Ever had the urge to watch Sam Altman and Palmer Lackey fight over a moderately suspenseful card game? If so, you’re in luck.
Silicon Valley leaders are quick to embrace it media power for its purposes marketing and political capital. Now, in a sign of the times, Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has upped its game.
“MAFIA the GAME” will apparently be an ongoing thing where prominent techies will meet and face off in a card game (the show is named after favorite party game).
The show is moderated by Pirate Wires editor Mike Solana (who is also the head of marketing at Founders Fund). The debut episode features a who’s who of players — Sam Altman; Palmer Luckey? Bryan Johnson, the famous biohacker who (according to himself) will live forever. and Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of encrypted chat app Signal.
“I’m so bored with VC content,” Solana Newcomer saidwhich originally reported the show’s existence. “There has to be a more interesting way to meet someone, and I think this is a much more interesting way to meet someone.”
TechCrunch reached out to Founders Fund for more information about the program.
In many ways, having a reality TV platform is just good business these days. The Internet has turned the world into a population of chronic media consumers, and the average American spends about 2.5 hours on social media per day. Much of that time is devoted to an endless flood of memes and ad-laced videos.
In the modern age, the road to power and influence is paved with infotainment.
Companies and executives have tried to take advantage of this new reality in different ways. OpenAI recently raised some eyebrows when it acquired TBPN, the popular founder-led podcast. Meanwhile, several of tech’s most prominent players have used virality to their advantage. Johnson, for example, has managed to grow his following through a very active (and rather odd) social media presence. Elon Musk, meanwhile, has also managed to leverage his public persona to go viral (though arguments could be made that his online presence has sometimes hurt rather than helped his businesses).
This trend has also spread in the starting areawhere people like Cluely CEO Chungin “Roy” Lee have demonstrated the power of being a one-man viral hype machine.
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