Drew

I created a video breakdown of the ad strategy Ryze Superfoods is using to scale in "unaware" blue ocean markets. This has been the primary messaging strategy I have used to scale DTC businesses over the past 11 years. When you understand how this works, you don't fight for traffic anymore. Simple as that. I'm going to have someone create shorts out of this video soon. But I'm super busy right now. If you watch the whole thing, I'll give you a cookie.

@beyoumf Gold. It doesn’t inflate.

name one thing more valuable than money.

@brian_armstrong The one em dash you left in had to be here, huh

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase: Team, Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future. Why now Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both. First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth. Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day. All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core. What this means To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice? - Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles. - No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. - AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role. In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs. To those who are affected I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done. All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information. To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements. Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters. How we move forward To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together: Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it. The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission. Brian

@IterIntellectus He wrote Trust Me I’m Lying too, which exposed the media manipulation before trump ever said “fake news”. It was that book that made me believe Trump’s trolling of the media in 2016.

> spend 20 years studying a philosophy about not letting your emotions control you > build a career teaching it to other people > get emotional at a 30 second video of the daughter of the guy you don’t like best argument against stoicism is its biggest evangelist

@CardinalMason lol. The infinite money glitch is called work.

Yo Friendly reminder to my marketers here When something works and you find an infinite money glitch Shut the fuck up about it Shut up. Run the play and be quiet. Do it til it breaks. Don’t cook the bag for a crumb of clout 🙏

@adamtaylorl I made a video on my profile over a year ago breaking down why Ryze was able to scale in unaware markets past 8-9 fig. It's what they were doing back then that has enabled the reach they have now. Nothing to do with VC money like others are claiming here.

If you're in ecom Pay the f*ck attention to what RYZE  is doing with their creative right now This will be taught in every guru course in 3 years

It's not the quantity of ads they're running right now that has allowed them to scale. I made a video over a year ago outlining the creative strategy that got Ryze to where they are today. Few know how to scale in unaware markets. Ryze does.

@StockSavvyShay Genuinely what the hell.

$BIRD is selling its brand and footwear assets renaming itself NewBird AI and using a new $50M convertible facility to pivot into AI compute infrastructure by buying GPUs. Going from selling wool sneakers to chasing AI compute might be one of the wildest pivots this cycle.

@markbuildsbrand Any marketer who isn't paying attention to positioning and economics is not a good marketer.

solid post. Eventually yall will understand most of the 9-10 fig exiting brands aren’t built by marketers. As much as I love marketing and forever will, there are muchhhh greater levers to pull in your biz. Good marketers get stuck at 7,8, maybe even the occasional 9 figs. 10 figs is extremely rare, like Agora rare. And they only did it once. But even Agora understood front end marketing could only get them so far. Marketing makes you rich, economics makes you wealthy. Marketing is goo goo gaa gaa for these brands. Play the bigger game for the bigger money. Or something like that idk

@agenticboss @pmarca I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. It seems to me we are still a ways off from that.

@DrewCerullo @pmarca I still feel like if we are in the "age of abundance" as Marc is implying shouldn't we really "feel it" in the jobs market?

"Tech job openings rebounded sharply in 2026, challenging popular narrative that AI is wiping out engineering roles...more than 67,000 software eng job openings, highest level in 3 years. Listings have doubled since a trough in mid-2023." businessinsider.com/ai-isnt-killin…

@agenticboss @pmarca 2021 was a huge bubble. Stimmy checks, PPP loans etc the economy was on cocaine. We’re still coming down from that high.

@pmarca Is this real though? It's still way down from 2021

@FedotOff90 There’s a cost to your only creative strategy being “copy other people’s shit and throw it against the wall”. No one scales past 20k/day like that. Post andromeda update especially.

Met a 21-year-old in Miami doing $70k/day across two supplement brands with zero original creatives. ZERO. Every ad in his account started as something he found in the gethookd library. Different hook, different image, different angle — but every concept was someone else's winner first. He tests 150-200 variations a week. The creative team is two people and AI tools (claude, higgsfield, Veo). The whole process is spy, swipe, rebuild, launch. I asked him if he ever worries about running out of ideas. He looked at me like I was stupid. "There are 10 million ads running right now. I'll never run out of ideas. I'll run out of time before I run out of things to test." Young savage. Retardmaxxing at its best.

@BenWilsonTweets That's not sociopathic. He's right.

One of the best (and most sociopathic) interview responses Steve Jobs ever gave. Interviewer: What are your weaknesses? Steve Jobs: Hard to say. But here are some of my strengths...

@landforce Couldn't have said it better.

I regret saying this but damn Mr Wonderful nailed it. Critical distinction tho: I know a lot of you have spent this much (or more) paying agencies to produce content. That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about the unicorn we’ve seen entry level job listings for: create, produce, probably edit - and give a fuck about business results… all for $50k That was a unicorn. Now it’s just a Creative Strategist who can execute - often with a small intentional team. or an in-house content creator whose down for the cause (still a unicorn tbh). These are people with the platforms injected into their veins that can out execute full scale agency productions with like 2.5 people and a $500 budget. The businesses that write these folks off as “social media managers” will continue flailing online. The ones that realize that THIS IS MEDIA will be the success stories we all see. “All they did was post on Instagram” “All they did was run some ads” Exciting time.

@madsf88 💯 but you can get damn close with the right creatives. I'm biased though.

a woman recommending something to her friend group has a higher conversion rate than your entire paid ads budget

@SeloSlav Literally none of what you said is new. Distribution has always mattered more than product. It was true in the 1800s & still is. There will always be tons of ways for smaller businesses to grow. Don't worry. More has shifted to the advantage of small businesses than you think.

@JacobSobolev @Jackkk Oh excuse me where is this job security you speak of? Is it in the room with us right now?

@Jackkk Of course they're contractors. Kevin loves paying for results while skipping the benefits. Is that $250k actually worth the lack of job security?

Kevin O’Leary thinks the highest paying job right now is customer acquisition on social media “I used to pay those guys $48,000, now I’m paying them $250,000 because you can measure their work based on customer acquisition every week” “Most of them become contractors, they make half a million dollars a year because they know how to take content, turn it into a 59 second ad on social and acquire 200 customers” “Those people in their early 20’s are so valuable now. If you know how to use your phone, somebody wants to hire you”

@BasedBiohacker 100% I quit in 2022 after being on it since I was 12.

people ask me why i'm so against adderall and the answer is simple; it works until it doesn't, and by the time it doesn't, you're already fucked. if you're one of the people in comment sections praising adderall and how you've been able to pop them without consequences, you're in for a rude awakening. the tax man always comes to collect. amphetamines dump dopamine. feels incredible at first. then your receptors downregulate. then you need more. then you need more again. then you're taking doses that would have floored you year one just to feel baseline normal. a classic case of drug addiction. i've watched smart, ambitious people turn into shells of their former selves chasing the elusive dragon of that first adderall euphoria. the pharmaceutical industry knows this. they don't give a FUCK. it's profitable. you're just recurring revenue. nobody is coming to save you. this is literally darwinism in practice if you have really terrible ADHD, the story is slightly different. but the vast majority of people taking adderall are doing more harm then good, considering the long-term consequences on your brain and nervous system.

@bearlyai And today in the no surprise department...

78% Gen-Z can spot AI-generated images and it hurts conversion (one marketer saw click-through-rates fall 40% when it tried AI-generated lifestyle images)

@BowTiedTrance Legend.

This is maybe the only time Scott Adams did explicit hypnosis on his show. It was an evening "swaddle" show early in the COVID lockdowns. You can use this video two ways: 1. Learn the techniques (I labeled a few of them) 2. Just listen tonight and get some amazing sleep

Algorithms are changing too. They’re controlled by AI. I keep telling people just throwing shit against the wall testing enormous amounts of creative can look conflicting to the algo and can prevent scale. The AI hype is big right now but there will always be a need for proper creative strategy if you want to scale.