a16z's latest judgment: Money is no longer scarce; what's scarce is attention.

If one day intelligence itself becomes as cheap as electricity, what would be the scarcest thing in the world? This question sounds a bit abstract, but after recently watching a16z's podcast, I suddenly feel this is no longer a hypothesis but a reality unfolding. The guests on this podcast were Jake Paul and Geoff Woo, who co-founded Anti Fund. They just announced an oversubscribed $100 million growth fund, backed by almost every top-tier LP, with a portfolio including names like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, Cognition, Etched, and Modal.

One is a boxer turned influencer, the other a Stanford-educated tech investor. The two coming together to start a fund is itself quite counterintuitive. But after listening to the entire conversation, I actually find this combination particularly reasonable, even somewhat inevitable.

More capital, less attention

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

This reminds me of many phenomena I've observed in recent years. A company can make the best product, but if no one knows about it, it might as well not exist. On the other hand, those who can tell stories, build personal brands, and know how to stir emotions—people and companies like that, even if their products aren't the most advanced, can run faster. This is not to say products are unimportant, but in an information-overloaded environment, attention itself has become an independent competitive advantage, on par with technology and capital.

This is also why Jake became the ideal partner in Geoff's mind. Geoff put it bluntly: if Jake can gain massive attention just by living his life and creating his content, while other brands have to burn $100 million in marketing budget to get the same exposure, then of course he wants to stand with Jake, not against him. In other words, what Jake holds is not just a follower count, but an attention asset that can be priced and reused.

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

The next part is what I think are the most interesting concepts in the entire conversation. Geoff proposed a judgment: if we believe AGI is truly coming, and intelligence will be distributed endlessly through computing power, then intelligence itself will become increasingly worthless. When everyone can access roughly the same level of intelligence, what really determines how well you do comes down to two things.

The first is your ability to deal with people. They call this looksmaxxing, which literally translates to maximizing appearance, but Geoff explained that the term actually has a broader scope. It's not just about looks, but your overall aura, whether you have the charisma that makes people want to approach you, whether you can become the person others want to follow. The second is your ability to master intelligent tools. They call this AI-maxxing, meaning whether you truly understand how large language models work under the hood, whether you can code, and whether you can use prompts to push these models to their limits. Geoff's conclusion is straightforward: if you do both well—high IQ and high EQ—then basically nothing can stop you.

When I think about this framework myself, I feel it hits a very real anxiety. Many people have been worried in recent years about what humans can still do once AI arrives. But this framework gives a pretty clear answer: the smarter machines become, the more valuable the connections between people based purely on relationships, trust, and charisma become, because these are things machines currently cannot replace. At the same time, the value of those who can truly master these models is rising exponentially, because most people aren't even willing to spend time learning the tools thoroughly. So instead of worrying about being replaced, it's better to figure out which direction to invest in—either deepen your interpersonal line or master the technical line, and ideally, don't let go of either.

Geoff also casually mentioned that a16z's media strategy over the years is essentially executing looksmaxxing at the institutional level. They have their own complete communication system, continuously outputting their views on the world. I laughed when I heard this because it's true. Whether an institution is remembered has no necessary connection with the scale of assets it manages; it's more about whether it has a clear voice and a memorable attitude.

Resilience is forged, not innate

The show spent a lot of time discussing Jake's resilience. Jake said he has been hated since middle school, with people around him spreading rumors and making up stories about him, even teachers and principals talking behind his back. He said he actually had no choice: either let those voices crush him or tough it out. He never wanted to be a coward and just give up. Jake said the fundamental reason he can withstand all external attacks is that he knows who he is, knows his heart is in the right place, so what outsiders say can no longer shake his core.

Geoff added a perspective: what the investment circle values most is resilience, because entrepreneurship itself is a process of constantly getting beaten. Jake actually takes punches in boxing while also enduring torrents of online attacks. If someone can survive in that environment and keep moving forward, that kind of mental toughness is a rare quality in any high-pressure industry. Geoff described this quality as almost presidential-level courage and tenacity.

This part of the conversation made me think about a question: we often discuss how to build confidence in young people, but few are willing to admit that true resilience is usually forged by reality hitting you one blow at a time, not by praise. Jake's attitude toward psychological counseling is also interesting. He said he recognizes the value of therapy, especially for reflecting on childhood experiences and understanding why he reacts in certain ways to certain things—that kind of self-awareness is meaningful. But he also cautioned not to turn therapy into a habit of immersing yourself in a victim narrative. If every session repeats the same negative emotional cycle, that dependency will actually drain you rather than help you grow stronger.

I think this boundary is drawn quite clearly: understanding yourself is for moving forward, not for finding a reasonable excuse for stagnation. This aligns with what I've observed in many people over the years. Some are indeed using professional help to get out of difficult situations, but others have turned it into a shield to avoid facing reality.

Long-lasting creators rely on compound interest, not viral hits

The latter part of the show discussed content creation, which I think is highly valuable for anyone doing content work. Jake reflected on his more than a decade-long creator career. He said very few people can survive long-term in this industry. He brought up Magcon as an example: most of that crew have disappeared from public view, with only a few truly staying, like Shawn Mendes, who came out of that group. Jake said most people get hot for a while but can't endure because content creation itself is too draining. Once the platform changes or the hype dies down, many lose their motivation.

Jake summarized his approach into a few keywords. One is being hardworking enough: he and his brother used to film a 15-minute video every day, spending the entire day on shooting. Another is constantly expanding horizontally: from comedy videos to making music, from rap to Christmas albums, and later stepping into boxing, a completely different field. Every time he found a new interest taking off, he immediately doubled down. Another is building multiple non-overlapping audience groups: some people only watch his ranch life videos, others only know him from tech podcasts like a16z. These audiences barely overlap, but together they form a large enough and stable enough base.

The show also compared Jake and MrBeast, and I found this part particularly brilliant. Geoff said MrBeast's entire team is extremely data-driven, with every topic and detail repeatedly measured and optimized. Even changing the host in a video wouldn't affect overall data because the system itself is already running smoothly. Jake's path, on the other hand, leans more toward intuition and creativity, relying on a content sense that's hard to describe but accurate. Jake himself agrees with this characterization, saying he doesn't quantify everything to the extreme like MrBeast, but rather relies on a long-accumulated instinct.

But both emphasized the same thing: the ability to turn traffic into cash is the key to whether a creator can survive long-term. Jake said many peers have huge traffic and scary follower numbers, but they have no idea how to convert that attention into real income. That's one of the core reasons he believes he has been able to stay in this industry for 13 or 14 years.

My biggest takeaway from this part is that long-lasting success never relies on a single viral hit, but on treating content as a system that can generate compound interest continuously. Viral hits fade, but the ability to build diverse audiences and convert traffic into cash flow will stay with you. This is the same logic as building a company: one success doesn't mean much; what really matters is whether you can turn that success into a sustainable structure.

Judging people comes from experience, not talent

Geoff talked about how to judge whether a founder is worth investing in. He said there's no magic behind the way he and Jake assess people; essentially, it's about having seen enough. Jake has been in Hollywood's mixed environment since he was 16, exposed to all kinds of scammers and weirdos. Geoff came from the Silicon Valley and Stanford path, having seen a large number of projects, been pitched by various projects, and stepped on many landmines. The two together combine two completely different sets of experiences, covering more blind spots.

Geoff summarized two criteria: one is whether this person has a genuine internal belief that they can become world-class in this field; the other is whether they can endure the hardship required to get there. Besides that, they also rely heavily on background checks. Before investing in a defense tech project, they go directly to those who truly know the industry to get the real evaluation of the team.

This makes me think of a simple truth: judging people has no shortcuts. It relies on intuition accumulated through trial and error, and that intuition can't be acquired quickly; it can only be earned through real, hard-won experiences.

Education, badges, and the path choices of young people

There was a segment discussing education that I found quite practical. Jake believes the current education system hasn't undergone substantial reform in decades, and there's a huge gap between what is taught and the abilities needed in the real world. He gave the example that schools spend a lot of time teaching geometric proofs but almost nothing about how to file taxes or how money grows. He mentioned a new type of school called Alpha School, which impressed him, with the logic of redesigning educational content to be more aligned with reality.

Geoff proposed a framework on this topic that I found very practical. He calls it the badge theory. He said people like Jake don't need any academic credentials because they have already proven themselves as world-class content creators and world-class boxers through real achievements. But most ordinary people don't have this natural form of proof, so going to Stanford, Harvard, winning a math competition, or a science fair is essentially hanging an external certification badge on themselves, telling the world that at least in one thing, they have been validated. Geoff specifically mentioned Peter Thiel, who advises young people not to go to college while he himself holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford and a law degree from Stanford. That kind of argument is somewhat inconsistent. Geoff's advice is straightforward: young people should consciously collect these badges—whether by becoming the best in a certain field or by earning a solid degree. These badges will eventually become the source of confidence for their next big endeavor.

I find this framework interesting because it doesn't simply take the side of "education is useful" or "education is useless." Instead, it reduces education to a more basic question: do you have anything to prove yourself? A degree is one form of proof; world-class skills are another. They don't conflict. It's fine to lack one, but lacking both does make the start harder.

My own reflection

After reading the entire conversation, my biggest feeling is that although these two people come from completely different backgrounds—one has lived under the spotlight and controversy since his teens, the other honed his technical thinking in Silicon Valley and academia—they reached a consensus on the same judgment: the world is shifting from competing for resources to competing for attention, from competing in a single skill to competing in comprehensive abilities.

I think the framework of AI-maxxing and looksmaxxing is worth serious consideration for everyone. Our generation easily falls into anxiety that AI will devalue our skills and make us unimportant. But this conversation gives the opposite answer: the stronger machines become, the more scarce two human abilities become. One is the hard power of truly understanding technology and being able to master tools. The other is the soft power of making people want to approach and trust you. Neither is cultivated in a day; both require long-term investment and accumulation. But precisely because they are difficult, they are valuable.

Another thing that impressed me deeply is the repeated emphasis on resilience and long-termism. Whether it's Jake enduring online attacks for over a decade, or their repeated emphasis on the ability to endure hardship when judging founders, the underlying signal is the same: anything that lasts is not built on a single stroke of luck, but on whether you choose to keep moving forward after being struck. This inspires me in my own content creation and product work. What really determines whether something can succeed is often not how high the starting point is, but whether you can stay in the game after being repeatedly taught by reality.

I believe this conversation is worth revisiting because it doesn't just stay at the level of discussing a few investment cases. It actually provides a methodology for understanding this era: capital is no longer scarce, attention is; single skills are no longer scarce, comprehensive abilities are; one-time success is no longer scarce, the ability to withstand failure and stand up again is.