The creator economy currently only accounts for 0.02% of the world’s economic output. My prediction is that number will be greater than 5% by 2060.
I’m not the only one who has favourable predictions for the creator economy, Goldman Sachs believes that the creator economy will be worth half a trillion dollars by 2027.
Beehiiv, the newsletter platform that I use, recently closed a funding round after raising $33 million. Their mission? “To pave the way for the next million creators, publishers, and companies to scale and monetize their audiences”.
Think about that, 1 million more people doing exactly what they love for a living.
Most people still look at social media as a place they go to kill time. In this letter, I will show you why social media is the greatest weapon humans have at moving towards a more self-actualized society.
Let that sit for a bit.
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I spent most of my time now working on my business. It’s crazy where things have reached. But whenever I’m doing mindless tasks which don’t require me to pay attention or during my breaks, I watch YouTube.
I spend hours everyday watching and listening to people doing what they love for a living.
Most people are just like me and spend hours watching YouTube everyday too, but if I take you a level deeper and peel back the layers, you’ll start to understand the premise of the letter I laid out earlier.
Social media is just a vessel for EVERYBODY to do what they love for a living.
Let’s get psychological
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
You know this one. It looks like this.
However, for those of you who aren’t aware, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs lays out the psychological needs of human beings in their order of achievement moving from the bottom of the pyramid upwards.
Basically, it lays out simple truths like your survival needs like food and water come first, only once those are fulfilled can you start to worry about things like belongingness and love.
Notice how at the top of the pyramid lies self actualization and the description says “achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities”?
Creativity is central to self actualization. This is because creativity is personal, it’s unique to the individual. That is what beings great joy, creating something that is unique and true to you, something only you could have possibly created.
All your life experiences, worldviews, beliefs and philosophies acquiescing into a creation.
Alright, before I get too spiritual, let’s take a step back.
Humanity has been exponentially creating more and more affluent times for itself. Just think about it, most of you reading this don’t have to worry about your survival (at least besides a financial sense), no lion is going to eat you and you most likely are not going to starve.
More realistically, you don’t even have to worry about navigation (Google Maps), transport (Uber), hunting and cooking (Doordash) or even information (the entire Internet).
When you zoom out and see the big picture, you start to realize the abundance of resources humanity has created.
Good news, times are only getting more abundant. Don’t let the doom and gloom on the news bring you down, AI, nanotechnology and whatever else we’re coming up with is only making all our lives better off.
Humanity is automating unpleasant tasks that nobody wants to do (and the entrepreneurs doing so are getting rewarded handsomely for it), freeing up more and more people to pursue creative endeavours and more towards self actualization as their basic needs are already fulfilled.
The Last Career Path
There are almost 7B people on this planet. Someday, I hope, there will be almost 7B companies.
— Naval (@naval)
6:41 AM • Feb 3, 2011
Continue to dive deeper into that rabbit hole and you’ll realize that we’re moving closer and closer towards the vision Naval Ravikant saw when he wrote that infamous tweet in 2011.
Creator-led companies are making everything from courses to clothing, music, supplements, food and everyday-use items.
The future isn’t mega-monolith corporations employing 30% of the world’s population as you’ve seen in dystopian movies, it’s in smaller, more nimble, even one-person companies creating the output of small nations powered by the tools entrepreneurs are creating today.
Shorter letter today, don’t worry though cause I’ll be continuing this train of thought tomorrow. I’m also working on a premium subscription which will include courses to help people start their own newsletters and dive deeper into the digital economy. Coming soon!