The Profile: The members of the gay tech mafia & the conservative Cosmo
This edition of The Profile features Salish Matter, Gary Brecka, and more.
Good morning, friends.
I wrote this post two years ago, and I wanted to re-share it with you today. I hope you find it valuable.
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What has been the most defining moment in your life?
I bet I could tell a lot about you based on your answer to this question.
Some of you will answer with a joyful event that shaped you into the person you are today — the birth of your child, the launch of your business, the attainment of a big goal.
Others, however, will point to a traumatic event — a near-death experience, a tragic medical diagnosis, or the loss of someone dear to them.
These are all life moments, but defining life moments are laced with emotion. And that emotion depends on the narrator’s perception of the event. (For example, one person may say a near-death experience made them paranoid and fearful while another may say it made them loving and grateful.)
I recently wrote about how no one single event will transform your entire identity because we have a multitude of layers that make us us.
But, as humans, we have a very hard time accepting this. We often can’t make our brains understand that people can be two (or three, or four) things at the same time. We want simplicity while we resist ambivalence.
And because we want that simplicity, one moment can dominate our entire life — for the rest of our life. But it’s not really our fault. Our brains sometimes get stuck in a loop that replays the moment like a broken record.
In a recent New York Times feature, writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner says this about trauma:
“I’ve now come to understand the same thing about trauma: Happy, well-adjusted people are all different. The traumatized are exactly alike.
“I’m about to tell you a story that is nothing like a violent kidnapping — almost laughably so — but what I’ve learned over the years is that trauma is trauma. Something terrible happens, beyond what is in our own personal capacity to cope with, and the details don’t matter as much as the state we’re thrown into.
“Our bodies and brains have not evolved to reliably differentiate a rape at knife point from a job loss that threatens us with financial ruin or from the dismantling of our world by our parents’ divorce. It’s wrong, but explain that to your poor, battered autonomic nervous system.”
Brodesser-Akner tells the story of the painful, invasive, and traumatizing birth of her first child. She says that she never got over it, never stopped being bitter about it, and never quit worrying about the impact it had on her son.
“I had been rocked into a full nervous breakdown, and I had no idea what aspect of the birth did it, she writes. “All I knew was that, should something go wrong — a car accident, maybe, or a mugging — I would be prone to falling apart.”
Her son’s birth transformed from a moment into a defining moment with tentacles that touched every aspect of her life.
Now, let’s take a look at someone else.
Last week, I included a profile about a skydiver named Emma Carey who survived a 14,000-foot fall when she dove out of a helicopter into an empty cow pasture in Switzerland, with two tangled parachutes and her instructor passed out on her back.
The reporter writes:
The skydiving story is just a story, and [Carey] wrestles with how much longer she wants to keep telling IT. She wants to talk about her.
It’s human nature to make a story about you into the story of you, and most of the time feels harmless. Think about how many people whose identities are subsumed going from Justin and Maria, to “Justin & Maria,” to Mom and Dad, to Grandma and Pap. Everybody has a friend whose marriage falls apart and he suddenly becomes “Divorced Dave,” or a cousin who has borrowed money from everybody in the family and therefore is “Broke Brooke.” We connect people with one of their stories, and a chapter about them becomes the book on them.
But who wants to be simplified down to one thing about themselves? This is especially problematic for people with trauma and disabilities. Most of us have said “Heather is paralyzed” or “Mike is autistic” without thinking twice, with no ill will. But there’s a reason why those affected often prefer person-first language -- Mike isn’t autistic, he has autism. He also has a dog, a job, a guitar and an on-again, off-again relationship. Nobody says “Mike is guitar.” And if they do, they probably shouldn’t.
As the writer notes, who wants to be simplified down to one thing about themselves? Who wants one moment to become the moment of their life?
Carey survived the impossible, but understandably, she wants to move beyond it. She doesn’t want to be the girl who “fell from the sky” for the rest of her life.
I got curious. I went to her Instagram to see how she’s moved on. How she’s told the story of her. How she hasn’t let this traumatic moment become the defining moment of her entire life.
The first thing I notice is her bio: “Emma Carey: The girl who fell from the sky.”
— Polina
PROFILES.
— The members of the ‘gay tech mafia’ [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The teen dominating YouTube
— The insurance analyst-turned-health influencer
— The No. 1 company of the Fortune 500
— The conservative Cosmo
PEOPLE TO KNOW.
The members of the ‘gay tech mafia:’ Silicon Valley is buzzing with rumors of a so-called “gay tech mafia” running the industry’s upper ranks. This profile uncovers tight-knit networks of influential gay founders and investors who socialize, fund one another, and move in overlapping social and professional circles. In a hyper-networked ecosystem where access is everything, power, ambition, and sexuality sometimes blur in ways that can feel both empowering and uncomfortable. (WIRED; alternate link)
“The high tech VC world just seems to be one big, exploitative gay mafia.”
The teen dominating YouTube: Teen YouTube star Salish Matter has turned her father-daughter channel into a Gen Alpha empire. She’s selling out malls, landing a Netflix deal, and launching a Sephora beauty brand that flies off shelves. Millions watch her playful adventures with dad Jordan, making her one of the most influential creators under 18. But her meteoric rise also fuels debate over kids, fame, and the booming business of young influencers. (Bloomberg; alternate link)
“People will assume the worst. There’s this built-in assumption of exploitation.”
The insurance analyst-turned-health influencer: Gary Brecka has surged from little-known insurance analyst to celebrity biohacker at the center of America’s wellness and political conversation, boosted by allies like Dana White and RFK Jr. His longevity promises and supplement empire have drawn millions of followers — and sharp criticism from scientists who call many claims unproven or risky. After a past marked by business failures and lawsuits, Brecka reinvented himself as a health influencer whose rising power now sits at the heart of a broader fight over U.S. health policy. (Bloomberg; alternate link)
“He spreads a lot of really dangerous lies about a lot of different health conditions.”
COMPANIES TO WATCH.
The No. 1 company of the Fortune 500: Amazon is set to overtake Walmart as No. 1 on the Fortune 500, a symbolic changing of the guard in a rivalry rooted in radical customer obsession — a creed championed by Sam Walton and scaled by Jeff Bezos. Fueled by AWS profits and massive AI bets, Amazon has grown from online bookstore to $700-billion powerhouse, outpacing Walmart’s slower retail engine. Yet under Doug McMillon and Andy Jassy, the two rivals now resemble each other—tech-driven, logistics-obsessed, and locked in a two-company battle for the future of commerce. (FORTUNE)
“Indeed, the cost of not making bold moves is far riskier than the cost of steep investment.”
The conservative Cosmo: At a candlelit Fashion Week party atop the Standard hotel, Evie magazine—billed as a “conservative Cosmo” — showcased its vision of the modern right-leaning woman: glamorous, traditionally feminine, and unapologetically anti-feminist. Founded in 2019, the profitable, social-first brand blends beauty and lifestyle content with conservative cultural messaging, tapping into a growing audience of young women eager to make traditional values feel fashionable again. (WSJ; complimentary link)
“We started with a mission to embrace femininity, and we were definitely ahead of the curve for a couple of years.”
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