In this July 4th episode, Alex, Brian and Troy chat about whether life will ever get back to 'normal,' Threads vs. X, gamer saints and AI dogs.

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• Alex Schleifer's Universal Entities
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• 00:00 Holiday Podcast Kickoff
• 00:59 Media Industry: Past, Present, and Future
• 02:55 The Canonized Gamer Boy
• 04:20 The Rise of Viral Fame
• 05:54 Threads vs. X: The Social Media Debate
• 07:41 The Future of Social Media
• 09:08 AI and Surveillance in Everyday Life
• 19:56 The Changing Landscape of War
• 22:16 FigmaCon and the Future of Design
• 24:42 Music Industry's Battle with AI
• 27:12 The Future of Publishing and Media
• 34:15 The Role of Legacy Media
• 38:05 Embracing Change in Media
• 40:31 Summertime Recommendations

it's a podcast on a holiday week.

Are we publishing this on like July 4th?

It's like un

American.

Well, I was thinking that this is either gonna be the worst episode we've ever made or the best,

Okay.

let's, pick it the

All right.

It's going to be nowhere in between.

Oh, that's, Alex is here.

Oh yeah.

how are you dealing with the 80 degree weather

you're not even breaking a sweat.

I'm sweating.

Europeans have better air conditioning, weirdly enough.

central air conditioning is dumb.

yeah, it is.

Fourth of July weekend.

Let's, let's talk about all the ways America's terrible.

I love America

Good.

That's the spirit.

You want that on the record

before the new regime takes place.

oh boy

as I was reading some of the notes that we had put together, it struck me that That the overarching question was, are we ever going to get back to normal?

Is the world ever going to be normal again?

no.

Discombobulated.

I hate the word new normal, but I think since the pandemic, it has become sort of the norm.

That's why I've ever noticed like the word chaos is used all the time.

everyone talks about chaos.

And nobody talked about this before.

I don't know if things were more orderly.

this is what it felt like in the late sixties, early seventies.

did it just feel like the wheels were coming off?

yeah, they had political assassinations.

We don't have that.

No, but

people are getting like taken out.

I mean, at least not in the United States.

But yeah, no, there's, there's certainly chaos in, the media industry.

So one of the things I wanted to talk about a little bit is, going into July 4th weekend, is this moment in media and whether, whether we are going a little bit back to the past and in some ways.

This actually came up a few times, in my discussions in Cannes while I was away, about whether, you know, what happened with the internet time was in some ways a blip.

And then we'll end up going back to having, almost less media, not less media, there's going to be more of it because everyone's going to be creating it, but that as far as the, the media industry goes, when you look at, at the economics of it, there's probably going to be fewer professional publishers in some way, shape or form.

I think for sure when we're experiencing the culling of the flock.

Yeah, for sure.

I totally agree with that.

Yeah.

so

we've got a hell of an episode planned, Alex.

great

Brian and I spent a long time figuring out how to make this the best episode ever.

What do we got on the docket, Brian?

Okay.

So Troy and I were just talking about media going back to the past.

We're going to talk, I want to, I want us to talk, a little bit about all these like lawsuits and whatnot.

but,

And also the canonized, Gamer Boy.

who's that?

You don't really?

They're making a gamer into a saint.

They're going starting the process now.

Oh, is this the first millennial saint?

I know

about that.

it seems very sus to use the, I mean, I don't, I can say this as a Catholic, I think seems like they're kind of

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Just to be clear.

They're canonizing a 15 year old and because he's 15 he also games.

So therefore he's a gamer.

but everyone's got to be, you got to brand it.

I don't I'm sure he's a chess player as well.

Or a soccer player.

They should just

No, but he was known he was known for

of a canonized gamer?

You want it to be the first canonized gamer?

No, no.

I'm just like looking for truth here.

I maybe I'm talking to the wrong folks.

people in media don't really care.

But Alongside other hobbies and interests, Acutus, apparently enjoyed video games.

Great.

that's great.

That's great news, guys.

I'm glad

I listen, I

thought it would be an opportunity for you and Brian to bond.

I thought finally we found common ground and that was my home.

So if you want to wreck that, Alex, go ahead and

That's alright, Troy.

I think you will find some affinity in him because he also likes to eat food and drink water.

okay.

should we keep going on the media,

the

hot for this shit, I'm sorry.

Yeah,

yeah.

So lots of companies can't survive.

So it ends up kind of looking like it did before where there are fewer.

Bigger, stronger media companies.

And then the whole world that creates content.

I

Yeah, but there's going to be so many like individuals.

Did you see the, the hawk to a girl?

I mean, it's like everyone I think has seen

know Brian, explain it to me, please.

So I don't really want to get into too many of the details, but she was in Nashville.

Girls Night Out, whatever.

And, you know, there's a lot of these like street interviews that happen, TikTok, YouTube, or whatever.

And, she made, I guess, some sexually explicit comments, about her approach to, you know, particular bedroom act.

And, she quickly went viral.

What was really interesting about this is she was just like a regular person.

And then when she was everywhere then on, particularly on, on, on X, at least that I noticed.

And I was like saying, I was like, Said to my wife, I was like, man, this is like sucks.

I mean, you're like out.

And then all of a sudden she's like the subject of national, possibly international, almost like ridicule.

And then the next day she had signed with UTA.

She had a merch line.

And by the end of the week, she was being, She was pulled up on stage at a, Zach Brian concert.

and she was being asked for her opinion of, Donald Trump.

She's going to be the first talk to a Saint.

Troy, say something.

We should make sure that we start saying, You know, stuff that gets us up there.

There seems to be some sort of cheat code to life.

well, this is the thing.

So.

so are, have you given up on threads yet, Alex,

No, still very active.

Still

what's going on in there?

Who are, is this where all the earnest people are?

Yeah, it's pretty earnest.

but I'm now using a tool called buffer that can post to both now.

And I just announced that.

So I posted one and it goes on

What a way to, what a way to back out of a bad decision.

Just posted.

Nobody wants an earnest media company or social network.

This it's the sanctimonious threads.

Nobody cares.

It's over Alex.

Just get back on X.

No, I

I have to say X one.

I think Elon Musk truly is a genius because like he, he got it.

Like it's a, it's a chaotic mess and it is the perfect, it's a really great media vehicle for our

My son keeps bringing me tweets and saying, isn't this hilarious?

This is the funniest thing I read all day.

X is the best.

Yeah.

And I think it's because there's no social media anymore.

Like it's not social media.

I think someone on the more or less podcast had mentioned this, so I might be stealing it from them.

but it is, the algorithm that they have implemented will surface the craziest stuff.

And when you engage with something, they will give you way more of that, way more.

And.

My guess is he's telling the truth with their, their usage being higher than ever.

and I was not here for the debate, but I'm sure, I'm sure X was like amazing during it.

Yeah, I

Uh, Biden won, Brian.

I heard he did well.

Yeah, he did really well.

He was super articulate.

Yeah, it was, it was not scary at all.

I don't know if Axe is doing well.

It's definitely not doing well as a business.

And I'm, I'm not sure how much more engaged our people are.

It is just unique, you know.

So is 4chan.

I don't know.

It's fine.

Well, I think it matters a little bit because we're between like Hawke to a girl and like X.

This is sort of where things happen.

I think are going in a large portion of media where you just kind of feed quarters into the outrage slot machine or whatever.

And you have to do more outrageous things in order to get attention in the information space.

And that's, that's the name of the game

but isn't that like the Hawktour girl?

I mean, we get one of, we got the guy drinking rasp, whatever, cranberry juice while listening to, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.

That was a thing for a second, right?

I

Was that the meme on threads this week?

I mean, this is the type of social media meme that that tech companies love, right?

Because you get a celebrity that you can monetize.

They don't really make any money.

You don't end up paying them.

you let C.

A.

And stuff like that.

Manage You know, manage them if they want to, but you just create an algorithm that makes people pop.

Somebody's doing something weird every day.

If we had cameras everywhere, you know, all the time, there would be somebody doing something crazy every day, and you could turn them into a star for a day and generate a lot of attention.

That's what's happening.

Alex, that's coming and that's part of the theme of this great

Oh my God.

Did you read that?

Did you read the prep

No, I didn't read.

I was, driving in the heat trying to get back

my God.

We got an accidental segue.

I'm so excited.

Troy.

Well, I mean, cameras, Alex.

I really wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of expand on this.

you said a couple weeks ago that cameras were going to make their way to iPods, AirPods.

iPods too, probably, AirPods and it looks like they are coming.

I don't know if they're like infrared or like actual camera cameras or just for recognizing gestures, but basically we live in a world of big brother where there's cameras everywhere, including now on billions of AirPods.

And now we're going to have a new Huck to a girl every week, every day, maybe.

And also Alex, I was thinking about the importance, the rising importance of it.

as interface.

Because, last week Brian and I talked about me walking around Paris, snapping pictures and feeding it into chat, GBT and it becoming the front end of my guidebook because anytime I wanted to know anything about anything, I just took a picture and fed it into the machine and it gave it back to me.

In fact, in one case I took a picture of a monument and it said, what a lovely monument, except that there's graffiti on it.

I think Apple holds,

The keys.

the keys because the camera, I mean, that's already how I use it.

If you want to remember something, or if I want to remember something, I take a picture of it, I take a screenshot of it.

So technically, my phone has a like a live, ticker of my life that if I can ask an AI to kind of, you know, recall something for me, it can, it already can with a license plate or something.

I think that people actually.

In general, want to record everything, but don't want to be recorded, you know, like if you could, if you could just have Your glasses just record your day 24 7.

You could recall any of it at any time You'd probably say yes, but you probably wouldn't be one part of want to be part of one of those recordings

Do you think that's a good world to live in?

I think individually it's useful.

I think collectively it's dangerous.

I think where You know, some memories are good to be fleeting, right?

You don't want to be constantly looking in the past.

I don't know what it does to us societally.

if you say stupid shit like I have done

Well, especially when you're young, young, right?

But won't it just become, I mean, it's kind of like social media in some ways, and I think social media is ending.

Like this, this entire experiment is, is

What does that mean, that when people say things like that, I'm always a little perplexed?

Well, if you think about that period with Facebook, right?

nobody's on Facebook anymore.

there's

That's not true, dude.

We always do this.

Yes.

old people, some old people are on there.

they need to figure something out because Facebook specifically is just loaded with AI.

AI junk that is just being responded to by horny old men.

I mean, that's basically the loop right now.

And so I wonder if at some point the advertisers get wise to that and say like, we're just, we're just buying against bot, feeding against bot content, right?

And

But okay, so what I mean by that is the whole experiment of connecting you with people for forever.

that failed.

That was dumb.

That was weird.

And

that's not true.

That's how many people use Instagram every day properly.

there's parts of

is ruled by it's Yeah, but it's ruled by like an algorithm.

Everything is moving towards Tic Tac.

All these, they all move in in unison.

That's the thing with X.

People complain because people love to complain and they said, I can't see the people I follow.

There's no point of building a big followership on X if you're not going to play the game.

And you have to play the game and you have to, you know, you have to conform to the algorithm and the algorithm wants you, wants you to do outrageous things.

They want you to, to, to do those, those threads

Right.

Are you saying, are you talking about social media from the point of view of like media creators specifically or everyone?

about using media as a social connectivity to your friend, your friend circle, right?

Well, I think the issue is that what TikTok showed is that it's way better to create a new star of the moment every day and then kind of just you know, make them wash away, then try to sustain, you know, big stardoms, right?

Because then you don't really have to pay them.

They never get to scale.

So it's going to optimize around things that are like.

Of the moment in the moment.

But that's the thing, TikTok is not social media.

how do you

It's not social media because there isn't a, it's not dependent on a follower model.

I think without a follower model, it's not social

mean, it does have a follower model.

I know, but that is not the point of it.

The point of it is that nobody is connect with me on TikTok.

Okay, so TikTok's innovation was this endless stream of video and an algorithm that meant it wasn't dependent on followers, right?

but if I think social media broadly, I think TikTok, I think Instagram, I think Twitter, I think like saying that social, like we're at the end of the social media era, it's constantly morphing.

It's certainly not going anywhere.

When I think of social media broadly, I just think of, you know, kind of community generated content fed through a platform, and you know, delivered to people, according to an algorithm and

Yeah.

And maybe it's a misnomer because, you know, it quickly became apparent to all these companies that the follow your friends model was just a way of growth hacking way, right?

Bring more people into the platform.

And they're actually getting people to engage with the stream.

was, was much more powerful and, and, and productive as keeping them on, on the site because your friend didn't create, your friends didn't create enough compelling content.

Right.

And then TikTok just, you know, cranked the dial up to 11 and it's still social media.

It's like, it's you know, user generated content, social sharing.

that social media?

How, I don't understand how that is social media, but Then again, I didn't understand how the sharing economy had anything to do with sharing.

I mean, it's a good term to not get to not pay people I mean ever

almost feel like Silicon Valley

comes up with these terms to slide in other

I I think we underestimate how much silicon valley has been Dictated by napster and that napster taught like hey if you can find a way of doing something without paying people that is legal Then you're golden And so, you know here share your

content

can thread will threads ever see, some type of it's like a day of glory.

Why did threads become?

is it because it was sort of defined as the, you know, the, you like, why does it

suck?

Why does it suck?

And will it ever not suck?

I don't even understand how we measure the success of something like threads, right?

I can tell you, here's my, right, right, okay, well,

let me give you, let me give you, some statistics, right?

I have,

statistics have no role on this podcast.

No,

have 8, 000 followers on Twitter,

Oh, please don't give me your own

statistics.

me, give

this,

I posted a tweet that, that, you know, that was

Stop Alex,

markets have just gone straight up as worst episode.

All right.

Let me finish my point.

I don't understand how you how you gauge the success for me on threads If I write a post that does broadly well, I get a bunch of replies, I get like 200 likes.

The same exact post on Twitter with the same audience, because I, I, I'm very much connected to a design audience, gets 190 likes.

That's with four times or the amount of followers on Twitter.

So I, I don't know what's successful.

I, I

Maybe you should stick to threads, man.

Maybe that's your crowd.

Well, I stick to both.

I don't know.

I just, I don't really engage much on the app because they're both, you know, But I, I'm sorry if that, like, disagrees with your opinion of the world, but,

Well, no, because I think, I just think that the X is a totally, is a completely different product.

Like when I think about, like I was an early Twitter user, I think what X is now is completely and utterly different.

It's just completely different.

You're just feeding things into the slot machine and pull in the lever and that's the game.

And it's mostly a consumption machine now.

I don't post that much, but I think that it's algorithm has gotten.

Pretty good, I think.

It, it has.

And the stuff that surfaces is, it's very tabloidy to me, and that's why I think it's gonna work.

I get a lot of like fight videos and things, it's wild on there.

I said, what are we to conclude from this for the audience, for our loving audience?

good.

Threads is a different five.

Threads works for Alex.

you know, they're both new social networks and old ones, people can find ways of using social media that is useful to them.

People use Instagram entirely within their social circles and seem to be perfectly happy.

However, For media organization.

It seems like the, you know, the current is moving towards a world where you want to optimize for new stars.

fizzle really quickly and create a ton of engagement, especially if that engagement is, is communal.

So, you know, TikTok becomes the new live event.

You know, we used to gather, gather around and let's say, I don't know, Troy, maybe it's when the Beatles or the moon landing happened.

was that an ageist comment?

Is that a

funny joke?

I was just

Yeah, you should take that over to threads.

just, I just, I was just trying to, to reference a big event, but now it's the, it's the hot girl, you know, like if you own that you're kind of you're owning live tv you're owning live content you're owning like Cultural moments and then outside of that It's the taylor swifts and the superbowls and you know The massive things that kind of grab the rest of the attention, right?

Yeah, I mean, the massive events are going to get bigger.

I mean, you see with the euros and,

Absolutely.

I don't know if the Olympics, nah, less

so,

about i'm bullish about eurovision as well, which is a great, music competition every year But I think what the euros has is and they've, they've done a good job with Formula One.

And it's like all that kind of like, drama outside, you know, these people are stars.

There's

oh, well you need that in F1.

I was watching F1.

In Serbia, and I was just asking my brother in law about it.

Cause I don't know, I don't know anything about that F1 and without all the drama is like, Oh, these two drivers are on the same team, but they're bumping each other cause they don't like each other.

I'm like, I think people would just be like, what am I doing here?

What are we doing here?

We're just watching these cars go around

it's an engineering competition

outside of that.

I

by the way, did you, did you see that they, I didn't know this with F1, they, they play the national anthem, for the winners, but they started, they were playing the German national anthem for the car.

mean, that makes sense.

You know, the car wins the race.

This doesn't, it makes no sense at all.

It's a, it's a car.

Well,

Well, that's an elegant segue to the next one, which is, Chinese robot machine guns.

Chinese

on the document.

Yes, it is.

Troy's hijacking it.

well, no, but it's about how can war ever be the same?

If you can just throw robots out onto the battlefield

Oh yeah, well, we're seeing that in Ukraine.

I, I'm not a war expert.

I don't know.

I think the instruments of war, if you want to talk about that, because I've been digging into it lately, the instruments of war, you know, they usually are built within decades, right?

Some of these fighter jets, etc.

Even the newest fighter jet has like technology from the early 2000s in it, while these smaller drones, the automated things are kind of moving at like consumer product, speed.

I mean, you look at like the, the, the impact, whatever the Houthis have been able to have with some pretty, pretty cheap machinery.

what stood out to me was the, what's the name of the American robot company that made the dog?

Boston

Dynamics.

So there was a version of that that showed up in China, but they had mounted a machine gun on the back.

Great.

it was an AI dog that could roam around,

and then shoot things, and then what if you just had like hundreds of thousands of those coming off the production line and all you really needed to do is parachute land, you know, machine gun equipped robot dogs that are all network brained.

I mean, terrifying.

Yeah.

I mean, yes, there's a lot of terrifying things coming down.

Well, this is part of the theme of the podcast, which is.

Will the world ever be, you know, normal,

Has the world, has the world ever been normal?

I mean, isn't there like this idea of like the difference between, people say that it's, you know, it's not as scary as because it isn't a, what did they call it?

Like a point technology, like a nuclear bomb.

Like you either have it or you don't.

Right, and rather it's much more distributed and there's many ways to counteract each other and it's not like, one or the other.

But that said, you know, We live in, in interesting times

Yeah, Alex, I found one of those dogs online for nine grand.

those robot dogs, it feels like we're in a Black Mirror episode right now.

That's how it starts with three white dudes talking on a podcast about, buying a 9, 000 robot dog and strapping a machine gun on top of it.

Well, in other news, I don't know where Brian's taking us next, but I did just see that you went to FigmaCon or whatever.

You went to hang out with all the

Massive.

I heard it was 8, 000 designers.

When I started being a UI designer, I was the only one that I knew.

Well, it's in

Wait, there's 8, 000 designers there?

Yeah, 8, 000.

I mean, I'm sure they were not all designers, but it was, it was big.

It was huge.

It was bigger than the Game Developer Conference.

And, you know,

Wait, aren't designers, aren't they, isn't that herd going to get culled too?

I mean, that would seem like a easy pickings.

Yeah, I mean, they're not journalists, but they're going to be

That's

true.

like the, it's like agency model being the second worst, business model to publishing.

yeah, I think the work is going to, the work is going to change.

But we need, we need, there's a lot of things that have interfaces that are terrible, or they need to be worked on, or somebody with some

judgment.

It seems pretty

the point of the FigmaCon was this.

all great AI, it steals rampantly and the new Figma AI interface, if you ask it to design a weather app, just copies the Apple weather app.

So they had to disable

But that's what a lot of designers do

anyway.

You give them quote

It's

references and

set.

Yeah, we should talk about the music stuff, but it's, it's that, when you're dealing with a, something like design, which in, in many cases, you cannot copyright UI patterns, right?

You cannot.

Somebody somewhere has recreated a version of the weather app, from Apple that looks very similar and put it on on Dribbble or, or, you know, one of these sites.

And so the system might even be learning from, from kind of open source, content, right?

and so I wonder if at some point they're going to have to, you know, there's like the input, which was how you teach the models and then the output, right?

So they're going to have to watch out what they ingest for sure.

Because that's what they're copying to kind of generate the models, but then what they output, they're gonna have to say, Okay, does this look like somebody, something that already exists?

It's gonna get very strange, right?

It's going to get very strange.

Well, this is the theme of the episode, Alex,

You keep repeating what the theme is.

Let's keep talking.

I'm trying to draw these lines so that we can, you know, see what the shape of the clay is, right?

Like we got robot dogs with machine guns.

We got AI that copies everything.

We got Hawk to a girl.

And we have, threads, the demise of threads.

Yes, and then there is a, I think that's really related to what's happening right now with the music industry suing, those generative music companies, right?

udio.

com where you could create songs.

What, so it's interesting that they're, they're suing, they're not suing like open AI or anyone with a lot of money, is that it?

no, I think, the music industry what you're seeing with the music industry is that they know what they're doing And unlike the media industry in general or the press organized.

So they're doing a very focused Attack on these systems that are generating music.

They're probably responding to artists concerns, which are saying this is our biggest concern right now It's not chat gpt generating lyrics to a song but it's somebody just generating a A michael jackson song out of thin air.

and they're super organized, right?

they've been they've been doing this for a long time and you know, they punch above their weight.

I just found out that there's a crazy statistic Spotify's market valuation 62 billion dollars 63 nearly right You The entire music industry is worth 28 million billion dollars so Spotify is worth more than the entire music industry

Well, when you say worth more, so there's a couple of things there, Alex.

So, do you mean the revenue of the music industry?

One is revenue, the other is market cap?

Yeah, I mean, I would say that's that's one way to look at it.

they're different things, right?

But

Sure, like total total revenue was, you know, 28 billion dollars.

of the music

Yeah.

And sure, like Spotify is calculated.

But when you look at how these AI companies are capitalized, the music industry is really, I think, I think they could be in a world of hurt those AI companies because the music industry knows how to sue.

And it's very, you know, music's a very emotional thing, right?

You can kind of rewrite something.

And everybody's copy and pasted some text to make their know the school paper better or stuff like that So they might get a bit more leniency when it comes to that but when it comes to music when you have a chuck berry song being You know simulated and the judge and the jury loves chuck berry then, you know It's much more up in the air Like I think

Well, actually, Alex, this was over BBL Drizzy, track.

the bbl jersey track

Yeah, that's what ignited this landmark case.

So that'll

be interesting.

The big legal fight over BBL Drizzy.

But, you know, look, the structure of the publishing industry is, it's, it's not a cartel like music.

I, so many of these private dinners that, that I have, they, they end up having a bunch of publishing executives say, we got to band together.

We got,

if

don't they

all

stick together,

do it?

Troy.

Why don't they do it, Troy?

Have you ever had these talks with people before?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Where did it go?

I think that, they're highly competitive.

I think that the structure of the, the sort of core asset is different.

Remember, music is largely about the catalog, whereas news, the minute it's published, is worth basically nothing.

so it's all about the, product of the moment.

the 70 percent of the record industry is in three companies.

could, you know, the New York Times and, you know, five other publishers make a, you know, make more of a dent collectively, probably.

you know, I think it's, I don't, I don't, I don't think that, it's, know, outside the realm of possibility that the five biggest publishers in the country couldn't, you know, kind of throw their weight around more than they have to this

It's easy to pick off a publisher.

It reminds me of like agencies.

Agencies would always complain about Insane client terms, like clients would say, Oh, we're just going to do net 540.

guess what?

Some agency is going to take it.

Agency or a client will be like, okay, well, you're going to have to pitch.

You're basically have to do all the work ahead of time.

You're not going to own any of the rights to it.

And the agencies would be outraged.

And guess what?

A bunch of agencies would go around and do it.

Same with publishers.

I mean, these AI companies are picking them off one by one and they're lining up to do the deals.

of

And look, they're they're making, they're making deals with music, right?

Like a lot of these, a lot of these, the, the music software that I use has some sort of deal if they're doing generative stuff, with the music industry.

so that's what's coming up now.

Everybody's doing deals.

so, it's just going to be interesting.

I, I, I'm like, I'm just finding it very difficult right now to be in the content business as I am with video games and find reliable sources for like stuff like stock photography or even like video that isn't just generated nonsense.

Like even things like Adobe Stock and stuff like that are just being flooded with generated images that they're charging you, 80 bucks to license.

it's a little out of control.

make your own.

Sure, but sometimes you just need a picture of somebody, you know, making a crap and you don't want to,

Really?

Making a crap?

making a crap.

I don't know why I used

Oh, a crepe.

a crepe.

a crepe.

Yeah, crepes.

making a crap segue into the other topic, Troy?

I think it's a part of the soul story,

Are you lying down?

Are you like on a couch with a laptop on your chest?

What's going on?

basically.

I glad I rushed back here to be on in

my

July

4th week.

Are we publishing this on July 4th?

Yeah, this is

Oh, wow.

Happy Birthday, America.

Happy

happy last birthday.

What, I don't know if that's the case.

Did you watch the debate?

yeah the low I watched the low lights.

I was just

I only saw clips.

I was, I was, I was asleep.

I

Everybody was asleep turns out even the people on stage Apparently it was past four o'clock so you couldn't get anything.

But yeah

one thing I did, you know, leading up to the beta, it kind of reminds me, I finally, I finally listened to the all in podcast interview with, with Trump and it was really good.

And I think this is a, that's why I, no, I honestly, I thought, I thought

it was really good.

I thought it was WhatsApp.

I quit the podcast Yeah,

to it.

I mean, cause I think they actually got, it's different than a quote unquote journalistic like interview.

And I think that's fine.

And it was interesting.

I mean, I got him to say actually some fairly interesting things.

He, he seemed to want to be reasonable in this.

And it, it kind of reminded me a little bit of.

The, the things you hear about, you know, Trump in private being somewhat different.

I think it actually brought a different dynamic to it.

And that's why I'm not like against this democratization of media away from the quote unquote professional, class of it, because I think it can yield some fairly interesting results.

So I'm in favor of it.

personally.

I mean, we already knew that Trump was different in private, that came out through the many court cases.

But yeah, so do you have, like, do you prefer Trump now?

Are you, kind of changing your vote?

I mean, you live in Florida, so you're halfway there.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

no.

Yeah, I'm still, I'm still undecided.

You're one of those.

just,

I'm on the fence.

I,

there are people on the highway, on the freeway here with big RFK posters,

just

well, vanity Fair came out with an interesting, interesting piece about, him today.

There's still, there's still room for professional journalism.

I think this is something that, you know, we do tr Troy, you like to, we gotta pump the brakes that like everything is going away and, and it'll all be.

You know, just individual creators, there's still room for professional journalism and professional content creators.

It's just going to be

mean, the history of all of these change moments is the same, Brian.

Where, you know, people either invested in change or kind of, in the service of the change narrative.

You know, prognosticate that the end is nigh and the whole world is going to become something different.

And so just to kind of look back to 99, 2000, 2001, it was like, the narrative was, Oh my God, we're going to buy everything online.

All stores will see selling product.

There will be no retail business.

banks will not exist.

we'll do all of our banking now.

Literally, that was what?

25 years ago.

Okay.

And then we do do a lot of things online and we do bank online and we do buy shit from Amazon, but the, the, the structure of our world is.

You know a little different but relatively similar to what it was in the late 90s Then crypto came along and everybody said well, this is the end of banks and Sovereign kind of money management and all that kind of stuff and you know that didn't last that was a kind of quick play And the same thing is going to happen this time search is not over is not over all of the transactional economy that is downstream of an interface will still Kind of find new ways to, to kind of line up behind, starting points.

And, it's great that AI is a useful tool and it's going to make its way into all business processes and the world will be marginally different, but it's going to look the same, ironically, to kind of bring it back to our original discussion.

In publishing, what happened is the democratization of publishing on the internet created tons and tons and tons of new competitors and many of them are disappearing.

And

ironically, ironically, you guys, the, you know, what are seen as traditional or historic or whatever, media brands that, you know, went into this, Legacy media brands are still, you just reference Vanity Fair.

It's, there's not an episode of All In that goes by without, Sachs referencing the Wall Street Journal, mainstream media or, or, you know, established media outlets play an important role in our world, and they will continue to.

I mean, you're talking like someone who didn't see.

basically the eradication of print media in his career.

these, these famous brands turning into SEO factories and

It's called service journalism.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, people like editors, like with their own drivers and like, you know, shrimp scampi and cocktails at 2 PM now doing, newsletters.

Wait, excuse me.

How did I get, why am I catching?

Well, but what I'm saying is like the world didn't change that much.

It changed a lot.

I think the world hasn't, hasn't disappeared, but

Well, no, no.

So the world, the world has changed.

I think Troy's point is sometimes we can, we can over get over our skis a little bit about.

it, it's about responding to the change to me.

And obviously you have to be adaptable at this time.

And if you look at it, I mean, I'll say it since, since Troy won't like, sure.

A lot of people don't like, to make fun of Forbes and everything, and you know, the Gawker crowd.

Well, where's Gawker?

Gone.

That's where it is.

Okay.

And there's so many of these digital brands that have been outlived.

By legacy brands.

And that's the truth.

A lot of the, a lot of the, digital brands were really flimsy, you know, like I hope Brian make, makes a go of it at bustle, but I don't know if people are going to be protesting if, if bustle is not around, And I would rather have a legacy brand than a lot of these, these flimsy digital brands that got created.

Well, yeah, at least you can sell it to private equity, but yeah, I mean, sure.

You know,

Well, I think you can't be sentimental about it.

I do think that there is, if there's something, like I saw something, it was a really popular semi, like sub stack, post newsletter, I guess, that, that went after what people magazine has become.

And there's a lot, there's a lot of, it was written, she's a great writer, Anne, Helen Peterson, and I get it, you know, people is not the people of the 1980s and the 1990s, and I guess you can sort of lament that, or you can say, Well, it's just moved into a different period and it needs to, to have a different purpose.

And yeah, part of that is going to be, you know, doing the, the affiliate stuff.

Part of that's going to be doing events and part of it is going to be doing, you know, whatever it takes to, to be a sustainable business.

I mean, what's the alternative just to like do nothing and try to go down with the ship and maintain your purity.

Well, I mean, with all due respect to the writer of that article, that was the problem with it, which

is, you know, Well, that was the problem with it.

It was like, Oh, look, it's not the same people that, you know, I looked forward to when I was a kid.

And, you know, go back and look at people.

There's, I think the dot dash folks have done a good job on it.

And, you know, all things considered, and I would like, she should run it.

She should go run it.

I'd like to see what she makes out of it and how she meets the expectations of the people that she has to pay and, you know, the investors that she has to return capital to and all of that stuff is, I mean, it's just a little too easy to not a kind of to sit on the outside and say it's not what it was and not to really appreciate the trade offs that are inherent in devolving something into a new, just in a new distribution reality.

So You know, I thought that was a thoughtful, thoughtful piece, but,

Well, it was nostalgia.

I guess the part that I think that at this moment of time that media could use a lot less of is nostalgia.

The past is not coming back.

It ain't not coming back.

And so you got to figure out a path forward.

And it's likely for a lot of these brands going to be quite different than what it was before.

and some of them will disappear.

I mean, I think saying like, well, you know.

Everybody was

calling for the Yeah, I agree.

That's what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that things are going to disappear, but like, we've been talking about the demise of MTV for 20 years now.

Like, when was the last time MTV

was the MTV we knew?

I don't know.

I guess it is, right?

Isn't it?

Somebody's, somebody's, like,

Are people, like, turning

on

guests around, but they turned the website off.

MTV

News

is our, is our,

they have videos?

Like, music videos?

No.

They have reruns of Ridiculousness and Teen Mom, but, The fact that this exists isn't a sign that the, you know, that things just keep on kicking.

There's different industries as part of media, like, some would say like Disney and the studios are, you know, surprisingly kind of powerful and, pertinent concerns considering all the changes they're managing it but media is being hit harder and When you compare the size and influence of these media properties only 10 years ago 15 years ago with today it is pretty existential and I don't know if I would work at one of these companies today Or if I was young like would I join that?

Yes, if I called you.

She called me.

Well, you said you want to, but if you called me today, Troy, you'd say like, Hey, do you want to help me on my newsletter?

I need a banner.

it pays 50 bucks.

I have a lot, by the way, I have a lot of great candidates for my business operations lead role.

I've been talking to some wonderful people, so anyone who's listening, I'll still, I'll still, I can squeeze you into my

But you see, this is the future of media.

you know, every second of airtime, you try to show something.

That's what it is.

He's like the hot girl or

I haven't even talked about the, the online forum I'm doing with Amita on, July 17th at 1.

30 PM.

Troy is not

The links in the show notes.

not amused at all.

I want to tie this in a bow for people.

And I want to give, my thought is, we give each of the people on this podcast the forum to tie it up into a nice bow.

And I'm not even sure what part of the last 45 minutes you want to kind of include in that or process.

But, this is a summertime episode.

You know, we're all, Alex is in a steaming hot Sonoma and Brian is, In a sweaty Miami and I can report that it's warm and shelter on.

So, with that, I'll throw it over to Alex to tie it up for the audience.

And then we'll move into good product,

I think that At a moment of so much change and so many forces coming, into contact with each other, economic forces, geopolitical technology, there's going to be a lot of value destruction, but an opportunity for value creation.

And I think if you're in media right now, whatever types of media it is, and we talked about music, video games, is to find out where the value is.

And I think that We will always find certain things valuable.

It, it, you know, brands are one thing for sure.

Like the longer a brand has been around, the more value it holds on, you know, there's like an energy that gets attached to it.

But for me, what I'm doing is I'm, I really think that owning IP, owning intellectual property, owning some sort of copyright on, on things, whether it's music, characters, stories.

owning a data set that is uniquely yours, that's going to be where, kind of, some of the safety nets are.

so that's what I'm focusing on.

Yeah.

Mine's pretty simple.

It's a

I'm going to steal something that Sarah Fisher said on a podcast I did in Cannes with her friend, Sarah Fisher from Axios.

and she said, embrace the chaos.

And I think that's actually a good one for, particularly for people in the media industry, whether you're in it, cause things are changing so quickly.

I couldn't, I really couldn't get an answer from anyone who is running, these publishing businesses when I asked, what does your business look like in five years?

Could not get a cogent answer.

And I think that was kind of honest in that you really Can't forecast that.

And so I don't, I think the, the future is for a lot more, a lot more independent organizations, but mostly because they're adaptable and because they can adapt to a chaotic environment.

And I don't know, volatility is good.

Like you can figure out ways to make money in volatility.

I mean,

investors know this, so,

that's right, Dan.

I think

but, but pining for something, for things to go back to where.

The way they were, has that ever worked?

Like when?

Yeah.

I think you're right, Dan.

I think things change faster than people sometimes.

So what people love might kind of remain broadly the same.

Just the mechanisms

Yeah.

And also listen to the market.

The market is going to tell you what it wants.

It might not be the answer that you want it to be.

I'm sure this person, yes, the market likes webinars.

I can't help it.

I'm just responding to market signals on July 17th at 1 30 PM.

New audience development strategies.

Amazing.

you know, Troy, I have come to respect and nearly look forward to Brian's shilling of webinars

during

our

I did such a, it's a pejorative.

By the way, everyone is in the ad business now.

That was something we didn't get to.

Like

everyone.

can use that in a wrap up if you want.

yeah, you take us

home.

couple of things.

This point Brian just made about everybody being in the ad business, I think we've kind of said it for a long time, but it's like so true now.

If you have an interface point and you have customer data, particularly anything around consumption and intent, you have a media business.

Without the, you know, fundamental expense structure of a media business.

This to me is, is sort of as existential as AI.

It, you know, if you're a bank, you're a media business.

If you're an airline, you're a media business.

If you're a Costco, you're a media business.

If you're Instagram, you know, Instacart, you're a media business.

If you're Uber, you're a media business.

Like it's, it's not infinite guys.

This is a zero sum game and anybody that's, you know, trying to sell kind of un-remarkable impressions.

It's gonna really have a really hard time.

So there's got to be kind of performative, deep, performative value in what you make, either because you're convening people or you're driving a by bringing together a buyer and seller.

Just the things that we always talk about.

But I think beyond that, and this is back to the Huck to a girl.

It's like we love imperfection.

We love humans.

We love people that bring love to what they make, and that's what's really important.

Does this

apply to her?

She's, she's a crafts.

real.

a crafts person,

it's

real though, you know.

Yeah, it's real, like

we are, you know.

It's real and weird and wonderful, and I don't want to read, a middle manager telling me what they think on threads.

nobody wants that.

So.

Anyway, I would say, this would bring us to a slightly disconnected, good product,

Go ahead.

this is about second acts for me, and, I love a second act.

I think America likes second acts.

Maybe we're about to see a second act, sadly, with Trump, but, in music, a lot of times, the second act is sad.

Where it's kind of derivative of the first act and in a way that doesn't really inspire and I somehow stumbled on this album that represented a second act and I loved it and It's worth sharing because it's a kind of perfect summertime album and I would encourage you to listen, even you, Brian.

when I grew up, the biggest band, because of my age, it wasn't the Beatles, Alex, it was The Clash.

And The Clash was, you know, everything that, we just loved the band because it was British and punk rock and, you know, with a pop sensibility and it was great.

Anyway, on the cover of their most iconic album, the album is London Calling is, the bass player from the Clash Smashing is bass and it's Paul Simonon.

And, he has a band.

This kind of troubadour thing with, it's called Galen and Paul.

By the way, there's just anecdotally, the other two important members of, of, of the clash also went on to have interesting second acts.

Mick Jones did big audio dynamite, which was a terrific followup to the clash.

And Joe Strummer had a band called the Mescaleros, but anyway, Galen and Paul is this British duo duo of Galen Ayers and Paul Simonon.

It is sort of quintessentially European music.

It feels like a European vacation.

It's 60s French chanson, Spanish pop, and French café melodies with a sprinkling, on a track here and there of kind of dub and reggae.

And it's just this amazing record that, I had no idea it existed.

I think it was released about a year ago.

and it's, it's by Galen and Paul.

And by the way, Galen Ayers is the daughter of this famous kind of artist, musician, progressive rock guy, British guy named Kevin Ayers.

And, I think it, it's worth a listen.

So that would be my choice.

the, the album is called, Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day?

to it, it's great for the summer time.

Everybody needs a summer music recommendation.

That's good.

I think speaking of that, I think a good product is Europe during, in summer.

Europe in summer is a great product.

The

Europeans know how to summer.

I, we like to like, as Americans, we love to give grief to Europeans for not being as productive as we are supposedly, or having a shrinking GDP while we become ever more dominant.

But they know how to summer.

They really do.

I mean, you missed this, but last week we were talking about, Fête in, in Paris, Amazing, amazing, and the European seaside, impeccable during summer.

you know, when I send out my newsletter, I get some like auto replies that come back.

I don't know how they get through it.

I got one from Denmark.

It's July 2nd.

He was like, very, and I was like, I'm not going to be around until August 2nd.

Hero.

Hero.

Europe and summer.

Great product.

Not only is Europe a great place, but they do have a different sort of sporting sensibility, and I've learned to appreciate it.

I love watching the Euro Cup.

It's so fun.

I think there's something interesting.

I was talking to my wife about that and what why I enjoy the euro or and what I feel like we're missing here in the U.

S.

is this kind of regular drumbeat of competition against other countries, not within ourselves, not the states, you know, not the league, you know, a competition against other countries where you can kind of all get together, feel like you're rooting for your country, Wherever kind of political position you're taking and just really hate the italians

Did you see, did you see the video of the Albanian fan who was like taunting the Italian fans by like breaking pasta?

I mean that stuff isn't that delightful,

I like that.

it's a fun thing And I you know, I recommend the euro because of that country versus country is a fun thing and I wish there was more of that in the u.

s I know the super bowl is big but it is, very You state driven and localized.

It's

Yeah, it's, it is a little tinged by nationalist, ultras and, and the, the specter of political violence, but other than that, good.

it's 2024.

Everything is, everything is.

Yeah.

Do you remember that one Euros that, this is when we probably should have known that something was up when, when, Russia sent over all those goons to like beat up the, British goons, but the Russian sent like trained goons

yes, we never learn our lessons.

they were like MMA fighters going up against like drunk, British holiday makers.

It was

good times.

good times.

All right, well, enjoy 4th of July

for being our European co host, Alex.

Appreciate you, especially in the summertime.

And happy 4th of July.

America, it's still, it's still here.

number one.

Still

number one

still number one in

until it gets acquired by private equity because that brand's gonna that brand's gonna go still the heat death of the universe.

so well done everyone keep keep on trucking.

All right, guys.

Bye

Bye.