Erik Torenberg

I want to return back to, we were talking about the current thing and how that's accelerated over time.

We previously had a conversation a while ago where we were talking about sort of the attributes of a current thing.

And I remember you had this one theory that it can't be something too believable.

It has to be almost surreal.

I'm curious if we just talk kind of what are the attributes of something that becomes sort of the current thing or sort of the topic that people can't stop quote tweeting, sharing, et cetera.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's very serious and the stakes are very high.

And sometimes it's just an episode that's so, you know, funny.

And the astronomer CEO HR as a as an example.

And it's also important to understand because if people are ever involved in the cycle or implicated in it, they typically say, oh, but I'm innocent.

Once everyone finds out the truth, they're going to exonerate me.

They're going to clear me.

And they, of course, don't fully appreciate that people don't give a shit.

People are predisposed to hate you and they'll just find any sort of reason or certain people, perhaps.

I want to go back to this conspiracy.

We have a friend who thinks everything is an op, and maybe I'm naive and I miss out on the ops that are actually there.

But I'm curious what mental model one might have to think about how much is coordinated versus not.

I've been inspired by the idea of...

emergent collusion, just sort of this idea that a lot of people have incentives to go in the same way that even if they're not coordinating explicitly, they almost might as well be, or it might explain why so many things seem coordinated.

But ever since joining A16Z, so many people have impugned onto us things that we're not doing.