I never ask anything of my readers, but please take the 3minutes to read this entirely… and if you're new here, well, welcome to the diary.

Last December I was in a dark place. The lawsuit I won against my acquirers was sitting idle in the legal system, I was struggling to sort the value prop for OWM as I poured my personal savings into it, and my health lapsed as I put work and family over self; and every day in the mirror, the image reflecting back that would make most men proud, depressed me further knowing that I could simply do better.

If you talked to me; you would have heard that chipper Jeff you may know; still smiling, still cracking jokes, still chugging along as if nothing was hurting inside. But that’s because you only see what we want you to see. And for some reason, in brief moments with strangers id meet at conferences or on the street who would ask that cordial “how’s it going”, I would unknowingly pour all of my problems out in a cry for help; reaching for anyone to give me the answers I so desperately needed.

I tell you all this because on Monday, a very close friend of mine chose to take his life. No note. Too many questions. I had just seen him. Smiling, laughing, being himself… it’s unimaginable to think about how much pain he was hiding behind eyes that just seemed to own the world… but I get it.

I’ve had so many days where giving up was a constant contender. Late at night thinking I could just dig a hole and hide until my peers forgot about this whole equity mishegoss. Debating how to take this entrepreneurial fire that burned inside of me and drown it in the river. Maybe I could become a camp counselor and spend all day outdoors teaching children; a past time I so very much enjoy.

All of these people in my life and yet no one to talk to. Time with friends now spent engaged on whose pre school struggles are worse and how we should finally plan that boys night out. And I couldn’t speak to my wife (although her seismometer already knew I was off). I couldn’t tell her the weight of the world was pressing down on my shoulders so hard that some days I struggled to walk.

So I remained silent. Alone. Just me and that voice that shows up in the quiet… is that my own thought or is there someone else inside this consciousness?

Somewhere in that space I found the courage to remind myself that my worst day is someone elses best. That living up to my own expectations was a bar I set for myself and no one else, and that the guilt I thought would crush me if I failed; would only be temporary. “Time heals all wounds” found me, chugging along like the old steam engine I am, and although I still struggle as most builders do, life is no longer a pursuit of happiness, but has become happiness in the pursuit.

You lose people in life, it is what it is. But you should never, ever lose someone to themselves.

I regret not asking more questions. Going deeper and peeling back the onion when the answer to “how’s it going” was simply unacceptable. How could I have been so blind to not see it. Not hear the slight tremor hiding in the giggle somewhere. Decades of friendship lost because I wasn’t emotionally available or didn’t make room to have the conversation he clearly needed.

I know struggle, but I never once thought it was so bad that I should take my own life. That option was never on my bingo card, even in my darkest hour. But has it been on yours?

Every day, more than a 100 people kill themsleves. Friends, mothers, brothers, husbands. Unnecessary deaths that will haunt those closest to them with guilt knowing someone they loved was lost in the maze and they didn’t come to save them, because they didn’t even know they were lost.

When I found out, I prayed he was hit by a car. That he had an incurable disease and wanted to go out on his own terms. But not because of depression. Not because the world seemed so dark that there was no hope of ever seeing light again.

So please, I beg of you. Don’t be naive to the smooth surface we shine for each other on Instagram and at family gatherings.

Please don’t be Dave (DQ as we all knew him) the kindest, most joyous friend who showed up for me every time I asked and every time I didn’t. Who would always tell me he was inspired by how hard I worked and ask me questions about how to build his new SpeedTin company when it was just a dream in his head.

Don’t be the reason that I will never get the chance to know why he did it.

I share all his because I don’t want this to be about him or me. I want this to be about you.

Because deep down inside, if you’re not ok… that’s ok.

You just need to tell someone.

In loving memory of my dear friend, DQ.

→ Every Founder Must Know: Lightspeed Venture Partners ($50B+ AUM) just named a creator with 350,000 followers a Partner. Not a marketing hire. A Partner with carry.

→ The Cap Table: Charli XCX is Nothing's first global brand ambassador. She is also Nothing's newest shareholder. Same press release.

→ The Director: A 20-year-old YouTube creator just became A24's youngest feature director ever. The movie opens Friday.

On June 3rd, OWM is co-hosting a little pitch competition alongside Raisi and Plug and Play, gathering 100+ top investors, creators and founders. The winner walks away with a Mac Mini, Delta Airlines status, three months of Raisi campaigns, and office space at Civic Hall through Plug and Play.

If you want to attend, or pitch, hit the link below. Only a few slots left.

Claire Zau just joined Lightspeed Venture Partners as a Partner.

Not as a head of content. Not as a brand consultant. Investor & New Media is the title on the door. Claire will invest in early-stage companies, run Lightspeed's social channels, and co-host the firm's new show, Lightwork.

For the last six years, Claire was an early-stage investor, most recently as Partner and AI Lead at GSV Ventures, where she co-organized the ASU+GSV Summit. In the last twelve months, she built a media platform alongside the investing. It now reaches 350,000+ followers and millions of viewers a month.

Lightspeed, with more than $50 billion in AUM, just put her on the cap table of the firm itself.

Read that again. A $50 billion institutional venture fund hired a creator and gave her a Partner title, an investment budget, the keys to the firm's social channels, and her own weekly show.

Lightspeed's own line on the role, from the announcement: "a role that wouldn't have existed five years ago."

That's not a marketing hire. That's a Partner with carry.

This is what happens when an institution figures out that the leverage is no longer in capital. There is more capital chasing AI right now than at any point in venture history. Lightspeed alone closed $9 billion in new funds in December, bringing the firm past $40 billion in AUM. The constraint isn't money. The constraint is reaching the right founders before anyone else does.

The old model is familiar. A partner publishes a thesis on the firm's blog, posts it on LinkedIn, and waits for the warm intro. The audience is whoever happens to be on the list that day.

Claire's framing on the move is sharper than anything most VCs will write all year: "Venture and media are converging, and the next generation of great firms will need to show up differently, reaching founders and builders before they've even started a company."

That is a venture partner describing a creator playbook. Or a creator describing a venture playbook. It is now the same playbook.

If a $40 billion-plus venture firm cannot reach the next generation of founders without a creator inside the partnership, what does that say about every other institution trying to reach the next generation of customers?

The function you used to call "marketing" has been mispriced for a decade. It belonged in the title structure. It belonged on the cap table. It belonged with someone whose incentive to grow the firm's audience compounds alongside the firm's returns.

The founders winning right now have already figured this out. They recruit creators, they don't book them. They put them on the cap table, not in the campaign budget. They build the audience and the company at the same time, with the same person, on the same incentive.

That is exactly what OWM was built to help you do. We help founders find the creators who don't want a sponsorship check. They want a seat at the table.

Lightspeed found theirs. Find yours.

Four pairs of strangers, each one a seasoned operator matched with a creator in their niche, given five days to go from blank page to a product investors would actually fund and customers would actually buy. This was the first edition of THE BUILD in London.

Relinq won the competition. Investors wrote checks in the room.

OWM is now taking on both PlayMade and Relinq as creator equity clients, matching each with the right creator partners to put their products in front of the right audience from day one.

The London edition was the first stop. The Build is going global. Let us know if you want to get involved!

Nothing, the London consumer-electronics brand built by Carl Pei, just announced its first ever Global Brand Ambassador and its newest shareholder in the same press release. They are the same person.

The News:

On May 14, Nothing named Charli XCX its first Global Brand Ambassador and brought her onto the cap table at the same time. Nothing's post-Series C valuation is $1.3 billion off a $200 million Series C raise.

Charli joins an existing investor roster that already includes The Weeknd, Casey Neistat, and Swedish House Mafia.

The launch campaign, directed by Aidan Zamiri, is built around Nothing's new Headphone (a) and its 135-hour battery life. The concept: Charli wears the headphones continuously across a five-day storyline.

Carl Pei's framing in the announcement: "The tech industry has spent a decade making everything quieter, more minimal, more monotonous. Charli has spent her career going the other way in pop. We want Nothing to feel more like that."

The Operator Take:

Read that quote again. Carl Pei could have said "we hired Charli to promote our headphones." Founders write that line every week. He said something different. He said "we want Nothing to feel more like that." That is a brand identity decision, not a media buy. A brand identity decision requires the artist to be operating with the company, not for it.

Hence the equity.

Founders trying to build a brand that feels like something specific are not solving an advertising problem. They are solving a cultural fit problem. The fix isn't a bigger budget. The fix is a smaller cap table that includes the people whose taste you are trying to import.

The Weeknd knows it. Casey Neistat knows it. Swedish House Mafia knows it. The question is whether your cap table has room for the people who can actually make your product feel like something.

A24 does not usually hand the director's chair to someone who cannot legally rent a car. Next Friday, they do.

The News:

Kane Parsons, 20, becomes A24's youngest feature director ever when Backrooms releases on May 29. Parsons started the project as a YouTube series under the handle "Kane Pixels" in January 2022, when he was a teenager. The first episode hit 20 million views in two weeks.

The feature cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell. Producers: James Wan, Shawn Levy, Osgood Perkins. A24 built a 30,000-square-foot physical labyrinth set for the shoot.

The Operator Take:

The pipeline used to flow one direction. Hollywood signed YouTube creators as talent. Studios optioned their IP. Networks bought their content. Parsons skipped every rung. He did not sell A24 the rights to Backrooms. He sold A24 the rights to him directing it. He brought the IP, the audience, and the chair, in a single transaction.

The studio did not hire a creator to consult. It hired one to direct.

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