Tech companies want to pay you $400k to tell stories 🪶

5 trends going viral in marketing right now.

#1

Every major company is suddenly hiring “storytellers” at $400k salaries

I wrote about Anthropic’s Anti-AI campaign a few weeks ago.

They went from cringe “Move your work up to the Claude” posters to viral IRL popups by doing one thing: telling a better story.

Now everyone wants that.

I counted 10+ companies hiring a Storyteller in the past week. They are paying $320k-$400k for roles like “Brand Narrative Lead”. Vanta, Field AI, Patreon, Forage, Anthropic - all hiring the same type of person.

The ENTIRE full-time job is to shape how the company talks about itself (not a usual comms role - see job descriptions).

And honestly, it makes sense:

AI writes your emails now. Templates exist for everything. But AI can’t figure out the story that makes people actually care about your product.

That’s the skill that’s worth $400k.

My take: Even if you’re not looking for a new job, this trend should change how you think about your own work. The marketers who know how to tell stories will advance 10x faster than the ones who just “execute campaigns”.

Remember:

• ❌ Your job isn’t to explain what your product does;

• ✅ It’s to give people something worth repeating to their friends.

That’s the whole game in 2026.

#2

How to fake a million-dollar PR stunt for free

Speaking of stories people repeat to their friends…

Here’s a $0 example that got shared millions of times last week: