WHY TALENT ISN’T ENOUGH—AND WHAT REALLY DECIDES
A look into the machines that determine what reaches an audience and what gets left behind
MISMATCH
We’re told that talent rises to the top. But time and again, it doesn’t.
How can a kiss-face emoji from BTS’s Jungkook shatter social media records while Katalin Karikó’s groundbreaking mRNA research, later the foundation for COVID-19 vaccines, was rejected for years, almost lost before it saved millions of lives?
I’ve felt smaller versions of that mismatch up close. In 2020, I released pop/rock music under the stage name Moose. I spent weeks polishing tracks with a producer friend, submitted to playlists, ran Instagram ads, and… crickets. The songs weren’t perfect, and the feedback helped. But major artists pull a hundred thousand views in minutes. A gap that big and fast is less about quality and more about pipelines that route attention.
MACHINES
Fame Machines explores the machinery behind what gets amplified, what fades, and how belief spreads. The same network architecture shows up across brains, institutions, and platforms and follows common principles:
Gatekeeper (divide-and-conquer): filters decide what gets a first look.
Layout (connect-the-dots): hubs and translators make ideas legible.
Attention (star power): halo effects move fans to the next thing.
Repeat (practice!): working paths become expressways.
STORIES
We’ll look at examples like the injury that opened a slot for Tom Brady and Joanna van Gogh-Bonger’s behind-the-scenes efforts to bring her brother-in-law’s paintings the recognition they deserved. You’ll also hear about my own experience as a musician, academic, and data scientist, and person in the world—moments when I misread the room and paid for it, when unpopular results strained business relationships, and finally getting something right with a well-timed investment in an AI degree.
Networks as railways
Four recurring mechanisms
UPSHOT
Along the way, we’ll turn these patterns into practice: peel the onion to find out which layer is blocking you, lay breadcrumbs so audiences can follow without taking a leap, mark your calendar so you’re ready when a window opens.
Fame will always be unequal, but understanding how attention is routed can help you see what’s coming—and occasionally be in the right place when it does.