Vanitas, Subpar Ideas, & Some Reflections Thereupon
8/29/2024
Oh vanitas, spare me, but alas it’s not to be. My project of tweeting a subsight every day over a year was a waste of time, like a bubble in some forgotten still-life. It did not accomplish the goals I set, and worse, it magnified a repugnant veneer rather than deepening of my thoughts.
I coined the term “subsight” to reduce the level of expectation from that of an “insight” to something less weighty while opining on the nature of venture capital and startups.
Professionally, subsights were partially an experiment to see whether writing clarified my thoughts. I also believed there might be some interest in them, given that my whole career has been as a venture capitalist. One small wrinkle is that I’ve always been a terrible Writer, in the capital W sense, and have never cut it even as a content creator. All that same, I was curious if these pithy reflections would garner any resonance with founders or investors. I didn’t exactly want to go viral, but in the back of my mind, I thought I would gain a few followers.
I gained no followers or fame, and in seeking external validation, I only served to disappoint myself.
But it is not solely the swept-up detritus of our lives turned into words that bring value. Take, as a counterthought, one of the greatest investors of all time, Warren Buffett. His returns certainly aren't predicated on his essays and he does not sit down daily and think, “would this investment decision be interesting as a case study for next year’s letter?” Buffett reads and consumes a great deal of information, but at the core, his actions are those of an investor, not a writer. He could never have written an annual letter and still would have been a wildly successful investor. If he wasn’t, as Einhorn says, he “could have fooled some of the people all of the time” with his pretty writing, but in the long run, investing is always about the “numbers don’t lie” (and if they do, go short.)
It's easy to forget this because our present day, more than any time in the past, is awash in the tides of the instantaneous now with little interest in the tomes of history. I feel torn by these competing currents; the waves that take me in new directions while reading the past or viewing Old Masters are liable to be pushed askew at any given moment by the fleeting thoughts of living humanity. The vanitas in the Netherlandish paintings I so love echoes the tension between immortal and ephemeral, a divide I’ve come to feel more acutely in my recent professional and personal pursuits.
Social media is, by definition, a capturer of the ephemeral. It is also a platform uniquely suited to obfuscating the distinction between talent and self-aggrandizement. This is particularly thorny in my line of work because X is the forum where startup founders choose to share their wisdom on company building. However, if you look with clear eyes at the fate of startups, it’s as follows: a very small minority of founders have exceptional outcomes because they are singularly talented, and a few have good outcomes because they are somewhat talented and have the right timing, and the vast majority don’t make it all. But a public forum only amplifies the loudest, most daringly self-aggrandizing of the bunch. It can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to tell which category a founder hails from. (Although they may be very rich, and perhaps that in of itself absolves the necessity of the analysis!)
That’s not what’s real, though. Despite what you read in any given instance; it is not superficial posturing that propels change but rather genuine action. Curren$y aptly says
"Changing the weather, by chop of the Cessna propellers"
Which is very correct and right: it is the act of moving that can change the weather, even though no man may write the rain into sunshine. Whenever I watch founders over time, it’s not what they say or present but rather what they do that is most important.
In contrast, the scroller is satiated by the feeling that a Tweet from a large account is not, in fact, a snack but rather a tidbit of divine wisdom. It is the fragment of some great master, and by engaging, we’ll doomscroll our way to Ephesians or something. The danger in all of this is you are left with a small sample set of writing that may not even be representative of the work you’ve derived insight from. Your thoughts are not your own, and worse, are probably not the whole thoughts of the original thinker:
"Apud alios loqui didicerunt non ipsi secum." "They have learned to speak from others, not from themselves."
[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes, v. 36.]
And here, I trumpet the beauty of a subsight: it doesn’t contain a grander theme or narrative behind it. This made it all the more painful when I allowed myself the sin of taking enjoyment in the very few likes I received on my tweets and the occasional founder who told me they found them valuable. When I proudly relayed this unwonted good news to someone close to me, they snidely remarked, “Well, of course, they would say that; they’re trying to raise money from you.”
And so! Perhaps this is the root of much unhappiness. In the modern world, if we are not provoked by some base instinct, it’s rare to make any significant decision without thought about the economic or social value of the interaction. We are stuck with the curious phenomenon by which all social media, by its nature and definition, serves us that which we find most engaging.
This popular content revolves around grand-standing portfolio companies, shit posting, downright mean takes about politics or the issue du jour, and an ever-gushing torrent of asinine takes on the personally mundane. As soon as you get enough followers, even the most mundane actions (taking the trash out, having a child, etc.) are promoted to the imagination of the public, only too willing to find value in vapidity.
Should you not have many followers, you fade into the ingloriousness of non-popularity which only worsens over time. In contrast, followers beget followers, and if you have many, you fruitfully multiply new ones by virtue of your popularity, semper idem. The quality of these popular posts is best illustrated by an anecdote I once read about how people have always acquiesced to power (or perceived power) and would stoop to the lowest possible point to be associated with it:
There is a place, where, whenever the king spits, the greatest ladies of his court put out their hands to receive it; and another nation, where the most eminent persons about him stoop to take up his shit in a linen cloth.
[Michel de Montaigne]
At this juncture, dear reader, you will rightfully point out that this is sour grapes on my part, for “if your ideas were actually good, they would have made it into the algorithm, in the attention span, in the mindshare of collective humanity!” Therefore, “you have been justly relegated to the lowly and unseen!” I can’t quibble with that, and I suppose that very popular posters on social media must feel the same as writers who all seem to say they think better when they put it on paper. Therefore, I suppose if only I were a better thinker I would be a better writer, or something like that.
But I can’t help but take solace in being a poor writer at this point in my life. In being more like the snotgreen sea smashing away at Dún Aonghasa, a swirling, unformed, maelstrom of ideas, ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον! Grasping and copping from those I’ve read with greater talent and abilities. And while I regret not having the ability to write, I also know that much of what is written today is shallow, no matter the engagement. It would be nice to have a clear mind and glass-like rhetoric that will do ever so well as a viral blog post. All these readers can see to the bottom of the lake (so to say) with utmost clarity: each rock, piece of seaweed, and flotsam is perfectly depicted. I wonder, however, if those posts are more like the copy of a 1970s commercial that somehow takes on a more significant meaning, that it becomes an ode to finding permeance amongst a torrent of programming of ideas not our own:
I found that essence rare, it's what I looked for I knew I'd get what I asked for
[Gang of Four]
Just listening to the song is a palatable relief: “what clarity, thank God there’s no depth!”
In no way do I mean to denigrate social media completely, nor those that find themselves in the enviable position of notoriety. Indeed, I’ve found immense joy in the people I’ve met through the Old Masters world on Twitter (as it was known of yore), which has been a boon that does not necessitate any fame. I am forever grateful to you, who have become some of the dearest and closest people in my life. Long live the Old Masters Enthusiasts! Venatores dormitorum! It is ironic, though, that I vainly sought recognition in business but only found value in the truly social aspects of Twitter in a completely different domain.
Such transparency in public is not without its potential dangers, however, as a more general cracking open of oneself to the world, especially if it’s to gain popularity and social approval, is treacherous. I think this notion is fundamentally correct:
Let all men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows
[Benjamin Franklin]
I should not strive for popularity or the appearance of success. Those are fleeting, flimsy things. Furthermore, any given Tweet is a façade for an iconography of the modern malaise, 280 characters or less of a wilting flower or half-eaten melon, buzzing with flies. At the same time, I’ve come to believe that intellectually constraining yourself in public for popularity is enormously stupid. Why shouldn’t I reference the things I think about? Why should I care if I ever have any number of people following me? I would prefer to be true to myself and my thoughts than sanitize my existence in the false hope of recognition from others. It is better to be publicly vain, expansive, and honest than superficially munificent but secretly awful.
In working with startup founders there is a never-ending stream of talent. The degree of excellence in these people, and the thoughts of antiquity I find myself falling back to only have highlighted how limited my own faculties are. Were I cleverer, or more facile with the pen, perhaps my perspective would be more expansive. I give succor to my ego, however, in the knowledge that it was my own volition, alone and by my own will, that took me to the Go club in Osaka, to the cacophonous crawling nights in the Okavango Delta, to start my venture firm, to the depot in a small town in France to find a forgotten Old Master, etc. There is no public story of interest or gratification to be earned, but I now own modest confidence that I am at least of action. Of action, and though it is loutish to say it, a small measure of courage as well. I can’t change the weather, but I can change the position of the man.
My own personal motto reflects this default to motion, even if it is also slightly boorish: eligo et nitor, or I choose and I strive, I choose to shine. I’ve come to believe that some of this quality is just nature. Some distant ancestor of mine (I’m on good behaviour here and not mentioning anyone famous), Father Francis O’Flaherty, lived in Kilronan, a small spit of an island near Galway. In the early 1800s he advised an islander who was to emigrate to America on the customs of men in this new place. Of his authenticity, I think of this passage:
…the priest on reading it [the letter of advice], indignantly tore the paper to pieces. “Believe not,” said he, “what this man says—he must be a bad man that would lead you to entertain so vile an opinion of mankind. Suspect no one. There are, I fear, some bad men in the world, but I trust and believe they are few. But never suspect any man of being so without a perfectly sufficient reason.”
And later, with no regard for vanity:
…the old man, exhausted by the day’s fatigue, and too feeble to bear the pitching of the boat except in a lying posture, stretched himself on a small mattress in the cabin where he lay for some time apparently slumbering…reminding me forcibly of the figures of some of those dying saints which the Italian painters have so often imagined. But though his body was at rest his was not so; for, as I afterwards found, it was busily occupied with the welfare of his flock.”
[Dr. George Petrie]
The value of popularity is usually overstated if our actions are correct and our virtues are true. But I digress: how freeing it is to write something bad all of my own! How nice to reflect on an unformed idea and see its bastardization in print! I suppose I find some value in my writing after all, in that the beauty of this piece is that you, dear reader, won’t have made it this far. But if you have, I’ll know why! Having learned and thought much, I’m off; I have videos to make on LinkedIn.
