NEW YORK — In an act of radical transparency that has already been compared to Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and a guy showing you his DoorDash earnings, Stacker CEO Noah Greenberg revealed this week that he has made roughly $35,000 posting sponsored content on LinkedIn.
The stunning disclosure immediately sent shockwaves through the nation’s community of founders, fractional CMOs, growth strategists, personal-brand consultants, “Top Voices,” and men whose job title contains the phrase “helping founders become known.”
“I felt kind of gross, like I had sold out,” Greenberg wrote, bravely recalling the traumatic experience of accepting $1,500 from SEMrush.
Fortunately, the condition cleared up when the payment arrived.
Doctors say he has made a full recovery.
The post then laid out Greenberg’s remarkable journey:
- Post on LinkedIn.
- Keep posting on LinkedIn.
- Post so much that posting becomes an involuntary neurological response.
- Acquire 20,000 followers.
- Receive money.
- Write another LinkedIn post explaining how receiving money changed your relationship with posting on LinkedIn.
Greenberg also revealed his personal ethical rule:
“Don’t post anything for money that you wouldn’t post for free.”
A beautiful sentiment that experts say could eventually revolutionize advertising by making commercials indistinguishable from the unpaid bullshit already clogging your feed.
The real magic, however, happened in the comments.
Within minutes, LinkedIn’s professional inspiration emergency-response team arrived.
“DUDE YOU ARE THE BEST FOR PUTTING THIS OUT THERE.”
“THANK YOU FOR YOUR TRANSPARENCY.”
“THIS IS HUGE.”
“YOU JUST UPGRADED MY TRUST IN YOU.”
“ONLY 13K FOLLOWERS TO GO!”
Several commenters appeared visibly shaken by the courage required to disclose that companies pay people to promote products.
One executive explained that he had previously “mentally downgraded” Greenberg after seeing a sponsored post, but had now mentally upgraded him again after learning that the sponsored post he already knew was sponsored was, in fact, sponsored.
The New York Stock Exchange briefly halted trading while analysts attempted to calculate Greenberg’s current Mental Trust Rating.
It is now listed as BUY.
Elsewhere in the comments, a man with 40,000 followers learned that other people were being paid more than him and immediately entered the bargaining stage of grief.
“I’m only getting offered $500. I must be doing something wrong!”
Within seconds, an agency representative materialized like a Victorian ghost to explain that brands are currently looking for “founders and practitioners who walk the talk and still have their hands dirty.”
Nobody knew what this meant, but seven people wrote it down.
Another commenter announced that $8,000 is apparently the going rate, because no LinkedIn discussion is complete until one guy enters the room specifically to let everyone know he is richer than the original guy.
Greenberg also offered aspiring creators an important lesson:
Eventually, he explained, you train your brain so that during every meeting, conversation, lunch, funeral, colonoscopy, and minor traffic accident, a tiny voice whispers:
“That could be a post.”
Psychiatrists are calling the condition Terminal LinkedInification.
Symptoms include:
Seeing your child ride a bike and thinking, “Leadership is about knowing when to let go.”
Getting food poisoning and drafting, “3 lessons norovirus taught me about scaling.”
Your grandmother dying and posting, “She never raised venture capital. But she taught me everything I know about founder-market fit.”
Being served divorce papers and thinking, “Nobody talks enough about founder loneliness.”
At the most advanced stage, patients begin ending normal human conversations with:
“Curious how others are thinking about this.”
Still, Greenberg emphasized that people shouldn’t pursue LinkedIn posting purely for the money.
“You’ll probably give up before the numbers get big enough,” he explained.
Instead, aspiring creators should spend 18 to 24 months posting constantly for free, slowly turning their personality into an advertising surface until SaaS companies eventually begin purchasing small sections of it.
And that, perhaps, is the most inspiring lesson of all.
You don’t have to become an influencer.
You don’t have to sell out.
You don’t even have to change who you are.
You just have to post often enough that, one day, a B2B software company looks at your personality and says:
“How much for Thursday?”
