The Heyday of the Writing-first Practitioner

AI makes it trivially easy to generate content—so does the advantage of being a prolific public writer disappear when everyone can write? Eleanor Warnock, Every’s new managing editor, argues the opposite: In a world flooded with AI-generated text, “writing-first practitioners” like Fred Wilson, Julie Zhuo, and Warren Buffett have an edge that only sharpens. These are professionals who write to think, not just to market—and their cultivated voice and hard-won networks can’t be prompted into existence. Her piece maps where this archetype thrives, why companies should hire them (and let them keep writing), and the tech stack she uses herself.—Kate Lee

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Ten minutes into a professional meet-cute at a Parisian café, the venture capitalist who had reached out on LinkedIn laid her cards on the table: “I want you to help our firm with marketing.”

“Why me?” I asked. She hadn’t asked for references, and the few minutes we spent together could hardly count as an interview.

“Because I like your writing,” she said. “It’s no-bullshit.”

This wasn’t the first time writing had opened a door for me. And I’m not the only one. Across knowledge work fields, I see what I call writing-first practitioners: professionals who use consistent public writing—on blogs, in newsletters, through op-eds, on social media—to sharpen their thinking, build networks, and attract opportunity.

Fred Wilson, the legendary venture capitalist who started his blog in 2003, fits this archetype. He credits his writing with helping him win deals and hone his investment judgment. So does Julie Zhuo, former vice president of product design at Facebook, who turned her insights on management into a bestselling book and now writes regularly on Substack. Similarly, longtime blogger Alex Danco was hired last year by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as an editor at large from his role as director of product at Shopify. And of course, we can’t forget the OG: legendary investor Warren Buffet… more on him later.

Though the glow of brand building and content marketing are usually the things that make people jealous of these individuals, that’s not why they write and, indeed, not the greatest benefit of their urge to scribble. These individuals write first and foremost for themselves. Through the personal and often intimate act of putting words down, taking an intellectual stance and sharing that with the world, they end up making better decisions about where to invest their money or time.

Writing-first practitioners have always competed on distribution; anyone can start a blog or post on LinkedIn. Now, with AI, they’re competing on production, too. As tools like Claude and ChatGPT make it trivially easy to generate content, does the writing-first edge disappear when everyone can write?

After years of sharing my own perspectives publicly as a business and tech journalist, newsletter writer, and coaching investors and early-stage founders on how to share theirs, I believe that if anything, AI will sharpen the advantage that these practitioners have. That’s also why I joined Every late last year as managing editor. Drawing on these experiences, I’ll demonstrate where writing-first practitioners shine and why companies should want to hire them in 2026.

Where writing creates disproportionate leverage

The writing-first archetype exists in any profession built on expertise and trust, from roles like marketing to professions that require formal credentials, such as medicine. Writing creates disproportionate advantages under these conditions:

Results and track record lag or stay hidden. It takes a decade to know if a venture capitalist is a good company picker. An executive coach’s impact on a client’s career after years of counseling may never be shared publicly. In fields where results and track record lag or stay hidden, writing is an interim signal of competence. AI can generate content, but it can’t demonstrate judgment accumulated over years of experience.
Profit opportunities flow through networks. In venture capital, access to the best deals directly impacts returns, something that communications professional Lulu Cheng Meservey (and her LPs) keenly understood when she raised a $40 million fund last month. For executive recruiters, access to talent can determine success or failure. Writing makes investors, collaborators, and candidates aware of you even before you need them. AI-generated content might fill a feed, but it doesn’t build the trust that makes someone open your cold email.
Fast-moving or emerging industries. In fast-moving or emerging industries like tech, the window to act is short. Writing forces real-time synthesis; you process what’s happening, form a view, and spot openings while others are still waiting for clarity. AI tools can summarize what’s already known, but they can’t give you a point of view on what you don’t yet know.
Output is subjective, and clients aren’t experts. In fields like design, branding, consulting, and coaching, clients often lack the expertise to judge quality directly. When a Fortune 500 company hires a branding agency, the decision-makers usually aren’t designers. Instead, these clients rely on proxies such as referrals and reputation. Writing positions you as someone worth trusting.

One could argue that podcasts and, in particular, video podcasts, can serve a similar purpose as a medium that allows professionals to publicly share and gain recognition for a point of view. There is a larger umbrella of “content-first practitioners” that includes podcasters like investor Harry Stebbings, who parlayed his 20VC podcast into founding a venture firm.

While podcasting can be a way to process and shape ideas in real time—particularly if the podcast involves conversations with other smart practitioners—writing imposes a discipline on thought that podcasts do not. Writing publicly requires one to commit to an angle and a view, distilled into something clear and concise. You are forced to take a decisive step in one direction or another, a process that, done over and over again, becomes progress. Compared to this, hours-long podcasts feel more like a first draft of thinking.