What is truly scarce is who can control mental share, who can make people remember you, believe in you, and be willing to stand with you.

Written by: Shen Si Quan

If one day intelligence itself becomes as cheap as electricity, what will be the most scarce resource in this world? This question sounds a bit abstract, but after listening to a recent podcast episode from a16z, I suddenly feel that this question is no longer hypothetical but rather a reality that is happening. The guests of this podcast episode are Jake Paul and Geoff Woo. They founded Anti Fund together and have recently announced a billion-dollar growth fund that has been over-subscribed, backed by almost all top-tier institutions, with a portfolio that includes names like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, Cognition, Etched, and Modal.

One is a boxer from an influencer background, and the other is a tech-savvy investor who graduated from Stanford; the combination of these two to create a fund is quite counterintuitive. However, after listening to the entire conversation, I found this combination particularly reasonable and even somewhat inevitable.

With more capital and less attention

Geoff made a judgment in the show that I think is the core of the entire conversation. He said that there is more and more capital in the world, but attention is becoming increasingly scarce. In the past, investment was about who had more money and who could understand technology. But now money is no longer a bottleneck; any new fund can easily raise hundreds of millions. What is truly scarce is who can control mental share, who can make people remember you, believe in you, and be willing to stand with you.

This statement reminded me of many phenomena I have observed in recent years. If a company makes a great product but no one knows about it, then it essentially does not exist. On the contrary, those who can tell stories, build personal brands, and understand how to mobilize emotions can run faster, even if their products are not that advanced. This does not mean that products are not important; rather, it indicates that in an environment of information overload, attention itself has become a separate competitive advantage, alongside technology and capital.

This is also why Jake is seen by Geoff as an ideal partner. Geoff said straightforwardly that if Jake can obtain massive attention just by living his own life and creating his own content, while other brands need to burn a hundred million in marketing budgets to achieve the same exposure, then of course he wants to stand with Jake rather than on the opposite side. In other words, what Jake holds is not just fan numbers but a form of attention asset that can be valued and reused.

After intelligence becomes cheap, it's about AI-maxxing and looksmaxxing

The next part presents what I find to be the most interesting concept of the entire conversation. Geoff proposed a judgment, stating that if we believe AGI is really coming, intelligence will be continuously distributed through computing power, then intelligence itself will become increasingly worthless. When everyone can access comparatively similar levels of intelligence, what truly decides whether you live well or not becomes two things.

The first is your ability to interact with people; they refer to this as looksmaxxing. Literally translated, it means maximizing aesthetic appeal, but Geoff explains that this term actually covers more than just appearance—it relates to your overall aura, whether you have a charm that makes people willing to approach you, and whether you can become the person who is followed by others in a group. The second thing is your ability to master intelligent tools, which they call AI-maxxing, meaning whether you can truly understand how large language models work, write code, and use prompts to push these models to their limits. Geoff's conclusion is straightforward: if you excel at both things, with high IQ and EQ, then basically nothing can stop you.

When I pondered this framework, I felt that it truly hit upon a very realistic anxiety. Many people have been worried in recent years about what humans can do after AI arrives. But this framework provides a rather clear answer: the smarter machines become, the more valuable connections built purely on relationships, trust, and charisma between people become, because these are things machines currently cannot replace. At the same time, those who can truly master these models will see their value increase exponentially because most people are unwilling to invest time to thoroughly learn the tools. Therefore, instead of worrying about being replaced, it is better to clarify which direction to invest in; either deepen interpersonal relationships or thoroughly understand technology, and ideally not neglect either line.

Geoff also casually mentioned that a16z's media strategy over the years has essentially been executing looksmaxxing at the institutional level. They have their complete communication system that consistently outputs viewpoints about the world. I laughed when I saw this statement because it is indeed a fact; whether an institution can be remembered is no longer necessarily related to the size of the funds it manages but more about whether it has a clear voice and a memorable attitude.

The ability to withstand pressure is forged, not innate

The show spent quite a bit of time discussing Jake's ability to handle pressure. Jake mentioned that he has been disliked since middle school, with people around him spreading rumors and creating stories about him, and even teachers and school principals talking badly about him behind his back. He said he had no choice but to either be crushed by these voices or endure it, and he has never considered being a coward and giving up. Jake stated that the fundamental reason he can withstand all external attacks is that he knows who he is and that his heart is good, so what outsiders say cannot shake his core.

Geoff added another perspective: he said that the investment world places the highest value on the ability to withstand pressure because entrepreneurship is essentially a process of constantly being beaten. Jake is truly boxing while also bearing overwhelming attacks online. If someone can survive in such an environment and keep moving forward, then this psychological quality is a scarce trait in any high-pressure industry. Geoff described this quality as almost the level of courage and resilience of a national leader.

This conversation made me think of a question: we often discuss how to help young people build confidence, but few are willing to admit that true resilience is often forged by reality punching you repeatedly, not simply by praises. Jake mentioned that his stance on psychological counseling is also quite interesting. He acknowledged the value of psychological counseling, especially when reflecting on childhood experiences to understand why one reacts in certain ways; this self-awareness is meaningful. However, he also cautioned against turning psychological counseling into a habit of being continuously immersed in a victim narrative. If every session with a counselor just repeats the same negative emotional cycle, then this dependency may actually drain a person rather than help them grow stronger.

I think this boundary is quite clear: understanding oneself is for moving forward, not to find a reasonable explanation for stagnation. This resonates with many states I have observed in people over the years; some are indeed using professional help to emerge from difficulties, but others have turned it into a shield to avoid facing reality.

Creators who last are not reliant on hits but on compounding returns

The latter half of the show discussed content creation, which I believe is very valuable for anyone involved in content. Jake reflected on his over ten years in the creator industry, stating that truly few can last long in this field. He cited Magcon as an example, noting that most of the individuals from that group have disappeared from the public eye, with only a few like Shawn Mendes managing to remain. Jake stated that most people can’t last long once they achieve temporary fame, as creating content is inherently exhausting; when the platform changes or enthusiasm wanes, many lose the motivation to continue.

Jake summarized his methods into several keywords: one is to work hard; he and his brother used to film a fifteen-minute video every day, spending the entire day on shooting; another is to continuously expand horizontally, moving from funny videos to music, from rap to Christmas albums, and then later into boxing, instantly doubling down on any new interest that arises; and finally, to build multiple non-overlapping audience groups, where some only watch his ranch life videos, while others only know him from tech podcasts like a16z. These groups almost do not overlap, but together they support a large and stable portfolio.

The show also mentioned the comparison between Jake and MrBeast, which I found particularly insightful. Geoff said that MrBeast’s entire team is heavily data-driven, with every topic and detail constantly measured and optimized, to the extent that changing the host in a video does not affect overall data because the system itself has already been tuned. Jake’s path leans more towards intuition and creativity, relying on a vague but accurate sense of content. Jake himself admits this; he says he does not quantify every little detail like MrBeast but relies more on an instinct developed over the long term.

But both emphasized one key point: whether you can transform traffic into cash is crucial to determining whether a creator can sustain their existence in the long run. Jake pointed out that many of his peers have massive traffic and frightening fan numbers but fundamentally do not know how to turn that attention into real income, which is one of the core reasons he has managed to stand in this industry for thirteen or fourteen years.

My biggest takeaway from this conversation is that longevity in the industry is never reliant on any one viral hit but on treating content as a system that can generate compound returns. Viral hits will pass, but the ability to build diverse audiences and convert traffic into cash flow will always remain with you. This aligns with the logic of running a company: one success does not signify much; the real moat is whether you can convert success into a sustainable structure.

Judging people comes down to experiences, not innate talent

Geoff talked about how to judge whether a founder is worth investing in; he said that neither he nor Jake has any mystical approach, but essentially it's about having seen enough. Jake has been in the convoluted environment of Hollywood since he was sixteen, encountering all sorts of frauds and oddballs; Geoff comes from Silicon Valley and Stanford, where he has seen numerous projects, been pitched by various projects, and has also stepped into many pitfalls. Together, the two represent a combination of two completely different experiences, covering more blind spots.

Geoff summarized two judgment criteria: one is whether the person has an intrinsic reason to believe they can achieve world-class status in that field, and the other is whether they can withstand the hardships necessary to reach that position. In addition, they also rely heavily on background checks; before investing in a defense technology project, they would directly ask industry insiders for their honest assessment of the team.

This statement made me recall a rather simple truth: there is no shortcut to judging people; it relies on the intuition accumulated through continuous trial and error, and this intuition cannot be acquired quickly but must be earned through real-life experiences.

Education, badges, and the path choices of young people

There was a portion in the show discussing education that I found quite pragmatic. Jake believes that the current education system has not seen substantial reforms in decades, with a huge disconnect between what is taught and the skills that the world actually needs. He gave the example of schools spending a lot of time teaching geometry proofs but almost not teaching how to file taxes or how money appreciates. He mentioned a new type of school called Alpha School that left a deep impression on him, with the underlying logic being to redesign educational content in a way that is closer to reality.

Geoff presented a framework regarding this topic that I found quite practical—he calls it the badge theory. He said someone like Jake does not need any academic credentials, as he has already proven himself as a world-class content creator and boxer through real achievements. However, most ordinary people do not have such immediate proof, so attending Stanford, Harvard, winning a math competition, or winning a science fair is essentially about attaching an external validation badge to themselves, telling the world that, at least in some aspects, they have been validated. Geoff pointed out that Peter Thiel’s simultaneous advice for young people not to go to college while having completed degrees at Stanford's undergraduate and law schools is somewhat contradictory. Geoff's direct advice was that young people should consciously collect these badges, whether by becoming the strongest in a given field or through earning a certain reputable degree; these badges will ultimately become sources of confidence for undertaking significant endeavors in the future.

I find this framework interesting because it does not simply lean towards either "education is useful" or "education is useless." Instead, it reduces education to a more straightforward question: do you have something that can prove yourself? Academic credentials are one way of proving, world-class skills are another way; the two are not in conflict. However, lacking either type indeed makes starting more challenging.

My own reflections

After watching the entire conversation, my biggest impression is that although these two individuals come from completely different backgrounds—one living in the spotlight and controversy since his teens, the other honing technical thinking in Silicon Valley and academic settings—they ultimately reached a consensus on the same judgment: the world is shifting from competing for resources to competing for attention, from competing in singular skills to competing in综合素质 (comprehensive quality).

I believe the framework of AI-maxxing and looksmaxxing is particularly worth pondering for everyone. Our generation is prone to anxiety, feeling that with the arrival of AI, our skills will depreciate, and we will become unimportant. But the conversation offered a contrary answer: as machines become stronger, the two types of abilities of human beings become scarcer—one is true technical understanding and the ability to master tools, and the other is the soft power of being someone whom others are willing to approach and trust. Both of these abilities are not developed overnight; they require long-term investment and accumulation, but precisely because they are difficult, they become valuable.

Another point that deeply impressed me is their repeated emphasis on resilience and long-termism. Whether it is Jake enduring over a decade of online attacks or their repeated emphasis on suffering capacity when evaluating founders, the underlying signal is essentially the same: anything that can survive is not due to a stroke of luck but comes from the ability to choose to keep moving forward after being beaten down. This insight has greatly inspired me in my content creation and product work; what often determines whether something can be accomplished is not how high the starting point is, but whether one can still choose to remain in the game after being educated repeatedly by reality.

I believe this conversation is worth reflecting upon repeatedly because it does not stay at the level of discussing a few investment cases but genuinely offers a framework for understanding this era: capital is no longer scarce; attention is scarce, singular skills are no longer scarce; comprehensive qualities are scarce, single successes are no longer scarce; the ability to withstand failure and rise again is what is truly scarce.