Welcome back to Business Tech Culture.
Over the last few drops, we’ve mapped out how modern builders survive. We established The Enemy Moat, we embraced the chaos of The Public Draft, and we realized that in an era of infinite AI generation, you need The Curation Monopoly.
We know how to build the culture. But today, we need to talk about the container you put it in.
Legacy industries dictate formats based on their own comfort, not the culture’s. Traditional tech founders think "real" software has to be a desktop dashboard. Legacy Hollywood thinks "real" stories are horizontal, two hours long, and watched in a dark theater.
When a new format emerges that they don't control, the establishment immediately brands it as garbage. But the modern builder knows the truth: constraint breeds creativity.
The Medium is Not the Slop
To break down why legacy gatekeepers are so terrified of new formats, I brought in Daniel Cotroneo. He is the Founder & CEO of Flashback Pictures and the co-director of the highly anticipated vertical mobile series Pizza Guys Vs Vampires.
Daniel is actively taking high-level, scripted narrative and building it natively for the vertical screen. Film purists immediately dismiss this as "TikTok slop."
I asked Daniel how the constraints of 9:16 actually force him to be a better storyteller. He completely dismantled the legacy argument:
"Reality is, there's a lot of vertical slop out there. But there is a lot of horizontal slop too. It's important to separate the content from the medium. The fact that something is vertical isn't what makes the thing 'slop.' Look at photography... you can have a beautiful image in portrait same as in landscape. The challenge we have right now is that the term 'Vertical' has become synonymous with these serialized romance soaps out there. In the near future, I do believe that the term Vertical will become more general to just mean anything in the 9:16 aspect ratio. And that content will expand to more genres as more talented filmmakers dive into the space to meet audiences where they are."
The format is not the enemy. The lack of taste is the enemy. Taste is format-agnostic. A brilliant director can make you feel something in 9:16, just like a great founder can build a massive cultural moat inside a simple Telegram chat.
The Soccer Swarm Delusion
Because legacy gatekeepers refuse to respect the new format, their strategy completely collapses. When they finally realize the audience's attention has shifted to a mobile screen or a new platform, they panic.
I asked Daniel to identify the biggest delusion traditional Hollywood operates under right now. His answer perfectly describes both legacy studios and legacy SaaS companies:
"The biggest delusion Hollywood has right now is that they can predict where the next hit will come from. It's almost like watching 5-year-olds play soccer. The ball gets kicked and everybody swarms. Yes, the next hit will start with a creator who thinks outside the box. But it still comes down to a great story, a great script, and a filmmaker who knows how to create value while not being afraid of new formats and pipelines."
When you don't actually understand the culture, you just chase the ball.
The traditionalist sees vertical video and tries to awkwardly crop their bloated, two-hour movie to fit a phone screen. They treat the modern medium as an afterthought—a cheap promotional funnel for the "real" product. The modern builder looks at the phone screen, respects the constraints of the medium, and builds a native masterpiece directly into it.
The Native Mandate
The lesson here goes way beyond filmmaking.
Stop forcing your audience to consume your product the way you want them to. If your community lives in the group chat, don't force them into a sterile email funnel. If their eyes are locked on a 9:16 mobile screen, don't demand they sit down at a 16:9 monitor to experience your brand.
Meet the audience where they are, strip away your ego about the "proper" format, and apply your unapologetic taste to the container they actually use. The arrogance of legacy builders is believing they can train the consumer to revert to old habits. You cannot train the culture. You can only build for it.
Keep the seams exposed,
Ash