The Corporate Brand Is Dead. Stop Pretending It Still Breathes.

Hard Lessons from Marc Andreessen, Unfiltered.

After launching this Substack with a bro-mantic tone and a few ideas that give you headaches, it’s time for someone who thinks fast, talks faster, and doesn’t sugarcoat anything.

IMPORTANT: In case you’ve been living under a rock—don’t let the “decentralized internet” talk fool you. Andreessen is no flower child. He’s a shark. Built empires with Netscape and a16z. One of Silicon Valley’s sharpest, most powerful investors.

Marc Andreessen, unfiltered: “The future belongs to individuals, not corporations.”

And if you’re not ready to speak as one, you’re already out.
Not tomorrow. Today.

The media is no longer the medium

Communication is no longer vertical.
Internet stripped out the middlemen. But social killed the model.
Control shifted from centralized machines to connected humans.

There’s no going back.
“Everything we think about corporate branding is an artifact of a specific era—not the historical norm.”
That era is over. Still in denial? Who will you advertise to when your customers’ credit cards are run by AI agents?

It’s not fast tech that’s stealing your present. It’s broadcast that was the anomaly.
For centuries, we spoke one-to-one, in local echoes, with human voices—not brand manuals.

Now we’re just back there. Except it’s public. And real-time.
Filtered, polished, sugared messages sound like overprocessed food.
They don’t feed. They don’t convince. They don’t digest.
Still fine to sell snacks. Not to spread ideas that shift culture.
If you’re still hiding behind layers of “copy,” you’re too slow for this game.
No point hiding.

If you’re thinking this doesn’t apply to you—you just proved the opposite.

And if you stay silent, you agree with whatever your competitors are saying.
A classic excuse? “We’re B2B. So it doesn’t matter.”

Really?
As if today—even the procurement guy at a cement plant— didn’t have an iPhone in his pocket and a feed to scroll through. We’ve trained ourselves to tell what’s alive from what’s dead.

There’s no such thing as pure B2B anymore. There’s always a “C” in the equation. Always.

If you don’t speak, you don’t exist.

This isn’t new. Even Madonna knew it. If you’re not talking, you’re nowhere.
If you’re stuck in the comfort of institutional branding, you’re always late. Chasing. Rarely catching up. Meanwhile, those building a direct voice—even if flawed— become recognizable. Then credible. Then preferred. Even when unpredictable.

Still think personal communication is influencer fairy dust?
Look who’s sitting at the most powerful desk in the world.

The richest man alive turned Twitter into his personal megaphone.
No brand could’ve done that. Not like that.

Same goes for The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan—backed by Andreessen.
No company. No comms department. Only a voice: clear, powerful, autonomous.

“He’s what it looks like when a founder is also the front-end of the idea.” — Marc Andreessen

And for startups? Same deal.

Before traction, you need attraction. Before the finished product, you need a story that makes it real. If you still think communication comes after innovation, you’ve missed how real innovation works.

In radical ventures—the kind that bend entire categories—company, product, and storytelling grow together.

Every design decision is narrative.
Every public move sketches the roadmap.
Every founder is also a media channel.

Andreessen said it: “Communication is not a storefront. It’s infrastructure.”

Reminds me of Jobs: Design isn’t how it looks. It’s how it works.

Not ready yet?

If you feel uncomfortable, then find a sparring partner who:

– lives in Palo Alto
– breathes Silicon Valley
– speaks tech
– talks to builders

or at least find someone who lives in Palo Alto and doesn’t just visit once a year for TechCrunch or—worst case scenario—Las Vegas CES.

No one can be you.
But someone can help you get there.
You don’t need a brand voice.
You need a f***ing voice.
The one thing you can’t outsource.
You build it. Or vanish.

Your call.
And the sooner you do, the better it sounds.

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Enjoy the full conversation.