My friend Chris Spoke sent me this article yesterday. It's by Paul Stanton (at Thesis Driven), and it's about "why the next generation of real estate fund managers will be built on video reels and newsletters." As someone who has been writing a personal blog-slash-newsletter for the last 13+ years (though largely focused on real estate and cities), this post really resonated with me. I wish I could say that I was early and that it brought me great riches, but sadly, that is not the case.

Regardless, what all of this is getting at is the value of parasocial relationships:

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided connection where a person feels they know and have a bond with a public figure (celebrity, influencer, fictional character) who is unaware of their existence, often stemming from media exposure like TV, social media, or podcasts.

I wouldn't call myself a public figure, but a daily blog does inherently foster parasocial relationships. Generally, though, the real estate industry has been slow to adopt new media. The prevailing thought has been that social media is good for selling stuff like fashion, but not appropriate for syndicating large and serious real estate deals. I've even heard some people argue that a strong social media presence is probably inversely correlated with actual real estate performance.

This is true of the grifters that Paul talks about in his article. These are the people posing in front of fancy cars or on a private jet, claiming that they can 10x your money using some dead-simple real estate strategy. They cannot. These people are not in the real estate business. But the marketing strategy clearly does work for raising capital, which is why you now have accomplished people who actually know real estate and finance becoming influencers:

Top executives of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms have recently joined the social media influencer ecosystem—perhaps none more so than Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone.  

Gray has become known for his candid videos filmed in Central Park during morning runs, sharing his views on recent shifts in the capital markets, macro events and even celebrity gossip—all with a sunny and sometimes self-deprecating disposition.  

I’ve watched many of these videos, and I now know (or, Blackstone has successfully planted in my brain) that Jon is exactly who I’d want running a massive pool of long-term capital: measured, self-aware, allergic to hype. Blackstone no longer feels like a faceless capital machine.

The fact that Jon Gray is doing this should give everyone in our industry the confidence that it's more than okay to be a real estate social media influencer. In fact, it's the name of the game today, even for the most sophisticated companies with long and proven track records, like Blackstone. There's nothing to be shy about. People do not want to follow faceless companies. They want to follow humans. So, be a human.

I was thinking about this very topic over the holidays, and I ultimately landed on it needing to become a bigger part of what I do in 2026. I will obviously continue to write this daily blog, but I want to be better at putting myself out there in other ways, creating more video content, and building up Globizen's overall brand as a city-builder committed to creating better places.

We have started by posting regular (almost daily) content to Instagram (Globizen & Parkview Mountain House), but there's more we want to do. The first obstacle is getting over the fear of what people might think if I take candid videos of myself running in Central Park (people couldn't care less). And the second obstacle is time. It's a lot of work. But building a company and raising capital have always been a lot of work.

I don't remember signing up for Thesis Driven's newsletter, but I'm on it, and it does sound like something I would do. Their latest post, the first of this year by Brad Hargreaves, is called "Seven Real Estate Predictions for 2026." And I'd like to draw your attention to the last one. Here it is verbatim:

The word “sponsor” has historically implied episodic activity: raise capital, do a deal, return capital, repeat. That framing made sense when real estate investing was primarily about financial engineering and asset selection.

It makes far less sense in a world where alpha increasingly comes from operations.

By 2026, I think the most sophisticated real estate operators will stop being thought of—and thinking of themselves—as sponsors at all. They will be platforms. And platforms are underwritten differently.

Rather than being evaluated solely on IRRs and realized multiples, these businesses will increasingly be assessed through a private equity lens: EBITDA generation, revenue streams, margin stability, customer (tenant) retention, technology leverage, scalability of systems, and durability of management teams. Deal performance will still matter, but as proof points—not as the whole story.

The consequences? Platform economics reward longer-term thinking, reinvestment, and organizational maturity. They also open the door to entirely different capital partners, exit paths, and valuation frameworks that look a lot more like growth equity than traditional real estate promote structures.

This really resonates with me. Sponsor, promoter, and developer — these names have historically reflected the entrepreneurial and deal-specific nature of real estate. It's also one of the reasons why project brands typically overshadow developer brands; the focus is on that one deal.

A good deal is a good deal. We all get that. Sometimes a single deal is all that is needed to change your life. But as a general rule, I am much more interested in longer-term thinking, an approach that compounds over time, the opportunity to continually refine a craft, and the growth of brand equity.

In Brad's words, that is "platform over sponsor."

Cover photo by Fabio Sasso on Unsplash

My friend Chris Spoke sent me this article yesterday. It's by Paul Stanton (at Thesis Driven), and it's about "why the next generation of real estate fund managers will be built on video reels and newsletters." As someone who has been writing a personal blog-slash-newsletter for the last 13+ years (though largely focused on real estate and cities), this post really resonated with me. I wish I could say that I was early and that it brought me great riches, but sadly, that is not the case.

Regardless, what all of this is getting at is the value of parasocial relationships:

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided connection where a person feels they know and have a bond with a public figure (celebrity, influencer, fictional character) who is unaware of their existence, often stemming from media exposure like TV, social media, or podcasts.

I wouldn't call myself a public figure, but a daily blog does inherently foster parasocial relationships. Generally, though, the real estate industry has been slow to adopt new media. The prevailing thought has been that social media is good for selling stuff like fashion, but not appropriate for syndicating large and serious real estate deals. I've even heard some people argue that a strong social media presence is probably inversely correlated with actual real estate performance.

This is true of the grifters that Paul talks about in his article. These are the people posing in front of fancy cars or on a private jet, claiming that they can 10x your money using some dead-simple real estate strategy. They cannot. These people are not in the real estate business. But the marketing strategy clearly does work for raising capital, which is why you now have accomplished people who actually know real estate and finance becoming influencers:

Top executives of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms have recently joined the social media influencer ecosystem—perhaps none more so than Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone.  

Gray has become known for his candid videos filmed in Central Park during morning runs, sharing his views on recent shifts in the capital markets, macro events and even celebrity gossip—all with a sunny and sometimes self-deprecating disposition.  

I’ve watched many of these videos, and I now know (or, Blackstone has successfully planted in my brain) that Jon is exactly who I’d want running a massive pool of long-term capital: measured, self-aware, allergic to hype. Blackstone no longer feels like a faceless capital machine.

The fact that Jon Gray is doing this should give everyone in our industry the confidence that it's more than okay to be a real estate social media influencer. In fact, it's the name of the game today, even for the most sophisticated companies with long and proven track records, like Blackstone. There's nothing to be shy about. People do not want to follow faceless companies. They want to follow humans. So, be a human.

I was thinking about this very topic over the holidays, and I ultimately landed on it needing to become a bigger part of what I do in 2026. I will obviously continue to write this daily blog, but I want to be better at putting myself out there in other ways, creating more video content, and building up Globizen's overall brand as a city-builder committed to creating better places.

We have started by posting regular (almost daily) content to Instagram (Globizen & Parkview Mountain House), but there's more we want to do. The first obstacle is getting over the fear of what people might think if I take candid videos of myself running in Central Park (people couldn't care less). And the second obstacle is time. It's a lot of work. But building a company and raising capital have always been a lot of work.

I don't remember signing up for Thesis Driven's newsletter, but I'm on it, and it does sound like something I would do. Their latest post, the first of this year by Brad Hargreaves, is called "Seven Real Estate Predictions for 2026." And I'd like to draw your attention to the last one. Here it is verbatim:

The word “sponsor” has historically implied episodic activity: raise capital, do a deal, return capital, repeat. That framing made sense when real estate investing was primarily about financial engineering and asset selection.

It makes far less sense in a world where alpha increasingly comes from operations.

By 2026, I think the most sophisticated real estate operators will stop being thought of—and thinking of themselves—as sponsors at all. They will be platforms. And platforms are underwritten differently.

Rather than being evaluated solely on IRRs and realized multiples, these businesses will increasingly be assessed through a private equity lens: EBITDA generation, revenue streams, margin stability, customer (tenant) retention, technology leverage, scalability of systems, and durability of management teams. Deal performance will still matter, but as proof points—not as the whole story.

The consequences? Platform economics reward longer-term thinking, reinvestment, and organizational maturity. They also open the door to entirely different capital partners, exit paths, and valuation frameworks that look a lot more like growth equity than traditional real estate promote structures.

This really resonates with me. Sponsor, promoter, and developer — these names have historically reflected the entrepreneurial and deal-specific nature of real estate. It's also one of the reasons why project brands typically overshadow developer brands; the focus is on that one deal.

A good deal is a good deal. We all get that. Sometimes a single deal is all that is needed to change your life. But as a general rule, I am much more interested in longer-term thinking, an approach that compounds over time, the opportunity to continually refine a craft, and the growth of brand equity.

In Brad's words, that is "platform over sponsor."

Cover photo by Fabio Sasso on Unsplash