042122 === [00:00:00] Joe White: Welcome to the get together well over the world, there are people thinking about and creating a future of live digital events and performances. [00:00:09] Jess Ryan: They're disparate innovators who are artists, tech, founders on profits and investors, and they need a place to gather and share ideas. That's what the guests [00:00:18] Joe White: gather is all about. [00:00:19] Jess Ryan: I'm just a theater creator who loves bringing people together around technology art and [00:00:24] Joe White: the internet. And I'm Joe, a tech and media startup bet with over 10 years of experience growing and operating [00:00:29] Jess Ryan: businesses. Thanks for getting together with us. Let's dig in. [00:00:43] Jess Ryan: We have so much news to talk about today. You're to news day on teach T it's a news day, [00:00:52] Joe White: these little songs, I feel like we need like a tape of all the songs and ideas stolen from the [00:01:00] one, the only Shawn Robinson from of, uh, Vox media's today explained. Oh, and they made like a playlist of all of the music that they made across their, whatever, probably like five or 600 episodes in. [00:01:11] Joe White: And it's amazing. That's good. So good. I'm going to find one song for you that I, like. I literally go back to it and listen to, and I was like, this song is genuinely really [00:01:18] Jess Ryan: good. The stuff that was composed for the podcast, or is this like bullshit that someone like it's like it's a two day over day kind of [00:01:25] Joe White: thing. [00:01:26] Joe White: It's. It starts from where you are, but then they spent more time actually refining it. And I think that's good. He, the whole genre was from, and then, um, one of the producers, uh, whose name I cannot remember right now, like are both like, they're both musicians and they both enjoy, you know, mucking around on, oh, that was nice software. [00:01:45] Joe White: And so they, they make. They've actually produced. It's [00:01:49] Jess Ryan: awesome. Versus the, the fun. Did he say he threw out there, [00:01:52] Joe White: but it doesn't mean we shouldn't produce this, this album, there'll be a bunch of 32nd shorts. [00:01:56] Jess Ryan: Then we get to our 150 episodes of [00:01:58] Joe White: something and then we'll push them into [00:02:00] Tik TOK and they'll alternate into memes and it'll be great. [00:02:02] Joe White: We'll be rich in theory, [00:02:03] Jess Ryan: the end. It's that simple, everyone. Uh, no, seriously. We have so much news to talk about today. News. Have found talked about in the office over the last week in technology and theater, theater, and FTS, someone will come up with a category for all this shit. We talk about someday, [00:02:20] Joe White: someday one day. [00:02:22] Joe White: Yeah. What would be that category? Whatever musings for another day. Yeah. [00:02:25] Jess Ryan: Creators. Creators, right? Crazy. Creators going to create [00:02:29] Joe White: creators, going to get you cannot stop them. What'd you say about musical theater? The other day were like people who write musical theaters are going to fucking write them regardless of if you want them to, or if you don't want them to, they cannot stop [00:02:38] Jess Ryan: them. [00:02:39] Jess Ryan: We will be sitting at home. We, I don't write musicals. We'll sit at home. We will write those musicals, whether you pay us. [00:02:45] Joe White: Wait on the topic of news and this can be cut. Who cares? Um, the, uh, the, the two women who wrote the unofficial bridge written musical. Yeah. They [00:02:55] Jess Ryan: just win and won the Grammy. All, this is [00:03:00] a property that did not have the rights secured at the time that they booted out on tick-tock it has not been on broad. [00:03:08] Jess Ryan: It is made by two young women. It was on tick-tock and it won the best musical album. [00:03:16] Joe White: So awesome. And just like you can't stop them. They're going to create the things that are asked. No permission needed. Exactly. This is fun. Oops. Now we're famous. Now you have to give [00:03:27] Jess Ryan: us the rights and [00:03:28] Joe White: options and those songs, if you haven't. [00:03:31] Joe White: They're so good. They're hits so good. I'm I'm embarrassed to say. I learned about them through like a like NPR podcast or something. There's like a, it was like a planet money or something like that, [00:03:41] Jess Ryan: but that's the hope and dream right. For theater people. Is that like, it shouldn't just be mainstream. Yeah. [00:03:46] Jess Ryan: Uh, speaking to people who love musicals, I want the Joes of the world to like, learn about the Bridgeton musical through their MPR podcast. Think, I don't know. I don't think I like theater. I'm not sure. And go listen to Richardson and be like, what the [00:04:00] fuck? This is fucking slaps. And then, and then talk about it on their own podcasts. [00:04:04] Jess Ryan: That's like the dream. [00:04:05] Joe White: I think I will propagate in content through the internet spheres. Uh, yeah. Check it out. It's cool. It one things. Yay. Wait, real question. Does it need the rubber stamp of the Grammys? [00:04:17] Jess Ryan: I mean, it will make them richer, right? Cause it's just, it becomes an IP business, right? Like they get the option from Netflix. [00:04:24] Jess Ryan: They make the musical. Now it would never have, I don't think probably have gone to Broadway because most producers would say. In a traditional producing form. Oh, you don't have the rights secured already from net, from Netflix or whomever owns him. I'm not touching this, come back and talk to me when you have the rights. [00:04:39] Jess Ryan: And for two young women, you know, to go get the rights from NEF, that's fucking complicated. The Oscar just like brings that brick wall crashing down. Right. And it's just like, [00:04:49] Joe White: yeah. So in some world, the Oscars, the Grammy, they could stay in the tick-tock sphere and just like never try to breach and potentially build up enough, like credit and.[00:05:00] [00:05:00] Joe White: I don't know other other forms of, of sort of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Collateral. I dunno something. Um, so yeah, I guess the Grammy's a rubber stamp, but it's still helpful rubber stamp. Absolutely. I'm excited about the world in which the Grammy is no longer like people, like, I don't care. I'm doing this thing over here. [00:05:16] Joe White: I've got 150 million people around the world who loved my thing that are each giving me a dollar. Like you can go fuck yourself. [00:05:24] Jess Ryan: Uh, I got 150 million. Literally $1 [00:05:29] Joe White: each [00:05:31] Jess Ryan: just imagined it all under my mattress [00:05:34] Joe White: or above. It would be upset if you kept it all on Daryl. I know. I know. Alright, well, news in addition to Bridgeton, which was a last minute throw in y'all that was just, that was live. [00:05:46] Joe White: He's getting [00:05:47] Jess Ryan: good at this. [00:05:48] Joe White: So I just let my brain go wherever it wants. Sometimes it's good. I love sometimes it's not so good. [00:05:57] Joe White: So earlier this week, [00:06:00] we got a very fun newsletter from, uh, the heck is this thing even called every two? Is that what it's called? Every, which is just so confusing for trying to like search that on the internet. But yeah, the URL to get to it is every dot T O and it is a bundle of newsletters and podcasts by, you know, just really interesting creators and or business people that are born in this. [00:06:22] Joe White: Digital age, you know, they're all, I don't know when they're like mid twenties to mid thirties sort of vibe. And I just like love to write and theorize about the internet and it's super fun. Um, and so this sub division of, of every is called divinations and the writer of this article, Nathan Bouchez is yeah. [00:06:40] Joe White: A student of the internet. I think he worked at general assembly and then he was at sub stack and then he is now writing this and was co-founder of every, or maybe he's the president. Yeah. He's got a title, um, and this article and kind of like every time they send me a newsletter, I'm like, well, this is crazy. [00:06:58] Joe White: And really quickly, I was [00:07:00] like, Jessica, read this, um, The title of it is recursive publishing. And it's this idea of how the publishing model has changed from the old system, which was more linear, where you have, you know, a New York times that has an editorial staff that is making editorial decisions and assigning stories and, and helping to guide the forces of what we consume, what we find interesting, what works, what doesn't work, what's a hit what's popular, um, what goes, but the internet where all of a sudden it was like really easy and really cheap to create lots and lots and lots of content. [00:07:32] Joe White: Changed all of that, you know, you don't look needed the distribution house and the newspaper trucks to actually get the content out to the people. Anyone could create a blog and be like, here are my thoughts. They're not necessarily good. They're not necessarily bad. They just are. Um, and then layer on top of that, the social media networks and, and sort of discovery on the internet and all of a sudden algorithms, no longer humans making decisions, but rather. [00:07:53] Joe White: Clicks and likes and engagements and things like that. And they started to build these a recursive loops where [00:08:00] a story or a post or a thing. We get exposed to a couple of people on Facebook or Tik TOK or Instagram. And if it did well, you know, lots of clicks, lots of likes, lots of shares, some complicated layering of algorithms. [00:08:11] Joe White: It would get you into more people and those people will click it and like it, and whatever that would get you into more people and get down to more people and more and more and more and more, which puts this. Benefit on the side of just creating lots and lots and lots of content to potentially win that recursive game when that algorithm, um, and it's, it's sort of a departure from the linear style, the New York times example from before, because it, it doesn't really involve a human curator in the same way, and it lets the algorithms kind of take over and expose what is, or isn't interesting. [00:08:40] Joe White: And I thought this was super interesting because of the way that it has, you know, Political division, but also surface things that would not have otherwise gotten attention. Hashtag Bridger to musical hashtag Richardson, musical, what New York times publisher or anyone, right. [00:09:00] Is going to be like. It was a great idea. [00:09:03] Joe White: We're going to give you a bunch of money to do this thing that is going to get us sued. Let's go. It's amazing. Right? They're not going to take that risk. And that's at the core of this article, as well as the idea that the individual inside of one of these platforms that tech talk or YouTube or Facebook can take a bit more risk, um, where a New York times or an established brand or an established entity just can't afford to take that, that same risk and that a. [00:09:31] Joe White: Is going to reward some of those riskier takers, because we as humans, we like new, we like novel. We like risque. We like risky. I mean, like all the rest skis risk ask. Sure. I hope you [00:09:44] Jess Ryan: cut that part. Absolutely not. [00:09:48] Joe White: Um, so the article goes like far wider and far deeper than I can without just reading it back to you. [00:09:54] Joe White: Cause Nathan, Michelle is smart. Um, but, but just, you had a chance to read this article, uh, you know, what [00:10:00] stood out to you as you were reading through it? [00:10:02] Jess Ryan: I mean, my number one takeaway was like the seismic shift you have made as a person who was terrified of the biases of algorithms too, like being like, oh my God, this is so interesting. [00:10:15] Jess Ryan: Let's talk about what the potential impossibilities are of [00:10:18] Joe White: this. Ooh, I'm still afraid of those folks. Don't don't don't mix it. I think it's interesting. Still terrified of the robots. This makes me maybe more terrified of the robot. Cause like, oh, this is what is to be terrified about. Like who's deciding what is, and isn't interesting. [00:10:34] Joe White: And what is it based on? And that's like the sort of the joking YouTube rabbit hole that you can go down where it's like, oh, I was watching, you know, Gangnam style and all of a sudden I'm like being militarized into, you know, right. Wing propaganda. And it's like, I've only watched 10 videos. How did I get here? [00:10:49] Jess Ryan: I just learned something about you that I didn't really fully realize. So my friend, Audrey, who I think you've heard me talk about, who's a very famous scholar and author, uh, [00:11:00] Indian Muslim, Hindu, Muslim, uh, relations across history. Uh, she's the kind of gal that'll just like, fuck and pick the other side of the fight to fight with you, which I love. [00:11:11] Jess Ryan: And I've known her since I was 10. And I'm thinking, as you just described all that about how you told me, it's like, if you have human curators, it just it's against the point of the system. And. Oh, he really likes the system, but now I realize what's going on [00:11:27] Joe White: cognitive dissonance. All things can be true at once. [00:11:32] Joe White: Oh [00:11:32] Jess Ryan: man. Uh, yeah, but I, okay, so let's throw, let's come back to like that sort of yin and yang of. What you, what you win, what'd you get what you lose in relying on the algorithm. Part of this process is recursive publishing system. Let's throw that away for a second. What I couldn't help, but thinking was so exciting, right? [00:11:54] Jess Ryan: It's something I talk about a lot here in the office, which is just that there is [00:12:00] so much creativity. And incredible creators everywhere that are untapped unused. You know what I mean? Like unsurfaced and to your point, you made earlier, like w we keep creating, like, it doesn't pay us. Don't pass it doesn't fucking matter. [00:12:18] Jess Ryan: We're going to keep creating, right? Like, I'm going to, I'm going to own my own two companies finally. And I'm still going to be making a movie on the side. Do you know what I mean? Like, it just never stops. Yeah. The spoiler. Is that a, [00:12:29] Joe White: is that a, maybe something Easter egg for everyone. Remember this? [00:12:35] Jess Ryan: Um, do you know what I mean? [00:12:37] Jess Ryan: There's just like a whole engine of like value that is just not being surfaced tapped, and this feels like. Just like a sluice through which to put it, [00:12:49] Joe White: you know, no idea what that word is [00:12:51] Jess Ryan: loose. It's loose the narrows. It's a, [00:12:56] Joe White: I'm going to describe, I'm going to define the word by just pronouncing it slightly more fun.[00:13:00] [00:13:01] Jess Ryan: My favorite example of a sluice is a piece loose for a woman. [00:13:05] Joe White: Oh, that actually that got me there that, you [00:13:11] Joe White: know, [00:13:14] Jess Ryan: right. So it's like a narrow it, like, it takes a wide opening and puts in funnels, people, ideas, whatever it is through it and into a narrower place where we can maybe pick things out, you know what I mean? And I just think that's, what's most exciting about this. It, it gives a chance to what I care about most, which is for there to be more great [00:13:37] Joe White: art. [00:13:39] Joe White: Yeah. I like that. And I think something you said earlier in Twitter spaces, uh, also spoiler, we switched from clubhouse spaces. We see what happened, um, that you said where it was. Okay. What is the hybrid of these two worlds? Right. We don't want pure robots deciding what we like. And don't like, because we're just gonna I'll watch Gangnam style forever.[00:14:00] [00:14:00] Joe White: Um, [00:14:01] Jess Ryan: what was the gang I'm style? Why, how did that happen? I don't [00:14:04] Joe White: know. It was so good. They broke YouTube's algorithm. Um, nor will we have just the pure, like one person decides what we think is interesting. It will be somewhere in the middle. Right. And how are you using the, the, the sluices of the internet to funnel all the potential good things to a human or to some set of humans or collective of humans? [00:14:24] Joe White: Um, you know, for some, a little bit more humanity in the decision-making that makes me think of. Do you remember the, the podcast, the daily. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to hit New York times all day. I love this. I like listen to the daily for awhile. Love, uh, loved hearing Michael Bavaro say his own name at the beginning of that show. [00:14:42] Joe White: That's a good name, a good name. It's a good name. Um, and then was just like, I'm done with this show. I don't care how [00:14:47] Jess Ryan: hard turn I didn't expect us to go there. [00:14:51] Joe White: And what I realized was. That sluicing was happening. I don't know if I can verify that it was, it was happening. [00:15:00] I didn't need to listen to the daily for the best episodes of the most interesting episodes for them to come to me. [00:15:06] Joe White: Like I had a network of friends and network of websites and newsletters and things that I already interacted with. Oh, interesting. The best versions of the most relevant, you know, episodes that you wanted to spend for the daily. There are way back to me. And so I'm like, cool. Thank you other people for doing the work of listening to all of these episodes, like you, Michael Barbaro and your team for creating set-up episodes. [00:15:28] Joe White: I am not subscribing to [00:15:29] Jess Ryan: your podcast. I have a question for you though, because I think this is one of the potential challenges you have to solve for if we want to embrace a recursive publishing model for creators. I don't know if you've noticed this. I don't know if it has happened in your world, so you'll have to tell me, but like I have noticed. [00:15:47] Jess Ryan: Slowly, but surely across the last five years, I no longer see. Recommendations for like, you know, when someone would watch that episode of the TV and everybody was talking about [00:16:00] it. And probably because of this recursive publishing, I, it got in front of me, but now it's so free. My guess is it's so fragmented and we have so many options. [00:16:08] Jess Ryan: Not enough of us are watching the same thing on the same day to let it surface. So I I've like distinctly noticed that I very rarely. Posts in front of me that are, my friends are like, oh, that episode of drag race, last drag race is the exception because everybody, I know, watch this drag race on Friday nights. [00:16:26] Jess Ryan: Uh, you know what I mean? But that, that, that season premiere of whatever, or that podcast episode I have noticed it has fallen off pretty dramatically across the last five [00:16:34] Joe White: years. That's interesting. I wonder like, yeah, what's underlying that, is it more content is just out there. That's fighting for your attention. [00:16:42] Joe White: Are you spending less time in front of devices? Probably not. We're all spending more and more time in front of devices. I think I am spending less time. Oh, Hey, good for you. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Um, or is it like, you know, Facebook's algorithm being like we're deprioritizing X, Y, and Z, because we want them to pay us money. [00:16:58] Joe White: You know, Netflix shows get [00:17:00] deprioritized because we want them to buy ads on us, you know, whatever it might be. Um, yeah, I think I'm willing to take that risk. With the pivot podcast, sorry, Kara Swisher love you. Don't listen to your podcasts anymore. I actually think she's so rad, but like, I just know the best episodes make their way to me. [00:17:17] Joe White: And I do not need to be on the bleeding edge of that frontier. Right. Right. And I think that's another part that's that's important here is that someone has to be on the bleeding edge for this system to work. So it has to be on the Reddit new page. Upvoting things for the rest of us to eventually find on the Wikipedia editors. [00:17:34] Joe White: Like someone's going to be grinding about. I, I, we can't all be at every front line. Right. And I, you know, have to choose which frontlines I want to be on. And I don't want to be on the New York times front line. I don't want to be on, uh, you know, the pivot podcast, frontline. Yeah. And I'm okay with that, but I'll be on a frontline somewhere else, like, right. [00:17:53] Joe White: I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain and I'm going to propagate the content that I think is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, [00:18:00] every, every day you're welcome listeners. It's pretty cool. If you're interested in the business and the economics of the internet hit [00:18:08] Jess Ryan: it. I want to go back to the hybrid concept that you were talking about. [00:18:11] Jess Ryan: Cause something you were taught, talking about gave me a new thought that I'm actually excited to reference something that has been in our orbit for awhile, that we haven't talked about. So you were saying like, what is that hybrid? How do we take the, the, you know, the work of the algorithm, combine it with the humans. [00:18:27] Jess Ryan: And we've been talking a lot about like, what that would mean when you were like, basically setting up a doubt. Cause you got to write that code in the beginning, you know? And then like you can't change it unless you start another Dow. Like you have to scrap the whole thing. So there's like a lot of thought that has to go into that. [00:18:41] Jess Ryan: And I think a lot of that thought has to be, especially in our world where we're talking a lot about like, what is next. Is creator led profitable businesses next right. Could cause I think that's like kind of what we're getting at is like could recursive publishing enable that world and a book combined with, you know, [00:19:00] blockchain and I thought to myself, oh, you'd have to make sure you don't write these rules to say like, we have this algorithm that surfaces this stuff because our whole goal is to make. [00:19:14] Jess Ryan: Right. Uh, like we were talking about this earlier. We w we, I don't know, really, I'm just talking off the top of my head, but like, we want a company that is profitable, but also has this maybe side mission that is like also just surfacing art and putting art into the world as value. And that made me think of built to sell, which is this book that I, did you ever read it? [00:19:37] Jess Ryan: I have not yet read it. Okay. So I recently read it cause our friends recommended, we read it just in terms of [00:19:42] Joe White: like, and then we bought this book as a joke. It's just as like I hate books like that. I do, I do. That's $7 I ever spent. [00:19:50] Jess Ryan: Well, anyway, I, I appreciated some things, you know, in this book, but somewhere three quarters of the way halfway through this. [00:19:59] Jess Ryan: This, the [00:20:00] mentor, businessman, who they're just like fucking hitting you over the head. He's very successful. He has 16 houses, right? He only works for three hours a day. Right? It's like [00:20:10] Joe White: a secret family in [00:20:10] Jess Ryan: Kansas. Absolutely. It's very heavy handed in. He says he gives tips at the end of the chapter to the guy who's learning from him, how to build his business to sell. [00:20:20] Jess Ryan: And is one of the things he says about halfway through the book is businesses exist to make money. The end, every decision has to be about that. And I thought when I read that over. That just cannot be true. It just can't like, and I know like, this is a whole conversation with shareholder versus stakeholder, you know, and all of that good stuff, but like, I am not on this earth to just make a thing that makes money at all costs. [00:20:45] Jess Ryan: Right? Like that is, I don't know about you. I don't know about y'all listening. That is not my path. It's just not, and which is why I'm glad I'm alive right now because we'd be real fucked up. 2030 years ago the eighties. Um, [00:20:56] Joe White: but it comes a wish that I was that type of person. Oh, I dropped that. I was [00:21:00] like, man, I could really take advantage of those people and steal all of their money [00:21:04] Jess Ryan: or just like, be like, sorry, I have to fire everyone on my team. [00:21:07] Jess Ryan: I gotta make money. You know? I know, but anyway, that just makes me think about like how this is an opportunity to build a new kind of business that is shareholder sort of centric in some ways, and to be able, and which is the only reason it could be a creator led profitable business because by and large creators are not going to buy in to a doubt that's built to just make money. [00:21:28] Joe White: I have an interesting, um, wrench to throw into that, right? Like maybe they're like parallel pads here. Stick with me for a second. But like the, if the premise of the we're going to, yeah, let's talk inside of a Dao, right? It's a collective of artists who are coming together, pooling time, energy, resources, whatever. [00:21:46] Joe White: I sell a piece of art and some percent of it goes back into the community that helps to sustain the creation of more. Because that's the goal of the Dao. Yes. But I think like there's a layer underneath that. That's like the theory there is [00:22:00] that we will make enough money somehow to continue this going. [00:22:02] Joe White: So like the money and the art or it's yinging and yanging, I love that. Right? Like they like kind of have to co-exist and if, yeah, if you were to prioritize one over the other. Kill the opposite one. Right? It's all about like, you know, it's like no artistic integrity to some weird nth degree such that no one will ever sell anything because you know, people who have money are bad or something, I don't know, then it's like, okay, well this, this whole thing falls apart. [00:22:27] Joe White: Like, cause we live in the set capitalist society. It's like, you got rent to pay. I got. I don't grow my own food, so I got to go buy it [00:22:34] Jess Ryan: somewhere. But don't you think? That's what I th I think that is why we haven't had businesses like this before, because like you have the 80 I'm poor eighties. I'm just picking on the eighties [00:22:43] Joe White: today. [00:22:45] Jess Ryan: Exactly. Man, bonfire of the vanities. There let's say let's just split ourselves into, by the binaries that existed. I am the guy in built a sell businesses were made to make money. The end. You have to make every choice. And if you do make every choice [00:23:00] based on making money, you will end up with 16 houses and the secret family in Kansas city and a yacht. [00:23:05] Jess Ryan: Yay. That's that side [00:23:07] Joe White: country. Exactly. [00:23:10] Jess Ryan: So that's the people who those are business people. And then there are creators at which we have been having a lot of conversations about this lately, right? Like an, and this is so tangibly true in theater, although. True in a lot of other arts that there was for centuries, this idea that it is a craft and you must be a craftsperson and you must not do anything, but your craft. [00:23:31] Jess Ryan: If I am an actor, like even for me, 10 years ago, I couldn't tell someone I produced directed acted, wrote. And did voiceover they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? No, you don't. And you can't because you literally can't be a great actor, unless you [00:23:46] Joe White: only act. It's like, you have to be hyper-focused on the acting. [00:23:49] Joe White: Otherwise you're not serious. We don't want, you really want to talk to you. Exactly. And [00:23:52] Jess Ryan: it's not possible. And so then that's why we never had this middle balance business that you're talking about. But now there's this new generation of. I [00:24:00] think business, people got to this balance closer to this balance side faster, but I think creators are starting to learn and grow up in a culture in which they can study acting or art, visual art, or, you know, and put their 10,000 bazillion hours in and learn how to run a business. [00:24:19] Jess Ryan: You know, that, that I do believe that balance can exist and that it can be. Built by creators instead of the model we've been so stuck in, which has kind of, has to do with your black hole theory that you wouldn't tell anybody about. Right. Which is like, it has to start with the money first, like the money people, and that's where everything gets fucked up because. [00:24:39] Jess Ryan: Then we're back to our built to sell guy, even if they didn't mean to. [00:24:42] Joe White: Yeah. Which is right back into that world of like, well, as long as I extract as much money as possible, even if the whole system dies in the process, I still have my secret family. [00:24:54] Jess Ryan: And I like that. There's like kind of a, uh, collaborative relationship that's necessary between [00:25:00] the folks who kind of straddled both worlds. [00:25:03] Jess Ryan: The business, people who just want to make money, the creators who just want to create like this in my mind creates room for all of them and the necessity that they work together. Yeah. [00:25:14] Joe White: And that has really interesting. Like when you were saying like collaborate and we, you know, we've talked about collectives and maybe we've used the word socialism at some point. [00:25:25] Jess Ryan: And how, [00:25:27] Joe White: how separate that is from like, you know, American individualism. Right. And are, are Gordon Gekko in built to sell is like, I don't care if everyone else dies, I will be rich. Right. I don't care if this whole thing falls apart, I will bridge and. Like the model we're trying to build is one in which profiteering in that, in that way. [00:25:51] Joe White: Pushing to the extreme of, of capitalizing, the community of people creating art will actually kill it. So it like [00:26:00] the maximum point is, is in the balance, right? It's almost like supply demand, curves, right? It's like, there's a balance in the middle, right? If you just made your product a bazillion dollars, no one will buy it. [00:26:11] Joe White: So you're fucked. But if you make $0, you can't produce enough for them to make a profit. So it's like finding that balance. Where it's like, we're creating art and we're making money, but if they fall out of balance, then we lose money, [00:26:25] Jess Ryan: which I, oh, this is a really like crazy swing. And I will only take two seconds to do it, but I really love that idea. [00:26:32] Jess Ryan: And maybe that makes me like a Bernie socialist. I'm not really sure, but it's been on my mind with all this Amazon stuff. Right. Like, I don't know about you, but I, as someone, yeah. I was asked the other night, what is the vision for your company? And I was like, I want to fucking own all the live digital space. [00:26:48] Jess Ryan: It is huge. I want it, you know, or like the majority of it, uh, as a person who has a big vision for a company, I am not interested in and [00:27:00] terrified in. What has coming to light about Amazon, right? Which then the last week has been sort of the firing of the guy who organized the unionization and Staten island today. [00:27:11] Jess Ryan: All of the words that have been blocked from the company chat, [00:27:16] Joe White: and you see that [00:27:17] Jess Ryan: there's just like a fucking list of like 40 words. That are all, you know, union racist, like all associated words that you just literally can't use in a company chat. And I keep thinking this week, I've been really like asking myself what I want, because I don't want that. [00:27:35] Jess Ryan: I don't want to build something that ends up like that, you know? Yeah. [00:27:39] Joe White: That's do you have like a theory on, on. Why an Amazon doesn't work, right. Why they have to resort to these sort of draconian measures where they're outlying literal words? [00:27:51] Jess Ryan: Well, I think it's likely I will. I'm interested to see what you think about this, because I don't know that I have any expertise to have an opinion on this, but I [00:28:00] think it's likely it's too big. [00:28:02] Jess Ryan: It's so big. It's not a day. It's like the one person in this department of 600 million people and the one person over here and there's not enough. Soul or mission or checks and bound balance, right. To like, it's not a day, it's not Amazon. It's just like some nightmare human who was like, I know what we have to do. [00:28:25] Jess Ryan: We'll block all these words, which feels like fucking McCarthyism. You know what I mean? Even, but they're allowed because we're a private company. Yeah. [00:28:37] Joe White: Yeah, it does feel like, uh, like the, the term too big to fail came into my head. Like that was a big term back during the 2008 financial crisis where I was like, oh no, like all of these huge organizations that are massing resources are such a huge part of our economy that they like, if they fail. [00:28:52] Joe White: Everybody and everything fails. And so they're too big to fail. Like the government has to prop them up, right. It has to save them the auto [00:29:00] industry, the airlines airlines, like right. If they go bankrupt because they run on razor-thin margins or whatever, the, the sort of economic underpinning that they couldn't survive in economic shock, like the 2008 financial crisis. [00:29:11] Joe White: And it's like, it's in the country's best interest for the government to bail them out with tax dollars, because it's actually far worse if we don't. And it feels a bit like that, but it's actually like too big too. Like exist too big to operate too big. It's it's sort of, it's similar to that argument of like billionaire shouldn't exist, right? [00:29:29] Joe White: It's like, it's a broken model. If a billionaire can even exist, it's like, how did they accrue so much wealth, power, money, and wealth and money at the same thing? Like how can that happen? And is the system itself broken because of it because, uh, an Amazon like cannot isn't flexible enough. It's too big to be flexible enough to actually. [00:29:50] Joe White: Treat everyone in a favorable, in a humane way. And like that's where these unions are coming into play. The employees are like, okay, great. We're making $15 an [00:30:00] hour, which is, you know, net better than the minimum wage hasn't been raised in 30 years. And like, we have some healthcare, but like, why the fuck do we have to fight for that still? [00:30:10] Joe White: And like the argument that Amazon's making, he's like, well, you're already getting $15 an hour and you're already getting healthcare. Why do you need a union? And it just always makes me feel. Well, if you're getting all that stuff without a union, like imagine what you would get with, [00:30:23] Jess Ryan: which is why they can't say 20 to 30 words in the [00:30:25] Joe White: company chat. [00:30:26] Joe White: Yeah. And like, imagine, you know, why are they fighting you so hard about the union? If they think that they're actually giving you a better situation, a better system, um, via that yeah. That rate, which is, you know, slightly higher than the minimum wage, but probably lower than the minimum wage should be. [00:30:43] Joe White: And yeah, that they give you some version of healthcare. I don't actually know how good or bad that health care is, but. That's like arguing on all these lines that are like, why don't we even arguing? Like, why aren't they making more money? Why aren't they being treated better? Why doesn't why doesn't a system like Amazon [00:31:00] succeed because it takes care of its people versus being, you know, I don't know if it currently is the most profitable or most highest market cap company anymore, but it's one of the top five, right? [00:31:11] Joe White: Like to get to that status. You have. In like the current model of our sort of economic capitalist system is like exploit labor, right? Like you just cannot pay your people. You cannot treat them as human beings. You have to, to get to that size, to deliver things in a single day, which is still so crazy that that's even possible. [00:31:34] Joe White: Or like you click a button and then like two hours later, like some thing is on your doorstep. Like those people are just like running around. What is it that like they're like bathroom breaks, they're timed, like the number of pieces of things that they pick and put in boxes is all recorded. And they're like hyper optimized as if they're machines, but they're still human beings. [00:31:57] Jess Ryan: Well, that's what, going back to the building, like the idea of building a [00:32:00] Dow for balance in terms of like the financials and, and the, uh, probably also the, um, The sort of a mandate for, you know, putting art into the world, our hypothetical Dao. I, and I feel like we've come back to our complicated relationship with capitalism conversation, but we haven't been here in a few episodes. [00:32:20] Jess Ryan: That's okay. Uh, what is, what is attractive to me, I guess about that? Is that another thing that came to light this week, which is of course like how much Jeff Bezos makes every minute compared to like, it would take 6 million. Lifetimes or something like that for one of these employees, [00:32:40] Joe White: to all those really tangible points are there, like they try to put it in, in terms of you're like, oh, I can imagine. [00:32:45] Joe White: I can see, I can feel that, that, that wealth and how big a hundred billion dollars is or whatever it is, $10 billion that he's worth. I have no idea what he's worth, but it's a lot. [00:32:53] Jess Ryan: So th and here is where you'll have to help me if this doesn't track, but where my brain goes is like [00:33:00] the, if the argument is Jeff Bezos has to be that wealthy in order to create more. [00:33:06] Jess Ryan: Economic stability and opportunities, because I think that's frequently, particularly the Republican argument, not for billionaires, but just for like trickle downs. Yeah. I, to me, it feels like it breaks and isn't real. If it's like 10 people or become really wealthy as a result of his 10 companies or whatever, you know, bad math, but any just. [00:33:33] Jess Ryan: Terrible economics situations for 90% of the people, by being able to continue to start companies and verticals of Amazon and stuff like that. Like that just feels like a caste system to me, like a thinly disguised caste system. And so what I think is really interesting about like a Dow built for that balance and what I would be curious to see if it would happen is it's not so much capping the amount everybody could make, but [00:34:00] keeping. [00:34:01] Jess Ryan: The that balance point, you know, No matter how it scales up or down so that like, it's the disparities. Aren't so huge. [00:34:11] Joe White: Yeah. Like the multiplier between like what Jeff pesos makes in a year or a minute compared to the lowest pay. Like, I feel like that's a stat. I see all the time. It's like, oh yeah, the CEO of a Pepsi makes 7000% more than the lowest or meaning paid worker. [00:34:25] Joe White: And like, it's like, it's that number that I'm like, wow. Why is that the case? Why does that person deserve that much money? Right? Like, are they really worth that in some way? Like, is that person 7,000 more times productive? Is that present 7,000 more times valuable to the [00:34:42] Jess Ryan: company that they work. We know that this goes back to the creator thing. [00:34:44] Jess Ryan: There's a million amazing creators in the world. And just because some of them don't make any money at what they do, I guarantee you does not mean they are not as valuable. Yeah. They just aren't in the right place or the right time, or know the right rules or, you know, care enough to [00:35:00] try to make a business out of it. [00:35:01] Jess Ryan: Right. Not care enough to explain [00:35:04] Joe White: labor. Yeah. It's just a good reality TV show in the making. Maybe it already exists. It's like the undercover boss or not. Yeah. Or the other direction, like I had said, like Joe Schmo or something where it's like the pretend that some guy was rich. Jesus, that would be amazing. [00:35:19] Joe White: Like install me as CEO of some fortune 500 country company. And I bet like, Magnitudes worse than a C no way. It's like a show up to the meetings. I say yes to some things. I said, [00:35:32] Jess Ryan: something hate you. I'd be really [00:35:35] Joe White: rich. Like here's some money, just buy my way to a happiness. That's how that works. Right. [00:35:43] Joe White: Money buys happiness. That's what I've heard. I've read that somewhere might have been built to sell. [00:35:47] Jess Ryan: Well, what else? We're sort of nearing the end of our time. Was there anything else on the agenda with these articles that you wanted to make sure we hit today?[00:36:00] [00:36:00] Joe White: My brain went towards socialism [00:36:03] Jess Ryan: on Joe's agenda for the day socialism. [00:36:06] Joe White: He's one of like democratic socialism, not all the way there. Yeah. But yeah, just back to that Dow idea, and you know, the, the other article that Jess Jess is referencing was, um, a report by Sarah Fisher from Axios, uh, which fun aside Sarah Fisher was like a salesperson at Axios who was just like really smart, really good. [00:36:28] Joe White: And some someone inside of the organization was like, Hey, you should just be on like the media beat. You're good at this. And like, she transitioned into like journalism. That's amazing. I think a sales person. Oh my gosh. Um, and she's read, so, um, Go read Sarah Fisher at Axios, but she, uh, had an exclusive about iHeart media building in NFT network for podcasts, um, which is a really interesting idea of how do we take intellectual property and make it, uh, more accessible maybe. [00:36:56] Joe White: I mean, that's the way that we, Jess and I want to take it is how [00:37:00] can we bring intellectual property into a shared system, like a Dao where people then can. Opt to use those characters or use that intellectual property in some way to then go off and make more content and potentially make money onto it that pays back into the Dow that helps to sort of support and sustain it. [00:37:19] Joe White: Um, and I just think it's a really cool idea of sort of like instead of centralized ownership of an idea and all of the money for sort of funneling up in like a studio system or like how, you know, Netflix and Amazon function in their, their studios. It's like, oh, By being part of and creating inside of this community gets a little, it gets a little piece of it and helps us sustain. [00:37:39] Joe White: It helps to keep that [00:37:39] Jess Ryan: balance. Oh yeah. That does make it sound. I didn't think about this in this way. And like, when we were talking about this earlier today, but now that I've listened to you, just explain it that way. It feels like, like I hearts, it's a good baby step. Like I heard it's given an assist to the systems that we want to build. [00:37:53] Jess Ryan: Right. Cause it's still started, this does start with the creator of the NFT. Right. And then [00:38:00] that the next person in line is the owner of the NF. And then I heart sort of comes in like with the whole city and builds it around. Right? Yeah. These two people still get paid or however many people, if it's been resoled, whatever it is. [00:38:12] Jess Ryan: But I love that. Like, it does ultimate, like the heft of iHeart does benefit that original creator of that [00:38:18] Joe White: NFT. Yeah. Yeah. In theory increases the value of whatever that NFT is. Yeah. Say socialism. Taoism. Nope. That [00:38:29] Jess Ryan: doesn't mean we're going to ever get in trouble for just like venturing into crazy. Well, not crazy. [00:38:33] Jess Ryan: I don't know ideas like socialism and I'm burning it all down and not [00:38:40] Joe White: real. Do you think socialism is one of the words that Amazon that is [00:38:43] Jess Ryan: wrong? Oh, absolutely. I'm going to find this tweet and send it to you, please do it was really fucked up. I was just like, I really had a crisis. I was like, I don't even know. [00:38:52] Jess Ryan: I don't want to build something like this anymore. That is like off the table, you know, where you get so big that [00:39:00] that's what starts happening is we, we literally can't afford for people to unionize, which like, don't get me wrong. I know I am a member of two unions. Unions can get crazy, but they also exist to like reduce the disparity. [00:39:15] Jess Ryan: Right. Like, and reward people for their work. [00:39:19] Joe White: I would love like a history of the union to understand like, cause it feels like a fight fire with fire sort of thing. [00:39:25] Jess Ryan: Right. It lets your actor's equity or it's fight fire with like a broken sprinkler. Sorry. No offense, but [00:39:34] Joe White: oh, but like, like a union has to fight. [00:39:37] Joe White: So tooth and nail for its members because it is fighting against. Uh, system, a economic structure, a company that is incentivized to take advantage of and to dehumanize and to treat as a cog in a wheel. So it's like, okay, how else do you fight such a beast except to fight back in the same sort of way? [00:39:56] Joe White: Like it's a broken system. Humans are not, not the village. [00:40:00] Even if that can be a pain in the ass. [00:40:05] Jess Ryan: Uh, this was a really good episode, Joe. I really enjoy talking about all this. I have a sneaky suspicion. We're going to keep talking [00:40:10] Joe White: about all this. Let's do what I want to talk about a positive and negative externalities. [00:40:15] Joe White: And so, alright, okay. Make a [00:40:17] Jess Ryan: note [00:40:18] Joe White: somewhere. [00:40:19] Jess Ryan: You have to write it down. Remember just so we're [00:40:21] Joe White: clear here. Thank you all for listening and being part of the. [00:40:25] Jess Ryan: The goal of this podcast is to bring people together and have these important conversations. So share this with someone else. Who's thinking about balanced businesses and creator. [00:40:34] Jess Ryan: First creator led creator built businesses, [00:40:38] Joe White: and, you know, have some insights on Dow's into a socialism. And with under a Taoism, we didn't get into the. [00:40:44] Jess Ryan: I think I'm gonna start doing a graphic for our podcast, which is the week's Venn diagram. And this week's is down. It's like, oh, it will be inspired by our favorite from wired chart guys. [00:40:54] Jess Ryan: This week's is a thousand socialism last week was audio engineering and I was just [00:41:00] editing this episode. It's really weird. [00:41:05] Jess Ryan: Anyway, I'm Jess I'm, we'll see [00:41:07] Joe White: you next week.