March
Young Excellence
“You need to meet my friend, they’re so ‘young excellence” is what Tina Tarighian, Google’s youngest senior creative technologist tells me whenever she talks about someone special.
I’ve hesitated to define my own ideas around what it means to be young and excellent. But, last week Tina’s amazing girlfriend, Trudy Painter (pictured below) convinced me that with all the time I spend meeting people, I should.
Here’s my take on “young excellence”, and how I spot it.
First signs
Multidisciplinary interests/worlds touched
Despite point 1, they have a clear direction
Eager to talk about their work and knows how to make it legible (even if it isn’t)
Asks thoughtful questions about YOUR work
Will always find a way to offer an intro
Over time
Inherent sense of urgency. Ex: Calls or FaceTimes instead of texting.
Doesn’t use replaceable language, independently 1/1 in the way they articulate
They go to many events and panels, don’t succumb to the too-busy narrative
Cares deeply about who their mentors and immediate peers are
Celebrates others in public
As I’m sure you’re curious, I also consulted Tina on her definition. She says
“To be young and excellent, I find that age or experience is never a limiting factor. There’s deep wisdom present in these kinds of people. They never feel they’re too early or novice to jump at an ambitious thing or set a high quality bar.” Her other note: our friend Eron Lutterman, who’s Chief of Staff at COLLINS (8x agency of the year), has a respect and enthusiasm for tenured systems. For Tina, young excellence doesn’t require independence as a founder or artist, she says that to her, the most impressive path is growing fast in a structured system or institution.
Jobs I think are interesting
Brand partnerships @ Anvara
You’d work under Andrei Stenmark (24, Vol 6). He sends cold emails to fortune 100 CEOs with 30-40 follow ups until they respond. It’s led him to relationships with Mastercard, Delta, Go Puff, Shake Shack etc
Anvara is a high ticket sponsorship marketplace. He just raised a $3.2M Seed round led by the first investor of the biggest ad tech company in the world. They now have $1B in sponsorship inventory with ties across the MLB, MLS, and some of the biggest festivals around the country. They’re tackling the transparency problem in sponsorship markets for major cultural and sporting events. He has no direct competitors. The moat is being entirely network enabled.
Head of Marketing @ Cosmos
With a former exit to Square Space under his belt, Andy McCune (vol 25) took a shot at Pinterest a year and a half ago and hit. The biggest creative teams in the world are already on platform. Notably, the creative teams from Nike, Chanel, A24, Apple, Adidas, On Running and J.Crew all use Cosmos internally to help organize campaign imagery and references.
He Raised $15M series A earlier this year led by Google Ventures, Accel, Matrix, and Shine Capital. He’s up to 1B impressions on the platform.
He’ll soon have the MOMA, Met, and iconic legacy photographers on the platform as a source of truth archive. Long term, Cosmos will have the best understanding of a user’s taste and aesthetic. They just unveiled their shop feature.
This role is for someone more tenured.
Social Media Strategists @ Welcome.jpeg
Led by Danny Cole (25, vol 20) and Jake McEvoy (25, vol 21), welcome is leading the next era of taste. They leverage their access and credibility to act a a tier 1 creative agency. They service companies like Red Bull, Puma, Uniqlo, Prada, Balenciaga, Vans, etc. They’ve recently started working with series A and B startups too.
Currently earning roughly 3 billion impressions per year, they threw Fake Mink’s first North America show, directed Red Bull’s nyc party series, etc. Behind the scenes, the company posts about underground artists, then use the trust built to develop their teams and strategizing their distribution. Most recently with the sound chalk makes.
They’re looking for editorial pitches and stories. Freelancers wanting to interview, write, etc. You’re a good culture fit if your taste is central to your character
Also looking for video producers and directors for longer tail more ambitious projects
Email: Jake@welcomejpeg.com (say we sent you)
Chief of Staff @ Nucleus
You’d work under Michael Axman (vol 19) across all 3 pillars of the company. They prolifically make warm intros into their ecosystem (over 10,000, all tracked). They’ve deployed over 50M in capital into 24 companies (SPVs), and they host 50-60 events per year.
I like Michael a lot. Serial giver. Great role for a high energy character who wants to touch investing and build lots and lots of relationships.
Email: Ax@thenucleusnetwork.com (tell him Jake sent you)
Short Form Editor @ TBPN
They are the frontier new media company. If new media is exiting to you and you want to break in, get TBPN on your resume and hustle to climb internally (that’s my advice). Nik Shawa is their chief of staff (24, vol 25).
Becoming a unicorn founder in 2026 implies you’re making a TBPN appearance. To do so, you have to go through Nik. They’ve had Travis Kalanik, Zuckerburg, Sam Altman, Bryan Johnson, Andrew Huberman, the list goes on. Short form editing for them is your foot in the door. I know there’s a handful of editors reading this right now, trust, send the email…
Email: Nik@tbpn.com
People to watch
Sean Thielen-Esperaza, 29, (vol 25)
Sean has spent his most recent chapter as head of creative technology at Complex. Meaning, he speaks the same language as art directors, content creators, and designers, but can build and deploy the creative suite for them to work within. He’s recently been poached to do the same at a leading AI research lab. Honestly a nuke of a hire, I expect to read press on it soon.
Here’s why I love him. He’s straddled media, fine art, sculpture, and furniture design all his life. Each of which get astronomically less capital allocation than tech. This upset him, so he started an artist grant program to gift people (no strings) who are great in their field but wouldn’t otherwise have capital access.
He’s the archetypal silhouette of an emerging new class. It’s someone making money at a frontier tech company, but has personal interest in culture and art. According to Sean, it’s up to them to be a steward of capital, give money away, and invest in very human art. “It’s a new class of patrons.” Sean wants to make it cool to fund culture and financially back the arts.
Kayra Theodore, 27, (vol 23)
She put me on to the world of hair artistry. Kayra goes outside of the biggest Paris Fashion Week shows with no invite. She extravagantly does her own hair, people ask her who did it thinking she’s in the show. She gets to say “me” and build relationships off of it. If you see her in public with her hair done (look at her ig) she’s a magnet
She’s already had projects with Nike and recently did Nara Smith’s hair for a big shoot. Her goal (and my expectation for her) is to lead Louis Vuitton’s hair team for a season. She’s a bubbly and beautiful personality, I foresee her being a leader in the world of hair art, especially if the fashion pendulum continues swinging towards more eclectic looks.
Speaking to her brilliant character, she’s also working on a comic book of a black girl who’s hair are her powers, she’s world building a future for herself to have runway shows dedicated to her hair art (hasn’t been done).
Macy Gilliam, 25 (vol 25)
Born and raised in Oklahoma, then off to college in Spain, then studied abroad (from Spain) in Berlin, then Amsterdam and Montreal. Macy has an incredibly unique lens on the world and the people who live in it.
She got her start running Morning Brew’s twitter. Then she started touching more projects in the video realm. Now she runs Out There, a show where Macy takes field trips to explore unexpected jobs and asks questions about how the job works. She’s explored being a plumber, working a hot dog cart outside the met, she drove in the Google street view car, learned to be a magician for a night (which she sold tickets to). The show has grown to be the best performing show on Morning Brew’s Youtube channel. She wants to move into the documentary space long term.
Tina Tarighian called her young excellence.
Ash Gill, 27 (vol 24)
I’m generally an advocate of friends who’s work is both unapologetic and doesn’t remind me of anything else. Ash is in a class of her own as a comedian. She’s embarking on a nationwide tour to do a live comedy/music show.
Ash started @a_twink_and_a_redhead in college with her long time best friend (twink). The two of them share a playful and deeply politically incorrect sense of gay humor thats led them to be called the most iconic pop duo of all time, almost exclusively by the gays.
They own their audience. I’d even call them category defining in the gay comedy. It’s led them into a series partnership with InStyle mag, a guest spot on Andy Cohen’s show, etc. I expect Ash to be around for a long time, her career is still in it’s infancy considering where I believe her ceiling to be.
Carly Heitner, 26 (vol 23)
Carly founded an agency that connects influencers into Broadway shows. She started her career doing socials for shows but says she was more enthused by the growing creator economy, so she left to build on her own company.
She says that theatre industry is infamously 10 years behind. She built an influencer network by cold emailing talent and offering to get them tickets to shows. Easy “yes” from them of course. She sees herself as the intersection of Broadway and pop culture. The company has a strong cultural tailwind as more theatre leans into cultural relevance, as seen with Jake Shane’s casting.
She also has a short form show, Picnik Playlist, where she talks about theatre while sitting on the ground with actors. She asks questions they wouldn’t get on the media circuit. The page has accumulated 180k followers over 34 episodes. Young Excellence.
All Photos shot by Nic Cordeiro at our dinners
3rd Space Update
My close friends know that I lack consistency when asked what the long term vision for 3rd Space is. Writing about the journey here every month will give me a way to collect my thoughts, but more importantly, share them with you.
We’re hosting Red Bull’s pre-Coachella dinner this year in LA: writing it gives me goosebumps. It’s been a dream of mine to work with Red Bull AND to have my hands in the machine that is Coachella (even in a small pre-Coachella capacity). I told my friends I was committed to planting roots in New York and not jumping at shiny things. But fuck it, when Red Bull calls…
Team: Caitlyn Liu has stepped into a COO role on the team. In 2 months, she’s organized our production, art direction, systems, and managed to detangle my brain.
My current fixation: There was a point where I thought this newsletter would be the business model. At another point, I thought we’d open a physical space, I’ve toyed with an agency model too. The more reflection I’ve done, the more I’ve given myself the grace to think without the constraints of a definitive end goal.
Similar to Andrei and Anvara, 3rd Space will need to evolve into something where the moat is network. What if our two worlds of thought (tech and art) were intertwined by one operating entity? What if CAA and Sequoia lived under the same roof? If we know everybody, we can be the bridge of trust for anything.
Current dilemma is that I don’t yet know a way to intersect the two advantageously and avoid building 2 companies at once. Just my current fixation as I make more intros across startup funding, hiring and GTM/ creator partnerships, music, film, etc.
We have sponsors: We now have 2 amazing partners for our dinners!!
Slash is the fastest growing fintech platform of all time. Highest treasury yield + highest cash back on the market for founder banking. We can intro them to our tech and startup guests. If they end up onboarding Its a win win. They flew Simar Boparai in from SF for vol 25
Slingshot manages all healthcare, taxes and accounting for freelance and creative talent. Easy obvious win for everyone involved. Their founder Sanil Chawla, is a dear friend and vol 23 alum.
We situated it where both sides of our ecosystem are being serviced, non competitively. We got amazing reviews from our guests and both sponsors after our most recent dinner. Planning to keep riding.
Hoping to get back into my flow of writing these. Email me if you land one of the jobs (people love forgetting to tell me)
Jake, I’m a stranger, but just want to say it sounds like your focused on building a quality product (Founders Pod) which is what winners do. The other piece this reminds me of is that sometimes the meaning in life is found by living entirely openly to the present and making the absolute best of the time there. (Frankl) Well done following your heart.