[on-hold music] Welcome back, everyone. This is Brian Morrissey. We are in the busy season.
I find the rhythms of the rebooting is that there are two specific periods of intense activity. You know, one is now through Cannes at the end of June, and the other is October and November.
Basically, we have a lot going on. So I wanna tell you about a few things. Last week, we collaborated with WordPress VIP on the Media Product Forum. This is the second time we've held this event.
We, we did it last year in July, actually. But we had over a hundred top product executives from publishers and media companies for a half day of programming, networking, and roundtable discussions.
These kinda gatherings, to me, are more valuable.
No offense to the massive events out there like Possible and the others, but I just find that when you have smaller and more focused rooms, you have more value that is created. And it was a very fruitful day.
You can find out more from the discussions and the candid sort of roundtable talk on the rebooting. We did a recap of it.
My collaborator, Daniel Kolitz, helped me on that one 'cause I can't be everywhere at the same time.
And m- you know, my big he-headline from this is that all of these businesses in some way, shape, or form are in transition.
And usually that's from these page-based models that are dependent, in particular, on search traffic to more audience-centric models that are about building, you know, loyal direct connections.
And, you know, that's a message that came through in the rebooting's latest research, which we are releasing today, and that is the audience data opportunity.
We did this with our partners at Plakonic, and it explores how publishers are using AI not to generate content but to finally make sense of their audience data.
I mean, this is a kind of basic infrastructure work that a lot of these publishers absolutely have to undertake.
We surveyed nearly a hundred publishing executives and then interviewed product and data leaders at places like Time, BuzzFeed, and The Atlantic.
And the through line is this: AI is helping publishers, you know, patch the messy wiring behind their data strategies. But most are still stuck with siloed systems, unclear ownership, and underpowered segmentation.
But the direction is clear. AI is getting embedded in how audience teams work. It is being used to surface insights, to trigger actions, and make faster decisions.
Personalization, of course, remains the North Star, but right now most progress is happening on the infrastructure layer. You can download the full report by going to therebooting.com.
I'll also leave a link to it in the show notes. Now onto today's episode. You know, one of the things that struck me last week, I was at this cocktail party.
I ran into a big publishing company executive, and these conversations always turn to, I've noticed over the years, at some point the person always says, "Well, what do you see that's interesting out there?"
And I've gotten this question so many times over the years. You would think that I have, you know, a ready-made answer. And, you know, these days I think it's, like, harder, honestly.
I don't mean to be, like, a downer, but you don't really hear about a lot of, like, new media startups anymore. The last wave, the Puck, Semaphore, The Anchor, The Free Press, they're now, like, three or four years old.
A-and most are frankly niche, you know? And I... Look, I love niche. I'm, I'm in a niche, and I think that it's just so much better and frankly easier to build businesses when you, you go narrow and deep.
But the reality is the broader media environment is in retrenchment. I mean, there is little faith in page view models. You, you can see this in, you know, investors. I mean, they are, they're fleeing page view models.
And, you know, subscriptions and newsletters offer some insulation, but they always seem to come with a ceiling, and a lot of these models have that.
Which brings me to YouTube, because if you're starting a media company in twenty twenty-five, I think YouTube is probably where you begin. Now, it's not easy, 'cause nothing is easy. This is media.
But it's one of the last places where you can develop a flywheel, I think. You have strong creators, you have built-in discovery, you have sustainable economics.
YouTube is imperfect like any of these platforms, but it has done the best job of striking the balance between the needs of those operating on top of the platform and obviously the platform itself.
It has not cut the knees out from under its creators for the most part. There's always a push and pull anytime you have a platform. But you can build adorable brands, and you can also easily...
Not easily, but you can, you can get beyond just advertising. And, and you see this. Like, I had on, you know, Dude Perfect a couple months ago, and I think that's a great example.
There's, there's tons of these out there. I, I believe that YouTube is going to be the home to several billion-dollar media brands, okay? Now, h- they're not gonna make a billion dollars on YouTube, right?
But YouTube is going to be the hub of what they operate on. And that's why I was really interested to have a talk with Nick Carlson, former editor-in-chief at Business Insider, someone who I've known for many years.
I, I didn't get to it in the podcast. I always like to, to say my favorite, like, Nick memory was when he was a young, I'll call him a cub reporter at I think it was Clixy or Internet News or something. And he was...
Or no, no. At the time, he was, he was doing Gawker and Valleywag.
And Facebook was debuting its ad system, and they wouldn't let Nick in because he was just, he was just looking to dig up dirt, and he was, he was a feral young reporter, which I love.
And so he, like, buttonholed me outside and was like, "You gotta tell me what's going on inside there." [chuckles] So I, I love that, and I...
It al- it has always stuck with me 'cause Nick's been a reporter's reporter, and I, I think he took that through to, you know, building BI from, you know, what was an aggregation model to, you know, becoming one of the brands that reached escape velocity in the last era.
BI's going through its own transition now, but it was without a doubt one of the winners of its cohort from that time. Now, now is a different time.
A-and so I, I take it as an important sign that where Nick has turned is not in building a, another page-based mostly text model, but to YouTube.
Now, it, it's, it's worth noting that he helped turn Business Insider at the time that they, they had a little foray into being just Insider into a, a force on YouTube. He started their video operations.
And, you know, now BI has ten million-plus subscribers on YouTube. And so what Nick is doing is, is not to recreateThe tech space version of BI, but he's starting fresh with Dynamo.
It is a video-first media company built for YouTube and LinkedIn. There's no articles, there's no website. Nick has gone post-text, as Felix Salmon famously said so many years ago.
[chuckles] It is just video programming with a unit economics lens, which we get into, and I think that's really important. The flagship show is Business Explains the World.
It is what I consider a high-end explainer series featuring, you know, YouTube native talent like Kyla Scanlon, who is, like, a Gen Z economics creator.
She does some, some great stuff breaking down complex issues in, economics is always kinda complex, in very, like, digestible and approachable ways, and she, she creates really smart stuff.
And, and they have, they have others who are really good at this.
Nick and I get into his thinking behind Dynamo, why he believes YouTube is, is basically TV now, and how he's building a company that's optimized for where the attention and money is actually going.
Here's my conversation with Nick. [upbeat music] Nick, very happy to be doing this. Excited to learn more about Dynamo. Thanks, Brian. It's good to see you. Yeah.
So when you, when you decided you were leaving, right, and you were figuring out, l- leaving Business Insider and figuring out what you were gonna do, right?
Walk me through the process about the opportunity, you know, that you saw here, because obviously doom and gloom, media, et cetera.
I used to have these podcasts all the time with people starting ambitious, you know, media companies. I don't have [chuckles] that as much anymore.
You know, people go and they start Substacks or, you know, maybe they'll do a podcast, but- I know... you know, most people are not... You know, you're, I think you're taking, like, a bigger swing. But what did you see?
Because you have to, like, think not just the way the market is now, but particularly if you're gonna raise money, and you raised, you raised, what, a $3.5 million round. You gotta think about...
Yeah, it forces, it forces you to think around corners and, like, down the line. So what's, what, w- how do you see this developing and, and why Dynamo? I saw a, a bunch of things. So
obviously, but one of them was we had a lot of success with video at Business Insider, and it was good business. And so that gave me comfort, kind of made me go, "Okay, I can see that this does work."
And so a little bit of a classic kind of, like, unbundling.
You know, there's, there's this mythology of the startup founders that they're the person who comes, like, the, the Mark Zuckerberg who kind of s- is in a college r- dorm room somewhere and has a, an idea.
But actually a lot of startups are founded by people who work at bigger companies and kind of see something interesting happening there, and they say, "Oh, you know, might be great to, to go run something like that."
And so that's not the, that's not the totality of the idea, but that's definitely a piece of what gave me comfort about doing this.
The, the probably more inspiring but also true answer to why Dynamo is that people love video storytelling, right? I mean, it's like I, I...
What I say to, to people I'm interviewing all the time is, like, "What's the last time, you know, a tele- a television show or a movie made you cry?"
And, you know, everyone's got a quick answer, and, not everybody I guess, but a lot of people do. Certainly people that I'm hiring- Yeah... to do, make videos for Dynamo.
Do you ask them if they, like, what was the last webpage that made you cry? [laughs] Right. It's not quite that either.
Like, even novels, like, I, I love novels, but it's, it was, like, it's been since Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow maybe two or three years ago that I was having a hard time keeping my eyes clear.
And, you know, it just doesn't happen as often in the written word. And, and so it's an emotional, powerful medium. It's...
And, you know, you hear me talk a lot about cinematic journalism, and so what I mean by that is journalism that gives you, through its editing, the sound, the music, the shot selection, a feeling as much as it gives you information.
And so I, I've just... You know, we used to play this game at, like, one of my favorite icebreakers is to ask people, you know, uh, and, and we would play this at BI and other, we play, uh, where I, where I worked.
So I would say, "Other than your current job, you know, if you could imagine yourself in some other
person's life, some other career," one is where you're, you're like, you can have their skill set, physical skill set, so, like, you know, you could be Tom Brady or, or Beyoncé or something like that.
And the other one is, like, if you're you, you have to be yourself, and you could swap into someone else's career, what career would you pick?
And I used to say things like head of Lucasfilm or something like that, you know? Okay.
And so for me, the idea of getting people together, raising money to get people together to tell really engaging, sometimes moving, subtly educational stories is, is, it was, was a really exciting possibility. Yeah.
And that, that I saw that you could have commercial success with it. But yeah, I mean, your, your roots, you're a text guy, like, as a reporter. But then, like- Yeah...
you, I remember g- when the, when the sort of distributed, you know, media thing was, like, hot with, like, Group Nine was doing it and BuzzFeed, et cetera. Yeah.
You know, you built the, BI's version of that, and that's, that's what it ended up becoming Insider basically off the success of that, right? Yeah.
W- we, in 2015, we, we started a new brand called Insider, and it, the idea was to be a distributed media company.
I, I, and actually, I don't know if you remember this, but when Jill Abramson got fired at, from the Times, David Pogue flick, hit Twitter and did, instead of writing an article, he did a tweet storm.
And this was, I think, May or June 2014, and in that moment I was like, "Oh, you don't need a website to tell stories anymore."
[chuckles] And so what happens if you actually built a brand that acknowledged that, and then maybe even a company someday that acknowledged that, where you don't have to make all the engineering investments and you can just kind of ri- like, let the big tech companies [chuckles] do all that work, and you just build- Yeah...
a great brand.Oh, and, and oh, by the way, like, you know, the distribution. Like, let's not forget the distribution We have the distribution, exactly. Yeah.
And look, I mean, it's, it is a little bit the scorpion on the frog's back sometimes with these things, and I know I'm gonna get a distribution platform question from you- Yeah... at some point, but, but yeah.
So the idea was build out on other, on, on the platforms, and the first th- what was happening at the time was the Ice Bucket Challenge on Facebook. So that's actually what got me to video.
It was, oh, video is what's clicking on these platforms, let's make video. So we did these... People will remember these social videos that were sound optional, sound off all the time, text on screen.
And what worked- A lot of SkyMall videos of that, of that era. That's what I remember They were... We, we- That and the cheese.
There was the cheese content, and then there was the lot of, like, business We loved cheese pulls. They were great. I li- you know that. So we called those, we called those hook shots.
Th- those were the, the opening, like, the opening image. These things could be 15 to 45 seconds long. Yeah. And, and they were really kind of like, not to...
To call them video is, I mean, technically accurate, but they were not documentary. They were- No... image, image, image, three sentences of facts about them, and then you're done.
But what was cool even at the time was the things that grabbed people's attention were just stunning visuals. And our first...
Well, we had big hits that were built on, like, marketing footage and, and for sure, or like, you know, tourist Instagram users jumping into sea notes, you know, those, those big, like, waterhole things.
But we had this one that was shot by Ben Nye, who's still at Business Insider, of rainbow bagels. Oh, yeah. Where like- The rainbow bagel...
it was the dough getting cut, and it was, like, this perfect shot of it that we shot. We went in and s- and it's like... And the editing was amazing, and that kind of was like this moment. I was like, oh my God. Like,
you can grab people's attention and then hold it with just incredible cinematography. And the, the thing that... And then Facebook, uh, so Insider was built up on the back of Facebook when it was in its social video era.
Facebook started to wobble and not know what it was- Yeah... and really made room for TikTok to come in and eat i- eat its lunch in some ways. And we... But I, and I said to the team, "Hey, we need to get to YouTube.
[laughs] And by the way, look what, look what Vox is doing." I loved Vox at the time, and I mean, still Vox is still great with Ed Baig and others.
And we, we began to get big on YouTube, and over the next several years we grew to getting 31 million subscribers on YouTube, which is a lot.
And, like, a billion minutes watched, which I remember talking to you many years ago about all the video views we were getting. But I think- Uh, they all ran together.
Honestly, Ben Lair would come in, he'd be like, "5 trillion." I'd be like, "Billion? Trillion? I don't even know at this point." [laughs] Views are a funny metric. Watch time is real. I know.
That's the, that's, that's people hanging out.
And so, so we got really big at it, and it was, uh [laughs] but, and the cool, the, the really cool thing I love about Business Insider, and a lot of what Dynamo is, is taking lessons from some of these big- Yeah...
players of the past and, and, and hopefully not Frankensteining them together, but, like, melding them together in a cool new thing.
But one of the things I wanna take from the BI experience is the amazing cinematography. If you go watch BI videos, like, they just published one about ship breakers in, I believe, Pakistan, and it's...
The shots are incredible.
And so I wanna take the cinematography, cine- the shots, the shot making, and the, from BI, the script writing from Vox, the, the editing from Vice, and kind of make something new, and that's, that's, that's why Dynamo- Yeah...
from a creative front. And then, and then I could... Obviously I will go on, but [laughs] I could go on. Just, you know, I have, I w- I've talked to people- I'll jump in. I'll jump in every now aga- again. No, no.
It's not me. Yeah, but I'm interested, and I wanna get into to the specifics of Dynamo. But, you know, you just, you know, look, you, you were kind of...
I always feel like in a lot of businesses you're running, like, the, the existing business or I guess the legacy business, and then you're trying to build the n- next business, right? Yeah.
And just the constant battle of doing that. And- Yeah... I feel like in a lot of these companies, the, like, we're gonna put, we're gonna put words on a webpage.
We're gonna try to get people to that webpage, and we're gonna, like, either hit them with a subscription wall or we're going to- Us-...
you know, put ads usually sold programmatically in front of them and rinse and repeat, and we're just gonna keep doing this.
And most, most publishers, you know, they don't, they don't see, like, a massive future in that, and I just think you're, you know, starting from scratch you have a lot of disadvantages, right?
[laughs] Like, you're not, you're not going into One Liberty anymore. You look like you're in one of the rooms of your house, right? Uh, we do have an office downtown. Okay, there you go.
[laughs] It, it's Friday and we're, we're civilized people, so we work from home. Oh, good. But you know what I mean.
Like, k- the, one of the big advantages of starting from scratch, and you have to use it 'cause you have so many disadvantages, right? You have no distribution, you have no monetization, you have no...
I mean, it's like, it's enough that, like, you wouldn't wanna get out of bed if you're, like, focused on it.
But you do have the advantage of not having a lot of operating that, that old business, and you can, like, build just, like, what the business that you think that is the business of the future, right? Exactly. Yes.
That's precisely right. I mean, it's sort of... You're... I, I remember I texted, I think, a mutual, you know, connection of ours, but Ben Smith, I, I asked him actually about a year before I left BI.
I was like, "Ben, you've gone off to Semafor. How do you like it? Should I do this kind of thing?" He's like, "Yes." [laughs] And I...
He's sort of like, you get to just leave all the- It would've been funny if he were like, "No, absolutely not." [laughs] Right.
You get to leave all the mistakes behind, you get to do all the things you know you should've done from the beginning, and you take all the lessons you learned and- But you decided you're, you don't have- You get to build more...
you're not gonna be putting words on webpages. You've put a lot of words on webpages in, in, in, in your career. But you're, you're kind of- I love the written word.
You know, there are so many words and, I mean, on so many webpages. I'm, I, you know, I'm a little skeptical of webpages.
I think we could, you know, I think that they're, that business is in trouble.I love, I love reading and writing. I, you know, I, I will, I will write again someday, probably, you know, I hope.
But no, we're gonna be a video company. That's, that's the idea. I, you know, I, I don't rule out newsletters, which I also believe in. I think they're, are a cool- Yeah...
but that's, that would, if, if- But that's like, that's like a side dish. I mean, your main dish is you gotta decide where you're gonna win- Yeah... and you're gonna win on, on video. Yeah. Like it's- Yes...
it's all about the video. And so, uh, talk to me about, like, you're also sort of going away from news, in quotes, right? Like, I mean- Yes... it's a form of it, but it's more evergreen, right?
Like, I mean, uh, the videos, I was watching some of them before this, and they're, they're evergreen, right? Like, I mean, the, you know, why, why aren't, you know, why haven't trucks gotten massive, like, is- Yeah...
is gonna be, you know, relevant a month from now, two months from now, six months from now, and that has tremendous leverage. The- Yeah... problem of news, there's lots of problems with news, is, like, the value- Lots...
peaks [laughs] in, like, in few hours, and then it just, like- Yeah... goes away, and- Yeah... that, that is a... That's tough.
Well, I was gonna say, the cost of making something that's relevant for three months is the same as the cost of making something that's relevant for 10 years. So yes, we are gonna make things that...
And we saw this, we saw this. One of the things that I've seen in my past is, [laughs] I'm trying not to say BI 100 times in this interview, but one of the things I saw there was that these, the shelf life is very long.
And so, you know, what the, the, the...
Among the pitches to, to investors is we're gonna make things that, we're gonna be a unit economics-focused company, and for us, the unit is an hour of watch time, and we're gonna...
The, the cost to, to get an hour of watch time is the most at the beginning, but then every year it goes down because the cost will have been spent years ago to get much of the year time we, the watch time we get that year.
And so we are going to build a big library across multiple platforms and multiple channels- Mm-hmm... of, of, you know, evergreen or nearly evergreen journalism, not news.
And, you know, so it's funny that she, and, and, you know, I was speaking to someone in the industry who I really respect, and she was just sort of like, and her job is to sell advertising to, to support journalism.
She's like, "And I never use the word journalism." So, [laughs] you know, which is sad, 'cause, you know, I- Yeah. The first rule of selling, [laughs] selling journalism is do not, do not mention it as journalism.
I deeply believe in journalism, and I think it is- Yeah. It's- But- But it's like we can go forever. Like it's, you know, it's, it's- Yeah... almost non-economic activity. Yeah.
You need some other subsid- subsidizing force that- Yeah... is going to.
And if you're starting from scratch- Well- Look, I, I, I admire what, what a lot of people are doing in news and trying to save local and whatnot, but- Yep... you know, the bigger...
Obviously, the internet has become video first at the end of the day. Yeah. And, and the, the heart of that is YouTube, right? YouTube is TV.
And I mean, we were talking before we got on this, 'cause I don't do video yet for this podcast, which I'm still kind of skeptical about, but I think it's good for promotion, but I'm not sure if people wanna watch us.
Maybe. I don't know. I, I think if we, if we, like, actually showed some of these videos, like, while we were talking about them, I think that could be, that would be compelling, but I don't know.
Some people use it to just- But anyway... pocket.
They, they have, so they either have YouTube Premium and then can hit the lock screen and it's basically just playing the audio through their ears, or they just leave the lock screen open and put it in their pocket- Yeah...
and walk with it. Yeah. You know? So they're not even looking at you. Yeah. So, so you're basically YouTube first. I know you're doing YouTube and, and LinkedIn, right? Like, and- Did you... I'd say LinkedIn first.
I mean, I really- Really?... I really believe that. Yeah. Yes. [laughs] All right. It's okay.
Yeah, you don't believe, you don't believe- Uh, expl- like, walk me through the unit econo- 'cause, I mean, I, I, I don't really... I have a tortured relationship with LinkedIn. Okay.
Well, let's, let's talk about your relationship with LinkedIn. Because YouTube I get it. Like, you know, you, you just see businesses like Spotter, right? Yeah.
And you see that long tail value of the libraries, and if you're creating content, because I wanna get into the unit economics 'cause this is a tough...
Well, actually, let's just start with the, the, what the content is 'cause I, I always say, like, people make this stuff so complicated, and, like, media is about what you make, how you distribute it, and then how you make money off it.
100%. Like, that's it. Yeah. So what you decided to make, you were gonna do evergreen, you weren't gonna do news, you were gonna do video. You're, like, a very, like, optimistic guy. You're, like, very excited. Yeah.
You, you're curious, and you like to understand how the world works. That is always sort of my impression from you, Nick. [laughs] Well, I'm g- glad you got that impression. It's good. Yeah. And so w- we are making...
Well, so you say YouTube first, and that's, and, and look, we are absolutely gonna be known by lots and lots of people probably only for our YouTube work, and that is wonderful.
We will, maybe I, I'm interested in the idea of people really knowing us for LinkedIn also. LinkedIn has more to prove- Yeah... as a video platform. They're excited about it. They believe in it. I think that...
So Dynamo, we haven't got to our brand at all yet. I do wanna get to what we make, but I think now- Yeah... I should just talk a little bit about the brand. Okay. Sure.
I mean, d- so just for the audience so they know what I'm talking about, why LinkedIn would matter to me at all, but Dynamo is, who is it for, is for people who are building companies, building careers, building communities and lives.
And so, you know, I, I, the, my wife came up with the name Dynamo, and I loved it because it describes a person, and there are media brands out there that I wi- you know, like, I, I maybe in the past wished, you know, [laughs]
we had, where it's like, oh, you can, you can call yourself that name. So if you love Dynamo in 10 years, you know, you, you... I'm a dynamo, you know? And, and, and I love it. So that kind of thing.
So, you know, we, we wanted to describe both ourselves and a person in our audience with our name. So that's Dynamo.
I was just, you know, the people who are making something out of their lives, they see life as an opportunity. Yeah. And so those people are all over LinkedIn. That's, that's what LinkedIn is.
It's a social network for people who see life as an opportunity. So on LinkedIn, we are publishing...
kind of, you know, it, the form- as anybody who's spent any time there lately, they have their kind of like TikTok thing going, their reels or whatever you wanna call them. Yeah. Short form vertical videos in feed.
And so that's, it's a perfect match for our audience. We think we can bring a slightly more cinematic edge to like the, the journal- I see, I was about to say content. I don't like that word.
And then I was gonna say journalism, and I'm told not to say that word, so help me come up with a word. Just, just embrace the content. Anyways. Well, stories. The storytelling.
So- Journalists get, get all kind of weird about the word content. It's fine. I know. It's a catch-all term. I know.
And, and a lot of people ident- I mean, like, you know, c- people call themselves creators, and they're, they, they're content creators. [laughs] Content to me sounds like just like a, a generic, like thing to...
It's like what, with all due respect to the ad sales execs who I'm sure listen to this podcast, content sounds like something that they're kind of like is an afterthought to the ads they wanna sell.
Like, they're like, "Well, yeah, we're gonna need some content for this advertising business that we've created called, uh, you know," whatever. So I don't, I don't love the term, but I, hon- I'm getting better. Okay.
So, so LinkedIn, we have the short videos going. Those are little like how the world works and business explains it for you.
So our, our, our most recent really big hit on LinkedIn is why did we stop seeing those, like, Optimus Prime style flat front trucks on the highways? They're gone, you know.
And actually, when someone told me they were gone, I was like, "Oh yeah, they are gone. I haven't seen one in a long time."
Well, you know, if you were around in the '80s or '90s, you kind of remember they were part of the, the, all the trucks on the highway. Now they're not. Why?
And w- we explain why, and in, in 90 seconds, and it has to do with regulations and ca- and like- Yeah... in Europe and Canada. But is that unique? 'Cause I mean, I was watching a YouTube video, like a trucking- Yeah...
YouTube video. Like, I mean, are you... 'Cause I mean, you have to get efficient. I wanna get into like, you know, how you make and then you get the, you get, you need to be efficient and all that. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yes. So yes. You saw, and then the other thing we're doing on YouTube, just to get, let's get to what we're making- Yeah... is a show called Business Explains the World. It's our first show.
We're gonna make more shows down the road, but it is our first flagship show. It's, we're, you know, we're putting a lot of investment into it.
You saw an episode about why are American trucks not as big as trucks in Finland or Australia, and maybe should they be? And yes, the, yes, the answer is they should be.
And while doing that story, we came u- we came upon this like, oh, this little factoid that cab over trucks are gone in the United States, the flat fronted ones. Why?
And so that tidbit in, you know, what is the c- you know, the idea is spend the money to make a great story, and in the process other stories will turn up. Yeah.
And you can either, they're either literally something you can clip out of the longer thing, or they're like a, you know, editing room floor factoid like this that you then turn into its own thing.
So you spend once to like cut and repurpose the journalism you're doing, oops, I said it, on different platforms. Right. And, and that's, you know. Right. So- And you're doing, like, fairly long...
I mean, I guess n- y- YouTube's weird because it's, it's, it's no longer- Yeah. I mean, there's pro- Right... you either go really short or there's a lot of like, you know, fairly long, but it seems like you're- Yeah.
And you-... more settling in around like 15, 20 minutes for a lot of these. Yeah. So on YouTube, our first show is called Business Explains the World, and yes, those are aiming to be 12 to 18 minutes.
One of our first episodes is gonna be 20 minutes, and one's gonna be 11 minutes because the idea is tell the story at the right length rather than- Yeah... have some arbitrary rule around it.
You know, for the business, for the operators who I know listen to this, obviously a little bit lo- there's a sweet spot where you get two ad breaks in a YouTube video, and you want that, and so there's a reason to get to 12 minutes.
And, and also YouTube at the moment, and I think for the foreseeable, is favoring longer stuff because as you mentioned, people are watching- Yeah... these videos on their phone. So- I mean, it's in their interest.
They want people watching more stuff. I know. So yeah. Yeah. It's, and you want pe- you know, when I was, when I left BI, we were up to like 50% of our watch time was on TVs.
And, and so as I set out to build Dynamo and Business Explains the World, these are TV shows. I mean, they're not- Yeah...
you know, they, I think of them as streaming ad-supported television and on a, on a, on a platform, you know, and the app is YouTube. And instead of my TV being Spectrum or something like that, you know? Yeah.
And they're high qu- I mean, you're, they're high quality. Like, you're doing like a lot of, you know, you know, production. These aren't like, you know, just dash it out like videos.
I mean, I think we've, we've gotten this weird place where I think authenticity in some ways is a little overvalued 'cause it's just an excuse for like bad lighting and poor production values, you know? Yeah.
And, and it's, look, the economics are, are a lot better when you don't have to spend money on a lot of production. Yeah. There's a little bit of, you remember like the, um, survivorship bias? Yeah.
And it's like a little...
[laughs] And so, so what we hear from a lot of people in the YouTube world is because the giant stars are solo and they're, and, and, and they started with tiny budgets 'cause they did it out of their, you know, whatever, like, oh, that's how you have to do it.
You know, you, you have to be like a, a, a solo host, and all you can get is through like the charisma of this one person, and that's how you get a big following.
And, and yeah, you need to be, and it needs to be l- low, low-quality authentic, authentic. But actually, if you look at Cleo Abram, who's a huge role model for us, and also Johnny Harris, and
they're spending a lot on their videos. Those things look good. And, and like Cleo Abram's latest video about black holes, I mean, it's, it's spectacular.
The animation in it is, is like, you know, artistic and beautiful. [laughs] You know? And I'm sure very expensive, so. Yeah.
So one of the other sort of trends is like this move from like institutional brands to individual brands, right? And I think the pendulum will swing back more towards institutional brands, you know, because...
And collections of voices, and everyone is trying to figure outLike where they are in that spectrum.
Like, if you think about like Puck and Semaphore, they're at different parts of the spectrum, but they're on that spectrum.
They're, they're looking to, you know, Puck is more about like, you know, basically, you know, gathering together the best of Substack in some ways. You know, all those people could be Substackers.
Like, and, and then, you know, Semaphore more like a traditional sort of brand. But how are you thinking about that? Because you have, you have some like, you know, names, right?
Like, I mean, you have like Kyle Scanlan who, who, is Noor Ali. Yeah. So how are you thinking about that? Yeah. And so when you ask that like am, am I thinking about... Yeah, like,
you know, some people will come out and say the future of journalism and media is individual contributors with their own platform. Mm-hmm. And, you know, obviously I don't think that's 100% the case.
I do think that there will be, I just mentioned two names two seconds ago, Johnny Harris, who's also, by the way, like the CEO of the company is his wife, Iz Harris, and so she's a genius, too.
And then, and then, and then Cleo is also... But they are all like behind the scenes of Johnny Harris's com- and, and Iz Harris's company is a thing called Newspress, which they just launched, which is a network.
It's a business. You know, they have- Yeah... they're launching multiple channels. And so there are real efficiencies and advantages to being a company. And, um- Oh, for sure. I meant more the brand sort of thing, right?
So like- Yeah... you're trying to build like Dynamo as the brand, right? Yes. And like, you know, there's, there's the franchise is, you know, Business Explains the World. Yeah.
And then you're adding in, it seems like, individual voices. And a lot of times I feel like- At least sort of, yeah, that's part, yeah. I, I understand what you're saying now. Yeah.
I keep thinking about SportsCenter or being the model where it's, it's kind of like, yes, there's really talented people involved, and they absolutely are the kind of person who might go on someday to go s- start their own show.
Craig Kilborn, right? Or, you know, you know, who did The Daily Show, and obviously a lot of them off- went off and did other things.
And so, but yet the brand continues because it recruits a certain kind of person into the fold- Mm-hmm... and they're excellent, and people love the brand for its consistency. And, you know, the...
One of the things that is another argument for Dynamo is that, you know, we're entering it into an era where, you know, here I will say the word, content creation is getting cheaper all the time.
And, and meanwhile also... So, so we're already getting just flooded with what I think people call, like, what do they call it? AI dreck or like AI, I don't know- Slop- Just-... I think is the general term... slop.
[laughs] Yeah. So as that happens, y- you know, the unit of scarcity becomes trust.
And, and I think if you think about like the orig- why brands started in the very beginning, it was because you went to the market and you wanted to get food that wasn't gonna poison you. Yeah.
And so, you know, we wanna be able to- McDonald's, like, I mean, people, people were- Yeah... regularly rolling the dice when they were traveling across this country in the 1950s.
[laughs] Like, stopping at some terrible roadside diner where the guy had just- Yeah... come out of the restroom and hadn't washed his hands, and he was making the burgers, so.
So when I thought about brand, I thought about I want to more clearly than I, than, you know, than maybe I have in the past be like a brand that is for a certain type of person, that they can come to rely on to being for them, and like a marker of this, we, uh, I've always had in my career, but is a marker of quality and trust and veracity- Yeah...
in a time when that's less, it- it's more challenging to find out what's true or not. And, you know, so, so that is the reason why there will be shows on YouTube with a connective tissue of Dynamo.
And so that, you know, if you love w- this one show, maybe you never try another show by us, you know.
But maybe you, you see that it's from us, you've seen that we've promoted it, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I trust them and I think they're great. They're for me. I will go try that show out."
And, and I, and I think that also, I mean, having a clear brand in that sense and articulating it often, both externally and internally, is really, really helpful for the people on your team. The, the, the- Yeah...
the storytellers on the team. They need to know who you're for. You know? So how do you think of format innovation, right? Like, I mean, are you...
Uh, 'cause I, I feel like, you know, YouTube, in some ways the kinda algorithm sort of sets a lot of the formats in some ways. Yeah. In that, like, even if you...
You have to at some point, like, be almost reverse engineering back from, from the algorithm. Yeah. I mean, you know, just like in the 1980s when you were launching a new magazine, you're reverse engineering from sales.
You know, newsstand sales and figuring out- Yeah... what loglines, you know, are. So I'm gonna try to use news- magazine jargon like I know what I'm talking about. [laughs] I've never worked for a magazine, and [laughs]
I read them, but- There's still time. There's still time there. Yeah. Coulda gone in that direction.
But, yeah, I mean, yeah, we're gonna reverse engineer successful formats, but I think there's constant innovation in, in- But are you, are you thinking of like...
'Cause I didn't s- see, I didn't sense in the, in the videos that I saw, like, that there was like... Do you think it's important that it'd be like, oh, that's like a Dynamo, like, format?
Look, we'll push it, and we'll get experimental. I think sometimes there's like... Here's, here's my answer.
I am never gonna be the entrepreneur who's like, "We're going to wholly invent a whole new thing, and I'm gonna put lots of money and talent behind it." Smart. I...
What I'm gonna do is see kind of like what some people are making work, and then make my version of it, and, and, and, and, and, like, try to make it my version and better in ways that I think are important. Yeah.
But I'm not gonna... No, I'm not gonna do that. Well, those are the two paths, right? I mean, the two paths are, like, you take, like, what is working, you observe, and then you, you sort of perfect it- Yeah...
and you do it new, and that is, like, a form of innovation. And then the other is, like, I'm gonna dream up, I'm gonna go in the lab and I'm gonna dream up something completely new, and- Yeah...
people didn't ask for it, [laughs] but I'm gonna, like- [laughs] I think they need it. Yeah.
Yeah, I think they need it, and that's-You know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't You know, it's funny, like, but if you try to rattle...
I mean, y- y- you know, our, the audience will know this, but like, think about Google was not the first search engine, Facebook was not the first- No... social network.
They didn't even come up with the paid search system. They had to, they had to pay off- Yeah... like Yahoo!, because Yahoo! bought the company that, like, patented- Overture... the paid search. Yeah.
You and I know what Overture is. GoTo. I'll, I'll do one up. They used to be GoTo- But-... before they changed. Oh, yeah. Well- Weirdly, they changed their name to Overture on September 11th. Like- Oh...
literally on the day. Yeah. No. Anyway, so yeah. Brian, do you remember them? We worked in the same company at one point. Oh, yeah. At Jupiter Media. Jupiter Media. Yeah. Alan Meckler. That's a long time ago.
[laughs] Yeah. So yeah, so like, so y- you're gonna be on the, on, on YouTube and starting from scratch on YouTube. Like, there's... Any platform, there's a ton of early mover advantages.
This is not an early mover situation. [laughs] YouTube's pretty mature. I don't- New Mohan, New Mohan There's this website I heard about, it's called youtube.com. Well, you... I love it though.
What I love about YouTube is they know what they are, and they know what they are, their, their clients know what they are, their part- their content creating partners, there, I said that again, know what they are, and their users know what they are.
And because they all know what they are is a s- like a stable, steadily- Yeah... improving, better economic system over 20 years. And so- They have built the best ecosystem, I think.
It's really difficult to build an ecosystem that satisfies all constituencies you need, and particularly when you're a technology company that has to constantly change and, and shift and pivot, and all that rest of that.
And we know how, how that went with Facebook and some of the others. But I feel like YouTube has aligned the interests roughly the best of any platform.
By the way, I just realized, Brian, I keep saying we're launching in two weeks. This will come out right- Ah, yeah... after this. That's true. So go to YouTube now, everybody. Go to YouTube now. So- And no, yeah...
so YouTube, YouTube... But we're also gonna be on other platforms. That's, that is one difference between us and some of these very successful creators.
I'm sure they are on other platforms, but I'd love to be on Tubi, I'd love to be on, you know- Yeah... Yahoo!'s OTT and MSN, and all these things. Honestly, watching- Yeah...
those videos, I was like, "This, this stuff should be on also," not primary- not only, but like, on like seatback, like in a air- in a planes. What can I do? Let's go. You know what I mean? W- you just...
It is tough out here, right? We know that. And so you gotta stack up over little penny- Yeah. Don't go the full John Steinberg, though. Don't w- You know, just like pump the brakes- Oh...
when you hit the nail salons network. But th- Well, there, there is Cheddar. Yeah. I mean, uh, did you learn it all from Ch- the Cheddar from, from what, you know, Cheddar had?
I think it was, it was very different than this, but like, you know, I think they were early to a lot of stuff. Yeah. I have learned from Cheddar. John is actually a investor. Oh, there you go.
And what I, what I learned from Cheddar, I mean... And also, by the way, our, our executive producer, his name's Carl Mueller, he was the, uh, head of YouTube for Cheddar. And Ch- YouTube was...
And I love you, John, and I'm really glad you're an investor. YouTube is where they were actually watched a lot, like actual people found them and watched them. Yeah. And so- Oh, the gas- And-... the gas pumps too.
Right. [laughs] The concurrent, the concurrent business. John's a... You know, so I'm so glad that he's an investor because he's an incredible, like incredible salesperson, and I think like- Yeah...
everyone in the world would acknowledge that. And so I'm just like, "Hey, John, how do I approach so and so?" And he's like, "Here's the game plan." I'm like, you know, writing down notes.
Um- But let's get to the money thing. But, but- But let's, let's talk about distribution. How are you gonna get distribution? These videos look great. Like, I'm, I, I loved...
First of all, there was a BJ and the Bear reference in one. You probably don't even... You probably didn't even... It went over your head probably, but for me- [laughs]... when I was like eight or so, I loved that show.
So it was very brief- Oh... but I appreciate that. And then the basketball one that the Belgrade Arena is down the street from, from where my wife grew up, so I know it well. Oh, okay.
I've been to a Serbian basketball game. They're insane. You have? You've been to one? Okay. Was the other epis- Yeah, I've been to one. In like a very small, like not in the...
The Belgrade Arena's like a modern arena, but I went to one like in like the old part of town that it was...
It, they were playing, it was Red Star, and they were playing against Buducnost, which is a team in Montenegro, and it was pretty crazy.
There was no flares exactly, but people were definitely smoking in there, and there was a lot of flag waving and chanting, and the other team was like underneath like a protective glass. [laughs] It's incredible.
So, so we have a, we have an episode coming, well, it's, it's live now or maybe live in a week, I don't know. I, well, I'm losing track of time.
But anyway, it's about why is, why is pro basketball like this versus- Right... the United States. So when... H- just to answer your question about distribution, one of the reasons I raised venture capital [laughs]
is that, y- you know, the build is slow, but sometimes it's fast and, you know, like, let's burn some incense and, and hold our hands up to the sky and- Yeah...
maybe we'll get, like the algorithms will just immediately send all the people at us.
But, you know, the expectation is it'll be a nice, slow, steady build as long as it's going in the right direction, and the economics aren't gonna catch up for a while.
Uh, but you can kinda see that they will, and that's, that's why you raise money and, and, and also distribute the risk [laughs] and don't take it all, take it all on yourself.
And so, and then we launch another show, and then another show, and then everything catches up, and we're off to the races. So the way...
You know, what matters on YouTube, just going back to the brand conversation, what matters on YouTube is you know who you're for,
you tell them a story that engages them for a long time throughout the video, and then they wanna watch another video. The same person, so you're consistent.
So I mean, people a lot of times complain about algorithms, and I actually think algorithms have had a very distorted effect on society overall, but maybe not the YouTube algorithm, which that, if you think about that incentive, it's incentivizing engaging storytelling that makes you wanna watch more, and it, and gets, attracts a certain person.
So, you know-So that's our, you know, our strategy for distribution is to make really good stories that people wanna watch through to the end and then watch another one.
And we have faith, and there are-- and it's more than just faith.
We have, like a, a, an evidence-backed belief that that will then get the algorithm to favor us and show us to more people who are like the people who watched all the way through. And so, and so that's how.
You, you know... And are we doing a tiny little, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of marketing? Yes, we are, you know.
And so, and that comes in the form of finding YouTubers we really admire who have similar audiences and asking them to talk about some of our work. And so, but that's a tiny marketing budget.
Mostly the idea is we will make great stories and people will find us, and the algorithms will help, help, help, help. Does that give you pause at all?
I mean, 'cause you can nail, I mean, I guess, like the distribution- Yeah... levers are [laughs] Nick's like shifting in his chair right now.
No, I mean, distri- the distribution levers are, are less straightforward than they've been before and like, 'cause like I said, like- Mm-hmm... you know, YouTube is, YouTube's been around and it's harder to like...
Like for instance, like I'm not sure, like who is, who is breaking, broken out from like YouTube outside of an individual? Like it takes a while I thought. Not always.
You know, I mean, first, first off, we have the funding to, for it to take a while. That's the point of the funding. Yeah, you have 3.5 million, so not too much, but just enough. It's like a Goldilocks funding. Yeah.
Yeah. That's the hope, you know. And so look, I came to YouTube through like a website publisher, like a lot of people that you and I talk to- Yeah... who are like, "We have experience making websites." And by the way,
just to, to say out loud, it's a different era, but like when we started YouTube in 2015, it took us a year to get to 10,000 subscribers. 10,000. And then when I left, we had 31 million.
So I have patience and I, and I've seen like- Yeah... it can take a while, and then you can get there. I do hope that we're, we're not sitting at 10,000 for a year. I think it's a different era.
But you can, you can see how like all media businesses, it's a, not, well, not all, but the ones we are in, they're businesses where you add by addition, not by multiplication. You know? Yeah.
You are learning people one by one, and that's, that's our, that's our job. And I do think the algorithm's gonna help us.
And just to say, there are lots of examples that I don't have immediately in front of me, but I have studied in the past- Okay... of people who put two, three videos on and they're off to the races.
How- Howtown is a recent one that's kind of- Mm-hmm... came out of the gates who were... You know, you call them individuals. Yes, they are individuals, but they are also, they're just brands. Cleo's a brand. Yeah.
Johnny is a brand. Howtown's a brand.
They came out, they started, and yeah, they, they maybe had some help 'cause they're kind of identifiable YouTube stars from Bucks, and we don't have that, so maybe it's a little bit of slower growth at the beginning.
But basically what they did is they did great work and got rewarded, and that's our plan too. Yeah. So let's talk about the unit economics of this. Yes. Right? Like, so walk me through them.
I mean, because like, I think everyone is, is kinda struggling with this, is that you wanna create really high quality content, right? I, I said- Yeah... it, the content video.
At the same time, you know, you have to make the numbers work. So walk me through what the unit economics of YouTube are. All right. Let me- It's a vague question... let me... Yeah.
I'm gonna pull up our working financial model, but like- Oh, great. Let's do a screen share. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This'll be fun. [laughs] Okay.
So I mean like, you just bring up unit economics and there's, and, and I think like my preamble is there is how much does the video cost to make, you know, a single video, and how much revenue can you get from that single video?
Okay. And I don't know if it's a great idea for me to get into numbers for cost, but it's, it's, you know, one really nice thing is that it's not... I guess here's a good way to put it.
I will, in the recruiting process, hiring executive producers, hiring hosts and, and so forth and so on, I would tell TV people what I wanted to plan per ep- spend per episode, and they would go, "Oh my God, how do you possibly do that?"
And then I would go tell w- like people who used to work at Vi, not Vice actually, [laughs] websites that made video, right? And they would go, "Oh my God, you're gonna spend that much?"
And so there is this sweet spot where you can spend more than people were spending in the past on, on video, and I hope that shows in our work. I hope it sh- l- looks like it's, it's shot well.
We are hiring great editors. We are hiring great- Yeah... cinematographers. I mean, from my standpoint- And so-... like from the, the ones that I saw, I'm like, yeah, this could be on a TV for sure. Like why not?
Amazing. And so, so there, there is that unit economics. And I guess what I will say is we have been in the market to buy promotion from YouTubers, so I know what they're all charging, and it's great.
[laughs] I mean, it's like, you know, they are, the, the big ones that are doing well are charging two, three times more than it costs us to make an episode, you know, and they're sold out for quarters ahead, you know.
Now obviously we all know that like that revenue then gets shared with whomever is helping them sell it, and then there's the cost of me, you know.
So all that stuff gets cut in and the business ends up looking like a, any other type of media business. Yeah. I'm sure. So how much does it cost to create one of these videos? I know.
You're really trying to get me to say that number. Well, I mean, that's the, that's the key, right? It's the unit economics of, of- [laughs] You have to get the cost down to, to... I mean, it's a hard one.
That's what you're saying is it's another Goldilocks thing. It might be a theme, right? Like where- Yeah... you're not gonna do it like super cheap selfie stick. I mean, there's some- No...
you know, that, that's an aspect of, of the production for sure, but I think that's- Well, see, Ryan, I, I want, I want our future advertisers to think it costs us a couple hundred thousand dollars and, you know.
[laughs] Okay. Yes. You know? So [laughs] no, but, but here's what I will...
Like, I think what's interesting is like I am looking at a line graph that this is literally from our fundraising deck, so I am giving you something I hope that's interesting.And it's like we look at the cost per hour watched versus the re- the syndication revenue per hour watched, right?
And what we see is in the initial year or so, it's gonna cost us 14 cents per hour watched, and then it eventually, due to the library effects and obviously increased scale and the network effects, gets down to eight cents per hour watched.
And then, like, syndication revenue per hour watched starts at around six cents. It floats there around six, seven, eight cents.
And so, you know, part of the idea for Dynamo is that eventually, even outside of, like, the direct sold world of sponsorships, that the kind of the flow revenue, the everyday rev share we get from platforms, will surpass
what we- Mm-hmm... spend to get an hour watched after five years, something like that. Yeah. So now we can accelerate- Wait, after five years? Well, yeah, after five years. That's just from flow revenue.
That doesn't include sponsorships- Okay... like going out and getting a deal, right? Right. So part of what we're doing, I wanna...
We're gonna, I hope, to partner with lots of people, lots of brands that are excited about our vision over the years ahead. I don't wanna be dependent on that business in five years.
And so what's exciting about Dynamo for me is we are trying to build a thing, one of the things that's exciting, is we're trying to build a thing that through its evergreen library is throwing off enough cash that it's more than paying for the cost of content that year.
And so- Okay... yeah. Does that make sense? Because you don't... Yeah. No, I mean, look, the advertising business is great. Like, it's high margin. It's great. But at the same time, it's boom and bust.
It's like, it's- Well, yeah... it's a roller coaster.
And- I'm really glad right now that I'm, that we're, we have, we're venture funded through this period of time when every- I think everyone's pausing their budgets because of- Yeah.
And the good thing with YouTube is, I mean, so you're gonna rely on basically automated monetization for- Long term.
Long term, that's a hu- I mean, long term, the, the, the revenue comes from rev share with platforms and O- you know, OTT.
And just when I say rev share from platforms, I mean, generally speaking, the better we perform with platforms, the more money we make from them. Yeah. It's ad network money though, right? Exactly. Yeah. Right.
And so, and then on top of that, maybe there's a membership opportunity to become a Dynamo.
And then on top of that, of course, there is the premium, like, partnerships with brands around, around doing cool, cool stuff together. And then, you know, m- maybe there's product opportunities down the road, too.
I mean, obviously, if you... I don't know what we could sell people who call themselves Dynamo- Yeah... maybe come, come up with something great.
Yeah, so- I mean, some of these, some, the economics of some of these businesses are, like, tremendous. Like, I was, I, I got ahold of the, like, the Dude Perfect, like, investment deck. Yeah. Some really...
They were doing, like, 70% margins, like, at, like- Yeah... not an insignificant size business. I mean, it went down- Yeah, it's funny... to, like, 50, 50%. But I mean, in media, it's usually, like, 20.
No, there are some, there is suc- I mean, it's funny. I, I, I, like, admire
a lot of the media reporting that goes on, but it, it's funny how often it's about the next editor-in-chief at Vanity Fair or, like, I love The Washington Post, a big, big admirer of what's going on at The Washington Post, which is losing 100-ish million dollars a year.
Are you talking about Dylan right now? [laughs] This is all basically Dy- Dylan Byers is like [laughs] he's, he's gonna chronicle legacy media until there's no more legacy media left.
[laughs] And it's like- Dylan says this...
there are really amazing businesses being built on YouTube the way that there were really great businesses being built on, around blogging, honestly, about 20 years ago, you know?
So it's kind of, I think it's a similar stage where it's like you have these individuals doing really well, like, whatever, the Andrew Ta- just off the- Yeah.
And some of them, like, on YouTube, like Good Good Golf, right? And some of this is, like, very ni- do you know Good Good Golf? You know? I do know. Great business. I do know. Yeah. Great business. Mm-hmm. You know?
And I think one of the things that, like, w- YouTube does is it spawns these kind of businesses that can have IP, you know, uh, and they can have, like, live events and various other things. I don't know.
I mean, that's all totally down, but, like, you know, there are, these are multifaceted businesses that are not just, you know, collecting, you know, the checks from, like, YouTube. And so- Yes... yeah.
You're gonna be doing direct sold ads, though, too, but not immediately. I, I would do one right now. I have a deck. Yeah. [laughs] Would anybody wanna- Of course, yes. I- Which one's cooking? So would I.
[laughs] No, but you're not, like, you're not... Look, I mean, and you can talk to John about it.
Like, John, like, you know, 'cause he, he is, I think he's the great- I think he's the best salesperson I've, I, I, I've ever known, at, at least in media.
But, like, he, early Cheddar, man, he was monetizing out the gate. He was, like, drinking a Starbucks cup [laughs] or Dunkin' Donuts at, on, on his desk in the, the interviews. Lots of great conversations with...
I mean, like, I had a little, I mean, like, yeah, I wo- I worked really hard to try to find a launch sponsor. You might be like, "Is that a great thing to say out loud?" You know, okay, I said it out loud.
I think we need to- [laughs]... you know, have, to have people see the things we make. But I do think John Steinberg, you know, would've been, like, just gotten it done somehow.
I can't help but feel like, you know, I'm not quite John's level or- And I think it seems like the key that you do have to figure out a non-advertising.
I mean, I know you can kinda say that, like, the, the rev share from platforms, it's, it is adverti- it's just an indirect, you know, form of advertising. It is. But you have to also get to a fair bit of scale, right?
I mean, this is not- Yeah... like, this isn't a niche exactly. Yeah, no. And I feel like a lot of the, a lot of what we're seeing people build these days, I don't wanna say it's, like, a lack of ambition. I love niches.
I'm in a, like, a very narrow niche. [laughs] But at the same time, we're not s- seeing as many people, you know, come out with, you know, big, [laughs] you know, big swings.
I feel like this is a, is, is a bigger swing because you need, you need- Yeah. Yeah. This is big. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. We wanna, you know, we're, Business Explains World's our first show.
We are already cooking up our second, third, you know-And then with plans to get to many more over the years ahead. That's, that's definitely the idea.
And we believe in the network model, like we think we can, you know, benefit from having great successful first, second show that helps us have a faster, more successful third show.
And, and then once you get that going, you can, you can really benefit. And so you have hosts, right?
Are they like, are they gonna be like permanent hosts and they're- it's gonna be like Business Explains the World with like Nora Ali or something, like... Or do you see a rotating cast? Like how do you imagine that?
I think it's probably closer to a rotating cast, you know? Okay.
I mean, Nora is amazing and very excited to be like working with her for the, for the foreseeable, and so are our other hosts, and I'm not gonna sit here and name them all.
You know, I love this person, I love that person, you know, anyway. Yeah. So they're all great and, but, you know, like we're, we're in a world now where people are like not...
I've heard you talk about this before, but employment is different now. Like the project you're working on is d- Yeah... obviously some people wanna go into a media company and stay there.
Um- No, it's all LLC on LLC action. That's what I call it. Yeah. And so, you know, our thought is work with, work- we'd love to work with you.
We think this is a great platform, and if you're gonna go do in a year or two, three, why I left Dynamo and go be Clio, fantastic. Awesome. Good for you. That's really, really exciting.
And we, and we hope people end up feeling like that. But are you focused on finding like people to build into stars, or are you right now focused...
'Cause like I, I knew most of these people, and I'm not like super YouTuber, you know? P- someone like Kaila Scanlon, she has a following. Like she's- Yeah... like a brand.
Not all of our shows will be hosted in the same way. A lot of our shows will be either what they call verite, you know, like just f- you know, like just natural sounds, natural whatever. Yeah.
And then some of the shows will be VO driven and some shows will feel like there's a real, like a, a narrator you know or a tone like Hard Knocks, you know? Kind of feels like it's like a, you know, whatever. Sure.
But this show, we felt to start with, let's start with some people who kind of embody the philosophy of Dynamo. The philosophy of Dynamo is that humans rose out of the muck by working together to form civilization.
And in the phrase working together, that's kind of what we mean by business. Like a contract is empathy on paper. A business sometimes in a effective, good way, shares risks and shares reward.
It is a way to organize people to accomplish things, and it's creative and it gives life meaning and purpose. And also,
you know, kinda like part two philosophy is the Steve Jobs quote from that one documentary where he said that his breakthrough was realizing the world around him was invented by people who were no smarter than him.
Yeah, they just made it up. [laughs] Yeah, exactly. And I love that.
And I so, a lot of what Business Explains the World is kind of rewinding the tape or doing that, you know, cross section books you looked at when you're a kid, how things work and like, you know, I, I have a sign on my desk here, it says, "Business isn't a question for us, business is the answer."
So it's like, wow, the world is a certain way. Why? So we wanted to go hire people who see that way, see the world in a similar way, and see it from a perspective.
And so it's not a show, I, and I love journalists, I work with many of them at BI, but it's not a show that is hosted by people who are traditional journalists.
They are, you know, Nora's a j- just got off a run as a CEO of a production company. Chris Clark is an economics professor. Kaila is an economics influencer or journalist, you know? Yeah, I think she is.
And, you know, and then, and Karen Shed, yes, she's a traditional journalist. And, and, and so we are very open to having them on board, but even
that kind of person, we're like, "Bring your perspective to this and kind of like infuse the show with that." And so I, I kind of wanted to...
What works in this medium is sort of like passion coming from the host and, and genuine curiosity, and like, look, the reason that, one reason that people like John Harris and Clio do so well is like they are like very invested in their story and- Mm-hmm...
and they're telling it. And so we wanted to model off of, off of that. We're different- It's a slightly different skill set. I mean, some of the skills are, are there, right? But it's a, it's a different...
I don't know, it might also be a different like mindset, right? Like, I mean, you don't, it doesn't seem like you have interest in doing quote unquote hard news. I always hate the word hard news.
Lucio would always say hard news. [laughs] I also was dismiss- it was dismissive of the other, of the other news. That's what I, I didn't like it.
But like you're not planning on doing, you know, you're not gonna reprise the, you know... Bill Ackman's not gonna come after you for, for [laughs] this. That's what I'm saying. Like a- [laughs] Yeah, I'm just kidding.
No, I don't, I, look- Like I can understand not wanting to like [laughs] go right back into that, right? No, I, I don't, without getting into Bill Ackman, I mean like I did enjoy...
I mean like look, at the end of the day, if you're editor-in-chief of Business Insider and you're doing journalism about wealthy and powerful people- Yeah...
every year or so, some very wealthy, powerful person is going to be very upset with something that the newsroom that you work with published. And, you know, that's part of the job.
And I didn't, it's not like I sat there and was like, ooh, there's this chaos going on this moment, but I always- Thank God a billionaire is threatening me on Twitter.
[laughs] Well, it was always, for me, a reflection or like, it's not like the goal, but it is, it is a sign that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing- Right... in the newsroom.
And so I don't, I, that was your job- But that was your old job. It seems like this, in this model, that's not, that's sort of not where you're going. No, it's not. No. No.
No, we're, we're not doing, we're not doing any, we're not doing inve- I think you would call it investigative work and, and I think- Right...
we wanna be, you know, like a word that I've heard used to describe the genre of YouTube is like educational, and I think that's right. I, like educational has this like- Education... brain feelYeah.
Like, you hear boring education and you might be like, "Ugh." But like there are, our audience is- Yeah...
people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and I guarantee you there are people listening to this right now who are like, "Ooh, me," 'cause it always is in a group who like have a great job and go home, and to relax, they pop on YouTube to learn about how something works, and that's so many people.
And we are for them, and they are...
We are for the subset of that group who is like, wanna learn how things work, but they wanna know, they like the answer being, oh, because of business or economics or because of invention and the creativity around career and company building.
We're for those people, you know? And so what can Dynamo be someday? I mean, who knows where we end up if, with a lot of success.
But let me just tell you, as someone who's run teams of investigative units, they are not where the money comes from either. And so- Right. No, they need subsidies. Well- That's the thing.
It's like, uh, but I think when you pull apart these models, right, you can like choose to... 'Cause to me, like ins- like regular institutional publishers, they're a bundle of a bunch of different- Yeah... parts of it.
It's just like the, the newspaper was a bundle, and like the food section was like, it wasn't like the Baghdad Bureau. Remember when everyone was talking about the Baghdad Bureau? Who's gonna pay- Yes. Yeah...
for the Baghdad Bureau? You know, the Baghdad Bureau is not like a profit center. Right. It never has been. Yeah. I think, I think you're right about that.
I mean, maybe it is for The New York Times, because like what is The New York Times other than- Well-... right... when they shifted to a subscription model, yes.
That, that, because otherwise, you know, advertisers have n- have pretty much, I don't care how many, you know, op-eds get published or whatever. Yeah. They don't, they, they don't want to be around that stuff.
They just don't. And, you know- Yeah. And I, I, you know, I am, I am doing like, I am doing this business because I'm a journalist and a storyteller, but I'm also doing a business.
And so I would like to have a really great business that makes the investors very proud to have put money in, and, you know, also is helpful for me and allows us to grow and grow and grow and grow.
So I do need to focus on storytelling that is, I think, important. And by the way, like investigative work is very important. I do wanna underscore that like I think something important is happening with Dynamo.
Let me try to argue for what that is, which is that journalism has a trust problem. That's a cliché at this point, but it's just a cliché 'cause it's so true- Yeah...
that people don't believe things that they learn from, from journalism. And so, and, and a little bit with respect to the, oh, I don't know, the entire planet, we don't know how things work anymore in a lot of ways.
Like people don't seem to understand how things work.
And so Dynamo by, by explaining the world through the lens of business is having a conversation that is not super obviously or immediately or ever even, I hope, coded red or blue.
I always think about my neighbors here in Brooklyn would, you know, if I, I went around and asked them, "Are, are you f- are you in favor of like free and easy immigration, and do you think that'd be good for the economy?"
They're all gonna be like, "Yes, and here's why," da, da, da. I'm like, "Did you know that that's the Koch brothers? That's like one of the main planks of their ugh," you know? And so like I love that- Yeah...
kinda like how business and the economy can kinda like just bust through this red and blue thing and just make you talk about the facts.
And so Dynamo's mission in a, in a big way is to become a brand that people will trust enough to let surprise them with facts that they learn in a context that they're more comfortable with. Yeah.
And the world is getting more complicated too. Yeah. You know, it needs more explaining. I mean, just like- That's-... with where the direction AI is going.
I mean, I find like a lot of these conversation, it's, you know, at least the early ones, it's like there's only a small subset of people who can like truly, you know, understand all the details.
And so to explain it, the, the explaining role is gonna be, I think, probably more valuable in the future than- Like how will, how will we all learn what a factory is again, you know? I know.
Like that, that's a story that I, that's a story that I'm excited to... We're figuring out right now.
I shouldn't, I shouldn't talk about stories that we don't know if we're gonna do yet, but like, you know, we, w- we kinda don't all know what a factory is anymore versus an assembly plant, and it's like this, and like where do the things- Yeah...
come from and all that stuff. You should do one on dark factories. Troy was talking about this in, uh, my other- Okay... podcast. Yeah. Tell me more about dark factories.
It's, they're in China, and they're just, they're completely, there's no lights on because it's all robots, and the robots don't need the lights. Oh, that is too weird. That's a great idea. I, you might- Okay...
have to turn the lights on for the visuals, but that's your expertise, not mine. [laughs] Yes. All right, Nick, let's leave it there. Any, any final, any final thoughts? This has been great.
I don't think I've said enough. [laughs] I could go on and go on for another hour, but I- All right. Well, let's check in in like a year.
I like to, I like to have check-ins when people are building these new things to see how- Awesome... things have changed and how they've evolved. Cool. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Nick. Appreciate it. [outro music]