Comment by solumos

We can look at this "cult-like" effect in a number of ways. Some will be specifically interesting to this community, since they apply broadly to startups.

I think it's wrong to call Bryan a "marketing genius" and I don't think the article here gives meaningful advice or reflects Bryan's process in the slightest. I don't think that he does anything particularly novel with his marketing, and I don't think it's the case that he had a brilliant business idea in 2021 where he thought to himself, "you know what would be great for my next gig, is if I built a business around longevity, used myself as the sole test subject, appealed to the fitness/health communities, and created my own supplements to sell" — I think he developed an obsession around health and longevity given his struggles with it himself, he wanted to share the work he was doing with other people, other people became interested in what he was doing and the way he told his story, and the business sort of naturally formed around it due to gaps in the market for the quality of products that Bryan wants as well as the high-quality content he produces (he's still a capitalist).

People, such as the author here, love to apply a revisionist lens to success. You could imagine a similar article being written about the marketing genius of the early days of The Beatles or Bob Dylan — they stood out, wrote catchy songs, appealed to a somewhat specific demographic (that eventually broadened), differed from the mainstream (early on), and followed trends. Neither of them thought about marketing as a first principle. To borrow an idea from Rick Rubin, they were creating music that they wanted to experience in the world that no one else was making, and once they brought those ideas to life, there were others who enjoyed it as well. They were creating first for themselves, from their own obsession, and there was a latent audience ready to receive it.

The same goes for successful startups. Facebook's origin story certainly shares a lot of similarities. It also factors into Paul Graham's interest in obsession[0], and consequently YC's founding principles[1] of investing in those motivated by "consuming interest" rather than "money". Perhaps this seems like a bit of a digression, but this sort of obsession is what leads to a "cult-like" mentality, both within the organization as well as with its fans and users. This is something that Peter Thiel (and Founder's Fund more broadly) is known for supporting, as well as recommending in Zero to One[2]. I don't think it's a coincidence that he was an early supporter of the largest social network in existence and a scholar of Renee Girard/mimetic theory.

Which brings me to my final point — there are a variety of organizations, fanbases, religions, etc that embody this "cult-like" growth and interest. I don't think it's possible to avoid them, although it clearly has the ability to harm. At the same time, personal computers and the internet were once niche communities with cult-like followings. I don't think these manifestations of mimetic desire are something that we'd want to discard entirely even if we could — they're something that simply occurs due to our social predisposition as human beings, and it's amplified due to our interconnectedness via modern technology.

[0] - https://paulgraham.com/genius.html

[1] - https://www.ycombinator.com/principles

[2] - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/peter_thiel_710435