Startup Founder Thought Leadership and ChatGPT

How a question from a VC inspired my take

This post originally appeared in my thought leadership newsletter for founders, Leading Out Loud.

The other day, someone emailed me this post from Seth Godin titled “attention, trust and GPT3”.

She highlighted one line: If your work isn’t more useful or insightful or urgent than GPT can create in 12 seconds, don’t interrupt people with it.

We were discussing working together on LinkedIn thought leadership and she wanted to know my take. For all the times I’ve brushed off conversations about AI and content creation, I’m so glad she did. Because it forced me to really sit down and think through where I stand on this.

Here’s my take:

“Don’t interrupt people” is music to my ears. Especially when it comes to thought leadership. Showing up for the sake of showing up isn’t effective. When that’s your main goal, it becomes a waste of your time and the readers’ time.

Across LinkedIn, there are so many posts that:

1. Feel generic
2. Feel like the aim is to post every single day for the sake of posting every single day
3. Aren’t focused on a specific audience
4. Aren’t focused on a specific goal
5. Are clearly designed just to get likes and shares

It’s only going to get harder to stand out as a founder on LinkedIn, and none of the above is going to get you here — at least not in the long-term. And the long-term is what matters, because being a founder is a marathon.

I do think ChatGPT can be a great way to come up with content ideas, but if you leave it at that, you risk interrupting people rather than inspiring them to act. You risk publishing content for no one in particular with no particular goal. If you want to share things that are useful, insightful or urgent, you need to share things that can only come from you.

I’m talking about stories, ideas and perspectives that show people who you are, what you believe in, and why your work matters. The goal is for people to get to know you and trust you — not just notice you. On LinkedIn, I notice a lot of people and remember and trust a handful. You don’t want to be noticed by investors, customers and talent. You want to be known and trusted. You want to get top-of-mind and stay there.

My bet is that tools like ChatGPT are going to further widen the divide between those who post to get noticed and those who truly lead with everything they share.

And I’m here for it.

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