I see people who hate AI but somehow work in tech try this all the time on LinkedIn, and the “ai took muh job, grr grr water usage” post will do well with a couple 100 other people who want to blame AI for their employability problems.
And in the process, all the hiring managers they actually might know immed put them in the “drama queen, no hire” bucket silently.
The initial clip may have been seeded but it took on a life of its own regardless. Anyway I still don't understand why anyone gives these people attention. It's all so boring
And now she's rich, so in some cases it seems to work. Need the hawk tuah of LinkedIn. As for boring, I agree, but it's just the age old gambling centers in the mind. All just a giant slot machine.
If your goal is just to make "fast money" then you are existentially screwed regardless. They have similar problems an alcoholic will eventually face. Doesn't end well
Sure, but anyway you make orders of magnitude more in tech, finance etc than you will trying to go viral online. Mostly that is just a ponzi scheme trying to sell courses etc telling other people how much money they can make online.
That's true. Sadly substack has some of the worst of such characteristics. Many of my friends from college are killing it in things like finance, zero social media. Very few writing. It's very confusing time bc I encourage all of them to post.
I guess on one hand you could look at it like shooting your shot with someone you know is out of your league because hey, why not? Doesn't beat having a network of folks who can help though, and if I were an employer, I'd probably wonder why he was going this route instead of just trying to go through folks he knows. Maybe he doesn't have a network, and that's telling right there.
Job seeking in general is a depressing experience. LinkedIn is at least civil and professional compared to other platforms like X/Twitter.
At least LinkedIn provides a platform where you can get noticed, unlike the traditional job process where you apply and hear nothing. I enjoyed your post about your experience applying for jobs, and you were able to find something through your network. If you don't have a network, or your network fails you, then you're stuck with stuff like this.
I'm not sure it matters in a job search if you get noticed by going viral. You don't need to build trust, you just need to get noticed enough to be in the process. If your network can't get you noticed, then this seems like a fine alternative approach.
I often wonder how we slow/quiet things down. With billions of people playing the attention lotto at breakneck speed, as societies we are burying ourselves in distraction and noise. Any thoughts?
Great article Adam. The only thing I might reframe is that trust has some "slow and unsexy" aspects, but also some lightning fast ones (as Kahneman famously explained). Which is why the attention economy has worked for some things, the low-barrier ones which are easily valued and accepted. Hence why everyone wants to sell you a quick course, it's all you can sell in that way.
Selling anything "high-ticket" whether it be a service, a product, or yourself as an employee, has to clear some higher barriers and we've become too impatient to hone that craft.
Great read. By the end of this it had me thinking that’s this is less of a story about LinkedIN being depressing and more of an illustration between bad marketing and good brand building. Fact is there are more examples of bad marketing because it’s easier to churn through staff and blame them, than it is invest in building a foundation and brand in the long run. Business runs on quarters, and so does marketing these days. The smart CEOs will invest in building trustworthy brands
Thank you for mentioning this issue. I am going insane from the constant spam and cheap attention-seeking on there. It’s disgusting and saddening at the same time. This situation really makes me feel depressed. Also those “has never happened” HR and recruiters copy-paste stories. These are terrible and gloomy times of total decadence.
I guess my question is if the content and the replies/comments and the DMs and the emails are now ai generated, is the internet even more broken? And why do Google, Meta and Microsoft think this is a good idea? Google thinks people just want AI overviews and AI mode.
I focused on social media as a distribution strategy for my asset management business for a couple years. I had occasional success on social, but it did not translate into sales at all. It did bring in some good biz dev opportunities. Ultimately, I don’t think the time investment was worth it.
And then I got addicted to twitter. Now I do it for the love and not for the business 😂
I’ve learned that the best way to avoid the hell of the algorithm is to create stuff that has actual substance.
Want to make a YouTube channel that people actually watch and care about? Make your videos substantive. Find your topic, figure out where the pain points are, find solutions, and present those solutions. You don’t need any other tricks (though, of course, a good thumbnail and title goes a long way).
Want to grow a good Substack? Figure out your niche, figure out the problems people experience, and write to those problems. I’ve learned that you can still get paying subscribers even if all your posts are free — so long as you demonstrate that you’re giving value to your readers.
It’s also true on LinkedIn. Instead of hoping that the algorithm gods will smile on you and show your “open to hire” desperation post to 8 million people, why not write about the things you’ve got expertise in? Build up a following over time, get people who really care about what you write, and you just might get enough momentum to make a business out of it.
And even if you fail, the fact that you’re saying substantive things about a field that you have expertise in will help you anyway.
Sadly, the vast majority of LinkedIn posts are from moronic gurus who keep posting the same resume writing tips over and over again. Be wise: copy their form, but not their lack of substance.
Love this: “It boils down to debasing yourself for the spectacle.”
This resonates so much. Thank you Adam.
I see people who hate AI but somehow work in tech try this all the time on LinkedIn, and the “ai took muh job, grr grr water usage” post will do well with a couple 100 other people who want to blame AI for their employability problems.
And in the process, all the hiring managers they actually might know immed put them in the “drama queen, no hire” bucket silently.
Trust economy > Attention economy
Do you think then Hauk Tuah was an inside job? An industry plant?
The initial clip may have been seeded but it took on a life of its own regardless. Anyway I still don't understand why anyone gives these people attention. It's all so boring
And now she's rich, so in some cases it seems to work. Need the hawk tuah of LinkedIn. As for boring, I agree, but it's just the age old gambling centers in the mind. All just a giant slot machine.
If your goal is just to make "fast money" then you are existentially screwed regardless. They have similar problems an alcoholic will eventually face. Doesn't end well
Unless you make enough money off a viral post and retreat to a zen retreat in North Carolina tho
Thomas Anderson, the founder of Myspace, played the game right in that sense. Sold out, then travelled the world relaxing and photographing things.
Sure, but anyway you make orders of magnitude more in tech, finance etc than you will trying to go viral online. Mostly that is just a ponzi scheme trying to sell courses etc telling other people how much money they can make online.
That's true. Sadly substack has some of the worst of such characteristics. Many of my friends from college are killing it in things like finance, zero social media. Very few writing. It's very confusing time bc I encourage all of them to post.
With regard to folks attempting to become "viral" on LinkedIn:
"Real ninjas move in silence."
I guess on one hand you could look at it like shooting your shot with someone you know is out of your league because hey, why not? Doesn't beat having a network of folks who can help though, and if I were an employer, I'd probably wonder why he was going this route instead of just trying to go through folks he knows. Maybe he doesn't have a network, and that's telling right there.
The saddest destination on the web.
Job seeking in general is a depressing experience. LinkedIn is at least civil and professional compared to other platforms like X/Twitter.
At least LinkedIn provides a platform where you can get noticed, unlike the traditional job process where you apply and hear nothing. I enjoyed your post about your experience applying for jobs, and you were able to find something through your network. If you don't have a network, or your network fails you, then you're stuck with stuff like this.
I'm not sure it matters in a job search if you get noticed by going viral. You don't need to build trust, you just need to get noticed enough to be in the process. If your network can't get you noticed, then this seems like a fine alternative approach.
PREACH!
I often wonder how we slow/quiet things down. With billions of people playing the attention lotto at breakneck speed, as societies we are burying ourselves in distraction and noise. Any thoughts?
I wrote on this here, scroll to the very end for a fun video: https://www.hottakes.space/p/the-plague-of-over-optimization
Yep. There has never been more tools to run hard without going anywhere. I do wonder how and/or why it eventually breaks the other direction.
Great article Adam. The only thing I might reframe is that trust has some "slow and unsexy" aspects, but also some lightning fast ones (as Kahneman famously explained). Which is why the attention economy has worked for some things, the low-barrier ones which are easily valued and accepted. Hence why everyone wants to sell you a quick course, it's all you can sell in that way.
Selling anything "high-ticket" whether it be a service, a product, or yourself as an employee, has to clear some higher barriers and we've become too impatient to hone that craft.
Great read. By the end of this it had me thinking that’s this is less of a story about LinkedIN being depressing and more of an illustration between bad marketing and good brand building. Fact is there are more examples of bad marketing because it’s easier to churn through staff and blame them, than it is invest in building a foundation and brand in the long run. Business runs on quarters, and so does marketing these days. The smart CEOs will invest in building trustworthy brands
Thank you for mentioning this issue. I am going insane from the constant spam and cheap attention-seeking on there. It’s disgusting and saddening at the same time. This situation really makes me feel depressed. Also those “has never happened” HR and recruiters copy-paste stories. These are terrible and gloomy times of total decadence.
I guess my question is if the content and the replies/comments and the DMs and the emails are now ai generated, is the internet even more broken? And why do Google, Meta and Microsoft think this is a good idea? Google thinks people just want AI overviews and AI mode.
Yeah it's just more spam you have to ignore
I focused on social media as a distribution strategy for my asset management business for a couple years. I had occasional success on social, but it did not translate into sales at all. It did bring in some good biz dev opportunities. Ultimately, I don’t think the time investment was worth it.
And then I got addicted to twitter. Now I do it for the love and not for the business 😂
I’ve learned that the best way to avoid the hell of the algorithm is to create stuff that has actual substance.
Want to make a YouTube channel that people actually watch and care about? Make your videos substantive. Find your topic, figure out where the pain points are, find solutions, and present those solutions. You don’t need any other tricks (though, of course, a good thumbnail and title goes a long way).
Want to grow a good Substack? Figure out your niche, figure out the problems people experience, and write to those problems. I’ve learned that you can still get paying subscribers even if all your posts are free — so long as you demonstrate that you’re giving value to your readers.
It’s also true on LinkedIn. Instead of hoping that the algorithm gods will smile on you and show your “open to hire” desperation post to 8 million people, why not write about the things you’ve got expertise in? Build up a following over time, get people who really care about what you write, and you just might get enough momentum to make a business out of it.
And even if you fail, the fact that you’re saying substantive things about a field that you have expertise in will help you anyway.
Sadly, the vast majority of LinkedIn posts are from moronic gurus who keep posting the same resume writing tips over and over again. Be wise: copy their form, but not their lack of substance.
Thanks, Adam!