HOW TO THOUGHT LEAD (2026)

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

Earn mindshare for your topic by regularly posting information, products, and mental models to be used by others. Thought leadership boils down to six principles, ordered explicitly in descending order of importance: have credibility; know what people aspire to; be authoritative, knowledgeable, and useful; be quoteable; be strongly opinionated; and be first, or be funny. This post looks deeper into these principles to provide a formula for thought leadership. The best thought leaders do the work first, earn credibility, and then let everything amplify a foundation that's already solid.