Sam Szuchan

Founder @ Soleo. LinkedIn strategy for industry leaders. Clients work w/ Apple, Amazon, Google + published in FT, Bloomberg, etc.

Creator of influence. Nice things folks have said about me:

"Recently, a lot of Sam's posts have been taking off. Last week, he helped me reach 400K+ enterprise professionals with a single post. A third of them from companies with 10,000+ employees. When recruiting teams start sharing your content internally, you know you're doing something right."
—Very major recruiting tech CEO

"Each time that I post [a post Sam made], 100+ people enroll in a course that changes their lives, and my business does twelve or thirteen grand in revenue in that day. A total win-win."
—B2B educator you 100% definitely follow

"Sam helped me clarify my goals and think strategically to reach 150K people in my target demographic – largely founders, CEOs, and senior execs. Prospects frequently mention my LinkedIn content."
—CEO of very cool agency working with Google and many other big tech co's!

"Sam's ability to understand who you are and become an extension of you online is second to none. He provides strategic direction, insightful research, and a relentless desire to bring your strengths and knowledge to light."
—Forbes 30u30 founder who basically invented consumer-facing recruiting tech

You have probably read a few dozen posts I've written without realizing it. Thanks for stopping by :)

Founder

Formerly Saga. Leveraging the world's largest B2B platform to create overwhelming lead pipelines for B2B firms.

"As long as the history books get it right, take some pride in letting the newspapers get it wrong."

Sam Altman wrote that in 2020. A year earlier, he walked away from Y Combinator's presidency to bet everything on OpenAI. 

Everyone thought he was insane.

YC was the most powerful platform in startup land. Direct access to hundreds of founders per year. The ability to shape how an entire generation thinks about building companies. A reputation machine that had already minted Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.

Remember, this was 2019 - way before OpenAI’s rise. He left YC for (what was then) a nonprofit-controlled AI lab that still looked more like a research shop than a product company.

Looking back, EVERY move he made throughout his career was the maximum leverage option available to build influence, way before anyone realized:

- Chose computer science at Stanford in the early 2000s when finance was the prestige path
- Dropped out to do YC and build Loopt when he could have gone straight to Google or Facebook
- After Loopt, launched Hydrazine Capital to invest in YC companies, making himself essential infrastructure for the next generation of founders
- Became YC president at 28 and turned it into a distribution network across hundreds of startups
- Left YC to become CEO of OpenAI's new "capped-profit" structure

Throughout his entire career, he's been 5-10 years early on the most influential position possible. It's happened too many times to be a coincidence.

His pattern works because he understands how influence compounds. Every YC batch, he met dozens of founders at their most malleable stage.

He saw the raw decks, the dysfunctional teams, the early flashes of product-market fit. Some became Instacart, DoorDash, and Coinbase.

Each founder he helped became a future allocator of equity, attention, and introductions.

Their founders remembered who took them seriously when they were pitching half-finished slides.

"The question isn't 'How do I stop caring what people think?'" Altman wrote. "It's 'Whose opinions should I care about and on what timescale?'"

November 2023 proved the pattern works. When OpenAI's board tried to oust him, hundreds of employees threatened to walk. Microsoft made it clear the partnership was with Altman, not the corporate shell.

He didn’t survive through maneuvering.

He survived because of the protective layer of influence he built.

Because influence isn't a cooler job title—

It's pure leverage.

It's a 15-year bet on who and what matters later, and how you can own it before anyone realizes it’s the next big thing.

“The newspapers will get it wrong. The history books will get it right.”

That's the bet he's made his entire career - and he's making it again.

What could you build by choosing history books over newspapers?

P.S. Full breakdown of Altman's 15-year playbook in the comments

Sam Altman Chose Influence Over Billions (And Got Both)

🚀 Growing the world’s best creators and founders | Founder of Amplify | I share everything I know in my weekly newsletter

🚀 Join Personal Brand Mastery: https://www.joegannon.co/course 

Hey I'm Joe, the founder of Amplify, the personal branding agency trusted by global experts to elevate their voice and authority.

Our clients past and present include: Ali Abdaal, Chris Williamson, Sahil Bloom, Jordan Peterson, Greg Isenberg, Andreessen Horowitz - and many more founders, authors, and thought leaders.

My first role in the creator economy was working with Ali Abdaal for 3 years on his content strategy. Since then, I’ve spent 7+ years building personal brands that position our clients as the go-to expert in their industry.

Want to be next?

I'm launching Amplify Academy to make that happen. 

My signature course Personal Brand Mastery is the complete playbook we’ve used at Amplify to help clients generate millions in sales, grow audiences into the hundreds of thousands, and become industry leaders… without chasing algorithms or burning out.

I’ve spent the last decade helping ambitious people turn their ideas into influence - and influence into income. Personal Brand Mastery distills that experience into clear framework and plug-and-play systems so you can:
→ Define your positioning so the right audience instantly gets it.
→ Create content that earns trust (and keeps it).
→ Build a brand system that works while you sleep.

This isn’t theory. It’s the same process we use with high-ticket clients - now available to anyone ready to take control of their reputation, visibility, and demand.

You’ll go from inconsistent posting and unclear positioning to a personal brand that:
→ Represents exactly who you are.
→ Positions you as an industry authority.
→ Attracts opportunities, clients, and partnerships on repeat.

Sound good?

👉 Join Amplify Academy to transform your personal brand: www.joegannon.co/course

📩 Sign up to my newsletter to grow and monetise your personal brand: joegannon.co/newsletter

🎥 Subscribe to my YouTube to watch the real behind-the-scenes of growing a creator business: youtube.com/@JoeGannon

It's so great to have you here.

Joe Gannon

I’ve been a business owner for 4.5 years.

Yet until recently, I avoided calling myself a business owner or CEO.

Because no one prepares you for the hardest part of business:

→ Unlearning how to be the person who does all the work.

You spend your whole life being rewarded for individual performance. And at the start, you do have to do everything yourself.

Then suddenly, you're supposed to lead.

Right now, my No.1 challenge is hiring the right people and giving them full responsibility.

Because until I learn this, I’ll stay in the same position.

I came across a thought exercise recently that reframed this for me:

"What if you were hired today as the owner of your business?"

- What decisions would you make?
- What are the bottlenecks?
- Who would you hire?

So whether you’re starting a new position or building something, ask yourself that:

If today was Day 1, what would you do differently?

Time to wear the title and put in the reps to get better at delegation.

🚀 Black Friday Exclusive on my profile 👀 | Founder of Amplify | Build a Top 0.1% Personal Brand | My 6-week programme begins 19th Jan 2026 👉 joegannon.co/cohort 🗓️

I’ve spent 7+ years building personal brands for founders & creators.

And I’ve seen 1 trap come up again and again:

→ Confusing attention and authority.

I see it constantly: 

- Chasing views, likes and impressions
- Posting for the algorithm instead of the audience
- Talking about everything → becoming known for nothing

And overlook the fact that:

Every piece of content trains your audience to either trust you or ignore you.

Here’s the system we use with clients:
(Swipe for the full breakdown)

📌 The Authority Flywheel

1. Content builds trust
2. Trust drives inbound
3. Inbound builds experience
4. Experience fuels richer content

When the flywheel spins, trust compounds and authority grows.

You go from chasing leads to leads coming to you.

So stop aiming to go viral. 

Aim to become the default in your industry.

🚀 Founder of Amplify | Build a Top 0.1% Personal Brand | Join the Personal Brand Mastery Programme starting 19th Jan 2026 | Early bird offer ends 7th Dec 👉 joegannon.co/cohort 🗓️

The Authority Flywheel

Online, people put entrepreneurs on a pedestal.

I think that's a huge mistake.

4.5 years of building a business has taught me that:

Being a founder isn't better than being an employee.
And being a manager isn't superior to doing the actual work.

They're just roles. Like positions on a football team.

I’ve realised most people are probably happier when they're NOT entrepreneurs.

But the glorification is everywhere:

- "Be your own boss!"
- "Escape the 9-5!"
- "Build your empire!"

Yet if the hours, stress and responsibility aren't right for you, that advice will cause nothing but pain.

Because some people:

- Thrive with structure
- Do their best work on teams
- Need clear boundaries between work and life

None of these are wrong. They're just different zones of genius.

So if you're crushing it in your role, love your team and building an incredible career...

Don't let social media convince you that you're somehow settling.

None of that is a downgrade. 

It’s just a different path.

🚀 Founder of Amplify | Build a Top 0.1% Personal Brand | Join the Personal Brand Mastery Programme starting 19th Jan 2026 👉 joegannon.co/cohort

I've been posting consistently on LinkedIn for 5 years.

Yet I still sometimes struggle to stay on top of it.

(Like right now, while we’re running our first live cohort)

So over the last 12 months I've been using AI more to help me stay consistent.

Here's 6 ways I use it ⤵️

1. Content ideation 

↳ AI fixes blank screen syndrome by pulling ideas from your past posts, your niche and your audience's problems.

2. Analyse content 

↳ Feed your analytics into AI and let it spot the patterns you'd miss. Double down on what's working.

3. Accountability 

↳ With Stanley (Your Content Coach), I get 3 emails a week with personalised content ideas based on what's working.

4. Draft quickly 

↳ Drop in a story, a lesson or voice note. Get a draft you can tweak and edit.

5. Repurposing 

↳ Turn text posts into carousels, rewrite from new angles, create video scripts from long captions.

6. Editing 

↳ Flag filler lines, weak hooks, overused phrases and confusing structure. Like having a second pair of eyes.

—

I wish I had Stanley years ago.

Hands down one of the best AI tools in the creator economy right now 🚀

Comment "STANLEY" below for an exclusive 7-day FREE trial link!

P.S. What’s your fave way to use AI at the moment?

How I Use Stanley To Stay Consistent on LinkedIn

Your 2026 LinkedIn strategy?

Create content that only you can.

AI made us faster - but also messier.

10 tools. 
10 tabs. 
10 subscriptions.
Our workflow is more powerful… but completely scattered.

This week I tried something that finally fixes it.

⚡️ Genspark - built by 30 people, already a $1B AI agent unicorn - an all-in-one AI workspace that actually finishes the work.

Here’s the wild part 👇

- AI Slides → Chat to build full decks, 100+ templates, Google Slides export
- AI Sheets 2.0 → Automated data pull, SQL, charts, Excel export w/ formulas
- AI Inbox → Talk to your email, get summaries + replies auto-generated
- Teams → Real-time co-editing w/ humans + AI
- AI Designer & AI Developer → Brand kits + websites in minutes

One replaces ten.
One workspace, no switching.
One tool that finally matches the speed of AI itself.

👉 Breakdown in my video (in partnership with Genspark)
https://lnkd.in/es7mwd7d

#Genspark #Gensparklive

Brand partnership • 🚀 Founder of Amplify | Build a Top 0.1% Personal Brand | Join the Personal Brand Mastery Programme starting 19th Jan 2026 👉 joegannon.co/cohort

99% of creators think they have an ideas problem. 

But they have a systems problem.

They're creating from scratch instead of from source.

High-performing creators don’t “come up with” ideas. 

They collect them. 

After 7+ years of building personal brands, here are the 6 sources that feed my content machine:

1. Audience Questions

Every DM, sales call, comment or email holds a question your ICP is struggling with.

If one person asks, 100 others are thinking it.

(I feed transcripts into Stanley (Your Content Coach) and it pulls out the pain points worth turning into content.)

—

2. Client & Peer Conversations

Struggles that come up in coaching, consulting or even casual conversations? That's raw material.

Friction is gold. If someone wrestled with it in real life, your audience will relate.

—

3. Frameworks & Beliefs

Your own models, reframes and systems.

Ask yourself: what's a phrase or diagram I use over and over? That's content.

—

4. Mistakes & Lessons Learned

Failure is often more magnetic than success.

Share what went wrong, what you learned and how you'd do it differently.

—

5. Myths & Misconceptions

What does your industry repeat that you know is flawed?

Challenging bad advice builds authority quickly.

—

6. High-Performing Posts

Your own “greatest hits” can be repurposed, remixed and reframed into new content.

Study other people’s viral posts too. Figure out why they worked, then adapt for your ICP.

(Stanley analyses what worked and why - then suggests new angles on my best performers.)

—

Inspiration is unreliable. 

Build a system so you never run out of content again.

P.S. Stanley (Your Content Coach)’s become one of my fave AI tools to help me stay on top of LinkedIn. Get 7 days for free on me: https://lnkd.in/e83njqzT

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Talks about #creators, #socialmedia, #creatoreconomy, #contentmarketing, and #entrepreneurship

Guide To Build Your Content Idea Machine

You know what nobody talks about?

How Social Media Managers have an impossible task.

Working in social today requires:

- Being a great copywriter
- Community management
- Strategy for EVERY platform
- Short-form and long-form video editing
- Knowing how to design

I wore all of those hats and burnt out.

It's ridiculous and completely unrealistic.

That's why I started my agency, but before I could hire anyone, I had to buy myself time.

The first tool that changed everything for me was Descript.

I loved creating content and growing audiences… but I wasn’t an editor.

Yet, for 12 months I created viral clips for clients like Ali Abdaal and Chris Williamson by editing videos like text.

Nowadays, Descript has so many features to help you save money and win back time:

• Overdub → Fix mistakes with AI voice cloning (no re-recording!)
• Studio Sound → Level up your audio quality (without fancy mics)
• Screen and video recording → Personalise videos and add b-roll (all in one place)

We’ve never had more leverage to focus on what we do best.

Try Descript for free today: https://lnkd.in/eH8QpPVh

P.S. Yes I edited this video in 1 hour from scratch using Descript ✌️

Being an entrepreneur is dangerously glorified.

Working for yourself is not “better” than being an employee.

LinkedIn News UK just reported that entrepreneurship is rising fast in the UK with 69% more founders on LinkedIn in the past year.

It's true that there’s never been a better time to start something - with AI we’re living in an unbelievable moment in history. 

And the upsides to entrepreneurship are real:
• You own your schedule
• You can earn more
• You gain autonomy

But here’s the part no one talks about:

Most people don’t “escape” the 9-5. They instead trade it for a 24/7 with a level of pressure no one prepares you for.

I’ve run a business for 4.5 years - and almost every self-employed person I know struggles 10x more in private than they ever admit publicly.

No one posts the bad days, because unfortunately, it makes you look “weak”. There's no incentive to be honest - and that's what needs to be discussed more. 

Working for yourself means:
 • Constantly facing problems and stressors
 • Feeling the mental load of a never-ending to-do list
 • Struggling to ever switch off because “everything is urgent”

Some people are meant for entrepreneurship.
Some will thrive as employees.
Some will move between both depending on the season of life.

There is no “better” - there's only alignment.

Choose the path where you can thrive, feel great, and operate from your zone of genius.

Real success is knowing who you are and building a life around that.

An overlooked truth about personal branding:

You can outsource the work, but you can’t outsource your actual voice.

And yet… this is the mistake founders make the most.

They hire someone, then step back completely.

You wouldn’t have someone join a Zoom call with your profile picture, speaking on your behalf 😅

After 7+ years building personal brands, here's an approach that works:

📌 The 10/80/10 Model 

- 10% at the start: Your voice

(Calls, interviews, voice notes - capture your actual thoughts & stories)

- 80% in the middle: The heavy lifting

(Drafts, transcription, editing, design - all things you can outsource)

- 10% at the end: Your seasoning

(The unique details, examples & final touches only you can add)

You need to write or record your thoughts throughout the week to have enough Source Material.

That’s your role - then a team can support you.

The ghostwriting industry gets this backwards.

They promise to BE you instead of helping you be MORE of you.

If not, it can damage your account and reputation long-term.

The whole point is to share your voice online.

Your personal brand is too important to fake.
But it's also too important to do everything yourself.

Own the beginning. Own the end. Outsource the middle.

That’s how you protect your time and gain leverage.

Today I’m hosting a free masterclass with a 3x TEDx speaker.

And this wasn’t supposed to be public…

But since you’re part of my LinkedIn audience, I’m opening this up to you.

We’re going to be joined by Nausheen I. Chen.

Nausheen has coached 500+ founders and execs at companies like Google, Amazon, United Nations and AT&T.

Plus a ton of LinkedIn creators.

As a public speaking coach, Nausheen is THE person people go to when you want to level up your communication.

She helps people become confident, clear, top-1% communicators through her business Speak as a Leader.

And has also built a 116K+ audience here on LinkedIn.

In a few hours, she’s breaking down how to speak fearlessly.

↳ How to ensure your confidence, message and delivery land any time you speak on stage or on camera.

We’re going LIVE today at 3.30pm GMT / 10.30am EST.

It’s free to attend but spaces are limited!

Grab a seat: https://lnkd.in/etfvEUc9

You’ll walk away with practical tools you can use in your next presentation, client call or LinkedIn video.

See you there 🚀

This week we wrapped up our first live cohort. 

50 pages of debrief notes later, here's what I learned:

→ The difference between good and exceptional isn't what you teach. It's the experience you create around it.

Think about the cinema.

You don't just watch a film. You arrive, grab snacks, trailers build anticipation. Lights down, sound goes up. You're locked in.

None of that is the film, but it changes how the film lands.

That’s why we’re obsessing over the small things:

- Music as people join (sets the tone)
- Breakout rooms (so people can connect)
- Interactive exercises (so people are involved)
- 1:1 check-ins (so no one falls through the cracks)
- Waiting room (a breather between back-to-back calls)

And after each session, we debrief. 

Because if even 1 person is confused in a group of 10, that’s 10% of the room.
Scale that to 100 students? That’s 10 people lost.

Do I care too much? Maybe.

But that’s how you build something that actually helps people.

So whether you're building a course, product or service, stop and think:

→ What small changes would improve the experience?

Steven Bartlett obsesses over "sweating the small stuff".
Tony Robbins’ teams focus on CANI (Constant And Never-ending Improvement).

Those small improvements compound.

Don’t skip the 1%.

👉 P.S. If the next cohort is on your radar, today’s Black Friday offer is the best time to lock in your spot: https://lnkd.in/ed3HtiHY

I spent months following the big-creator playbook before realising:

They were playing a different game I didn’t even want to win.

You can’t look at big creators and assume they can operate in the same way.

Because some have: 

- Teams of 5-10 people
- 10x the amount of resources
- And way more cash at their disposal

Most of us don’t have that.
And that’s fine.

But it means copying them makes no sense.

Why try to mirror someone whose situation, support and goals look nothing like yours?

Earlier this year, I got busy. 

And in that chaos, I defaulted to what I saw working for others: viral formats and broad ideas targeted at the masses.

My following pretty much doubled. 

On the surface, everything looked like it was flying.

But the problem was the content could have come from anyone.

Which meant I wasn’t getting the outcomes I was doing it all for.

There’s a quote I love: 

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

You might see someone going viral, growing fast…

But do you want to play the same game as them?

Or is it time to change the game entirely?

taplio

The Battle

Sam Szuchan

Joe Gannon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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Performance ScoreSam Szuchan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJoe Gannon's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Sam Szuchan

Joe Gannon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sam Szuchan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJoe Gannon's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSam Szuchan's LinkedIn Performance