A weekly dose of actionable inspiration.
An idea or even a simple phrase, if told in the right way, can be indelible.
Those indelible ideas are engraved at the root of our understanding of the world. Engraving ideas at the root of others is true influence, making others see the world through our eyes.
Folllow aims to be a space of influence, of bold ideas, and of a highly curated selection of interesting voices.
We see a window of opportunity at this juncture. The lid has blown off a pressure cooker, revealing a society that wants to talk freely about other things: not everything is politics.
Our challenge is as follows:
How can we become a relevant place in the mind of someone who spends an average of 7 hours a day on screens? 106 days a year. Who pays for that time scrolling, who walks an average of 1,000 meters a day with their thumb on their phone. Who sees, consumes, and values hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of content every day. Who feeds algorithms and trends, likes, rejects, ignores, and shares: who is the workforce of this great machine that sets preferences. In short, a person intellectually exhausted by excess supply.
Our answer lies in the format and dosage.
We’ll start with a very clear content proposal: Pills. Once a week, we want to give you a powerful idea from an interesting figure.
The keys of the format: short video, delivered weekly, story-focused.
- Elevated content does not have to be solemn or dense; there is endless quality content that goes unseen, abandoned podcasts, unfinished series, interviews that are consumed in TikTok summaries. We want to give you a high-quality intellectual product that you can actually consume.
- Quality is scarce. We want to give you one bold idea per week. We want you to want more but have to wait, for Pills to become a ritual, a special moment, something important to you.
- The effectiveness of anecdotes as a content format is not just a matter of cultural preference, but is deeply rooted in the biology of the human brain. Unlike cold data and facts that are processed superficially, narratives have the ability to illuminate the entire brain and engrave ideas associated with emotions and values.
What does a Pill look like?
We illustrate this using a classic video that we believe encapsulates the most efficient way to convey an idea.
The laboratory accident that saved 500 million lives
Why did we overlook the lessons from some of our most transformative breakthroughs?
Derek Thomson
Author of Hit Makers and the co-author of Abundance alongside Ezra Klein
“Invention matters, but implementation matters more.”
What do we want from you?
We don’t want to conduct a conventional interview, nor do we want to take up too much of your time.
We believe that content that simultaneously conveys a powerful idea, unlocks something in the audience’s mind, and creates a deep, value-based connection between the audience and you is a story. An anecdote, a story, or a metaphor gives you the freedom to paint an indelible picture without having to talk about yourself. When that happens, you truly influence others and give them something invaluable: a new tool for thinking about the world.
How does the process work?
We know you, your story, and your issues. We want you to find an idea that you consider meaningful and worth sharing, or an issue on your agenda that you want to push forward.
We have an editorial team of storytellers who can help you shape it perfectly.
We have a top-notch technical team to ensure that the video looks and sounds hyper-professional.
We have a studio, or we can go film wherever you feel comfortable. We will show you the final product so that you can approve it before we publish it.