Squad Moats A "network is the product" reprise The feed is dying. Startups like Cluely and Friend are playing unsustainable, tasteless games to get attention at scale, while new AI tools are being produced every day for you to create slop at scale in order to capture even a sliver of attention. So what's left? Belief. And belief compounds through squads. I've written before that a founder's job is to articulate a specific philosophy and vision of the future, and then cultivate a network that makes it real. Squads are the atomic unit of networks: highly agentic groups that take your philosophy and worldbuild with it. They're the group chats of friends who are using your product in novel, aligned ways and sharing it with the world. They're the companies or studios that are at your annual conference from day one. "Community" doesn't capture this well enough. It implies a big, monolithic group of people that engage in ambiguous ways. Squads need three things: a philosophy to rally around, artifacts that embody it, and spaces to gather (see: "Squad Wealth," Other Internet) This is the moat. Not features. Not funding. The squads that form because your philosophy resonates, because your product gives them tools to worldbuild, because you created space for them to gather. Your job: make your philosophy so clear in your words, actions, and product that you become a schelling point. Attract diverse squads. Support them without controlling them. Your network is the moat because it can't be bought or copied. It has to be built, squad by squad.