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The Luba Show

Oct 8, 2026 · 41 min

AdamDelehanty

Founder & CEO, Ghost

He Ghostwrites For Tech's Biggest Brands - Adam Delehanty

Adam Delehanty on The Luba Show
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In this episode

Today I walk with Adam Delehanty, founder and CEO of Ghost, a leading ghostwriting agency for founders, VCs, and brands. Adam has written culture books for Hinge, Duolingo, and e.l.f. Beauty, advises many prominent founders and VCs on their content, and has hosted a popular writing group in his sunroom for 175 Wednesdays in a row. These days, he's been spending more time stepping out from behind the “ghost” and building his own voice online.

  • Why ghostwriting = journalism × therapy
  • Growing up the product of Irish writers and anxious Jewish therapists → "This was the only job that made sense”
  • Why culture starts to dissipate somewhere between 200 and 1,000 employees, and the role of culture artifacts and lore in preserving aura
  • His method for using AI: the human + Claude + human sandwich, and how to train Claude to edit its own work
  • Why founders who only post about their product are that person at that bar everyone runs from
  • Why he spent four days in the woods recently with his phone locked in the car, and what on earth happened
  • Why words like "partner" move us further from the truth

Chapters

  1. Trailer
  2. Adam Delehanty, Founder & CEO, Ghost
  3. Why culture breaks between 200 and 1,000 people
  4. What it means to become an “internal journalist” for his clients
  5. Hiring a ghostwriter is nothing to be ashamed of!
  6. Cutting 12 company values down to the 4 that are real
  7. The right reasons to start a company
  8. The founder who only talks about his product at a bar
  9. Why my LinkedIn posts get three likes
  10. Human, Claude, human: how Ghost writes
  11. Training Claude to edit its own writing
  12. Why AI won't replace the hardest part of his job
  13. Writing as a way to figure out who you are, and what your company is
  14. Four days in the woods with his phone locked in the car
  15. How Williamsburg lost all its aura
  16. Reading Ted Sorensen instead of TikToks about him
  17. The subtle hints of particular words: why women call some men “dude”
  18. Notes on trendy lingo in tech right now (e.g., “GTM engineer”)
  19. The Ghost mantra: “find the language your ideas deserve”
  20. What he's still becoming
  21. Outro

About the guest

Adam Delehanty

Founder & CEO, Ghost

Full transcript

LubaAdam, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is going to be fun.

AdamI'm psyched, Luba. Let's do it.

LubaOkay, so you've written these culture bibles for brands that people love, like Hinge, Duolingo, DocuSign, some others. What is the before and after when the company writes a culture bible?

AdamI think a lot of times a company is drowning in documents and Slack threads and Confluence pages and Notion docs, and they need one place where their story is tight and clear and compelling, and the lore is established. And so a lot of what we're doing is editing and culling down the mess of documents into one great story, one compass that the company can kind of orient toward.

LubaBut why does the company need a culture bible?

AdamBecause they're confused. Sometimes there's internal confusion. A lot of times, also, there's a talent need, where if you write a compelling artifact, manifesto, book, you put it out into the world, it's a magnet for people to say, "I love the way these people think. This mission is aligned with my mission. I'm in," you know? So talent brand, align the internal company, and then also, like, let's just get the story right, you know, in one place. That's the need.

LubaHow much polishing does the story usually get? Do you make stuff up, make things prettier? Because, you know, it's got to be really compelling, not like, oh, we saw a market opportunity and then we decided to start this company.

AdamI mean, a lot of things will be all over a company's history, right? It's sort of about picking the moments that were decisive, key product decisions or strategic decisions that, like, have led us to where we are today. So it's like, we've made a ton of decisions in the past. What are the ones that we're proud of, that we want to copy again and again, that sort of set the course for this? That's how I think about it.

LubaAt which point does a company need to seriously think about putting together their culture book?

AdamTo me, it's like, when you have 100, 200 people, you can kind of all be on— you know, Dunbar's number. It's like you can all be on the same page. Everyone knows each other. There's a lot of shared space. When you're going from like 200 to 1,000, things get lost across Slack and Zoom and international, and just, like, the culture starts to dissipate. So that's a great moment. Sometime in the 200 to 300, to 1,000 to 2,000 zone of people is perfect.

LubaYeah. And how would you describe culture? Why is culture such a buzzword in tech and startups?

AdamI mean, well, the culture is why you care enough to do anything, right? Like, especially with AI doing so much of the work, we need to be grounded in some reasoning, some inspiration for why I chose to work at this place instead of every other place. And so culture is the shared identity of a community, but for me it's also, like, the big why. Like, we share this mission collectively to do great work for this reason. So those are all tied together.

LubaOkay, let's talk about you and your why. So you're now running Ghost, the ghostwriting agency that, you know, helps founders tell their stories, helps companies write their culture books. Why are you doing this?

AdamI love my work. I feel like I found my ikigai. Do you know that?

LubaI do, but for people who don't know what ikigai is, what is ikigai?

AdamIkigai is three circles. It's what do I love to do, what am I great at, and what does the world really want? And so, you know, the dream for me was always to be a journalist. I would have loved to have written these sort of long-form *New Yorker* articles where you go to Africa and you do investigative journalism on the dictator or something like that.

LubaSo why are you not doing that?

AdamI mean, when I got out of college, those jobs were few and far between. But I say that I think of myself now as a journalist for my clients. And, like, there's incredible stories all across business and tech that never get told. We're extracting amazing narratives and we're making them public. So it's still journalism in a way. It's just sold-out journalism.

LubaYeah. Why do you care to do this?

AdamOh. The reason I love the work is because when you're helping someone shape their story and put themselves out there in a new way, you know, when the work goes well, it can change their life and it can change their business. That's why I say that ghostwriting can be like journalism times therapy, because journalism is telling the story, therapy is, like, creating space to become a new person and, you know, diving into kind of what drives you and who you are, and the story of you and the company. And so when our work is successful, it can be honestly transformational. It's not always like that, but it can be, for a person's life.

LubaAnd you actually come from a family of both writers and therapists.

AdamI mean, a number of people on my Irish side are writers, and then my mom is a therapist. And so you put it together.

LubaSo, Irish writers, Jewish therapists.

AdamIrish writers, Jewish anxious therapists. You know, you have to surrender to your destiny, okay? This is like— this is what I was designed to do. So I didn't have a choice, you know?

LubaOkay, but actually, is that what you wanted to do when you were little, or when you were a teenager? You always saw yourself as a journalist?

AdamI always wanted to be a writer and a creative. You know, I love literature and film and art and just creating. And so, you know, what I love now also is that I just get access to so many of the most brilliant people in the world who are just on the frontier. And I'm kind of in it, in a way that journalists are writing from the outside.

LubaRight.

AdamSo there's something really exciting about that, too.

LubaI know that you're also really big on dissecting words and the choice of words. Why do you feel like ghost is the best word to encompass what you do?

AdamYeah. I mean, Ghost is just ghostwriting. You know, frankly, the reason the word isn't right is because I'm coming out more myself. I've been giving the kind of gold to my clients for eight years, and I've been writing more. I've been making silly videos. I've been putting myself out there. And so the ghost is sort of becoming—

LubaMhm. A brand.

Adam—a little bit more human.

LubaYeah. Was that always an intent, to then create a personal brand of your own, or did it happen very organically?

AdamOnly the last couple years. For a while, I was very locked in on the client work, but I just have so much fun, and I have much to say, as you know.

LubaOkay, let's come back to the culture books. Give me an example, for one of the companies that you've worked with, of how having this culture bible changed the way the company operated, or the way it even saw itself, from the inside out.

AdamA lot of times you can't write something by committee. And so I won't name a name, but actually this happened a few times, where a company had like 10 or 12 values or principles because all the executives were in a room and no one said no. And so you end up with this sprawling list that no one can remember, no one can follow, and no one cares about. I would come in and say, of those 12 ideas, here's the four that are true and real, that apply to this company, and that are going to nudge us in the right direction.

LubaAnd how do you dissect that? How do you narrow it down from 12 to four?

AdamIt's a combination of what's the strategy of the company, but also what's real. So I interview dozens of folks there to see, like, what are the actual behaviors? We've been saying that we have a principle called X—

LubaYeah.

Adam—but none of you do that, so it can't be on the wall. So that's a big part of the exercise sometimes. It's always a little different, but often the spine of a culture book is, like, what are the ideas that define us? And if those ideas are wrong or there's too many, it doesn't work.

LubaYeah. So let's say a founder comes to you and they're like, "I want to figure out what my story is," and you try to dissect their own motivations. What do you feel like are the right motivations for someone to build a company?

AdamLook, there's a lot of reasons to start a company. There's a ton of founders out there who— there's no personal connection to the product or the opportunity. They just see a space and they want to grab it and go as fast as they possibly can. There's, like, kind of an emptiness there. There's a void of motivation. If you're going to convince people to join you and devote their life and their career to this project, it really helps to have something bigger that you can attach to, you know?

LubaWhat about founders that start working on something that is a market opportunity, but then they really get connected to it because they start hearing customer stories and they really find their passion in it?

AdamI think that's possible. I think it's possible. I think it's always better if there's something— I mean, look, you can't always have this, but it's always better when the founder went through something—

LubaMhm.

Adam—that matters to them. And then other folks, the founding team maybe, they see that same problem and it's real for them.

LubaSo a founder comes to you. What actually happens? Like, what are you trying to learn? How are you dissecting their story?

AdamFounders are insane, in a good way. And what I love is that a lot of them have idiosyncratic mental models for how they think about life, business, talent, growth, product, marketing. And so I'm just trying to understand their operating system—

LubaMhm.

Adam—and get it on paper.

LubaHow have founders' stories changed the way you think? Like, what was a recent time when you really feel like you've changed your own thinking?

AdamLook, the biggest motivation and change that they've instilled in me is, like, just insane determination and work ethic. I'm more of a creative than, like, a killer, if that makes sense.

LubaWait, wait, I need to hear the differentiation between— you can be a creative killer.

AdamI mean, it's like I'm more of a creative than, like, an operational killer.

LubaMhm.

AdamBut working with the people that I do, I've learned over the years what it looks like to work with insane accountability and urgency and speed. I've always had a high bar, but I think the go, go, go really fires me up. Yeah.

LubaThere's a lot of conversation around building in public, and that every founder should be thinking about distribution and a personal brand. What are your thoughts on this?

AdamI think you should lean into your strengths. I think it can be really cringe if, like, you've never said anything online and you hire someone like me and all of a sudden you're posting— you know, we never do that. We go from zero to a little bit. It's also, if you're a founder, you need to work with the medium where you're most fluent. Some people are super charismatic on a podcast. Some people want to write a long, in-depth, well-researched white paper. Some people want to post on Twitter. You don't want to stretch yourself outside of a zone where you're not fluent. That's the biggest recommendation.

LubaWhat about getting comfortable with a medium to then hopefully like the medium? Or is your recommendation, like, pick a medium, stick to it, don't really think about any other platforms?

AdamI mean, there's ways that people develop and grow and become good with reps, but, like, you also know in yourself whether this is your thing, right? I mean, you are fantastic at interviews and video, and you're in your zone right now. And other people just would never. And so I think it's great to play to your strengths.

LubaYeah. I saw on LinkedIn you had this take about founders who post about their company: they shouldn't post about their company. They should post about something else, about their life, about how they build it, how they built it, how they came to the, I don't know, idea of the company. Why is that?

AdamI just think it's— imagine if you met someone at a bar and they just incessantly talked about their business and sold you over and over again. Sometimes you see, like, a B2B founder online, and all they ever write about is, like—

LubaTheir product or something.

Adam—targeting the ICP and, like, new feature sets. And I mean, I'm just so— what would you do if someone did that to you at a bar? I mean, I would run, you know? It'd be absolutely exhausting and embarrassing for them. So it's crucial to mix in who you are. People follow people and people work for people. And I found that when you splice in anecdotes about your personal life, about just how you see the world, reacting to news and trends, instead of just sell, sell, sell, obviously that's going to do better.

LubaYeah. So I've been trying to figure out LinkedIn for the past many months. I've been trying to—

AdamHow's it going?

LubaIt's not going well. I've been trying to, you know, sprinkle in personal stories, motivations, obviously podcast episodes. So I both obviously want to promote the episodes of the show, and I also want to, you know, give people an insight into who I am. But it seems like nothing's really working. Like, whatever I try gets like three likes and very little reach.

AdamYeah.

LubaWhat is your recommendation to me?

AdamYeah. Don't ever follow those articles that say, "Here are the 10 ways to go viral on LinkedIn." Everyone's using the same hooks. They're ending it with an engaging question. They're doing the list—

LubaOne sentence per paragraph.

AdamAnd people are so fast to be able to feel that and roll their eyes or scroll through. And so my rubric for these kinds of pieces is, like, is this interesting? Would I read this? Would I share this? I mean, it's such a basic criteria, but are you proud of this piece of writing? Is it interesting enough to post? Would you share it yourself? And if that's your bar, maybe reduce the frequency with which you post, but make sure that that's always there, you know.

LubaSo when you work with founders and they're like, "I also want to have a brand on LinkedIn," what does that actually look like? Because my assumption is that you're trying to figure out a system and then plug in posts into that system, so the founder doesn't have to, you know, sit down for a few hours every single week trying to come up with an interesting idea. It's kind of like maybe you interview them and then there's a bunch of posts at once.

AdamThat's how it works. So we ingest tons of content and posts and riffs that they've done before. We have a few long conversations with them. Usually it's just an hour a month, sometimes 90 minutes a month. And then from that convo, we can generate at least a few posts, sometimes many. So yeah, it does save them time. Yeah, the pitch is basically, like, you're going to get better at content for much less time working with us.

LubaIs this something that you can replicate with Claude or ChatGPT?

AdamSo we do use Claude, but I think of it like a sandwich. So human at the beginning to interview, co-create, generate the story. Claude in the middle, usually for a first draft. And we've programmed Claude Code in a very specific way to write a certain way. And then a lot of human at the end to eliminate every ounce of slop and make it idiosyncratic and funky and human and funny and weird. So—

LubaSo there's a lot of human editing at the end.

AdamHuman at the beginning, human at the end, and some Claude in the middle. That's kind of how it works right now. Yeah.

LubaLet's say I don't have money to spend on Ghost and Adam Delehanty, or someone else who's going to help me out with human editing, and I've got to do it all myself. What are my steps?

AdamLook, I love asking Claude to interview me. So, any model, but, like: here's what I'm an expert at. Here are my intentions. Here's what I'm reading. Here's what I'm thinking about. Just, you know, absolutely just spit out as much of that as you possibly can into Claude and say, "Hey Claude, based on this, based on my goals for content creation, can you ask me 10 questions?" And go on a long walk and riff on those questions and try to be expansive. I know you might look crazy, but everyone else will just think you're on a phone call. But I think a lot of times we can come up with better ideas verbally, right? If you don't have the practice of writing, you might want to riff verbally, or even just talk to a friend.

I mean, I've found so much value in the past from recording a conversation with a friend where I ask them to ask me about something, right? And so writing is not always a solo act. There's, like, this story in our heads of Thoreau going to Walden Pond, or classic writers from literature who are alone in the woods, you know, working on their masterpiece. We can write from hanging out. I mean, we can riff and we can— it's so important to be able to collaborate live and generate ideas with people, you know.

LubaSo I did exactly what you said. I talked to Claude, actually, for hours. It wasn't just 10 questions. I gave it my entire autobiography. I asked it to ask me follow-up questions. It has, like, a really good record of my life narrated by me. And what I notice is that it always wants to converge to the same couple of patterns that it noticed. And then the second problem is, whenever I try to generate posts with it, sure, the story is mine, but the writing still sucks.

AdamI mean, this is a whole can of worms. I've worked for years now trying to convince Claude to write a certain way. I mean, Claude Code can be a superior tool for a variety of reasons, but fundamentally, like, you just want to give it as many examples—

LubaOf writing that you like.

Adam—of writing that you like and you don't like. But then I also really love to show it edits to pieces that it's done in the past, you know, and show the track changes, and be really explicit about— not how to always think as a writer, but how should Claude think as an editor of itself, you know?

LubaDo you do things like recursive rating? You know, when you tell it, "Rate yourself out of 10," and, like, keep going and editing yourself until it's going to be like nine out of 10?

AdamA smidge, yeah. And, like, the more you can train Claude as an editorial thinker, the better it can get. Granted, after all that, I still get in there and use my human touch, always. But you want to be able to get as close as you possibly can. Also, there's some pieces where you never want to use Claude at all, you know? So.

LubaDo you think it's possible, with enough examples, to get it to a pretty automated state, or not really?

AdamI mean, then I'd be done, right? I'd be out of a job.

LubaAre you worried about that?

AdamI'm not really worried about that. Look, I think, first of all, people want to talk to me, and there's so much value in the co-creative journey that we have as two people creating these stories together.

LubaAnd you noticing the things that you notice, versus, like, Claude noticing some programmatic thing.

AdamAnd, like, I am a stand-in for the internet. As we're talking and interviewing, I'm here to just hold up a mirror and say, that story is worth publishing. This story is a dead end. And of course, I'm a stand-in for the internet because I've been on it for decades. And look, some people will love talking to their GPT, and I love them for that. But I would like to think that I'm a better hang, you know?

LubaYou are a good hang.

AdamBut the original question?

LubaThe original question is, is it possible to get Claude to where you want?

AdamI think it's getting better. And look, if it gets better, great for the world. But I'm confident there will always be a need for a high-touch consultant, advisor, riffer that can help folks express themselves. Yeah.

LubaAnd how important is writing in the modern world?

AdamLook, writing is how we figure out what we think. So I am a huge advocate for the process itself. You should love the process, right? You know, people want to skip over the process because it's hard, right? Every high school and college student is doing that right now, and I'm worried about their prospects as human beings.

But I think you should love the process, because you want to get smarter, because you want to arrive at a new place. At the deepest level, writing is not just figuring out what we think, but writing can be a process of figuring out who we are. I believe in writing as self-actualization. You can write your new story and it can become— and this is corny. This is—

LubaNo, this is great.

AdamAnd it can become who you are. And so, you know, in some ways that's how I've led my life. But no, I'm a huge advocate for writing. I host a writing group in my sunroom, for 100 weeks, every Wednesday. You're always welcome.

LubaYeah, I'm really excited to join. So tell me more about this writing as a way to figure out who you are. I want to talk about you and how you have been figuring out who you are through your writing. How often does this practice happen?

AdamWell, there's the private writing and there's the public writing. And so—

LubaHow are the two different?

AdamYou know, private writing is a way to journal and reflect and kind of just take stock of who you are and where you're at. I'm a big advocate also of public writing, to say, "This is what I'm doing. Hold me accountable. This is the thinking behind why I'm doing this project, why I'm embarking on this new journey, why I took this new job, why I made this new thing."

So, like, when we announce our work to the world— it's such a basic thing— we let everyone else in on that journey, and they can root for us, they can disagree, but all of a sudden you're not alone. You're in dialogue with the internet. And so public writing is a huge way to challenge yourself, to test yourself, and to be held accountable by the world. So I'm always an advocate for that.

LubaHow much private writing do you do?

AdamI'm writing every night. I mean, I'm insane, so I will do a little nighttime journal, process the day, clear things out of the way.

LubaTell me a little bit more about that ritual. Give me the details. Like, how one does that. You write by yourself?

AdamLike, 90 minutes of calisthenics, deep breaths, sauna— no. It's— I just finish whatever I'm doing that night.

LubaHave a glass of whiskey.

AdamNo. It's not a drawn-out routine. I'll dim the lights and shower, little stretch, and then I—

LubaOh, it's very relaxing.

AdamTen minutes. It is a little— it's 10 minutes. I usually recap the day.

LubaMhm.

AdamI write about what I'm going to do tomorrow.

LubaAnd this is by hand?

AdamOh, yeah, always by hand.

LubaOkay.

AdamAnd a couple of stray observations, you know.

LubaSo it's kind of just, like, scribbles on paper. It's not like you're doing elaborate—

AdamNo, it's not. I mean, it's not even always complete sentences, but I like to clear things out from that day and create space for tomorrow. And I've read that that's helpful for sleep—

LubaMhm.

Adam—which has been true. Yes.

LubaBut this is not the writing that you talked about, the private writing that helps you process who you are. This is just, like, scribbling notes.

AdamIt's just a daily flow of, like—

LubaOkay.

Adam—what happened today, what's happening tomorrow, clearing the decks so I'm ready for the next thing. Yeah.

LubaSo this reminds me that you just went on this four-day retreat, which I'm sure had a lot of processing, and I'm not really sure the reason why you decided to go. Tell me more about it.

AdamLook, I am just bombarded by so much content, you can imagine.

LubaYeah.

AdamI'm so tied to my phone. I can't stand how, you know, the phone takes up every last ounce of open space.

Luba100%.

AdamAnd I was coming off of a couple huge projects and a very active, just, like, travel, social July, August, and I decided to go out to the woods. My kind of coach co-created this with me.

LubaOh, so it was one-on-one with a coach?

AdamYeah. Well, he— you know, they weren't there. They kind of opened up the container for me and then left me. And then they made me dinner the last night.

LubaThat's really nice.

AdamBut I just wanted to do a couple days. I literally locked my phone and computer in the car, keys to the car hidden away. And I did a couple days, and it's fascinating to see where your brain goes when you don't have this thing to keep coming at you. I mean, it's reminiscent of what people say about long meditation retreats.

LubaI'm doing an eight-day Vipassana this New Year.

AdamCan't wait to hear about it. I've never done that.

LubaMe neither.

AdamA few of my friends have. But the point is, like, get clarity and a more vivid look at the patterns that are underneath, that are running your operating system in your subconscious, that you don't always get to see if you're constantly distracted and stuff. It was fascinating to see where my brain went.

LubaWhere did your brain go?

AdamWell, that's very—

LubaYou know, this is a conversation about the human behind the ambition. This is the podcast.

AdamThere were people— you know, there's people in my life who I don't necessarily consciously think about on my day-to-day. But all of a sudden, when given all this space, they were coming up a lot. And I realized that there was something that was unresolved between us that we needed to address. I ended up writing seven or eight handwritten letters—

LubaOh, that's amazing.

Adam—during the trip.

LubaWow.

AdamBut it was a very natural thing, where they just kept coming up in my brain over and over again.

LubaYeah.

AdamAnd that might not have happened in another context, you know. There was lots of other things that happened, but that was the basics. Yeah.

LubaYeah. About a year or year and a half ago, I did a two-week input detox. I didn't go as far as not using my phone at all, but I stopped consuming anything, like consuming social media, reading books, listening to podcasts, with the goal to reconnect with my own voice and hear what comes up. But I bet if I'm also off my phone, it's a completely different territory.

AdamYeah. Look, I think these moments are going to be rarer and rarer, and I had an opportunity with a couple days and I grabbed it, so happy with how it went. Thinking about how to craft a unique existence amidst this moment when we're inside of a pretty vast monoculture, you know.

LubaYeah, it's both monoculture, and also we're so busy, or we are seemingly so busy, that we can't even find the time to think about what our original life could be.

AdamYeah. There's a desperation in the world right now, which is— look, I hope on the other side of this there will be a creative renaissance. But I'm not sure yet.

LubaWhat are the creative pockets you found recently in New York?

AdamI'm a little bit of a skeptic on this. I'm also getting older, so maybe I'm not in with the hip kids as much. I was here—

LubaGrumpy and cynical?

AdamI was in a different Williamsburg. I was here 10 or 12 years ago for the Apple Store, and it was affordable, and New York City was more affordable. And, you know, the change of this neighborhood is the change of New York, and there are great things about that.

And then there's also the dream of, like, that actor from Iowa or that, you know, designer from Korea who moves to the city and barely makes any money but can figure it out, and is sort of on the fringe and on the frontier. Like, there are just fewer of those people coming in, and that's documented statistically.

And so, you know, why do you think Mamdani won? Putting aside his policies, he won because affordability is the thing. And as the city becomes more expensive, you get fewer weird, strange fringe artists who can even be here, and that's bad for New York, I think. How many Sweetgreens can you possibly eat? Sweetgreens aren't going to make you an original thinker. So, you know, I love the economic development of the city, but there's huge consequences.

LubaSo where do we go to find originality these days?

AdamI see it online, for sure. I see it across Reels and Substack and, you know, the art world and the film world. But I don't know, it's not really in Williamsburg—

LubaYeah.

Adam—right now.

LubaYeah.

AdamBecause you can't get an apartment here for less than $4,000.

LubaThat's fair. Let's talk about you and original thought and originality. So how are you leading an original life, and how are you curating your inputs?

AdamI'm just trying to— I mean, for me, a lot of that is, like, where I go, who I—

LubaWhere do you go?

AdamI try not to go where everyone else goes.

LubaOkay, so where do you go?

AdamI mean, I try to end up in that random, unheard-of, obscure Italian village.

LubaThat you find on TikTok.

AdamI try to go back and, like, read the original text instead of the 15-second TikTok about the text, you know?

LubaGive me an example. What's the recent text that you—

AdamI mean—

Luba—sought out?

AdamI'm a student of presidential speechwriting.

LubaOh, interesting.

AdamI don't want to read some— I mean, I don't know how many TikToks there are about, you know, Eisenhower and JFK's writing. But, you know, the work of Ted Sorensen and some of those great speechwriters from the '50s and '60s and '70s, and the way they work with narrative and history and structure and the rhythm of it. I mean, I love that stuff, and so I'll go back and read the real thing. I mean, I loved the recent trend of, like, people went back to read the *Odyssey* and the *Iliad*, right? Like, I didn't do that, but I would. And there's just so much value in going back to the source instead of the TikTok about the copy of the thing, you know?

LubaSo for someone listening who wants to be intentional about figuring out their original inputs, what are some practical tips?

AdamI mean, get off and get— get off your phone. Get off your scroll. Go to the primary source. You know, can you talk to the person that no one else is talking to? Can you go to the place that's not already bombarded by influencers? Look, I don't have some manual, and I'm not saying that I've figured this out. I'm just a proponent of nudging toward the weird, hard, unusual thing, as opposed to the thing everyone else has already seen and done. It's a basic concept, you know.

LubaYeah. To make a parallel with tech, it's like the whole thing with moats. You know, moats are now things that are harder to do. It's regulated markets. It's things that are requiring you to have some sort of expertise, instead of just building software that everyone can build.

AdamExactly. Another way to think about it is, like, we're all swimming in the same feed. You need to go far outside that to bring something back to us that's original and different and new. And to do that, you need to go places where we haven't gone. It's that simple.

LubaYep, for sure. You have this obsession with the words people choose. I saw that on Instagram. You have videos explaining the word partner, or women calling you dude and how you feel about that. Where does your obsession with individual words come from?

AdamI mean, there's so much loaded into some of these phrases. And so, look, I mean, partner is a funny one. It's like, "Oh yeah, my partner and I are going upstate." It's like, who? Is this your business partner? Is this your wife, your husband? I have no idea who this is.

LubaI recently met a girl who used the word spouse, and I've never heard anyone use the word spouse in, like, a very casual context.

AdamI love that. I just want clarity. Like, language exists so that we can get at the truth. And you're purposely using a word like partner that takes us further away from the truth.

LubaMhm.

AdamNot a fan. No.

LubaI actually like using the word partner. Well, the reason partner is applicable is because if you're a grown adult—

AdamNow you're defending yourself.

LubaIf you're a grown adult, saying boyfriend, girlfriend when you've been together for, you know, whatever, a decade is awkward, right? So there's a sweet spot for partner.

AdamI think then there's a conversation to be had between your boyfriend and you, or girlfriend and you, about why you have been together for so many years—

LubaAnd they're not a wife or a husband.

AdamExactly. So, look, I love just, like, unpacking, unfurling the assumptions that are inside some of these phrases. Dude is interesting. You know, I think— and I know this from affirmation from friends of mine— but women who use dude toward a man, that is a way to quell any romantic, sexual tension. And, like, once I heard this and saw people using it on other people, I saw it everywhere. And I don't know. Super, super illuminating. All these little tricks we use.

LubaWhat about any words in tech, in our beautiful startup bubble? What are the words people should stop using, or people should really think about before using?

AdamYeah. I always cringe at how adding engineer to something makes it seem more significant, from especially—

LubaLike sales engineer?

Adam—engineering-forward founders. Like, I'm a GTM engineer. Like, I'm a growth engineer. Like, you can be a growth engineer and, like, be a creative who writes copy. It's like—

LubaCopy engineer.

AdamYeah. Like, instead of marketing— product marketing, which is obviously a different discipline. But the point is, like, I think sometimes people add adjectives to their title to make it seem like it's closer to the code, and thus more significant, and thus more deserving of money, when it's just such an inaccurate representation of what you're actually doing. And that's deceitful, you know? You can just call yourself a writer. You can just call yourself a marketer, you know. Like, the titles people use can be really cringe to me.

LubaWell, it's also part of the marketing and part of their culture book and brand that they're using. You know, like, member of technical staff is now everywhere.

AdamYeah, that's funny. I mean, that's a nice flat thing, right? I'm just fascinated by the ways in which people add adjectives to their titles to make them seem more, like, close to tech and close to the code when that's not true. That's all I'm saying.

LubaWould you say that to become a student of speech, you really need to invest a lot of time into it, or are there some low-hanging fruits that anyone can do?

AdamIt's a natural thing. Like, you know it in yourself if you're drawn to language and ideas and literature and certain posts and arguments and unpacking things. Like, that's your zone. I wouldn't force it, you know?

LubaBut anyone can use some simplifying of speech, or being more concise, or being more clear with how they communicate their ideas.

AdamFor sure. For sure. I mean, that's a great exercise for anyone, and a test of how they think, right? And a way to refine their thinking.

LubaOkay. I'll do a few more.

AdamOkay.

LubaI heard you say somewhere, or write somewhere, that your audience skews much younger than you are. Why do you think that is?

AdamI mean, because my spirit animal is 24. No. I don't know. I mean, I'm into tech, and I think the people who are most online are younger than me.

LubaMhm.

AdamSo the people who see my stuff the most are younger than me.

LubaDo you hang out with any people your age?

AdamYeah, a lot of my close friends. I mean, look, I'm not a washed-up unc, but I'm well over 30. Yeah, I hang out with people who graduated college with me. I hang out with people older than that, and more of my friends are, you know, five years younger than me, ish. But also, you know, I'm still in Williamsburg, and a lot of my peers have moved out, you know, with families and all that. But, you know.

LubaPlus, it also keeps you connected to what happens in the consumer culture, too. What are people talking about, or, you know, the originality of thought.

AdamYeah. And then, frankly, I have clients who are, like, 10 years younger than me, and they inspire me and I learn a lot from them, so.

LubaLet's wrap it up with a couple of shorter questions. What is your life philosophy in one sentence?

AdamEveryone should use the language that their ideas deserve.

LubaOkay, I have to follow up on that. How do you find the language that your ideas deserve? Like, again, if you're not a student of language, where do you get started?

AdamI mean, write down your thesis on life, share with friends, get some feedback, share with me. There's baby steps you can take. But, like, so many people are so brilliant and have done such incredible work, but they don't document that or share that in a way that lives up to its genius. And so what kills me is all the brilliant people out there who, like, no one knows about because they can't express themselves. That's what kills me.

LubaActually, our mutual friend Dalma, I saw her post on X the other day that there's so many people who are overly confident, that they're sharing their subpar ideas because they feel so strongly about them, and then there's so many brilliant people who feel embarrassed to share theirs. And that's almost a disservice to society, that they are embarrassed.

AdamSome of the most shameless people who share the most have the least to say. And some of the most brilliant people never get on the mic. And this is, like, yeah, a huge disservice to the internet. Yeah.

LubaAnd what are you still becoming?

AdamI'm happy with my business. I'm happy with my social life. I want to be on the path to traditional domesticity, and I want to get married and have a family. So, ladies.

LubaLadies. How can ladies find you?

AdamStop. No. Yeah, like, I think that's a big compass for me right now. I don't want to put too much pressure on it, but I feel very ready for the next chapter, so.

LubaAdam, thank you so much for your time.

AdamI love it.