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Silicon Valley elites sit around a table playing Mafia, a murder mystery-style card game.
The slickly-produced video, which features OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and Figma co-founder Dylan Field, is part of a new show from Founders Fund, a venture capital firm.
Individual investors and VC firms have long dabbled with their own podcasts, newsletters and other media ventures, such as Andreessen Horowitz’s since-shuttered tech publication Future.com. Many of these attempts fell flat because they felt more like marketing than content people actually wanted to consume. Read: The content was either self-serving, promotional or just uninteresting.
Now, a new wave of media efforts from VC firms is underway and investors are thinking more outside of the box. That includes experimenting with more social-first content and working with creators, with the aim of shaping the narrative about tech and investing—and sometimes driving business.
Founders Fund’s Mafia show, which is available on X and YouTube, is one of the more creative examples. It stands out because it puts tech leaders into a more casual setting, allowing viewers to see a different side of them beyond their public personas. The competitive nature of the content also adds suspense, which works well on social media.
While initial interest has been decent especially given the show’s niche audience, it remains to be seen whether it can maintain the momentum. The first video has amassed more than 190,000 views on YouTube since publishing about a week ago, while the second video released on Wednesday garnered more than 50,0000.
Meanwhile, Andreessen Horowitz has been rapidly hiring for its New Media team. It’s unclear what the full strategy entails, but it includes an 8-week fellowship program for “operators, creators and storytellers.” The firm has also invested in a new daily live show and media company called Monitoring the Situation, or MTS. The show initially generated buzz on X when it launched in late April but has since fallen off the radar.
MTS bears a strong resemblance to livestreamed tech podcast TBPN, which was acquired by OpenAI just a few weeks earlier. TBPN’s rapid rise also reenergized VC’s new media strategies: It seems like every company is now looking for its own version of TBPN.
Zooming out, these new efforts are part of a broader push by VC firms to be more active on social media. That’s where founders and limited partners who may invest in their funds are spending their time. In some cases, the investors themselves are acting like the creators.
Take Lightspeed Venture Partners. Last month, the company hired Claire Zau, who has about 245,000 followers on Instagram where she posts short videos about tech and startups. Zau was previously a partner at GSV Ventures and will now help build Lightspeed’s new media efforts in addition to being on its early-stage investing team.
Then there’s early-stage venture firm Animal Capital. Managing partner Marshall Sandman has been posting daily videos on Instagram since January. His videos run the gamut, from how to find your first investor to why celebrities should stop launching beverage brands.
Sandman told Scalable the videos have brought him more visibility—and more deals.
So far, he’s invested in two startups through connections he made on Instagram and taken more than 40 calls from leads that came in through the platform. This week, Animal Capital announced it closed a $33 million third fund, its largest yet. The Instagram strategy helped new investors discover the firm, he said.
“You have to stay top of mind with people,” Sandman said. That’s true whether you’re a top VC firm or a small shop.
Instagram is Giving Users Back (Some) Control
On Wednesday, Instagram expanded its “Your Algorithm” to users’ main feeds, in addition to Reels and the Explore tab. The feature allows users to see what topics Instagram thinks they are interested in and then change those based on their actual preferences. Those choices then determine what Instagram shows to users.
“The main feed on every major app is now mostly accounts you never decided to follow, surfaced by algorithms rather than your explicit choices,” said Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in a post explaining the move.
The expansion comes as more creators have expressed frustration at their inability to reach their followers on social media, as we covered in last week’s newsletter. It also comes as more people say they want to see content from people they follow, including posts from friends and family, rather than recommended content.
But letting people pick what topics the algorithm serves them isn’t the same as showing them posts from people they follow on their main feeds. It’s also up to users to manually review and adjust their own settings, which makes it less likely that people will do so.
The reality is that it’s not in Meta’s best interest to show more friends and follower content. Instagram needs people to spend more time on the app in order to sell ads—and recommendations are really good at keeping people there. In the first quarter this year, improvements Meta made to its recommendation system led to a 10% lift in time spent on Instagram.
Plus, what people say is rarely exactly aligned with how they behave on social media. People say they want to see more posts from their friends, but there are only so many wedding photo dumps or pet birthday party videos they can take.
We dive deeper into this and why we’re never going back to a follower-driven social media world in today’s episode of Scalable, embedded below. You can also listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Deals, Deals, Deals
CAA and Integrated Media Company, an investment firm backed by TPG, are teaming up on a $250 million holding company that will roll up creator economy businesses. The new joint venture is called Compound Creative Holdings and will be led by long-time CAA executive Tucker Brown. We’re curious whether the strategy will focus on YouTube channels, creator-founded media companies or something else.
Lionsgate took an equity stake in AI video startup Runway. The two companies will also launch a program to develop and produce new content, including a short-form series using some of the Hollywood studio’s existing IP and Runway’s generative models. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the stake is not a cash investment, according to Variety. The companies first struck a partnership in 2024.
The Round Up
LinkedIn announced a new creator marketplace to help brands discover and launch campaigns with B2B creators. Nearly every social platform, from Instagram to even X, now has a similar feature. For LinkedIn, it makes a lot of sense as it’s still early days for B2B influencer marketing and helping brands find credible partners is a challenge. Brands can use the marketplace to amplify existing creator content as paid ads, helping boost LinkedIn’s business. The marketplace also adds to LinkedIn’s creator monetization offerings, which it has been expanding lately.
Spotify is introducing new analytics tools to give creators more data on their audience. That includes new or returning listeners, viewers over time and how individual episodes perform compared to their typical content. It’s also giving creators access to their full historical data, going back to their first listener. Podcasters have long struggled with attracting new audiences and understanding how people discover their shows.
Snapchat will allow users under 16 to share disappearing Stories and Spotlight videos with only their friends. The update comes as social media apps face growing regulatory scrutiny over teen safety.
Pinterest announced creators can now connect their Amazon Storefront directly to their Pinterest account. Their affiliate link is then automatically applied whenever the creator tags an eligible Amazon product.
By the Numbers: 20,000
That’s the number of Instagram accounts that were breached due to a Meta AI bug, the New York Times reported.
Last month, a group of hackers discovered a flaw in Meta’s customer service tool that allowed anyone to use an AI chatbot to reset the passwords for Instagram accounts. Impacted accounts included security firm SimpliSafe and a senior official in President Trump’s Space Force department, according to the Times.
Meta said it has since fixed the flaw and is notifying affected accounts. “Some of our internal back-end checks failed in this instance, but it wasn’t due to the AI agent itself, and we’ve addressed the underlying cause,” a Meta spokesperson told the Times.
A Message from Cannes Lions
This month, the most influential brands, talent and experts in the creator economy will be at Cannes Lions for LIONS Creators. There’s still time for you to be part of it. Secure your pass today.
LIONS Creators | 22-26 June 2026 | Cannes, France
Microdrama Mania
Crocs announced a second microdrama called Déjà Shoe. The seven-episode series on TikTok was produced by SuperOrdinary, a creator and commerce startup that also has a production and entertainment division. Crocs is also integrating TikTok Shop into the series by tagging products so viewers can shop styles featured within the episodes.
In February, Crocs released another scripted microdrama called “Charmed to Meet You” with CAA based on a real-life love story involving a company employee.
We unpacked why brands are suddenly releasing microdramas and the rise of branded entertainment in a previous episode of Scalable. You can watch below or tune in on Spotify, Apple or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Talent Tracker
Underscore Talent announced more than 20 new hires, including comedy talent manager Ethan Stern, who previously spent 15 years at 3 Arts Entertainment.
The talent management firm also launched a new experts division, which will work with founders, educators and other professionals. Underscore has hired talent managers Gautham Dhaliwal and Michael Jones to work in that unit.
