TWTWC4 // Digital Content Thesis

For the past 24 months I have self isolated in a country where I do not speak the language. I talk every day to a few dozen AI’s, on Tuesdays I talk to my business partner and CFO over video, and on most days before lunch, I speak to my best friend or my father. If you have read any of the white papers I published before today [1], then you also know I spend a lot of time with xO, my Dog.

The rest of the time I solely invest in the kind of intelligence that is called artificial, a small handful of vendors, and a collection of lawyers who I have never met in person.

TWTWC4 is not a new effort, but the first time I am stepping into the light and sharing two decades of learning within technology, finance, and consumer behavior. Only one person gets to be the best at this. I am not. My track record as a creator and investor is mostly public, this effort is about what is not.

If you know me then you know how contrary this is to the life that I lived before. I have been SVP of 3 of the world’s most consequential technology companies. I rarely if ever went to the office but for 15 years my role has been commercial. I was a mercenary. After being titled on of the world's best digital storytellers who could code, I became the man who collected the contracts that capture money and the money that captures multiples. I do not manage big teams or attend big team meetings. I remember your take and know every number that has been connected to you so well that even if I took you to lunch 3 times a month, I likely did not remember your name. I remember your number. I do not just believe in capitalism. I am capitalism. It’s not cute. It is true.

If you do not know me then you should know, I am 45 and have been a part of 5 major venture exits and an angel investor with hands-on participation in 27. Like many creative or executive leaders, everything I have I created. I do not believe in luck, but without question I always have found myself within that light. I have five core values in life; but those are only superseded by two definitive words; privacy and guardianship. These words will not change.

In 1968, George Lois created the first magazine cover without words. The image was Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian with the magazine’s title behind the image. The magazine’s title was not in front of the image. The US government threw a tantrum. A Black Muslim was a centerfold with less distraction than a young woman, named Jayne Fonda who found herself on the cover of Penthouse.

FIG.01 // PHOTO, Producing Ali

Outtakes from Carl Fischer's contact sheet, 1968. Four passes at finding Sebastian: head level, head bowed, head back. The cover frame is the one where Ali stops being a boxer posing and becomes the martyrdom.

In 2016, the love of my life found the original pressboard that George Lois used to sell the idea to Hearst Media, and gave it to me as a gift. I proposed two weeks later. It still hangs behind my desk in my Miami office.

George Lois was a guiding light for the first 40 years of my life. The power of what is said, what is not said, and how all of that is sold. I got that from a man I never met whose brightest pitch hangs behind my most important zooms. George also knew how to work a commercial room. He told you what you were going to see, then he told you what you would see, then he showed it to you in small chunks, then he briefly showed it to you. Then he removed it, told you what you saw and how much it could cost. Again, and again, and then again.

I do the same.

In the first 1/2 of my career, my work has garnered the platforms that redefined publishing, and the teams who earned Pulitzer Prizes, propelled David’s Lucky Peach and LPJ’s California Sunday into life, beating Vanity Fair for Magazine of the Year, and earned multiple free Super Bowl commercials.

That is not what this was created for.

What this was created for (TWTWC4) is the hundreds of failures that never saw the light of day. What this was created for is the export of the why behind the rapidly expanding economy of creators who bring the world’s most transformative ideas to life. What this was created for is the sanctity of sovereignty, ambition, grit, determination, street smarts, and talent that separate the best creators from the rest.

You are likely to see, in time, that I live in the future, operate in today, and stopped caring to explain myself a five years ago. The world is not changing slowly it is becoming new at a pace that is impossible to measure. That pace, the page that technology increases , is a multiple that is worth more than the lifetime value of all of us combined every fucking day.

This final chapter in my journey is solely about the creator, and if you click around you will selectively uncover the receipts. Still, while serving on or helping to lead or sitting as an officer in a company that led the birth, first, second, and now third life of the universe, I sense that AI is different. This third life is different. The creators? The creators are the same.

Claude brought to my attention that my Dropbox has 4 finished websites, that I personally paid for, to blog about my work. 2009, 2015, 2020, 2022. I never launched them. We all carry many things on our journey, the people I support trust me because it’s about them, not about me, and that truth has caused me to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars towards a commercial publishing dream that could not came true.

This is new.

I created this site myself, and as you can read here, 7.SUNS has launched the MVP of a protocol for creators, an intelligent system to help you optimize and gain (rather than reduce) your lifetime value, and we recently released the first portion of our first publicly disclosed venture fund. Talking about this makes me uneasy. I am a foster kid from Ohio who was raised by a Methodist minister. Where I come from we do not talk about money, and I find those who talk about it generally do not have it. Still, the time in this business’s life has come, and along with it, here, you will find this creator’s effort to describe what is happening in the big big picture, of a day that is not limited by information but defined by true intelligence.

I have always and will always write information for my grandmother, who was a librarian, and little sister, who is 1/2 of my age. In my 20’s this is how I distilled complex ideas into tunable takeaways. If you find me writing outside of that frame, please do let me know. We are also 4 months away from 2027, and while I hate the idea that our life is a two team sport, technology and the world have become political. I attempt to be more of a referee, but please know that if you’re trying to reframe the ideas of Privacy or Guardianship with your creative effort, I will be both your adversary and the most aggressive man you will know.

My promises to the reader.

• I will not earn money on this content. This time is a personal investment of my personal time. If this work ever earns money, the proceeds will be placed in a foundation I did not found, do not control, and give nothing to but my name.

• I will tell you what I got wrong, in the same place I told you I was right.

• I will not sell you anything here. What I build for money, I build elsewhere, and I will always tell you which is which.

• I will publish what I know while holding what is not mine to give. I am one of the worlds best expert witnesses when it comes to consumer tech. I say what i say in the best way I am willing to say it. (and be careful, cause this kid from Ohio does not disapoint).

• I will not change the terms, not the register, not the reader I write for. It’s muscle not fat.

This is not a term sheet, but what a term sheet should be, for any emerging growth creator working to create tomorrow’s leading businesses or brands. Please know that you will fail. You will fail. You will fall on your face. People will deceive you. With every success you will find another arrow pointed at you. It will not be nice. Your most impressive work may never be seen. But our journey as creators is still the destination. It always will be. Nothing will change that.

Thank you for your time and for your presence. I’m looking forward to speaking with you soon.

All my best,
Jordan