Taylor Cromwell

Spent weeks researching the origin story of @ycombinator — the dinners, the @paulg essays, the pivots & cereal-box hustles, the people who shaped startup culture as we know it. The result: a fascinating story of tech’s most influential accelerator Here’s what I found 🧵

a creator announced her new startup and 15,000 people immediately joined the waitlist. most tech cos would DREAM of those numbers on day one. Erin McGoff's path from career advice creator to venture-backed founder is worth studying 📚 @CreatorEconNYC 🔗 mail.creatoreconomynyc.com/p/the-5-step-l…

tried to vibe code a creator-founder quiz... and... i don't think this title has the intended effect 😂

@MillyTamati 👀👀

Throwing it out there... I'm interested in acquiring newsletters in the career / personal growth space! 5k minimum audience size, must have solid engagement history and demographic data DMs open!

I am so bullish on the real world. Group events. Cookouts. Sports. Parties. Animals. Music festivals. Phoneless dinners. Co-living centers. Healing centers. Retreat centers. Beautiful views. Group adventures. These things light me up. Tech, ai, and materialism continue to disguest me more every day. The pendulum has swung too far. A small group of soulless nerds will continue to obsess over ai, automation, effiency, and the intellect. But those of us connected to our hearts and spirits are becoming disgusted by it. We want real, and we want human. Expect a huge countersurge of irl businesses and events in the next few years.

hey ppl at the new media summit whats up? 👋

@MillyTamati brb gotta work on my quiz lead magnet!!

Gary Vaynerchuk says it's the era of the individual internet empire 👀 couldn't agree more. and you don't need to be Mr. Beast or Alix Earl level to prove it either x.com/garyvee/status…

@MillyTamati storymaxxing !!

In the past 4 weeks I’ve weirdly had 2 v great job offers land in my inbox out of the blue (I’m not looking for a job) Both saw what I’d built at Generalist World. Both wanted me to be the storyteller of the company. Storymaxxing is HERE!!!

HubSpot acquiring Starter Story is hardly surprising it’s exactly why the highest paid jobs in tech might soon be marketing & storytelling… our goal @beehiiv is to nearly double revenue to $50M this year. I have some strong opinions why tech brands are storymaxxing all of a sudden: 1. The cost of content is 0 I just saw a post of someone making 600 UGC ads in 1 day with Kling + openclaw. we have an unlimited supply of "pretty good" content. so there’s a premium for content that is truly exceptional (like Starter Story’s content). 2. Trust is the true scarcity a 19 year old with a Claude subscription can cook up a niche-specific CRM in half a day software is abundant and very easy to launch. it’s only trust that’s scarce now & HubSpot is paying for the 8 years of trust that @thepatwalls has built. // Ramp, Rippling, Notion, Vanta, a16z, Microsoft & Netflix are all actively investing in storytelling and editorial roles… narrative is the latest moat and tech brands are betting big on it. I go into much more detail on why brands are storymaxxing in my newsletter if you want to read more btw: mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/storymaxxing

this is how trying to write on my computer now feels without @WisprFlow

8 years ago, I started a side project inside of a tiny Starbucks. Today, Starter Story is being acquired by @HubSpot. Here’s how it happened.

on @beehiiv 👀

🚨 writing opp a client I work with is looking for a technical writer with experience in AI&VC you need to be comfortable writing about extremely technical topics for b2b audience (AI observability, data warehousing, data engineering, etc.) 👉DETAILS: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

@zarazhangrui @AcquiredFM @claudeai did you break this up by chapter/episode when prompting? how did you handle such a large volume of output?

I turned the @AcquiredFM podcast into a 300-page DIY physical book, thanks to @claudeai 1. Feed transcript to Claude 2. Get Claude to convert transcript to a business biography chapter, preserving story arc & key quotes, and output as formatted word doc 3. Arrange word doc. Design book cover using Canva 4. Send to printing supplier I love the Acquired podcast but often wished I could consume it as a book. Reading the transcript didn’t feel right; turning it into business biography chapters seemed to be the right form factor. Claude’s writing is extremely good. Prompt below if anyone wants to try

Required Reading: @beehiiv The State of Newsletters 2026.

we asked 19 creators, publishers, and brands their 2026 content economy predictions... here's what they told us👇

consider this your sign to take LinkedIn seriously, post online, talk & write about the things you love, build your platform. all the things 💫

jan 2025: i posted about @beehiiv's 2025 State of Newsletter report & dreamed of pivoting into the creator economy (had zero creator economy experience) jan 2026: wrote the dang State of Newsletter report 👏 and working to build spot as an expert writer in the creator economy

what else should I add to my list? P.S. if anyone wants to add me to their media list for Creator Diaries I'll gladly accept 🤝 'tis the year for dreaming in public!!

4. Craft and Commerce (Kit)— Boise — June 10-13 5. VidCon — Anaheim — June 25–27 6. Creator Economy Live — New York — July 28-29 7. HubSpot INBOUND — Boston — September 16-18 8. Web Summit 2026 — Lisbon — November 9-12

one of my goals this year is to get out to more events in the creator economy! here's my bucket list (if I had unlimited funds & time) 1. Billion Followers Summit — Jan 9-11 2. New Media Summit (Matt McGarry & GrowLetter) — Austin — Feb 26 & 27 3. SXSW — Austin — March 12-18