[divbzero]

The article doesn’t quite capture that a16z, in my memory, played a major role in popularizing podcasts as a direct media strategy. Fred Wilson, for example, was commenting on it way back in 2014 [1].

[1]: https://avc.com/2014/03/the-a16z-podcast/

[neverokay]

I’ve talked a lot about propaganda as a war invention, like many great technological advancements, found its way into these civilian systems. Capturing mindshare with propaganda is basically what this is.

Marketing is the commercial term (brand ambassador, Orwell sleeps soundly). Propaganda has a lot more coercive connotations.

[treyd]

This is very true. What so many large corporations (VC firms like in the article, but also firms like Nestle, Google, Exxon Mobil, etc) are doing here has many of the same features as what governments do by producing propaganda. They have some set of interests and they want to convince the public to see things from their perspective and get popular consent.

It's not necessarily nefarious, but if there's a need to do it in the first place then it often has self-serving end goals in mind.