Sam Altman Wants to Get a Dog
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“do u have a dog?”
“no but I wanna get one, do you have a recommendation?’
Sam Altman this week provided yet another example of the future of executive communications.
The exchange on X was easy to miss since it was so inconsequential.
The significance lies in what it says about how CEOs connect with the world.
Altman had tweeted about a new product, SearchGPT, a big innovation that more than anything we’ve seen could threaten Google’s stranglehold over search.
The announcement was made on his X handle and followed by a tweet explaining how to make SearchGPT your default search engine.
Later that afternoon, in the comments, someone responded to this big news by asking Altman if has a dog.
Altman temporarily took off his big event marketing hat and wrote: “no but i wanna get one, do you have a recommendation?”
Fantastic. Just fantastic.
I regularly remind people who work in PR or comms that Sam Altman represents the future.
We are moving on from the world of tightly-scripted CEOs who rely on PR to book them on CNBC and lawyers to tell them what they can say.
Every head of comms should ask themselves if their CEO could answer the dog question.
And by answer, I mean put their fingers on the keyboard and type the answer with no one helping.
The ability to play in the social media sandbox is a competitive advantage that will only become more pronounced. Within a few years, it will be part of the job requirements just like going on TV is now.
I’m sure Altman asks his team for advice, but he wields the megaphone.
Just how valuable that was became clear last year when he was fired from OpenAI. He was able to continue to shape the narrative because could write on X and connect directly to two million followers.
The reason Altman had so many followers, of course, was because he has been writing high-quality content online for two decades.
You cannot wait until you need followers to attract them. And you cannot buy them.
You earn them by writing things that people find interesting.
Many of the most successful executives – from Altman to Zuckerberg – are using social media to announce product launches and connect with stakeholders. That trend of having the CEO, not the company, make big announcements will continue to grow.
You can get help from your comms team, PR agents, speechwriters and ghostwriters (like me!).
But you have to participate to reap the rewards.
Otherwise you will not be prepared for your dog day afternoon.
BRIEF OBSERVATIONS
THE PROBLEM WITH THE WORLD: Perspective from a cafe in Soho, New York quoting the poet Charles Bukowski.
UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS: One of my favorite Internet memes from Donald Rumsfeld seems particularly apt as we head into the next week of U.S. presidential elections.
MORE RUMSFELD: You have to admire the confidence of writing a one page memo with the subject line “Issues w/ Various Countries” that includes the request that your aide “solve” random problems associated with Libya, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Korea.
FALLING APART: From Nokia comes the reminder that in business as in life you can be on the top of the world only to have everything unravel rather quickly.
INDIAN SUMMER: It was 80 degrees yesterday in New York City and the cafes in Soho are packed.
