A Billion Wicked Thoughts (and Five Personal Brands)

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:33:17 -0700

In the book “A Billion Wicked Thoughts”, a couple engineers decided to analyze internet search data to discover what we really desire.

They came up with 5 archetypes that show up in feminine fantasies:

Surgeon
Pirate
Billionaire
Vampire
Werewolf

The idea is that they all represent a form of untamed masculinity.

I think they also represent 5 brand archetypes.

Consider this quote from Sahil Lavingia (founder of Gumroad): “Every job will be automated until four remain: engineer, entrepreneur, investor, artist.”

Add in the athlete, and you’ve got the modern brand version of the fantasy:

Surgeon = Engineer
Pirate = Entrepreneur
Billionaire = Investor
Vampire = Artist
Werewolf = Athlete

But what makes them brands? In my head, I picture Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “come with me if you want to live, but adapted to each of these as brand promises:

Engineer: “come with me if you want solutions.”
Entrepreneur: “come with me if you want freedom.”
Investor: “come with me if you want compounding value.”
Artist: “come with me if you want beauty.”
Werewolf: “come with me if you want protection.”

Leaning in to your brand promise means less process, and more product.

Engineer: less tech talk, more “my product/service solves X”
Entrepreneur: less hype, more new possibilities available
Investor: less percentages, more legacy
Werewolf: less gym sessions, more bradley.thor chopping wood

(Artists don’t need this advice, because they already get it: go to a musician’s page, and you won’t see them posting practicing with a metronome or Zoom sessions with their coach or page 23 of their music theory book. Just clips of the beauty of their finished work.)

So, what’s your brand?

Brand on Henry Dotson's Blog

A Billion Wicked Thoughts (and Five Personal Brands)