---
title: 👻 Meme Driven Organizations
image: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F365ade34-758f-4953-bc50-70f1541b058a_1201x630.png
--- 

> _"The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller" - Steve Jobs_

And if the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller, the most powerful _thing_ in the world is a meme. 🤷‍♂️

First, stop thinking of memes as “funny viral images” and start taking them [almost as seriously as genes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics). Memes are contagious ideas, captioned images are simply most effective at containing them. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Memes have driven people to crusades in the case of religions as well as to build new worlds as in the case of U.S.’ founding fathers.

Not all memes are about doing good, but most successful memes are. And even in the case of bloodiest of religious wars & the most gruesome of ethnic cleansing - these twisted minds did _somehow_ think they were doing good.

-   Memes are powerful & dangerous, m’kay?
    

![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F365ade34-758f-4953-bc50-70f1541b058a_1201x630.png)

## Meme Driven Organizations

When it comes to meme driven organizations, one thing to know is that they don't compete; they aren't here to "win" & their goal is never "to be no.1 in industry X". They are on a mission to solve a specific problem or serve a specific need and every organization doing the same is a potential ally.

Because they are here to _play_ & not to _win_ - meme driven organizations are playing _[infinite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games)_ [games as opposed to](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games) _[finite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games)_ [games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games):

-   A good example of an organization playing a finite game is Volkswagen. Their mission is to be the "no. 1 car manufacturer" - meaning their main goal is to return ever more money to their sharehodlers. The result? [Sacrificed morals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal).
    
-   A good example of an infinite game player is Tesla; "to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport’." Seems to be working out pretty well so far.
    

An organization without a meme is a machinery led by numbers - always hungry for more sales, increased market share, scale, scale & scale.

-   In _finite_ games, whatever is not done in the interest of winning is considered irrelevant & always chasing more profits inevitably leads to sacrifice of values.
    

Except for sociopaths & psychopaths, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who wants to work at these places. They’re uninspiring & worse, soul-draining. Coming home from such work makes you want to down some Prozac with whiskey to fill the void. It makes you question the meaning of life.

It seems like more & more people are choosing _lower-paid-but-meaningful_ work over _high-paid-corporate_ work - and it should come as a surprise to noone.

We all need money to survive but we’re all ultimately looking for fulfillment, we want work that feels meaningful. We want to feel proud of the work we do and the organizations we serve. We want to wake up feeling inspired, not dreadful.

## Find your meme

Great memes can help you:
-   Make decisions & plans
-   Lead & inspire
-   Rally & build trust
-   Create value
    

Time to find your meme, don’t you think?

**First, you need to figure out the right question for you.**

Give it some thought, or a lot of thought, though it doesn’t seem like you can go wrong using Elon Musk’s question as default:

-   _“What things will have a great impact on the future of humanity’s destiny?”_
    

Seems like one should try to make the world better because the inverse makes no sense. No well-developed human wants to be a villain.

-   But sir, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain…
    

![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F314fed72-3041-4d72-bc51-b04732eae48c_1162x783.png)

Yes, of course meme driven organizations can stray too; away from their primary purpose and into profit milking.

In MetaGame, we have a key difference preventing us from becoming villains we sought to disrupt:

-   It’s all open-source 🤷‍♂️
    

## Anyhow!

The problem with most people is that they see successful people as somehow different than the rest of us - as if they were born successful. They can do things because they can, and we can’t because we can’t.

It’s simply not the case.

> _“If you have high integrity & you want to go solve a problem, it's probably the case that it'll take you pretty far.” - Riva Tez_

Find the biggest problem you can tackle & attack it.

![Image result for just do it](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8adf0c05-0d4d-4647-bedc-5ab5478737c2_960x540.jpeg)

## Closing

With the rising dissatisfaction with corporate drudgery and the increasing ease of starting new things, expect a rise in meme driven organizations & communities.
In search of meaning yourself, but not sure where to start?
- Maybe MetaGame 🤷‍♂️

