate.
The first working lasers were built in the early 1960s. Since then, they have been used in everything from compact-disc players and laser-guided weaponry to supermarket bar-code scanners and medical lasers.
In a goal-oriented world, the most important goals are achieved in the least goal-oriented way.
That is all for this week! Down to share your thoughts, want to have a discussion, or have suggestions to improve the newsletter? Reply to this email.
And as always, thank you for reading!
See you next week,
Juan David Campolargo