Welcome. Hey guys, everybody.
Welcome to Dead cat. This is Tom.
I'm here with Eric, very excited about this episode and our
special guest Shawn Colo from 3L, capital and excited for a
couple of reasons. One 3L has a lot of interesting
Investments that we can get into in this podcast.
Shawn before he was doing the VC thing with 3.
L was the co-founder and CEO of demand media, which is a media
company that very much defined, a certain era of online media
and is kind of been forgotten by, a lot of people so much.
So that when I was telling Eric and Katie how excited I was that
Sean wanted to do the episode and he was the former CEO and
co-founder of demand media, they're like, what is demand?
And I think we should definitely explain all of that here because
the story of demand to me, Beyond like I'm saying I've
personal residents to this thing and I can explain later in the
episode 4 tells a lot of what happens later on in the digital
media environment and very much. I think what's going on these
days with all of these companies.
So, very excited getting all of this.
But Sean, first of all, thanks for joining.
Thanks for doing this. Yeah, no.
Thanks Tom. I love and it's always good.
I think that to I'm surprised that Eric and Katie didn't, I?
We have Ivory oh my God. He said the Roundup of The
Brand's obviously I recognize some of the brands, but yeah, I
am excited to sort of learn a little bit of the tech history.
I mean, you know, media companies sort of responding to
platform incentives is such a trend that we experienced over
and over again. So now, with a lot of little bit
of distance from it, to get sort of the unvarnished view of it.
I'm definitely excited to hear the sorry.
I'm good. So yeah, demand when I was
explaining it, Eric and Katie I was explaining it as like this
holding company that had a lot of different sites that they had
a little bit more familiarity with.
But why don't you just explain like you at the outset, like,
your co-founding of this company who you were involved with early
days because that's interesting too.
And like what? What was the strategy with this
thing? Yeah, I guess I will let me I'll
go back a little bit further than that.
So I was at a firm called Spectrum, Equity investors.
I started my career as a private Equity investor.
So this was in the late 90s. He's right, the 97 I think I
started at Spectrum and we have to realize what was happening in
all different forms of media at that time, right?
And media you know we can all Define it slightly different
ways but you know the different forms of media and the platform
radio cable satellite, right? Yellow Pages was a form of
media, right? Because there's a big
advertising platform, right? So print magazines.
So when I started my career, what was happening was the
Telecom? Is Tre just do regulate it
platforms. Were opening up and you were
seeing a lot of aggregation plays.
I then started looking at internet businesses.
So this thumbs like conked like 27 through Earth's are 97
through like early 2000. And then I started I was sort of
tasked with finding literate businesses that we could invest
in. But we had a mandate that like
we were investing only in in ebitda positive companies so
trying to find a profitable internet company and often times
are using leverage to like you know Engineer charts.
So I kind of had that was my eyelid background.
And so, when I, when I started looking at these two things, at
the same time like, okay, aired at businesses and, and Media
consolidation On In traditional sense, I basically just had the,
a little bit of a light bulb moment, which is well, okay.
I see all these websites that are growing and these were
websites like ehow.com or like dictionary.com, right?
And in many ways they actually had like interesting.
Maintenance which is just that little bit of a quirk of
History, you know, people who are really, you know, registered
names and that figured out how to act they wanted to do
something with them so they started creating blogs and then
of course with the growth of search engines in the growth of
Google, these people who were really just passionate
enthusiasts, right? They were knowledgeable about a
topic sometimes. They were good writers,
sometimes they weren't, but they were creating websites and web
sites were getting traffic organically from Google for free
and that monetizing them. M with Google for free.
So you are starting to see this class of profitable websites
that were emerging. And what you didn't really see
was the Venture capitalists, it really care about those
businesses for them. Like you know obviously there
were a number of them were they started like really scale they
didn't but if you were looking at a business like Trails.com
back then, right, which was one of the websites.
We ended up acquiring was of really nice business run by two
really smart entrepreneurs out. There weren't really Be that
attractive to a venture investor at the time.
And they also weren't really that attractive to private
Equity because they were also too small.
Do you remember when you acquired it sort of what the
financials look like or what wouldst, what type of business
that company at the time might have been doing handing to 12 in
revenue, and maybe it was doing like, Two or three of you.
But, ah, yeah. Kind of symbol that was the
profile and the business basically was this was an
attractive domain, like, in a kind of almost not, not pretty
good because some people were searching for it, but it felt
like a very safe and comfortable website as someone who was
searching. Can't because Trails.com, you're
like, well, that sounds reliable.
Brian then. And then the content on there
was good enough that you were, you know, willing to come back
to it and because of that traffic, you know, throw some
banner ads on it some AdSense and, you know, you could Could
you could turn some, you could turn some cash with that.
So I started building a deck putting the thing together and
then that's when I met my co-founder.
Richard rosenblatt who, you know, was was the chair, former
chairman of my space. She was based in Los Angeles and
when we started and I started socialize this idea.
What have I said, we could we could go by these websites and
and go and build his company. You know, would love to be on
the board. He said, well actually this is
it's actually pretty interesting if You add social networking to
these sites because he asked the right question at the time I
think was like, well, okay now that you buy them, that's great.
But how do you grow them, right? What do you do with right?
What do you do differently than what they were doing right for
right? What do you do?
And so it was really, this is, you know, kind of preface book.
And it was like, well, if you could snap social networking
functionality into these sites, if you can make them social,
then you Dad, you have something that could really.
Correct, I could be where you are.
We talking truck? This was in 2000 and then, let's
see what your company and post-sex.
So I was probably laid out for God was working on it for
probably 18 months ago. It was probably four or five.
So Facebook at the time was really just like a college, you
know, coeds. Yeah, I'm and on you weren't
seeing anywhere near the power of what it was going to be.
I mean, I really don't even think it was.
I have to go back and went to see what Facebook actually
launched because I it may have actually been Been pre faced a
big effect, right? It might have been that.
It might have been Harvard. I vaguely remember a few friends
sort of making the track like investors saying oh I gotta go
see, you know, good Boston and see Mark campus and Richard, by
the way, is one of these key figures in this group of people
in l.a., that kind of defines this what people they called the
Myspace Mafia. Which was, you know, I mean
obviously there's the PayPal Mafia I guess now the stripe
Mafia but as far as La Tech is concerned.
Was the group of that era that kind of went off and spun out a
bunch of companies, demand, I guess, being an example of that
and then Richard sort of being kind of like the, the dawn of
the Myspace Mafia, right? Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure you
would love that description to the mid-2000s.
Facebook is just sort of getting going, you're bringing in sort
of, like, Old Guard internet. With the Myspace guy to start it
and then correct. And then what so, then we start.
So that weird. So then we raised, so then I
basically have free Associated 3L.
O wise. So letters of intent.
Basically we could buy two by three companies simultaneously.
We raise 120 million dollars to go do that and we bought one of
the businesses part of the, there's another.
But I don't want it too far off the track.
But part of the other part of the story I mentioned that
domain name and those media companies, you know, that is a
small web site sidereel.com. But there was also people at the
time, we were building portfolios of generic domain
names and that I also kind of you.
Immediate asset because people were either typing it in or
they're worse if you maybe had a landing page or something
getting indexed to Google, and then you just saw pays it paid
ads. Like, I don't even know if
that's really a thing anymore. But right, just a website with a
bunch of banner ads on. There was just a web site of.
Yeah, I picked up, I picked the search engines of kind of gone
away from having that, it's kind of a core business, but, but it
was just, it was like, five Blue Links on a page.
Yeah, those things work. Fritting money.
They were making a ton of money and that was going to be part of
this journey. Hurry to that.
That was going to be a business that we really need to.
And again it was sort of architect is going to be a
Content business and media does this but it was going to have
multiple elements or companies within it so almost like a
conglomerate type of approach from day one, right?
And so we bought. So there are a couple companies
that we bought. We bought a business called
enom, which is a domain name registrar.
The great founder depaul's to her a hug enough to found a
business called donuts, which is now a multi-billion dollar
company in the domain name space, we bought me how.com And
I think we bought another sort of portfolio of domain names
that was probably generating like 5 million bucks of cash
flow. So like day one the business was
generating. I think the profile of the time
as I remember it was like it was it was about a maybe 70 million
and Consolidated revenue and like 10 or 12 of ebitda like day
one from. Yeah.
Which is kind of Unthinkable
these days for scaling up a business.
What I want to get to eHow and how How you guys kind of scaled
the content for for these sites because it's one thing to just
have a popular domain. Yeah that people are going to
and there's links on it but you know the As I understood it the
strategy with e. How is that you guys were trying
to have content on there? That was the stuff that people
were searching for. And so the content that was on
the site was optimized for the most searched for terms on
basically Google and so explain a little bit to me because in a
second I want to get to content farming and my Yes, exactly.
Right, right. So and I'm going to, I'm going
to give the founders now of tastemade, which is Larry
Fitzgibbon. Steve the Kid, Joe Perez, they
were part of this founding team at demand.
Now we give them their due because basically in addition to
the social networking platform elements of these websites, we
also had to sort of look around and say, have the hell else, are
we going to grow these like, what are they sites?
Like what? And I think one of the things
that we realized early was that again, kind of back to That that
we used to call it like the most beautiful business model because
it was like, you know, content was low cost or free, so you
didn't have to pay for Content, you had, you got free traffic,
and you have free monetization, right?
So it was like, the really the most beautiful business ever,
but so, but Larry and Joe, and Larry was Larry was formerly.
I see Joe was, at Myspace with Rich and Steve.
A kid was actually ahoo. And so we have that sort of DNA
the mix and those guys realized that We needed a Content
strategy. And so, we then sort of quickly
realized, oh, actually, we need to really any, how is it was an
easy one because it was multi category, and there was lots of
how-to content that we could think of creating, but if we
were just sitting around saying, oh well, how about this, you
know, how to, you know, how to do a podcast or how to do
whatever like that's not going to scale.
So we had to really figure out how it was going to scale.
And what we ultimately created was will become to man Studios.
Has, which was a platform for being a priest called pursuers
right writers to create, you know, articles.
And so that's kind of thousand high level how it started and
then got it to the science of it and the math of it, which was
well, instead of just having his open platform and having people
write anything, why don't we suggest what they write based on
the expected payback, and the math of the article.
So, we could say, okay, we know how to You know, how to change a
tire. We know, is that that article or
we know we did, we did some, our algorithms would sort of, you
know, predict that article could be, could generate a hundred
million dollars or a hundred dollars Revenue in 18 months,
right? Because of the because of the PC
rates, and because of the traffic that we were, we were
get it. And so we could, we could
basically reverse engineer a business model, that was fairly
visible in terms of dollars in and done dollars out and the
vast vast majority of Of traffic is coming from Google.
All right, vast vast, majority 90.
Yes, yes. And and basically, like, what
the genius of eHow was figuring out, is that a?
There's a huge amount of people online that are just searching
for how to do stuff. Just just at any given day,
people are flocking to search engines, Google specifically say
like, oh, how do I change my tire?
How do I make a flower bed in my backyard?
How do I write start a podcast? And so what, see, how basically
did is like, figure out that Says, the types of things that
people are searching for and contract out, essentially, two
people to write these articles. That's right.
Yes. Right, because we did, we wanted
to have, we wanted to be a platform for Content creators.
We didn't necessarily want to have, you know, Reams and reams
of people on our staff writing content, right?
And so, okay, so this is where this is where I come into the
mix because because it sounds been waiting for this.
By the way, Tom has been waiting to tell this story about.
Yeah I'm ready to company made. I don't see how.
Yeah I'm going to come clean about My history.
My first paid gig as a writer because I was living in LA and I
had no job at effort certain period of time and I needed
money and the thing I think I came across it on Craigslist was
like, write articles to make money and, you know, it was
through demand Studios and you go to this website.
And it basically tells you search around for things that
you are an expert on and claim an article and will pay you 15
bucks in article. So you can, you know, let's say
I was a, you know, a gardening expert and I would see an
article about like, oh, how to build a Our bed in my backyard.
I would say, oh well, I claim that article and then I write it
up and then I press send and I it gets taken up by an editor
and I think an editor is also like a paid part of this.
I'm gonna get paid like ten trucks.
That's right to approve it essentially and then and then it
goes online and I collect and the thing that I found out about
eHow and I think, you know what helped you guys scale but also
maybe what, you know, gave content Farms.
A bad name is that the editing behind it was pretty thin.
Right. I mean like it was definitely a
pass-through sort of thing. People are not really
incentivized to do a great job editing stuff.
And what I found out was that there were a lot of like
articles you know it's because of the way that the algorithm
was written. You guys were trying to have as
many different articles about similar subjects to like collect
every single possible search term.
And so I would find that there would be basically, you could
rewrite the article. And so I would do a how-to like,
how to convert. This was my thing.
This is my racket would be like How to convert CDs to mp3s and
then there would be an article how to convert my CDs to mp3s.
And there was, How can I convert CDs to mp3s?
And how can I convert tapes to mp3s?
How to make use my computer to convert tapes MP3s?
Basically, you guys were incentivized to collect as many
different articles as possible, so that no matter what, if
someone searches something it comes up at the top of Google.
And so what I would need genius, right?
Right, right. Yeah brother.
Yeah basically it's just like masks on still wasn't.
Yeah. Right.
Well boy, until until like that,
the algorithms are smart enough to do it.
I mean Tom's but basically functioning like sort of a
little like, computer programming.
You're just finding similar. Yeah, well, you know, I think
you guys, I mean, tell me how you guys sort of you.
This from the company I've never really actually talk to you
about this but like, you know, how are you guys filter in the
stuff out? Because I know that there was
concerns about plagiarism. You didn't want people literally
copying and pasting. Yeah, the same article because
that would probably trigger some some problems but Yes, it seemed
like you guys are too much of a problem with it, I mean, like,
it was just like anything that, you know, gets better and better
over time, right? So you launch these things, I
mean we spent a lot of time thinking about it.
Okay. Well how do we how do we scale
the editorial? You know, we've got now we've
got the Articles coming out, how do you scale the editing process
and any but I have to say one of the things that we didn't
really, you know, sort of spend a lot of it was spent that much
time thinking about the similarity between the Articles
per se say, because it was really much more top-down title
driven, right? And as long as the article did a
good job, right? Answering the question.
We thought that that was sufficient, right?
We never really I wish I could say we did we did but you know
for even from Annie how like editorial standpoint I don't
think we really appreciated that the algorithms, we're going to
change the algorithms that you know, Google algorithm from
2000. I mean, I'd be interesting to
kind of get the bachelor step but between like whatever was 97
and 2008. I don't know.
I don't know if it changed at all, but then you started
seeing, you know, okay? And then they started cycling
through and then and then I take, I think the for whatever
reason whether it was our IPO. You know, we had article in
wired, I don't know if Google really felt like it was a it was
a bad user experience or if they just was it's like, they lie
about you, or were you part of the category?
Like how much did you know, present content farming?
We wrote. So we then started just like
just like everything you know like when you see we have some
success then there's a lot of a lot of imitation.
Well like about.com where do they?
You put this like New York Times acquires about.com, right?
Yes, yes. So what do you remember?
What time period? That was just.
Yeah, we almost actually, we almost did a deal with the New
York Times you were going to do very big merger.
Won't part with demand media. The New York Times Really I
would fuck. Yeah, huh.
Like how Hosted it get pretty close.
You had already placed. Yeah, have price has deal.
Negotiated and and then what killed it, I think the time it
was just this. Yeah, I think the CEO of the New
York Times was Janet. I kept her locked in, but at the
time she just got cold feet. Last minute.
Didn't want to do it. Whoo.
So they would have been in charge or we were going to do.
I mean I think we were going to Verge about and demand and then
really have a kind of own the category.
Oh, so you're Going to be sort of under them, but it about
demand would have been. Yeah, we were going to be like
creating your title. I was like, it was like our
content was really magazine content, right?
I mean, disposable it was, it was not g know, I don't offend
any, you know, gardening journalist.
But it was like gardening Home Improvement, you know, the kind
of stuff that, you know, you could, you could time, you know,
you could write the top, could write it, you know.
And that. By the way, town would do a good
job Rite Aid article. You know, maybe well here's the
funny thing about that is that like I wrote you know, I would
write I made a you know like a I would tell myself I'm going to
do ten of these a day and if I do ten a day that's 150 bucks a
day, right? If I do it, five days a week,
but 750 dollars a week and I paid off my credit card doing
that. And after a month of doing that,
I think an editor. Finally kicked back, one of my
articles that was like, you know, how to take a record
player and convert it to mp3s and they're like, you can't just
plug up. Turn table into a computer.
And I was like, well, I don't really, like probably 40
articles saying, do that. Yes.
Quality could be a suspect. But but, you know, I think at
its best. Sure.
Right. It is someone who has an
Enthusiast for the category. We do a good job.
Yeah. And again this is early days of
these types of platforms and I think you go into these thinking
people are inherently good there you do the right thing right?
And they're just want to share their knowledge.
I mean that's really what it was about and we just thought well
actually people want to share the knowledge we can pay that By
the way, we're one of the only places like around, you know, if
you go back to the Huffington Post, having to post was having
people write for free, and then people are like, well, they're
not paying it and we were like, why are people giving us our
time? We're paying people like I don't
understand like what that right? What's the negative slant?
I'm like what we're doing right? I don't know.
But what was I mean if you can like put yourself back in that
are because I actually don't really remember specifically
what was the chief criticism of these sites.
I mean I guess quality. Maybe suspects but like whatever
time? Yes I mean I think over time
What you had was well, Google Addict started referring to his
like thin content and it was like duplicative content.
And so that then became one of the things that the algorithm
really started directly targeting was that you don't
want to have a site that, you know, ten articles on, you know
your topic top like you're right they want one but by the way
they didn't and again it was just it was a change of mindset
because when you think about like engagement metrics in
Google and search, like when you're searching for something,
you want to answer, right? I don't necessarily want to read
a 3 page article on end and the history of MP3s.
Tell me how to convert it right. Right.
We had that if you do want a true answer which Tom is saying
sometimes it didn't always deliver but yeah.
Correct. Right?
Yes. I mean clearly you know now
Google like provides these answers itself.
It doesn't even let you go off-site.
It's not even about we eventually go from okay.
These are to correct. Yeah to like screw it even if
you have a good high quality answer we don't even I want to
let you. Yeah, do it.
We're gonna do it ourselves. Yeah, which is, you know, the
evolution with Google explain to me the day in the office is when
Google changes there I'll go. Okay.
Well, so, so, will the, the story arc is that Google
because, you know, demand becomes a very successful public
company were born in New York Times, right?
Yeah, yeah, I want point at one point.
Yeah. Yeah.
That was a big headline for it. Yeah.
And that was a big thing, but we work of help can be added.
The market cap was like, close to two billion, you know?
And I said was we're going like two months, maybe Google change
the algorithm. And that unfortunately was is
just hard for any company. Let alone public company to
overcome when your way your cash flow, you know.
And by the way, we were profitable, I meani how was a
monster business at one point. I mean, I think we have one
point was generated text. Uh, yeah, yeah, we paid you 10
bucks but I think we probably made a couple hundred.
And on the right those are, yeah, the the structure was
good. Yeah.
But it did tell him but obviously, it wasn't
sustainable, you know? And, and so the, when when you
have that kind of a hit as a public company, you know,
there's no, unfortunately, not a lot, you can do a year.
We we went public in 2011, and it happens like that your eye if
you like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah.
And then what you just totally gonna get like, how much meat on
top tell Eric it was a big deal. It was like a big deal.
Yeah. No.
It was the, you know, kind of banner l a tech company.
And as it went public like, I'm saying, huge headlines about it
being worth more than the York Times.
It was like, the new model for Content, there was a lot of
hand-wringing about like what it meant for the future of content.
Obviously was all Jazz time, it's not like I was close to
you, like pay attention to it, right?
Yeah. I wasn't even covering it yet.
And it was, you know, I started covering La Tech in 2012.
And so I guess that was sort of post, you know, post Fiasco and
as you guys were dealing with the Fallout from all of this
stuff, but yeah. Did you have any signaling that
Google was going to do? This I mean, did you guys are
like a drum beat that like oh you know they're rejecting the
algorithm and this is going to hurt all the content Farm sites.
No. But interestingly what happened
was the first algorithm change they made, we went up.
Hmm. Like our traffic went it was a
benefit to us for like two weeks, okay?
For three weeks and then the hammer fell and that's when that
that is we never really recovered from that.
How much resentment is there? Within those companies toward
toward Google because you know as I started covering Tech.
I remember meeting Jason calacanis who I believe he had a
company that was sort of in the sphere of content.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mahalo.
Yeah. Hollow.
Yeah. Right.
They had some kind of user generated content stuff that
wasn't they? Yeah, they basically so.
Yeah, Jason lost, Mahalo and then copy the try to copy demand
try to cram prep of the content and then Lambda bad.
You know I didn't I was like no this model.
Crap. Yeah.
And then whatever. But Chase knowledge, its knees
could go ahead man. I mean is it Go does get hot or
Advanced a? No I mean well the good thing
about it, I mean I think the way we architected it was not, we
have couple business lines in there, right?
We had we had a big red domain registrar business.
That was a profitable profitable business.
We had some others other properties to that.
We were building that were not dependent upon the contact form
and they were more Head say, I thought to contribute the bill
that we won comedy site called cracked.com the old crap.
I remember when we bought the Branded and that was they were
doing six posts a day and there was not a volume game from a
Content, standpoint bouncy ruled.
That was like, hi Folly. But again, kind of rear virtual
writers room. It was very it was it was very
soon as good stuff. I mean you guys were sort of
that Innovative with like like funny or die and college humor
and those kind of online humors out of the time.
Yeah. So we had that site, that was
really solid and we had Livestrong.com, which was also
a. I think it just took good site
which had and a companion app called The Daily plate, which
literally calorie tracker app that require you, we bought a
lot of these businesses, right Sonique, we were requiring.
So I stand, that's what I spent the bulk of my time doing like
40. I did Livestrong, get rocked by
the whole doping Scandal where you guys.
Yeah. And but that David issues with
no, no. But there were issues with its
attached. We didn't affect strong, but
that happened while you owned it or yeah.
But in a week, That business when fine even though the doping
stuff. Yeah, because the business
wasn't, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't Lance Armstrong got Kyle,
it was really strong program and I remember there being stories
about how, you know, Livestrong had to make very clear that it
severed ties with Lance Armstrong that he's not
affiliated with the business, right?
Remember, if there was anything that specific time?
I mean I don't I mean it romantic in my memory.
Yeah, maybe maybe a little bit. We didn't have any and we didn't
have a huge branded ad sales team at the time, I'm here.
By the way, at the time, the people running branded ad sales
who were I joined Bradford and are honored eenie, huh?
So, yeah, Eric, maybe all the way.
This was like, the All-Star team like, did digital media.
I'm telling you that I had so many good people at this
company. So does this company?
Still trade is still exists? Or what else?
I was. So I died.
You're trying to get to the entrance.
All right, we were hurt you to get over the thing.
I like the real juice that I wanted to get about Google
because I know people like Jason calacanis and maybe you as well
sort of view this whole episode as an example of Google's, you
know, uncheck global Our. Oh right, well, we're going to
get to the core lucian's. I just want to get to the end of
this story and then there's the only teams we can draw about it.
Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah.
So yeah, so demand went public. The park cap continued to slip.
We then we ended up spinning off the domain business, which was
called right side and that ended up being Acquired and then
demand changed its name to Leaf Group which was remained, a
public company, sort of did okay, not so great.
And then they were doing all the right things try to, you know?
Right size the Brand's, right, size, the businesses and sort of
doing the things that out. And I'll go to about.com for
cycle, which is no dot dash. Which is actually done
exceptionally, well, under Neil vogel's leadership, but Neal we
have the same business model and I think earlier, on maybe about
said, you know what we're going to we're going to take down all
this content and willing to like rebuild.
Some of these Brands and put them into new categories and
create take the best content. Like if you took the best, he
how I think maybe had three or four hundred thousand articles
right? If you took the best 30,000 and
started a new how-to website. That would be a killer side.
So I think what what about did is they took, you know, the home
and garden stuff the and they started doing that and I think
they did that sooner than we did as I'm remembered out at the
math. And so that now is form the
basis for dot dash, which is now a great, a great business.
I mean, it's and they report numbers, it's hugely profitable,
the big peace in the valley so tomb and was in the process of
doing the same thing as Lief group.
We had also acquired a Marketplace called Society6
which was an artist Marketplace, we started doing some Commerce
stuff and that whole business is now owned by The Washington
Post. Hmm.
And they run it, it's still? Yeah hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I haven't seen I haven't really looked
like a button sites. A long time.
It sold for way less than it was once worth.
And oh yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think collectively
that the both businesses were probably 67 are really dollars
if I had to. Yeah, well, I mean maybe a half.
Yeah. So I would obviously you know a
big what? The first like theme here is
just like companies building for like the big Tech Giants and how
they can you were sort of like the early days of getting rocked
by Google. Did you ever like go to Jonah
Peretti and say hey this BuzzFeed idea building off like
Facebook is a reckless. Like I've been there before it's
wear when you w or Zynga or any of these Mafia will ya.
When you wash like the Facebook version of this play out?
I don't know. Did you ever send emails to be
having like you're an idiot? We did.
This already and it doesn't play out very well buckets.
I mean, we all understood. I think we were the first ones
to really bear the brunt of platform, dependency right?
Like and this is now, everybody is at the mercy of the
platform's, the platform's weren't as I mean, we sort of
weave. It was like, this symbiotic
relationship, right? We were growing.
And they were, they were kind of benefiting.
And, you know, when you look at it, you're like well, wait, why
would Google ever do that they make so much money off of our
Stuff you know like it's not economically in their best
interest to do it. So it was a surprise Town.
Answer your earlier question, we were not expecting it a change
and yeah I mean I think we shared a lot of War Stories
among all the people who are running these you know sites at
the time and and you know, talking this was right.
I mean it was a real show of Market power from from Google.
They never really had to explain themselves.
I mean they you know, they just made these jet over again it
course at the time. Yeah, everybody.
Incredibly pissed. We're all set.
This is ridiculous. You know, in the benefit of
hindsight like, you know, the platforms are trying to do what
they need to do in order to, you know, maintain the qualities
that they, you know, hold dear. So so I mean I can't, I wish I
could say, you know, through those guys I want to go sue
them. But yeah, they did what they
did. And we had to react to what the
market was giving us. And so we don't know when that
I'll go change happened, we Did what we thought was.
All right. I think we took the kite.
I was okay. Well if that's not the way the
markets going to work anymore, let's pull the content down.
Let's try to rebuild. Let's just try to move forward
but the big, the big question. Eric is really where does scale
fit in media? This is really kind of the fun.
I think one of the fundamental things that people need to
understand and it's hard, right? It's hard to scales.
Well, be you know what? How do you build something that
actually can can can like scale? Like how big can one thing be?
For you have to go enough that it drives traffic to itself.
Or what's the importance? Well that maybe that's the think
the question as investors, right?
So from the capital standpoint from the money coming in
standpoint, we want things that can scale investors are looking
for businesses that that have, you know, unlimited growth
potential, right? Like one of the early
Investments we made at Three L's.
Go puff, right? Go puff is quick.
Commerce company plays in a market that is so big in the
u.s., it can be this company cadby, it is becoming a very big
business. But for media, how do you play
it? You know, how do you do it if
you're in news, right? Well, how big can the New York
Times V will New York Times has to do have to buy things in
sports? That's why they think about
buying something like the athletic, right?
Like there's always these periods and you just have to
understand where you are in the cycles of aggregation and
disaggregation. And we were just earlier this
aggregation phase of digital media.
I'm going to give voice to the sort of the journalistic or
though the the position that I think reporters would have or
Our companies are built that our product oriented and there are
companies that are built that, see some sort of problem in the
market and say, we're going to Salt in like where the business
guys and we see there's like money to be made here and we'll
go higher it, like the product people.
And in a way the fact that this was such a torque towards where
the business guys versus correct, what's a great product?
That no matter what is going on in the world?
There are customers for this and so then and so.
So you can translate this even Beyond just like Media wrote
technology company, dependence to say anytime you know you're
building a company to solve sort of peculiarities of how sort of
the business landscape set up your more vulnerable that if you
build a company that sort of from first principles saying,
what's the product where service is and people are people going
to want your hat for a long time.
Very much so. And the magic is when you get
both of those things working together, that is the magic.
And unfortunately, what happens if you know the aggregation
Model is what you found is. You've bought a buzz, a bunch of
businesses that were truly good and organic on their own but
they just got to a certain place that they were going to really
get much bigger. It was really hard for them to
kind of think about how they were going to get much bigger
like a cracked or something. Dress.
A oh that's like a good product. But right.
We've hit the sort of ceiling of what the audience.
Exactly. Right.
Or that's right. The scale thing is so
interesting with media because it's very clear to me how demand
approach that which was paying people like me a couple of Bucks
to write articles. And if you do that in Mass, you
can get enough articles that there is some sort of scale
scale, like Advantage, you have a Workforce, a freelance work
force. I remember having this exact
conversation with Jonah at BuzzFeed like five years ago or
so because they were questions about them at the time, after
they had raised a bunch of money from NBC.
And, and whatever is too like, how are you going to scale?
BuzzFeed, you know, it can media, it's just intrinsically
hard to do because it's not, it's a labor-intensive projects
for most people and his line at the time I think was, you know,
this is when Food was really trying to grow internationally
and they were opening up, BuzzFeed Brazil and BuzzFeed UK
and maybe some I don't Australia or something.
And that was his, that was his approach is like if we can kind
of spin off locations and we can just produce content there,
that's some sort of a global scale.
And they've since closed, almost all of those offices.
I mean, business has taken a turn for the worse in many ways.
So doc has gotten so low that it's do it.
I feel like it's survived some of the market turbulence, a
little bit just because It's a got to like 500 million market
cap or something, right? I haven't looked at it.
Yeah, yeah. Might be lower than well
Enterprise Value. Yeah cash.
Oh yeah, Enterprise, yeah, exactly.
I want to get too Buzzy more specifically in a second but
just like in this broader topic, do you think there is an
approach for media to scale in a way that other tech companies
can? I mean, is it foolhardy to
expect it and by that, by that, you know, answer like is it a
bad VC investment is Media like just not a great you know, fit
for The Venture Capital. Yeah, that's really, it depends,
I would say you. That's why you don't see a lot
of Silicon Valley investors investing in media.
It is hard. It's they do from time to time.
And every once in awhile, they did, you know?
Because sometimes there are things that do kind of break
out, or their platforms, or, you know, things, you know, there
are some things that can rise above the levels that they need
to be for people to generate the returns they do.
But it's hard. I mean, I look at and I think
you guys both have hit on it, its product authenticity and the
labor, it takes to create At a great media experience, and you
can't just necessarily replicate.
If you guys have a great podcast about business, you can't just
say, hey, let's go to a podcast on gardening, you just like
right is it doesn't really, it doesn't really flow so, but I
think dot dash, I think there are a couple of companies like
one of the the company that has I don't doesn't get a good ton
of coverage of people. Never really talked about it but
the winner. Okay.
Of the, from the if you look at the media business from 20 2010,
10 to 20 20. I guess that decade.
Hmm I don't know. Tom who would you think is the
winner and and media in that era?
This is going to be some like some like lateral choice that
I'm not going to come up with 20 10 to 20 knots.
Are you? I'll give you another Hint.
It was an l.a. company only company.
I don't know Snapchat that immediate area Brandt internet
brands which one is an interference and see that's a
kind of long. Yeah you know once WebMD.
No, but if Parts because this is Kevin.
How is your health History Podcast?
Yeah, I mean, it's it very big company.
I mean, it's, I think it's that one by KKR.
Okay. It's been recapitalize the
number of times in the billions of dollars and like them J2 and
I think dot dash are like the best of that the best media
companies around. Sure J2, I'm more familiar with
because they own a couple of sites of people have heard of
like IGN, and they're always kind of in the mix for You know,
their codes can like a stalking horse bitter when certain
companies are going bankrupt II can't remember who they bought
not lie. Think it was when they bought
IGN. It was one of my favorite
stories covering La Tech at the time, because J 2 is an online
began as an online, fax company correct.
And I think they probably still do that to a degree, but like if
they sold it, I think, I think they just sold it.
I feel like it's all that but like, you know, I remember if
you ever watched 30 Rock, you know, there was a joke about how
NBC was like a subsidiary of The sheinhardt Wig Company.
I was thought it was funny that IGN was a subsidiary of an
online fax company, like the biggest gaming site, it just
happens, right? Like your stubbornness.
Yeah, like a random facts of insurance company.
That's about it. So as internet brands so WebMD,
well, that's obviously, you know, like remains like it's of
a certain of a different era. It's like probably unlikely
e.com are right, but remains like a hugely visited site.
Well, if there are businesses that have done well, they
continue to do well, driving organic traffic from Google, you
know. And now Rightly.
So they're probably just not talking about it that loudly,
right? Because why would that?
So, what do you think about BuzzFeed then?
I mean, you see them going public is obviously hasn't gone
to well in terms of their share price.
I mean, what happens, I looked it up like, it's 590 something
market cap, it seems like yeah, the Enterprise Value is like,
440 is thereabouts. Yeah, and I think that's on
Revenue, Eric, and as we get that for you, but pretty
significant Revenue, right? It's like, right.
The multiples are under Yeah, I mean I think there are real
questions about whether growth continues, you know.
Yeah. And I think you look at a lot of
these companies and I don't know the ins and outs of were
BuzzFeed businesses today, I'm guessing they've got a pretty
good sized production business. That's like a fee-for-service,
they probably got, you know, still a decent sized media
business. I just I honestly don't really
and again as I told you guys, I've been out of the out of the
game, you know, for the last whatever 56 years.
So I mean, I think they've done is, you know, But as well as
they can. I mean, I don't know what else
they could have done, you know, and I think about some other
successful Investments like bar stool, which is a really
successful very successful Venture investment for the choni
group. But you know, they figured out.
Okay. Well, they had an angle, they
then figured out. Well, there's a, there's online
betting in Commerce, that worked really well.
And I just feels like the best way to play media is if you can,
if you're in something, if you can invest in something in the
sort of, you know, tens of millions of dollars.
Dollars and sell it in the load of medium sized, hundreds of
millions of dollars. Like there are still
opportunities to be able to do that.
But to think about the next Billion Dollar Plus Media
Company. It's really hard to I don't I
don't know what the formula is for it.
I just I don't know. I don't see it and obviously
BuzzFeed you know with whatever how big they are 700 million
Revenue I mean or whatever the numbers they're still not third
half third you know 400 million Enterprise Value, right?
So you know you'd what you would have Of to bed a bed of BuzzFeed
investor, if you invested at 40 million Priam and then an even
something like the New York Times, I mean, you're seeing a
lot of their growth come from like the puzzle games and there
is sort of an argument that, you know, some of the upside there
is just so, well, we'll get more into games and lesson 2.
Well, I thought. Yeah, what was really revealing
with the times two is they had this goal of getting to 10
million subscriptions and then when they seemed like they were
slowing down, it wasn't like in the realm of possibility, the
next couple of years, they Wire the athletic and something like,
hey, we reach 10 million and it's like, well, yeah, you did
what you had to buy those subscriptions to get there.
Yeah. But but they've done like the
New York Times did a great job with their product.
I think the product remains, you know top-notch.
Oh totally, you know the daily their dog.
Their you know did a good job in audio they're interactive
formats or amazing. The video that they're producing
is incredible. I'm going to just there, you
know, it's a high quality product I mean they've done a
good job, every time you probably remember that day they
were struggling part of it. The reason like demand was worth
more than New York Times. At one point it was because
people were just worried about the demise of print, right?
And so so that that point, there were probably 70% print, maybe
30 percent digital, maybe that 80/20, right, the newer drives
is worth seven. Seven point three billion
dollars. It is it still a tiny business
in the scale of it's like, you know, the most prestigious media
brand in the world and compared to the technology company.
It's still. Yeah, I knee.
But you That's why I think it's sort of indicative of you know
like great product is probably going to grow it.
Whatever the market rate grows, you know?
I mean that's that that I don't know what their Top Line growth
is you have to probably in that I'm guessing in the 10 to 15%.
I don't even know if it's that high but right there's also
companies like Reddit I mean, is we do we think of read it as a
media Cup, right? Right it right.
It's like oh we don't have to pay people at all to produce our
content. I mean, it is amazing.
These moderators, spend so much time doing work for, right?
Edit and when there is yeah, you can see it so much as like the
game is, can you figure out a way to make a bunch of content
while paying as little as possible for labor and still
getting the best possible content?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and then of
course, you've got Facebook, right?
So, right. Which it turns out.
It also is a platform company just that platform happened to
be apple and when they change their their rules and
regulations right. There you go.
Yes platforms, do you want it with the last?
Minutes here. Do you want to tell us a little
bit about 3L and sort of what you guys are approaching their
mean, you mentioned. Yeah, puff you guys were fairly
early on there, which I'm sure has turned out nicely so far,
but you know what else is kind of in the 3L portfolio and
thesis. I mean we've been, you know,
early growth. Investors were investing ten to
twenty five million dollars into, you know, businesses that
are generally between 5 and 50 million in Revenue.
So we're not really in the Venture business.
We're really in the early growth.
It's kind of what we do and I think, We've done really well,
is find the right combination of things.
We've sort of touched on on his podcast, which is, you know,
great, teens, big markets, disruptive businesses and ones
where we really have a good understanding of the underlying
profitability in the unit economics of those companies.
So we can try to project and, you know, build our models to
suggest when they're going to get to cash flow Breakeven.
And then profitability, how do you do that model and go puff?
I mean people you know, it feels like we're on.
Another cycle of on-demand will never make money.
Yeah, I'm like fatigue diet because we sort of watch that
with Ubers and or dashes and whether, you know, yeah, those
are big companies, I don't know. How do you do that with a
doordash? I mean, with a go puff.
Well, first of all, when we invested in Cope of, it was
profitable in Philadelphia, it was generating ebitda.
And we, there were, there's the Nuance that now, the market
really appreciates, but didn't for a number of years because go
puff is a, it's a filly company. So, you have to like really do
some research to find out when the first article was written
about this business, but by then, they had probably already
raised a couple hundred million dollars.
They never publicized around, they didn't talk about the
business. It's fascinating looking back at
early. Go puff coverage because it's
mostly articles in, like the Philly Enquirer and like the
Philadelphia weekly, you know, very much positioning it as this
leg. Hey, a couple of bro, started a
thing where you can get hookah delivery.
Yeah, I mean, like, if you're making money, guys, you know,
the best strategies make money quietly.
I mean, So silly not really is you know, that's what you want
to be. Without any wasn't rejection
with go puff by the way, to kind of tell them like.
Yeah, you guys are building this thing, it's nice.
But don't go out there and like, get the Splashy TechCrunch
information. They they were when we made our
investment, they've had already gotten that religion, so and so
we didn't even announce it newer today.
And, and but the beauty of that model is, you know, it's they
are the inventory provider of, so they're making money on the
wholesale retail spread. So it's like a 7-Eleven In store
except that the store comes to you, right?
And so we've got, you know, it's just a better, it's a better
operating model. They can make money on
Advertising which they're doing now.
And you know, now they're Market continues to expand because once
you've got this footprint, you can start to add some of your
own products. They launched their own, you
know, their own white label set of products called basically,
they've acquired, you know, coffee businesses.
So now they can bring you coffee that they're that, they're
supplying so and not business. All about delivery efficiency
and orders delivered per hour and when you have a
point-to-multipoint distribution system, it's way better than
something like doordash, which is pick up one place, go to
another place, pick up, go to another place.
So would the way we look at the economics are far superior to
what do ashes doing. And that's why we think go puff
is going to be just a really big company, but we do that with all
of her, you know. And I mean, we try to find that
combination of things with all of our investments.
Whether it's, you know, so go Powe for chow or Roman or Daily
Harvest or, you know, now it fun to businesses like, you know, in
code or dealer policy, different markets, you know, some of them
are Ensure text of a delivery summer Logistics, summer
Telehealth, how big is fun, 2, fun 2 is going to be probably
between four and five hundred. We're still investing it will
already investing out of fun too but we're still, we should be
wrapping that up but in the March cool.
So, any any any other companies you want to bring up to us?
You guys doing anything in a web.
In crypto, we're spending some time.
Thinking about how web three crypto are going to influence
the industries of which were investing.
So, I mean, the short answer is, you know, know, I think we're
making some personal Investments and in different funds and
companies and things like that, but nothing nothing at the fund
level yet. But we've had some interns,
we've had some, you know, some of the team has been spending
time. Try to understand it.
Like we looked at one thing that was sort of in the crypto I
erase paste. Which I thought was pretty
interesting but obviously you know you would have loved to
invested in coinbase you know way that one, right?
So things like that and yeah board platforms, are you doing
anything just with sort of the market being all over the place?
Did you pause investing at all? Or have you just continue to
invest or what sort of your approach?
But by the way, I'm going to put one more fine, final point on
the demand meetings or so, or so, by the way, Richard
rosenblatt, and inside his sound, is the CEO of a company
called autograph, which is a pretty high-profile business in.
The Nft Marketplace since the one with Tom Burke.
Tom, Brady so good for those guys.
Do you own any of these? Not directly no through a fun
and I do, but yeah, correctly. Okay, now, you invested in a
fund do, is just gonna buy a bunch of and I've asked to do,
they create a crypto fund, a fund that's been investing and
fund managers friend. So, yeah.
Yeah, indirectly. But because, you know who's
going to pick, you know, the best ape.
I don't know how to do that, that's not mine.
Yeah, so, but no, Eric took some terms in was so, I think it's a
very, very in a very, very healthy part of the market right
now. I think there's been a lot of
things got pulled from. Forward last year, the last
quarter of the fourth quarter of last year was just massive Pace,
like the the investment paste, the timeline that you had to
make decisions. Everything got accelerated and I
feel like there's definitely been a little bit of a pause,
you know. I don't know what the numbers
will show in terms of like dollars invested in the quarter
Etc. But at least for us it feels
like the it's a it's a bit more normalized.
We're having a little bit more time to look at and evaluate
companies and that we do know it's been looking at Really
interesting. Interesting businesses and I do
think the video like the pricing is adjusting to.
I mean it's usually a little bit slower to adjust the private
markets it but it's something that we've always got to be
mindful of when you're making an investment.
And one of the things that we usually do in our Android and
processes. Just look at the five-year
historical trading average for multiples and so you can really
can look at within cycle. Okay, well, you know, suffer
companies, use to try to 10 other 20.
Now the back down to 12. I mean, so, you know, if you if
you kept that sort of some Rippling in terms of pricing it
so we'll gosh. Okay, we know the markets at 20
but if we pay 20 and and the you know, what's the multiples
collapse? You could you can get killed
right or takes. It's very hard for companies to
go through that multiple compression.
You gotta grow 100% for a couple of years.
Right. You're right.
Gotta play with red. So I know it's just feels like
it's a good time and we've bet we can see.
It's really interesting companies and, and it's nice to
have such a strong. A folio, vitarka is so when
starting a A media business. Should they stay away from you
know, they should stay with Friday.
I know the guy I love talking about it.
I mean the sort of love-hate relationship with the beauty
business, I mean, I so wait. I don't want to discourage
anybody from doing it. I mean you can do well you guys
can, you know, you guys can have a, you can have a good business
and make money be profitable and I'm happy to share like platform
were stories that mean, you know, you just don't you have to
start with that the authenticity of like, He's Brands.
And if you get the product side, right?
And it just you get that product Market fit, right?
Then they, you know, that's when you can start to figure out,
okay, well, how do we can we engine, can we use, you know,
some Capital to engineer thing to know?
Do we want to buy a? If you guys have an audio
business is their video business that maybe is a JC are
complementary in, right? You can start building a
building a business like that. Actually another business one of
the more successful businesses, I think of the last decade to
its skiff. I think, I think interesting,
you've done a Really good job. Rifat is a smart product
oriented. That's the, the travel focused
Media Company. Yeah, they always put them in
the same category. I used to have Eric and I both
were at the information and I feel like they have groups
frequently as like, you know, category-specific loyal.
Subscriber base media differences.
Is it private? Do you know it?
It's you have a guest on private, how much it's worth.
I don't know how much it's worth but all I could say is it's
good, you know, like it's good. They've raised some money.
I think people investors in the company will make money.
What do you do, you know, do you know, do you think your view on
what the information is worth? I haven't seen the numbers
lately. I don't know.
It's a good question. Yeah, they're never going to
sell so it's, I don't know. It's hard to guys value to it.
I mean, I see I feel like they've done well, I mean, I
again, they built a good product that people like and they're
growing a lot these days is a big investment from the top
right on a. Yeah, on hiring yeah, borders.
But see the problem is so but here's the challenge, here's
what you don't want. See you don't want to see
businesses that then raise too much money, right?
Because if they raise, and this is the, this is the part of the
challenge in this business is you grow a business, and then
you feel like you have to raise money to keep growing it.
But sometimes you do, if you obviously need the capital, but
then you might raise too much and you might be at, too high, a
price and then you're in a trap, right?
Because now you're like, how do I justify this price?
What do I do with the money? And then, of course, the next
round. I mean, just look at, look at
the look at the financing progression for BuzzFeed Right,
we raise money at a billion five.
Now we got to get, we got to think about how do we make this
thing worth five billion, you know or vice?
I mean oh yeah so these companies are now there are you
get you get trapped because investors will give you the
money but it's really hard to kind of.
As I said like it's hard to figure out how to scale.
Vice has been such a disaster writing, the it's complicated.
I mean, they've clearly, you know, they actually own their
own have six to seven hundred million in Revenue which that's
without doing a, you know, a ton of Acquisitions like, BuzzFeed
has to do their revenue comes from lightly different avenues
like affiliate because they own, you know, a cable network.
But the funny thing about Vice to Me, Maybe funny isn't the
right word is that, you know, they raise money from tpg.
So there's, you know, you want to talk about like you can raise
the money. It's like, well there's a huge
amount of caveats that you get raise money from a tpg and all
the terms that they put in which is really come back to bite them
now. I mean, there are cases from
slicing tbg back in the game with Puck didn't Puck raise
money from that, we do we know that yet they say, yeah, GPI is
the, is the back. Sure of it but you know how much
money have they floated to public maybe like less than 100
million like, you know, with with Vice they were, you know,
meeting valuations that like four and a half billion.
I mean it was it was I'm saying it e and and they have all these
like, you know, this essentially debt.
I mean, it's Venture debt. Like they're gonna have to pay
this off and they're not profitable, so it's really messy
for them. It's hard.
Yeah, again, it's because it's go back to.
It's hard to scale, you know, branded media businesses.
But but I Would, by the way. Hey, Eric.
I would never, I never refer to companies as a disaster because
I now heart fake. Yeah, I know how hard it is to
build Rises and people work hard every day to try to make them
better, right? And so you know, sometimes
businesses don't go as well as you think, but I always you
know, I was try to keep it positive and be like sure o
entrepreneur and protein and yeah it's my job pointy.
I do - yeah. Yeah.
Tweets though.
You know, we're just, we're just optimizing for anger on Twitter.
So, well, done there. I mean, do you think there are a
lot of, like fake views out there or just sort of the idea
that like, media companies that aren't in the subscription
company subscription business? But are in still sort of the
audience? Business.
Like how? Now that you're away from it.
Like, do you think they have a pretty clear?
I'd send some of what their actual like engagement in an
audience's? Or I don't know in your heart.
You have a view of how real the internet is.
Oh well. Like if Facebook, you know, who
should be the expert in this can just like change overnight?
Like the video, you know, how their views on like video
consumption anything? I don't know.
I'm just always paranoid that there are a lot of like Because
even the biggest most established Media Company, some
of their practices around views. I find super questionable.
It's complete bullshit, right? So a ton of ore shipments of the
audience size is? Yeah I know I yes there's a lot
of crap that goes into whenever I see first of all if somebody
comes in with a slide and show me how big their their
audiences, I just I never really I don't even look at it right,
show me how many email addresses you have and she'll be like time
on site like jelly. The engagement metrics and
that's how I'll I can sort of tell you how, you know, how real
the audience is. Yeah, that's where the momentum
is with the media. Now, like I work at, you know,
Insider now which as, you know, for the longest time was the
traffic website. You know, they were all about
telling people how much, you know, page views, different
articles had, and in the last few years, have switched over to
subscription so they could prove actual value and have one
stainable Revenue so that's, that's where yeah, I mean, yeah,
I know, like, people have been that's why the New York, Tesla
subscription dozens, right? So yeah.
If you could build a subscriber base and serve them.
Well, that's the best way of. I mean, I was really the only
way I guess truly can build a Dependable lie business because
otherwise you depend you are really and on Google's, when I
Facebook and and you just, you know, worked for those clicks.
Yeah. Right.
All right, son. Well, thanks so much for doing
this. And this has been very, like I
said, very personally fulfilling to me.
I feel like I've been able to go full circle from from working
for you. I'm so glad you are ordering.
You will, I was at the LA Business Journal to.
Now, speaking to you, not as an equal, but as someone who can
maybe speak the same language? Yeah, no.
I well I think it was cathartic for me, too, so I enjoyed it
great. It's always good to talk about
demand. And by the way, I apologize to
anyone out there who took my advice on converting records to
CDs and play their phonograph directly to their computer.
Apparently, you can't do that. Yeah.
And there was a day by the way that I think you guys Adam and
announced that you were getting rid of low quality content just
in one Fell Swoop. Up the leading like 100,000
articles or something. I think all of my work that I
spent during the summer, 2009 is gone.
There you go. Yeah, with washed away in that
rightfully so, yeah. So well, when I also read
underweight way back, so no one will ever find those articles.
Okay, there we go. That's right.
Yeah, that, well, we'll have to. All right, let's get trivia that
away. Sean, thanks so much for
joining. Thank you so much.
Thanks, guys. Goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye.