## Metadata - Author: [[Benn stancil|Benn Stancil]] - Full Title:: For the Brand, I Guess - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://benn.substack.com/p/for-the-brand-i-guess - Read date:: [[2025-02-27]] ## Highlights [[taste-is-eating-sillicon-valley|Taste Is Eating Sillicon Valley]] > Penny is, I suppose, a different character from the same story. It’s unlikely that he has a traditionally useful Rolodex, but he is, [to some](https://x.com/JDVance/status/1886928702396883241), a trophy in the culture war. Putting him on the payroll proves Andreessen Horowitz’s political bona fides: That they are aligned, boldly aligned, with the increasingly emergent [aesthetic](https://www.workingtheorys.com/p/aesthetic) of [masculinity](https://x.com/AFpost/status/1878206506635579493), [meritocracy](https://x.com/lessin/status/1886459870884639035),[6](https://benn.substack.com/p/for-the-brand-i-guess/#footnote-6) and Elon Musk—which is an aesthetic that is especially fashionable along the booming frontiers of AI, crypto, and the various Elon Musk sci-fi adjacencies. Though that brand—and Penny, to say the least—has plenty of other, uh, “problematic” associations, no matter: The ethics of the thing are immaterial.[7](https://benn.substack.com/p/for-the-brand-i-guess/#footnote-7) He was hired for the vibe—and today, vibes are business decisions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jkh7aqbsvsrwa0an3xe8j4av)) > Consider [David Perell](https://twitter.com/david_perell). The self-described “Writing Guy” has nearly half a million followers on Twitter, hosts a podcast that’s booked some [impressive guests](https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel/videos), and [used to run](https://writeofpassage.com/blog/final-cohort) an online writing course called [Write of Passage](https://writeofpassage.school/). > But one thing Perell doesn’t seem to do very much of is write. As best I can tell, he’s written two posts for [his blog](https://perell.com/essays/) over the last year. Perell’s *brand* is definitely writing, and his *career* is kind of writing, but his *work* is not writing. Writing is a means to famous ends.[8](https://benn.substack.com/p/for-the-brand-i-guess/#footnote-8) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jkh7ch802zja7j421170q7b6)) [[company-culture|Company Culture]] > If you run a big venture capital firm, how do you decide who to hire? Whoever gets you attention. Whoever inspires more tweets and [Substack posts](https://benn.substack.com/p/for-the-brand-i-guess). Whoever is provocative, and [gets the people going](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eRRab36XLI). All press is good press, it seems, because even capitalists—from [financiers](https://x.com/BillAckman) to [founders](https://benn.substack.com/p/ambition-then-and-now?utm_source=publication-search#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20Korey,to%20outclimb%20our%20peers.)—have [more base desires and addictions](https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/on-the-internet-were-always-famous) than money. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jkh7en3tpe38kkr382c9sm52))