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The Lifetime Value of an Idea
If a business strategist had a liquid lunch with a writer…
With my earlier piece, I talked about how I spent my time writing, accompanied by bubble tea and Jeezy. I realized, at the end of writing it, that I was trying to figure out how much value I was creating and extracting. Writing really is thinking.
Warning: This piece is about writing and money. If your eyes are sensitive to words like “value,” “extraction,” and “Stratechery” — especially “Stratechery” — you should press fast forward. This is business thinking for people who might consider themselves writers, authors, and content creators. I’m not covering anything craft related, and I think writing is much more than just a vehicle for making money… Okay, let’s get it!
The Creation and Extraction of Value
The definition of value, with this blog post, is this one we’ll lift from Merriam Webster’s 1913 dictionary:
The property or aggregate properties of a thing by which it is rendered useful or desirable, or the degree of such property or sum of properties; worth; excellence; utility; importance.
For example, businesses create value, capture dollars in exchange for value, and then pay some of those dollars to employees. I wouldn’t say that value is…
