Az Cohen was first to discover and manage Post Malone. He and I had a 3 hour dinner last night. Between pastas at Fasano, we talked about what it means to be great. According to Az, you achieve greatness by telling your own story. Being 1/1. If you are not 1/1, you cannot be great.
I grilled him a bit on who’s great now, who has potential, and some big successes in music who I personally don’t believe fit into the 1/1 category. He knew the stories and backgrounds of every single person I named, in detail, then justified their greatness (or lack of) with his thesis. Az wakes up every day with enthusiasm that today could be the day he finds his next 1/1 talent to impact culture with.
If you are great, Az will find you. It’s his life mission, and he’s damn good.
The question I get from nearly every college student I speak with is advice on how to network. If you are an artist or a founder (clarifying that this does not apply to typical career paths) find your collaborators, build your inner circle. Then, spend every ounce of your time focused on the product you are creating. Making it exceptional first is all that matters.
The people you want to meet: investors, editors, labels, studios, etc - their job is to find your exceptional work, get to it early, and build a relationship with YOU. They’re hungry to be first. They want a stake in your upside before the rest of the world catches on. That’s the game they’re playing. Many of them are making lots of money pursuing this as a dream job. When the work is good, they will find you.
Which means your only job is to give them something worth finding.
Paul Graham of Y Combinator (the startup accelerator that launched Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe etc) preaches that the best founders are obsessive over 1 thing, the problem they’re solving, that is it. Rick Rubin, the legendary founder of Def Jam Records and producer behind albums from Johnny Cash to Jay-Z, puts it even more simply: the artist’s only job is to make the work as good as it possibly can be. Everything else is noise. And lastly, Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life and one of the great voices on creative development says the only way to close the gap between your taste and ability to contribute is relentless commitment to the work itself, over a long period of time.
So, if you give a shit what legends have to say, focus on the work. Concerning yourself too early with networking up is not in your interest. The work will get you there.
If you’re reading this and disagreeing, this is my note to you. You’re a very beautiful and unique color hex code (stay with me). Once you get someone’s notes before developing who you are too early, they mix with your beautiful color, which can be good. But now you get another note, and another and another and now you’re focused on the wrong game. Now you’re a blurry mix of what everyone wants you to be, now you’re a sloppy shade of brown, no trace of your beautiful 1/1 identity.
Even if you just want a wider friend network, the same principle stands. One of my favorite simple quotes is from Naval Ravikant (Angel List founder). The only way to surround yourself with interesting people, is to do interesting things.
Build for you. Relentlessly drive to improve it. The longer you do it the more you’ll see your dream network find it’s way to you.
Jobs I think are interesting
Marketing Intern @ LE Pere
Abhi janamanchi (vol 25) built AWAL for 5 years before it’s sale to Sony in 2021. Prior to, it was the largest independent music distributor and label in the country. Upon leaving, he wanted to build in fashion. Abhi now uses his store space to host a range of programming from artist performances to book readings. Performing behind the counter he’s had Cash Cobain, Omar Apollo, Ravyn Lenae, and Denzel Curry
With it’s flagship store on the corner of Beautiful Orchard and Broome, Le Pere is a euro inspired contemporary mensware brand with a mix of tailored pieces and sportswear. They also have a curation of books, photobooks, and perfumes. The label sits in the same category as Our Legacy and Acme.
Abhi’s hiring a NYC student to come on board as a creative marketing and content intern to help run socials and support on creative production. Being a face forward creator is a huge plus.
Abhi@lepere.com
Head of Operations @ Assistants Vs Agents
Warner Bailey (vol 26) is the mastermind behind the Assistants vs Agents beast. The platform has a growth trajectory in entertainment akin to TBPN in tech. What started as a meme page has since expanded into a newsletter (see the mail cart here) with 40k subs, a job board with 57k job applications in the past 4 months, and a live talk show featuring some of entertainment’s biggest names across talent, business, and media. Warner’s also hosted 20 events last year, working closely with Meta, Disney, and even their own award show with Nikki Glaser.
All his media is with the umbrella goal removing the gatekeepers of entertainment and make it a more accessible industry to get started in.
Warner is actively hiring more junior people now, but in 3 months will bring on a head of ops to be a collaborator in overseeing process and strategy for the empire he’s building.
If you want to get in early, he’s on the hunt for a short form video editor now!
Warner@sunsetnine.co
Intern @ Suede Records
Ari Elkins (vol 18) has a music page with 2.5M+ followers across Tik Tok and IG. He makes playlists and acts as a trust worthy handsome face for music discovery. With his growing platform, Ari launched Suede in partnership with Virgin music group and UMG.
Suede is signing and developing rising stars through an expert digital marketing approach. Ari only cares to find timeless artists. He just signed Spuddy, Benni, and Alize. If you listen to any of them and agree with Aris curation, they’re hiring an intern to learn the ropes of single and album rollout, A&R talent sourcing, and creative concepting.
Ari wants to work with an NYC based college student. He’s is incredibly well liked. Being in his circle will open many serendipitous opportunities for you.
Ari@suederecords.com
Graphic Designer @ Camp Studios
Cristina Colina (vol 7) is cofounder and Creative Director at Creator Camp, a collective of creators who contribute positive story driven content to the internet. They’ve assembled one of the worlds most impressive creator netoworks. 2 years ago, they did a blowout retreat at a castle in Switzerland (backed by the country of Switzerland) and Patreon. It gave them enough traction to host a film festival in Austin last year with 10 films and 1200 attendees (sold out). The feature film went on to do 100 show times across the US, got a 98% on rotten tomatoes and was the number one indie film in the US on opening week
With their outrageous creator network of storytellers who grew up on the internet and care about the direction it’s headed in, they launched a sub division, Camp Studios. They’ve already worked with Yahoo, Samsung, Canon, and Stripe. Cristina’s looking for designers who excel at social media graphics and great at copy writing. You’ll be surrounded by a highly curated class of new age internet story tellers and filmmakers.
Also, the core Creator camp team is looking for videographers and editors. It’s not public yet but if the first paragraph excites you email: cristina@creatorcamp.co
People to watch
Asha Ward, 26, (vol 24)
Now writing at SNL, Asha grew up playing piano, trumpet, clarinet, and drum. She wanted to play clarinet in her school marching band but they ran out and told her she had to play bassoon. Her parents learned she could get a scholarship as a bassoon player and sent her to band camp. It was there she got into doing improv.
Moving to Manhattan was no easy task for Asha. She started with a job as a receptionist which she took before even living in the city. She had to take a 2 hour bus to and from work every day commuting from her aunt’s house in Jamaica Queens to Williamsburg. After a few weeks of work, she found a $700 room where her roommate’s boyfriend would do heroine in the bathroom. She wrote lots of material and started blowing up as a comic around the city. She opened for comics like Mary Beth Barone and Marcello Hernandez before getting an email to audition for SNL.
She didn’t get cast, but she did get hired as the youngest writer in SNL history. Asha’s now been there for 4 years. Each show, one or two of her skits get aired. Which is a big feat. What many don’t know, is that writers also creative direct the whole skit. Set design, costume, picking cast members for roles - to be an SNL writer is to be a creative director in comedy.
Long term Asha wants to do more standup and make her own tv show. All self-produced and self-written.
Atticus Torre, 28, (vol 25)
Atticus has a airbrushed mascot. It’s name is Espi Onage. The mascot is his vessel, the propaganda machine he can default on to push any message. To date, the mascot has shown up in collab with Carharrt WIP, Adidas, and Stussy under his brand Settings.
Atticus sees the character as a yin-yang symbol. Something that represents the light and dark of the world. He likes the idea of mixing comedy and trajedy.
He got his start in NYC doing design and tour merch for Soundcloud rapper Night Lovell after the artist saw his graffiti. Young Atticus realized while working for artists that he had to make things for himself to become an artist with stability.
He goes on road trips 2x per year to do drops and sell out in 10-15 mins in whatever city he stops in. He has a cult following that translates to IRL. He finds joy going to people’s neighborhoods as opposed to selling online so he can physically put products in the hands of his supporters. Fresh off his Adidas pop up, this Saturday he’s putting out his largest ever collection of 1/1 hand painted items.
Rayouf Alhumedhi, 25, (vol 25)
Rayouf created the headscarf emoji (🧕) as a 15 year old and established herself early in the conversation of who gets represented in technology. Today she’s investing in the future of creative tech at Bessemer.
She went to high school in Vienna and Berlin, then went to Stanford to study product design and stayed to pick up a masters in mechanical engineering. She spent time on the Netflix UI team before jumping into innovation research at Adidas skateboarding.
Now she’s focused on how people interact with technology and how creators create. Artists filmmakers, marketers, anyone who pushes something to consumers requiring a creative process. She’s especially excited about in Flora (Weber Wong), Reve (Mike Speiser), Paper (Steven Haney), Untitled (Dan Lilenthal & Jose Chayet), and Tolan (Quinten Farmer). Rayouf believes that building with speed and velocity is not as important as silicon valley perceives. Finding thoughtful founders spending time understanding their audience over prioritizing breaking things and moving quick with exceptional quality is her game.
Georgia Jaffe, 24, (vol 18, before we had guests sign)
Founder of Indie Hourzz, she’s amassed 168k followers reaching 25 million accounts yearly. When she first started, it was a meme page highlighting up and coming artists. When covid hit, she poured all her energy into the page and reached out to artists who were releasing self produced music from their bedrooms.
As a student at Emerson College, she moved out of her campus dorm and into a 1 bedroom she could build into a studio. She built a team of filmmakers and audio engineers to start doing recorded shows. She’s grown to feature Rosalia, Lorde, Tame Impala, Chappel Roan, and more
With her expansive music network, she’s spread her wings into the industry to do creative and digital consulting. She works with Interscope, Capital, Atlantic, Columbia, Boom Records, AWAL (shoutout Ahbi), and Republic. Georgia’s an expert at building artist narratives and connecting them to their ideal audience.
Georgia wants Indie Hourzz to be a multi media platform known for getting to artists right before they break, pushing left of center music to the mainstream, and establishing deep relationships with festivals. She’s now hosting a stage with Spotify and Pigeons and Planes on May 16th at a Brooklyn festival (Move Forward Music), a huge win for Georgia and the brand.
Max Zavidow, 28, (vol 22)
Formerly rejected from USCs improv team for making the scene too much about him. This week Max won a Webby for video of the year
In his senior year, ahead of his banking job, he wanted to pursue stand up. After a year and a half at bank of America, he left for an easier job where he could spend more time making videos and doing open mics. He soon found his niche making 2-4 minute short films. They’re surreal and absurdist and the internet loves them. He’s since written for Almost Friday and hosted a Now This show.
Max wants to do for the internet what certain HBO shows did for television, redefining what TV could be. In the evolution of entertainment media, people used to see television as less than film, and before that film as less than theatre. Currently, the internet is seen as less than TV.
He wants to bring light to the creative magic you can put into the internet.
All Photos shot by Nic Cordeiro at our dinners
3rd Space Update
Our dinner in partnership with Red Bull for Coachella went well, we had an 11 person kitchen team and featured Sean Lew, who had never cooked for a dinner of that size (Sean’s a dancer) the beauty lies in the challenge. I spent way too much on the venue. If you saw the pics and you’re confused how much Red Bull paid for us to afford a castle, this is me admitting my impulsiveness to do grand things - all lessons to learn for next time.
Lowlights
I still perceive 3rd Space to be the same scale it was when we were hosting in professor’s living rooms in LA. I’ve been reluctant to build out necessary production teams and invest in AV equipment. I still have this feeling of needing to be scrappy when the people we’re building for do not appreciate low production.
The AV at the Red Bull dinner cut out and the wifi was glitchy during Benee and Aidan Cullen’s presentations which wasn’t my strongest look. I also was too busy producing to put adequate preparation into my speeches. They weren’t noticeably bad, but I know I could’ve done better with more thought.
Slingshot has backed us for numerous dinners now and we somehow forgot to put their product magazine in our gift box. Awful look, and a reflection of our lack of organization and no type A leader on the team.
In the next 60 days, here’s what you’ll see from 3rd Space
Expanding our content
Short form essay videos on people in our ecosystem. We’re gonna trial a more narrative spin on the “THIS is my friend” content style and do some collab posts with people we admire
Our next 2 events
Tomorrow, we’re hosting with the legendary Kid Super (Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director between Virgil Abloh and Pharrell)
In June, we’re hosting a 150 person listening event at the House of Sound in partnership with Mcintosh. We get to turn 5 listening rooms into whatever we want. Including a theatre.
Owning our hospitality
Sourcing a new guest chef for every dinner is my single biggest pain point every month. Almost 100% of chefs drop week of and I have to find a new one last minute.
USC had a supper club that climbed its way into a restaurant, Muse Santa Monica. They paved the way for us starting our first few dinners 2 years ago. One of the cofounders David Gelland is now in New York. We’re bringing him in to build out our culinary operations in house. To maintain consistent quality we need the same menu, same service, and same team every time.
A new column
Will Zimmerman, the youngest writer at the NY post, asks me once a week for intros to people from the ecosystem. He’s great at knowing who to write stories on and when. He has great pulse. Will and I are launching a new column here where we invite guests from the community to write a short essay to a curated question.
A job board
We’re building a way for our jobs to have a bit more longevity. We’re hoping it leads to a longer list of running opportunities and more people getting matched with life changing work.
I don’t take your attention for granted, grateful to have you reading and following along. Happy April
Jake
Great work here Jake. Was cool to have an inside experience from reading what you've been up to.
P.S. Coachella content was fire!