What an awesome (short) week!

I’ve done a bunch of reflecting about what I’m thankful for this week. I’m sure we all have.

For those in the States, Thanksgiving is an incredible opportunity to connect deeply with people in your life and reconnect with folks you may have lost touch with.  

This week has been an especially big reflection for me on the importance of people.

In a world that’s increasingly readying for the AI revolution to take over, it’s the importance of people that continue to rise above.

We saw it this week with OpenAI and the here today, gone tomorrow, and back Sam Altman rollercoaster. 

And the endless support from OpenAI employees. 

I received tons of awesome feedback about last week’s newsletter ‘How to Build a Community’ but will delay releasing part 2 (with some of the feedback incorporated) until next week to unpack this week’s events and emphasize the importance of people.

We are about to hit 1,600 newsletter subscribers. Thank you for being a part of this!

Let’s dive in.

The Big Idea

People are the Purpose.

We witnessed Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, this week come inches from essentially acquiring OpenAI (over 95% of OpenAI employees were threatening to leave for Microsoft, Vox) from the company Microsoft itself invested $13 billion in, for $0.

The quick backstory is that OpenAI’s Board of Directors fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week over an alleged lack of transparency. Greg Brockman, the President of OpenAI resigned the next day in protest.

Following the firing, it was announced that Sam Altman had accepted a role at Microsoft leading a new AI division. And, all of OpenAI was ready to follow him.

Sam Altman represents the future of AI to so many people.

And this week proved that even (Open)AI is nothing without people.

People are at the center of community building:

• Find a challenge that people need to solve

• Build relationships, listen to, and support the people endlessly

• Be deliberate with your decisions around culture and growth

Excited to continue part 2 about community building next week…

2 Resources

I. Your Customers are Your Cheat Code: Customer Marketing Tips from Apollo.io 

Customer communities offer two things every marketer dreams of: direct access to the voice of the customer and (when done right) an army of advocates who are happy to spread the good word about your product. (watch here)

II. The ROI of the Dark Funnel: What your hidden data is really worth

How much ROI the dark funnel delivers depends on how much traction your industry and organization have across digital channels and what you do with the insights you uncover. (read here)

3 Fractionals

I. Leslie Greenwood

Leslie works with founders, start-ups, and community builders to bring an Evangelist-led growth strategy into their businesses. Previously she held the role of VP of Member Advocacy at Pavilion where she worked closely with their Global Chapter Heads to create elevated local experiences and support. (LinkedIn)

II. Jim Soss

Jim is a proven revenue executive with a unique combination of sales dna, customer success fabric, and GTM acumen. $1B+ career bookings with proven growth: he’s taken a startup from $0 to $5M (successful exit), turn-around from $20M to $40M (valuation multiplier), scale-up from $20M to $70M (successful exit), and growth business to $200M (successful exit). (LinkedIn)

III. Mollie Bodensteiner

Mollie has a diverse set of experiences from leading marketing to operations. She’s passionate about utilizing technology and leveraging data to drive performance and innovation. Well-versed in both B2B and B2C strategy and execution. (LinkedIn)

Thanks for reading!

Have any awesome folks you’d like to refer?

Reply to this email and let us know what you’d like to see more. And a big thank you to all who made it to this point.

Until next week,

Jared

p.s. What is one important problem you would like community to solve for you?

3 ways I can help you scale your business with Community:

1. Join RevGenius (free).

2. Community consulting for your startup or scaleup (reply for rates).

3. Promote yourself in this newsletter + to my 40k personal following on LinkedIn (reply for rates).