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Welcome. 
Hey guys, everybody. 

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Welcome to Dead cat. 
This is Tom. 

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I'm here with Eric, very excited
about this episode and our 

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special guest Shawn Colo from 
3L, capital and excited for a 

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couple of reasons. 
One 3L has a lot of interesting 

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Investments that we can get into
in this podcast. 

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Shawn before he was doing the VC
thing with 3. 

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L was the co-founder and CEO of 
demand media, which is a media 

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company that very much defined, 
a certain era of online media 

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and is kind of been forgotten 
by, a lot of people so much. 

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So that when I was telling Eric 
and Katie how excited I was that

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Sean wanted to do the episode 
and he was the former CEO and 

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co-founder of demand media, 
they're like, what is demand? 

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And I think we should definitely
explain all of that here because

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the story of demand to me, 
Beyond like I'm saying I've 

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personal residents to this thing
and I can explain later in the 

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episode 4 tells a lot of what 
happens later on in the digital 

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media environment and very much.
I think what's going on these 

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days with all of these 
companies. 

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So, very excited getting all of 
this. 

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But Sean, first of all, thanks 
for joining. 

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Thanks for doing this. 
Yeah, no. 

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Thanks Tom. 
I love and it's always good. 

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I think that to I'm surprised 
that Eric and Katie didn't, I? 

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We have Ivory oh my God. 
He said the Roundup of The 

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Brand's obviously I recognize 
some of the brands, but yeah, I 

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am excited to sort of learn a 
little bit of the tech history. 

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I mean, you know, media 
companies sort of responding to 

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platform incentives is such a 
trend that we experienced over 

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and over again. 
So now, with a lot of little bit

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of distance from it, to get sort
of the unvarnished view of it. 

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I'm definitely excited to hear 
the sorry. 

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I'm good. 
So yeah, demand when I was 

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explaining it, Eric and Katie I 
was explaining it as like this 

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holding company that had a lot 
of different sites that they had

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a little bit more familiarity 
with. 

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But why don't you just explain 
like you at the outset, like, 

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your co-founding of this company
who you were involved with early

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days because that's interesting 
too. 

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And like what? 
What was the strategy with this 

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thing? 
Yeah, I guess I will let me I'll

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go back a little bit further 
than that. 

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So I was at a firm called 
Spectrum, Equity investors. 

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I started my career as a private
Equity investor. 

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So this was in the late 90s. 
He's right, the 97 I think I 

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started at Spectrum and we have 
to realize what was happening in

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all different forms of media at 
that time, right? 

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And media you know we can all 
Define it slightly different 

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ways but you know the different 
forms of media and the platform 

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radio cable satellite, right? 
Yellow Pages was a form of 

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media, right? 
Because there's a big 

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advertising platform, right? 
So print magazines. 

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So when I started my career, 
what was happening was the 

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Telecom? 
Is Tre just do regulate it 

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platforms. 
Were opening up and you were 

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seeing a lot of aggregation 
plays. 

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I then started looking at 
internet businesses. 

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So this thumbs like conked like 
27 through Earth's are 97 

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through like early 2000. 
And then I started I was sort of

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tasked with finding literate 
businesses that we could invest 

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in. 
But we had a mandate that like 

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we were investing only in in 
ebitda positive companies so 

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trying to find a profitable 
internet company and often times

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are using leverage to like you 
know Engineer charts. 

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So I kind of had that was my 
eyelid background. 

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And so, when I, when I started 
looking at these two things, at 

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the same time like, okay, aired 
at businesses and, and Media 

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consolidation On In traditional 
sense, I basically just had the,

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a little bit of a light bulb 
moment, which is well, okay. 

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I see all these websites that 
are growing and these were 

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websites like ehow.com or like 
dictionary.com, right? 

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And in many ways they actually 
had like interesting. 

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Maintenance which is just that 
little bit of a quirk of 

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History, you know, people who 
are really, you know, registered

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names and that figured out how 
to act they wanted to do 

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something with them so they 
started creating blogs and then 

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of course with the growth of 
search engines in the growth of 

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Google, these people who were 
really just passionate 

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enthusiasts, right? 
They were knowledgeable about a 

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topic sometimes. 
They were good writers, 

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sometimes they weren't, but they
were creating websites and web 

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sites were getting traffic 
organically from Google for free

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and that monetizing them. 
M with Google for free. 

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So you are starting to see this 
class of profitable websites 

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that were emerging. 
And what you didn't really see 

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was the Venture capitalists, it 
really care about those 

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businesses for them. 
Like you know obviously there 

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were a number of them were they 
started like really scale they 

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didn't but if you were looking 
at a business like Trails.com 

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back then, right, which was one 
of the websites. 

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We ended up acquiring was of 
really nice business run by two 

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really smart entrepreneurs out. 
There weren't really Be that 

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attractive to a venture investor
at the time. 

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And they also weren't really 
that attractive to private 

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Equity because they were also 
too small. 

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Do you remember when you 
acquired it sort of what the 

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financials look like or what 
wouldst, what type of business 

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that company at the time might 
have been doing handing to 12 in

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revenue, and maybe it was doing 
like, Two or three of you. 

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But, ah, yeah. 
Kind of symbol that was the 

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profile and the business 
basically was this was an 

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attractive domain, like, in a 
kind of almost not, not pretty 

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good because some people were 
searching for it, but it felt 

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like a very safe and comfortable
website as someone who was 

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searching. 
Can't because Trails.com, you're

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like, well, that sounds 
reliable. 

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Brian then. 
And then the content on there 

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was good enough that you were, 
you know, willing to come back 

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to it and because of that 
traffic, you know, throw some 

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banner ads on it some AdSense 
and, you know, you could Could 

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you could turn some, you could 
turn some cash with that. 

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So I started building a deck 
putting the thing together and 

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then that's when I met my 
co-founder. 

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Richard rosenblatt who, you 
know, was was the chair, former 

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chairman of my space. 
She was based in Los Angeles and

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when we started and I started 
socialize this idea. 

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What have I said, we could we 
could go by these websites and 

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and go and build his company. 
You know, would love to be on 

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the board. 
He said, well actually this is 

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it's actually pretty interesting
if You add social networking to 

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these sites because he asked the
right question at the time I 

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think was like, well, okay now 
that you buy them, that's great.

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But how do you grow them, right?
What do you do with right? 

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What do you do differently than 
what they were doing right for 

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right? 
What do you do? 

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And so it was really, this is, 
you know, kind of preface book. 

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And it was like, well, if you 
could snap social networking 

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functionality into these sites, 
if you can make them social, 

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then you Dad, you have something
that could really. 

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Correct, I could be where you 
are. 

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We talking truck? 
This was in 2000 and then, let's

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see what your company and 
post-sex. 

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So I was probably laid out for 
God was working on it for 

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probably 18 months ago. 
It was probably four or five. 

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So Facebook at the time was 
really just like a college, you 

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know, coeds. 
Yeah, I'm and on you weren't 

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seeing anywhere near the power 
of what it was going to be. 

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I mean, I really don't even 
think it was. 

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I have to go back and went to 
see what Facebook actually 

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launched because I it may have 
actually been Been pre faced a 

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big effect, right? 
It might have been that. 

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It might have been Harvard. 
I vaguely remember a few friends

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sort of making the track like 
investors saying oh I gotta go 

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see, you know, good Boston and 
see Mark campus and Richard, by 

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the way, is one of these key 
figures in this group of people 

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in l.a., that kind of defines 
this what people they called the

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Myspace Mafia. 
Which was, you know, I mean 

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obviously there's the PayPal 
Mafia I guess now the stripe 

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Mafia but as far as La Tech is 
concerned. 

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Was the group of that era that 
kind of went off and spun out a 

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bunch of companies, demand, I 
guess, being an example of that 

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and then Richard sort of being 
kind of like the, the dawn of 

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the Myspace Mafia, right? 
Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure you 

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would love that description to 
the mid-2000s. 

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Facebook is just sort of getting
going, you're bringing in sort 

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of, like, Old Guard internet. 
With the Myspace guy to start it

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and then correct. 
And then what so, then we start.

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So that weird. 
So then we raised, so then I 

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basically have free Associated 
3L. 

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O wise. 
So letters of intent. 

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Basically we could buy two by 
three companies simultaneously. 

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We raise 120 million dollars to 
go do that and we bought one of 

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the businesses part of the, 
there's another. 

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But I don't want it too far off 
the track. 

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But part of the other part of 
the story I mentioned that 

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domain name and those media 
companies, you know, that is a 

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small web site sidereel.com. 
But there was also people at the

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time, we were building 
portfolios of generic domain 

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names and that I also kind of 
you. 

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Immediate asset because people 
were either typing it in or 

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they're worse if you maybe had a
landing page or something 

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getting indexed to Google, and 
then you just saw pays it paid 

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ads. 
Like, I don't even know if 

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that's really a thing anymore. 
But right, just a website with a

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bunch of banner ads on. 
There was just a web site of. 

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Yeah, I picked up, I picked the 
search engines of kind of gone 

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away from having that, it's kind
of a core business, but, but it 

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was just, it was like, five Blue
Links on a page. 

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Yeah, those things work. 
Fritting money. 

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They were making a ton of money 
and that was going to be part of

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this journey. 
Hurry to that. 

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That was going to be a business 
that we really need to. 

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And again it was sort of 
architect is going to be a 

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Content business and media does 
this but it was going to have 

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multiple elements or companies 
within it so almost like a 

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conglomerate type of approach 
from day one, right? 

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And so we bought. 
So there are a couple companies 

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that we bought. 
We bought a business called 

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enom, which is a domain name 
registrar. 

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The great founder depaul's to 
her a hug enough to found a 

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business called donuts, which is
now a multi-billion dollar 

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company in the domain name 
space, we bought me how.com And 

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I think we bought another sort 
of portfolio of domain names 

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that was probably generating 
like 5 million bucks of cash 

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flow. 
So like day one the business was

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generating. 
I think the profile of the time 

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as I remember it was like it was
it was about a maybe 70 million 

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and Consolidated revenue and 
like 10 or 12 of ebitda like day

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one from. 
Yeah. 

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Yeah. 
Which is kind of Unthinkable 

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these days for scaling up a 
business. 

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What I want to get to eHow and 
how How you guys kind of scaled 

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the content for for these sites 
because it's one thing to just 

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have a popular domain. 
Yeah that people are going to 

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and there's links on it but you 
know the As I understood it the 

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strategy with e. 
How is that you guys were trying

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to have content on there? 
That was the stuff that people 

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were searching for. 
And so the content that was on 

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the site was optimized for the 
most searched for terms on 

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basically Google and so explain 
a little bit to me because in a 

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second I want to get to content 
farming and my Yes, exactly. 

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Right, right. 
So and I'm going to, I'm going 

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to give the founders now of 
tastemade, which is Larry 

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Fitzgibbon. 
Steve the Kid, Joe Perez, they 

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were part of this founding team 
at demand. 

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Now we give them their due 
because basically in addition to

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the social networking platform 
elements of these websites, we 

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also had to sort of look around 
and say, have the hell else, are

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we going to grow these like, 
what are they sites? 

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Like what? 
And I think one of the things 

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that we realized early was that 
again, kind of back to That that

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we used to call it like the most
beautiful business model because

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it was like, you know, content 
was low cost or free, so you 

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didn't have to pay for Content, 
you had, you got free traffic, 

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and you have free monetization, 
right? 

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00:11:29,100 --> 00:11:32,000
So it was like, the really the 
most beautiful business ever, 

227
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but so, but Larry and Joe, and 
Larry was Larry was formerly. 

228
00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:39,900
I see Joe was, at Myspace with 
Rich and Steve. 

229
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A kid was actually ahoo. 
And so we have that sort of DNA 

230
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the mix and those guys realized 
that We needed a Content 

231
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strategy. 
And so, we then sort of quickly 

232
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realized, oh, actually, we need 
to really any, how is it was an 

233
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easy one because it was multi 
category, and there was lots of 

234
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how-to content that we could 
think of creating, but if we 

235
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were just sitting around saying,
oh well, how about this, you 

236
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know, how to, you know, how to 
do a podcast or how to do 

237
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:08,800
whatever like that's not going 
to scale. 

238
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So we had to really figure out 
how it was going to scale. 

239
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And what we ultimately created 
was will become to man Studios. 

240
00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:20,900
Has, which was a platform for 
being a priest called pursuers 

241
00:12:20,900 --> 00:12:25,500
right writers to create, you 
know, articles. 

242
00:12:25,900 --> 00:12:28,100
And so that's kind of thousand 
high level how it started and 

243
00:12:28,100 --> 00:12:31,600
then got it to the science of it
and the math of it, which was 

244
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:35,000
well, instead of just having his
open platform and having people 

245
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:39,200
write anything, why don't we 
suggest what they write based on

246
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,800
the expected payback, and the 
math of the article. 

247
00:12:43,300 --> 00:12:47,600
So, we could say, okay, we know 
how to You know, how to change a

248
00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:51,100
tire. 
We know, is that that article or

249
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we know we did, we did some, our
algorithms would sort of, you 

250
00:12:54,100 --> 00:12:56,900
know, predict that article could
be, could generate a hundred 

251
00:12:56,900 --> 00:13:00,600
million dollars or a hundred 
dollars Revenue in 18 months, 

252
00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:04,000
right? 
Because of the because of the PC

253
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rates, and because of the 
traffic that we were, we were 

254
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:08,200
get it. 
And so we could, we could 

255
00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:11,600
basically reverse engineer a 
business model, that was fairly 

256
00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:15,100
visible in terms of dollars in 
and done dollars out and the 

257
00:13:15,100 --> 00:13:18,400
vast vast majority of Of traffic
is coming from Google. 

258
00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:21,400
All right, vast vast, majority 
90. 

259
00:13:21,900 --> 00:13:24,600
Yes, yes. 
And and basically, like, what 

260
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:26,900
the genius of eHow was figuring 
out, is that a? 

261
00:13:26,900 --> 00:13:29,800
There's a huge amount of people 
online that are just searching 

262
00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:32,700
for how to do stuff. 
Just just at any given day, 

263
00:13:32,700 --> 00:13:36,700
people are flocking to search 
engines, Google specifically say

264
00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:38,100
like, oh, how do I change my 
tire? 

265
00:13:38,100 --> 00:13:40,300
How do I make a flower bed in my
backyard? 

266
00:13:40,300 --> 00:13:44,400
How do I write start a podcast? 
And so what, see, how basically 

267
00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:47,700
did is like, figure out that 
Says, the types of things that 

268
00:13:47,700 --> 00:13:50,900
people are searching for and 
contract out, essentially, two 

269
00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:54,100
people to write these articles. 
That's right. 

270
00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:55,800
Yes. 
Right, because we did, we wanted

271
00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:58,500
to have, we wanted to be a 
platform for Content creators. 

272
00:13:58,500 --> 00:14:03,000
We didn't necessarily want to 
have, you know, Reams and reams 

273
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,300
of people on our staff writing 
content, right? 

274
00:14:05,300 --> 00:14:07,500
And so, okay, so this is where 
this is where I come into the 

275
00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:10,400
mix because because it sounds 
been waiting for this. 

276
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,400
By the way, Tom has been waiting
to tell this story about. 

277
00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:14,700
Yeah I'm ready to company made. 
I don't see how. 

278
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:17,000
Yeah I'm going to come clean 
about My history. 

279
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,600
My first paid gig as a writer 
because I was living in LA and I

280
00:14:20,608 --> 00:14:22,900
had no job at effort certain 
period of time and I needed 

281
00:14:22,900 --> 00:14:26,200
money and the thing I think I 
came across it on Craigslist was

282
00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:29,400
like, write articles to make 
money and, you know, it was 

283
00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:32,100
through demand Studios and you 
go to this website. 

284
00:14:32,100 --> 00:14:34,600
And it basically tells you 
search around for things that 

285
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:38,200
you are an expert on and claim 
an article and will pay you 15 

286
00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:41,500
bucks in article. 
So you can, you know, let's say 

287
00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:44,600
I was a, you know, a gardening 
expert and I would see an 

288
00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,800
article about like, oh, how to 
build a Our bed in my backyard. 

289
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,700
I would say, oh well, I claim 
that article and then I write it

290
00:14:51,700 --> 00:14:56,600
up and then I press send and I 
it gets taken up by an editor 

291
00:14:56,600 --> 00:14:59,000
and I think an editor is also 
like a paid part of this. 

292
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:00,200
I'm gonna get paid like ten 
trucks. 

293
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:03,700
That's right to approve it 
essentially and then and then it

294
00:15:03,708 --> 00:15:07,800
goes online and I collect and 
the thing that I found out about

295
00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:10,800
eHow and I think, you know what 
helped you guys scale but also 

296
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:12,600
maybe what, you know, gave 
content Farms. 

297
00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:16,300
A bad name is that the editing 
behind it was pretty thin. 

298
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:18,000
Right. 
I mean like it was definitely a 

299
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,000
pass-through sort of thing. 
People are not really 

300
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,400
incentivized to do a great job 
editing stuff. 

301
00:15:23,500 --> 00:15:27,100
And what I found out was that 
there were a lot of like 

302
00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:30,400
articles you know it's because 
of the way that the algorithm 

303
00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:32,500
was written. 
You guys were trying to have as 

304
00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:35,800
many different articles about 
similar subjects to like collect

305
00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:37,500
every single possible search 
term. 

306
00:15:37,900 --> 00:15:40,500
And so I would find that there 
would be basically, you could 

307
00:15:40,500 --> 00:15:43,500
rewrite the article. 
And so I would do a how-to like,

308
00:15:43,500 --> 00:15:44,900
how to convert. 
This was my thing. 

309
00:15:44,900 --> 00:15:50,200
This is my racket would be like 
How to convert CDs to mp3s and 

310
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,700
then there would be an article 
how to convert my CDs to mp3s. 

311
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,100
And there was, How can I convert
CDs to mp3s? 

312
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:59,400
And how can I convert tapes to 
mp3s? 

313
00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:02,100
How to make use my computer to 
convert tapes MP3s? 

314
00:16:02,300 --> 00:16:05,100
Basically, you guys were 
incentivized to collect as many 

315
00:16:05,100 --> 00:16:07,700
different articles as possible, 
so that no matter what, if 

316
00:16:07,700 --> 00:16:10,000
someone searches something it 
comes up at the top of Google. 

317
00:16:10,900 --> 00:16:13,000
And so what I would need genius,
right? 

318
00:16:13,100 --> 00:16:14,500
Right, right. 
Yeah brother. 

319
00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:17,700
Yeah basically it's just like 
masks on still wasn't. 

320
00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:18,400
Yeah. 
Right. 

321
00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:20,600
Right. 
Well boy, until until like that,

322
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:23,000
the algorithms are smart enough 
to do it. 

323
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,800
I mean Tom's but basically 
functioning like sort of a 

324
00:16:25,808 --> 00:16:28,300
little like, computer 
programming. 

325
00:16:28,300 --> 00:16:31,600
You're just finding similar. 
Yeah, well, you know, I think 

326
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:33,200
you guys, I mean, tell me how 
you guys sort of you. 

327
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:34,700
This from the company I've never
really actually talk to you 

328
00:16:34,708 --> 00:16:37,500
about this but like, you know, 
how are you guys filter in the 

329
00:16:37,508 --> 00:16:39,200
stuff out? 
Because I know that there was 

330
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,600
concerns about plagiarism. 
You didn't want people literally

331
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:43,800
copying and pasting. 
Yeah, the same article because 

332
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,700
that would probably trigger some
some problems but Yes, it seemed

333
00:16:47,700 --> 00:16:49,800
like you guys are too much of a 
problem with it, I mean, like, 

334
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:54,200
it was just like anything that, 
you know, gets better and better

335
00:16:54,200 --> 00:16:56,900
over time, right? 
So you launch these things, I 

336
00:16:56,900 --> 00:16:59,800
mean we spent a lot of time 
thinking about it. 

337
00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:01,300
Okay. 
Well how do we how do we scale 

338
00:17:01,300 --> 00:17:02,900
the editorial? 
You know, we've got now we've 

339
00:17:02,900 --> 00:17:05,700
got the Articles coming out, how
do you scale the editing process

340
00:17:05,700 --> 00:17:08,300
and any but I have to say one of
the things that we didn't 

341
00:17:08,300 --> 00:17:13,400
really, you know, sort of spend 
a lot of it was spent that much 

342
00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:16,000
time thinking about the 
similarity between the Articles 

343
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:20,700
per se say, because it was 
really much more top-down title 

344
00:17:20,700 --> 00:17:24,900
driven, right? 
And as long as the article did a

345
00:17:24,908 --> 00:17:28,900
good job, right? 
Answering the question. 

346
00:17:29,300 --> 00:17:31,000
We thought that that was 
sufficient, right? 

347
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,200
We never really I wish I could 
say we did we did but you know 

348
00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:39,200
for even from Annie how like 
editorial standpoint I don't 

349
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:43,500
think we really appreciated that
the algorithms, we're going to 

350
00:17:43,500 --> 00:17:46,400
change the algorithms that you 
know, Google algorithm from 

351
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:48,800
2000. 
I mean, I'd be interesting to 

352
00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:52,800
kind of get the bachelor step 
but between like whatever was 97

353
00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:55,500
and 2008. 
I don't know. 

354
00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:58,100
I don't know if it changed at 
all, but then you started 

355
00:17:58,100 --> 00:18:00,500
seeing, you know, okay? 
And then they started cycling 

356
00:18:00,500 --> 00:18:04,200
through and then and then I 
take, I think the for whatever 

357
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:07,400
reason whether it was our IPO. 
You know, we had article in 

358
00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:11,500
wired, I don't know if Google 
really felt like it was a it was

359
00:18:11,500 --> 00:18:14,200
a bad user experience or if they
just was it's like, they lie 

360
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:16,300
about you, or were you part of 
the category? 

361
00:18:16,500 --> 00:18:20,000
Like how much did you know, 
present content farming? 

362
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:21,700
We wrote. 
So we then started just like 

363
00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:23,900
just like everything you know 
like when you see we have some 

364
00:18:23,900 --> 00:18:26,300
success then there's a lot of a 
lot of imitation. 

365
00:18:26,300 --> 00:18:28,400
Well like about.com where do 
they? 

366
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:32,800
You put this like New York Times
acquires about.com, right? 

367
00:18:33,100 --> 00:18:35,200
Yes, yes. 
So what do you remember? 

368
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:36,800
What time period? 
That was just. 

369
00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:38,700
Yeah, we almost actually, we 
almost did a deal with the New 

370
00:18:38,700 --> 00:18:40,900
York Times you were going to do 
very big merger. 

371
00:18:41,300 --> 00:18:44,200
Won't part with demand media. 
The New York Times Really I 

372
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:45,700
would fuck. 
Yeah, huh. 

373
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:48,900
Like how Hosted it get pretty 
close. 

374
00:18:49,100 --> 00:18:52,600
You had already placed. 
Yeah, have price has deal. 

375
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:56,500
Negotiated and and then what 
killed it, I think the time it 

376
00:18:56,500 --> 00:18:59,000
was just this. 
Yeah, I think the CEO of the New

377
00:18:59,008 --> 00:19:02,300
York Times was Janet. 
I kept her locked in, but at the

378
00:19:02,308 --> 00:19:04,700
time she just got cold feet. 
Last minute. 

379
00:19:04,700 --> 00:19:06,000
Didn't want to do it. 
Whoo. 

380
00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:09,600
So they would have been in 
charge or we were going to do. 

381
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:12,700
I mean I think we were going to 
Verge about and demand and then 

382
00:19:12,700 --> 00:19:14,900
really have a kind of own the 
category. 

383
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:18,700
Oh, so you're Going to be sort 
of under them, but it about 

384
00:19:18,700 --> 00:19:21,400
demand would have been. 
Yeah, we were going to be like 

385
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:28,000
creating your title. 
I was like, it was like our 

386
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,700
content was really magazine 
content, right? 

387
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:37,000
I mean, disposable it was, it 
was not g know, I don't offend 

388
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:38,400
any, you know, gardening 
journalist. 

389
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,600
But it was like gardening Home 
Improvement, you know, the kind 

390
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,300
of stuff that, you know, you 
could, you could time, you know,

391
00:19:44,300 --> 00:19:45,900
you could write the top, could 
write it, you know. 

392
00:19:45,900 --> 00:19:48,100
And that. 
By the way, town would do a good

393
00:19:48,100 --> 00:19:51,900
job Rite Aid article. 
You know, maybe well here's the 

394
00:19:51,900 --> 00:19:55,100
funny thing about that is that 
like I wrote you know, I would 

395
00:19:55,100 --> 00:19:58,500
write I made a you know like a I
would tell myself I'm going to 

396
00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:01,600
do ten of these a day and if I 
do ten a day that's 150 bucks a 

397
00:20:01,608 --> 00:20:02,900
day, right? 
If I do it, five days a week, 

398
00:20:02,900 --> 00:20:05,400
but 750 dollars a week and I 
paid off my credit card doing 

399
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,200
that. 
And after a month of doing that,

400
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,100
I think an editor. 
Finally kicked back, one of my 

401
00:20:10,100 --> 00:20:13,100
articles that was like, you 
know, how to take a record 

402
00:20:13,100 --> 00:20:15,900
player and convert it to mp3s 
and they're like, you can't just

403
00:20:15,900 --> 00:20:17,900
plug up. 
Turn table into a computer. 

404
00:20:18,700 --> 00:20:22,100
And I was like, well, I don't 
really, like probably 40 

405
00:20:22,100 --> 00:20:23,600
articles saying, do that. 
Yes. 

406
00:20:25,500 --> 00:20:28,800
Quality could be a suspect. 
But but, you know, I think at 

407
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:29,500
its best. 
Sure. 

408
00:20:29,500 --> 00:20:30,800
Right. 
It is someone who has an 

409
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:32,700
Enthusiast for the category. 
We do a good job. 

410
00:20:32,700 --> 00:20:34,300
Yeah. 
And again this is early days of 

411
00:20:34,300 --> 00:20:36,800
these types of platforms and I 
think you go into these thinking

412
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,700
people are inherently good there
you do the right thing right? 

413
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:41,500
And they're just want to share 
their knowledge. 

414
00:20:41,500 --> 00:20:43,700
I mean that's really what it was
about and we just thought well 

415
00:20:43,700 --> 00:20:46,700
actually people want to share 
the knowledge we can pay that By

416
00:20:46,700 --> 00:20:50,300
the way, we're one of the only 
places like around, you know, if

417
00:20:50,300 --> 00:20:52,900
you go back to the Huffington 
Post, having to post was having 

418
00:20:52,900 --> 00:20:55,300
people write for free, and then 
people are like, well, they're 

419
00:20:55,300 --> 00:20:57,700
not paying it and we were like, 
why are people giving us our 

420
00:20:57,700 --> 00:20:59,300
time? 
We're paying people like I don't

421
00:20:59,300 --> 00:21:02,600
understand like what that right?
What's the negative slant? 

422
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:04,700
I'm like what we're doing right?
I don't know. 

423
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,200
But what was I mean if you can 
like put yourself back in that 

424
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,800
are because I actually don't 
really remember specifically 

425
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:11,000
what was the chief criticism of 
these sites. 

426
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:13,600
I mean I guess quality. 
Maybe suspects but like whatever

427
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,300
time? 
Yes I mean I think over time 

428
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,600
What you had was well, Google 
Addict started referring to his 

429
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:22,700
like thin content and it was 
like duplicative content. 

430
00:21:22,900 --> 00:21:26,900
And so that then became one of 
the things that the algorithm 

431
00:21:26,900 --> 00:21:29,500
really started directly 
targeting was that you don't 

432
00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:33,000
want to have a site that, you 
know, ten articles on, you know 

433
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,400
your topic top like you're right
they want one but by the way 

434
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,500
they didn't and again it was 
just it was a change of mindset 

435
00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:42,500
because when you think about 
like engagement metrics in 

436
00:21:42,500 --> 00:21:44,700
Google and search, like when 
you're searching for something, 

437
00:21:44,700 --> 00:21:48,500
you want to answer, right? 
I don't necessarily want to read

438
00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:51,700
a 3 page article on end and the 
history of MP3s. 

439
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:53,500
Tell me how to convert it right.
Right. 

440
00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:57,900
We had that if you do want a 
true answer which Tom is saying 

441
00:21:57,900 --> 00:22:00,400
sometimes it didn't always 
deliver but yeah. 

442
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:01,100
Correct. 
Right? 

443
00:22:01,100 --> 00:22:04,700
Yes. 
I mean clearly you know now 

444
00:22:04,700 --> 00:22:07,500
Google like provides these 
answers itself. 

445
00:22:07,500 --> 00:22:09,100
It doesn't even let you go 
off-site. 

446
00:22:09,100 --> 00:22:11,500
It's not even about we 
eventually go from okay. 

447
00:22:11,500 --> 00:22:14,700
These are to correct. 
Yeah to like screw it even if 

448
00:22:14,700 --> 00:22:17,000
you have a good high quality 
answer we don't even I want to 

449
00:22:17,008 --> 00:22:18,500
let you. 
Yeah, do it. 

450
00:22:18,500 --> 00:22:22,600
We're gonna do it ourselves. 
Yeah, which is, you know, the 

451
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:26,600
evolution with Google explain to
me the day in the office is when

452
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:28,600
Google changes there I'll go. 
Okay. 

453
00:22:28,700 --> 00:22:31,500
Well, so, so, will the, the 
story arc is that Google 

454
00:22:31,500 --> 00:22:34,300
because, you know, demand 
becomes a very successful public

455
00:22:34,300 --> 00:22:36,500
company were born in New York 
Times, right? 

456
00:22:36,500 --> 00:22:38,300
Yeah, yeah, I want point at one 
point. 

457
00:22:38,300 --> 00:22:39,400
Yeah. 
Yeah. 

458
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:41,000
That was a big headline for it. 
Yeah. 

459
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,500
And that was a big thing, but we
work of help can be added. 

460
00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:52,700
The market cap was like, close 
to two billion, you know? 

461
00:22:52,700 --> 00:22:56,300
And I said was we're going like 
two months, maybe Google change 

462
00:22:56,300 --> 00:22:59,100
the algorithm. 
And that unfortunately was is 

463
00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:02,800
just hard for any company. 
Let alone public company to 

464
00:23:02,900 --> 00:23:06,000
overcome when your way your cash
flow, you know. 

465
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,500
And by the way, we were 
profitable, I meani how was a 

466
00:23:08,500 --> 00:23:11,600
monster business at one point. 
I mean, I think we have one 

467
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:14,800
point was generated text. 
Uh, yeah, yeah, we paid you 10 

468
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:16,700
bucks but I think we probably 
made a couple hundred. 

469
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,100
And on the right those are, 
yeah, the the structure was 

470
00:23:19,100 --> 00:23:20,200
good. 
Yeah. 

471
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:22,000
But it did tell him but 
obviously, it wasn't 

472
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,900
sustainable, you know? 
And, and so the, when when you 

473
00:23:24,900 --> 00:23:28,000
have that kind of a hit as a 
public company, you know, 

474
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,900
there's no, unfortunately, not a
lot, you can do a year. 

475
00:23:29,900 --> 00:23:35,000
We we went public in 2011, and 
it happens like that your eye if

476
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,200
you like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 
And yeah. 

477
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,100
And then what you just totally 
gonna get like, how much meat on

478
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:42,900
top tell Eric it was a big deal.
It was like a big deal. 

479
00:23:43,100 --> 00:23:43,800
Yeah. 
No. 

480
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,600
It was the, you know, kind of 
banner l a tech company. 

481
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,600
And as it went public like, I'm 
saying, huge headlines about it 

482
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:51,000
being worth more than the York 
Times. 

483
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,100
It was like, the new model for 
Content, there was a lot of 

484
00:23:53,100 --> 00:23:56,700
hand-wringing about like what it
meant for the future of content.

485
00:23:56,700 --> 00:23:59,400
Obviously was all Jazz time, 
it's not like I was close to 

486
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,300
you, like pay attention to it, 
right? 

487
00:24:01,300 --> 00:24:02,500
Yeah. 
I wasn't even covering it yet. 

488
00:24:02,500 --> 00:24:05,900
And it was, you know, I started 
covering La Tech in 2012. 

489
00:24:05,900 --> 00:24:09,700
And so I guess that was sort of 
post, you know, post Fiasco and 

490
00:24:09,700 --> 00:24:12,300
as you guys were dealing with 
the Fallout from all of this 

491
00:24:12,300 --> 00:24:15,600
stuff, but yeah. 
Did you have any signaling that 

492
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,600
Google was going to do? 
This I mean, did you guys are 

493
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,300
like a drum beat that like oh 
you know they're rejecting the 

494
00:24:20,308 --> 00:24:22,700
algorithm and this is going to 
hurt all the content Farm sites.

495
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,000
No. 
But interestingly what happened 

496
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,400
was the first algorithm change 
they made, we went up. 

497
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,900
Hmm. 
Like our traffic went it was a 

498
00:24:32,900 --> 00:24:36,500
benefit to us for like two 
weeks, okay? 

499
00:24:36,500 --> 00:24:42,400
For three weeks and then the 
hammer fell and that's when that

500
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:44,600
that is we never really 
recovered from that. 

501
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,700
How much resentment is there? 
Within those companies toward 

502
00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:51,500
toward Google because you know 
as I started covering Tech. 

503
00:24:51,700 --> 00:24:54,900
I remember meeting Jason 
calacanis who I believe he had a

504
00:24:54,908 --> 00:24:57,600
company that was sort of in the 
sphere of content. 

505
00:24:57,600 --> 00:24:58,400
Yeah. 
Yeah. 

506
00:24:58,400 --> 00:24:59,400
Yeah. 
Mahalo. 

507
00:24:59,500 --> 00:25:00,000
Yeah. 
Hollow. 

508
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:00,800
Yeah. 
Right. 

509
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,400
They had some kind of user 
generated content stuff that 

510
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,900
wasn't they? 
Yeah, they basically so. 

511
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:10,500
Yeah, Jason lost, Mahalo and 
then copy the try to copy demand

512
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,800
try to cram prep of the content 
and then Lambda bad. 

513
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:16,500
You know I didn't I was like no 
this model. 

514
00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:17,500
Crap. 
Yeah. 

515
00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:19,700
And then whatever. 
But Chase knowledge, its knees 

516
00:25:19,700 --> 00:25:23,400
could go ahead man. 
I mean is it Go does get hot or 

517
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,100
Advanced a? 
No I mean well the good thing 

518
00:25:25,100 --> 00:25:29,200
about it, I mean I think the way
we architected it was not, we 

519
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,200
have couple business lines in 
there, right? 

520
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:35,100
We had we had a big red domain 
registrar business. 

521
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:37,800
That was a profitable profitable
business. 

522
00:25:38,700 --> 00:25:41,200
We had some others other 
properties to that. 

523
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,800
We were building that were not 
dependent upon the contact form 

524
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,300
and they were more Head say, I 
thought to contribute the bill 

525
00:25:48,300 --> 00:25:52,200
that we won comedy site called 
cracked.com the old crap. 

526
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,800
I remember when we bought the 
Branded and that was they were 

527
00:25:55,800 --> 00:26:00,400
doing six posts a day and there 
was not a volume game from a 

528
00:26:00,408 --> 00:26:01,900
Content, standpoint bouncy 
ruled. 

529
00:26:01,900 --> 00:26:05,100
That was like, hi Folly. 
But again, kind of rear virtual 

530
00:26:05,100 --> 00:26:07,500
writers room. 
It was very it was it was very 

531
00:26:07,500 --> 00:26:09,000
soon as good stuff. 
I mean you guys were sort of 

532
00:26:09,008 --> 00:26:12,000
that Innovative with like like 
funny or die and college humor 

533
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:13,800
and those kind of online humors 
out of the time. 

534
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:15,500
Yeah. 
So we had that site, that was 

535
00:26:15,500 --> 00:26:18,400
really solid and we had 
Livestrong.com, which was also 

536
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,000
a. 
I think it just took good site 

537
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,200
which had and a companion app 
called The Daily plate, which 

538
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,300
literally calorie tracker app 
that require you, we bought a 

539
00:26:27,308 --> 00:26:29,700
lot of these businesses, right 
Sonique, we were requiring. 

540
00:26:30,100 --> 00:26:32,800
So I stand, that's what I spent 
the bulk of my time doing like 

541
00:26:33,100 --> 00:26:35,100
40. 
I did Livestrong, get rocked by 

542
00:26:35,100 --> 00:26:36,800
the whole doping Scandal where 
you guys. 

543
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,500
Yeah. 
And but that David issues with 

544
00:26:39,500 --> 00:26:41,100
no, no. 
But there were issues with its 

545
00:26:41,100 --> 00:26:42,800
attached. 
We didn't affect strong, but 

546
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,100
that happened while you owned it
or yeah. 

547
00:26:46,100 --> 00:26:48,900
But in a week, That business 
when fine even though the doping

548
00:26:48,900 --> 00:26:50,100
stuff. 
Yeah, because the business 

549
00:26:50,100 --> 00:26:53,400
wasn't, it wasn't, you know, it 
wasn't Lance Armstrong got Kyle,

550
00:26:53,700 --> 00:26:56,600
it was really strong program and
I remember there being stories 

551
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,200
about how, you know, Livestrong 
had to make very clear that it 

552
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,300
severed ties with Lance 
Armstrong that he's not 

553
00:27:01,300 --> 00:27:02,900
affiliated with the business, 
right? 

554
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,800
Remember, if there was anything 
that specific time? 

555
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,300
I mean I don't I mean it 
romantic in my memory. 

556
00:27:08,700 --> 00:27:11,400
Yeah, maybe maybe a little bit. 
We didn't have any and we didn't

557
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,900
have a huge branded ad sales 
team at the time, I'm here. 

558
00:27:13,900 --> 00:27:16,300
By the way, at the time, the 
people running branded ad sales 

559
00:27:16,300 --> 00:27:18,900
who were I joined Bradford and 
are honored eenie, huh? 

560
00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:21,000
So, yeah, Eric, maybe all the 
way. 

561
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,400
This was like, the All-Star team
like, did digital media. 

562
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,600
I'm telling you that I had so 
many good people at this 

563
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:28,800
company. 
So does this company? 

564
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,100
Still trade is still exists? 
Or what else? 

565
00:27:31,100 --> 00:27:31,900
I was. 
So I died. 

566
00:27:31,900 --> 00:27:32,900
You're trying to get to the 
entrance. 

567
00:27:32,900 --> 00:27:34,800
All right, we were hurt you to 
get over the thing. 

568
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,200
I like the real juice that I 
wanted to get about Google 

569
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,700
because I know people like Jason
calacanis and maybe you as well 

570
00:27:40,700 --> 00:27:44,900
sort of view this whole episode 
as an example of Google's, you 

571
00:27:44,900 --> 00:27:48,800
know, uncheck global Our. 
Oh right, well, we're going to 

572
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:50,500
get to the core lucian's. 
I just want to get to the end of

573
00:27:50,500 --> 00:27:53,300
this story and then there's the 
only teams we can draw about it.

574
00:27:53,300 --> 00:27:53,900
Yeah, I'm fine. 
Yeah. 

575
00:27:53,900 --> 00:27:57,200
So yeah, so demand went public. 
The park cap continued to slip. 

576
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:02,200
We then we ended up spinning off
the domain business, which was 

577
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,600
called right side and that ended
up being Acquired and then 

578
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:09,200
demand changed its name to Leaf 
Group which was remained, a 

579
00:28:09,208 --> 00:28:11,700
public company, sort of did 
okay, not so great. 

580
00:28:11,700 --> 00:28:16,300
And then they were doing all the
right things try to, you know? 

581
00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:20,000
Right size the Brand's, right, 
size, the businesses and sort of

582
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,700
doing the things that out. 
And I'll go to about.com for 

583
00:28:22,700 --> 00:28:24,800
cycle, which is no dot dash. 
Which is actually done 

584
00:28:24,900 --> 00:28:29,400
exceptionally, well, under Neil 
vogel's leadership, but Neal we 

585
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,100
have the same business model and
I think earlier, on maybe about 

586
00:28:32,100 --> 00:28:33,700
said, you know what we're going 
to we're going to take down all 

587
00:28:33,708 --> 00:28:35,200
this content and willing to like
rebuild. 

588
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,400
Some of these Brands and put 
them into new categories and 

589
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,900
create take the best content. 
Like if you took the best, he 

590
00:28:41,900 --> 00:28:44,900
how I think maybe had three or 
four hundred thousand articles 

591
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,500
right? 
If you took the best 30,000 and 

592
00:28:47,500 --> 00:28:50,200
started a new how-to website. 
That would be a killer side. 

593
00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:53,300
So I think what what about did 
is they took, you know, the home

594
00:28:53,300 --> 00:28:56,300
and garden stuff the and they 
started doing that and I think 

595
00:28:56,300 --> 00:29:00,700
they did that sooner than we did
as I'm remembered out at the 

596
00:29:00,700 --> 00:29:03,000
math. 
And so that now is form the 

597
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,100
basis for dot dash, which is now
a great, a great business. 

598
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,100
I mean, it's and they report 
numbers, it's hugely profitable,

599
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,000
the big peace in the valley so 
tomb and was in the process of 

600
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,100
doing the same thing as Lief 
group. 

601
00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:18,200
We had also acquired a 
Marketplace called Society6 

602
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,500
which was an artist Marketplace,
we started doing some Commerce 

603
00:29:20,500 --> 00:29:24,300
stuff and that whole business is
now owned by The Washington 

604
00:29:24,300 --> 00:29:25,200
Post. 
Hmm. 

605
00:29:25,900 --> 00:29:28,600
And they run it, it's still? 
Yeah hmm. 

606
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:30,700
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I haven't
seen I haven't really looked 

607
00:29:30,700 --> 00:29:32,100
like a button sites. 
A long time. 

608
00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:34,000
It sold for way less than it was
once worth. 

609
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,100
And oh yeah, yeah, no. 
I mean, I think collectively 

610
00:29:36,100 --> 00:29:40,300
that the both businesses were 
probably 67 are really dollars 

611
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:43,400
if I had to. 
Yeah, well, I mean maybe a half.

612
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,500
Yeah. 
So I would obviously you know a 

613
00:29:45,500 --> 00:29:48,000
big what? 
The first like theme here is 

614
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:53,500
just like companies building for
like the big Tech Giants and how

615
00:29:53,500 --> 00:29:57,000
they can you were sort of like 
the early days of getting rocked

616
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,600
by Google. 
Did you ever like go to Jonah 

617
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,500
Peretti and say hey this 
BuzzFeed idea building off like 

618
00:30:02,500 --> 00:30:06,300
Facebook is a reckless. 
Like I've been there before it's

619
00:30:06,500 --> 00:30:09,600
wear when you w or Zynga or any 
of these Mafia will ya. 

620
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,400
When you wash like the Facebook 
version of this play out? 

621
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,900
I don't know. 
Did you ever send emails to be 

622
00:30:14,900 --> 00:30:16,500
having like you're an idiot? 
We did. 

623
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,700
This already and it doesn't play
out very well buckets. 

624
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,000
I mean, we all understood. 
I think we were the first ones 

625
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,900
to really bear the brunt of 
platform, dependency right? 

626
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,400
Like and this is now, everybody 
is at the mercy of the 

627
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,300
platform's, the platform's 
weren't as I mean, we sort of 

628
00:30:35,700 --> 00:30:37,700
weave. 
It was like, this symbiotic 

629
00:30:37,700 --> 00:30:39,000
relationship, right? 
We were growing. 

630
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:40,400
And they were, they were kind of
benefiting. 

631
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,700
And, you know, when you look at 
it, you're like well, wait, why 

632
00:30:43,700 --> 00:30:46,200
would Google ever do that they 
make so much money off of our 

633
00:30:46,700 --> 00:30:49,000
Stuff you know like it's not 
economically in their best 

634
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,500
interest to do it. 
So it was a surprise Town. 

635
00:30:51,500 --> 00:30:54,500
Answer your earlier question, we
were not expecting it a change 

636
00:30:54,900 --> 00:30:58,300
and yeah I mean I think we 
shared a lot of War Stories 

637
00:30:58,300 --> 00:31:02,100
among all the people who are 
running these you know sites at 

638
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:04,700
the time and and you know, 
talking this was right. 

639
00:31:04,700 --> 00:31:08,500
I mean it was a real show of 
Market power from from Google. 

640
00:31:09,100 --> 00:31:11,700
They never really had to explain
themselves. 

641
00:31:11,700 --> 00:31:14,600
I mean they you know, they just 
made these jet over again it 

642
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:16,500
course at the time. 
Yeah, everybody. 

643
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,400
Incredibly pissed. 
We're all set. 

644
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,900
This is ridiculous. 
You know, in the benefit of 

645
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,100
hindsight like, you know, the 
platforms are trying to do what 

646
00:31:25,100 --> 00:31:28,500
they need to do in order to, you
know, maintain the qualities 

647
00:31:28,500 --> 00:31:32,700
that they, you know, hold dear. 
So so I mean I can't, I wish I 

648
00:31:32,708 --> 00:31:34,800
could say, you know, through 
those guys I want to go sue 

649
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,900
them. 
But yeah, they did what they 

650
00:31:36,900 --> 00:31:41,300
did. 
And we had to react to what the 

651
00:31:41,300 --> 00:31:43,400
market was giving us. 
And so we don't know when that 

652
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,200
I'll go change happened, we Did 
what we thought was. 

653
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:47,200
All right. 
I think we took the kite. 

654
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:48,800
I was okay. 
Well if that's not the way the 

655
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,400
markets going to work anymore, 
let's pull the content down. 

656
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:54,100
Let's try to rebuild. 
Let's just try to move forward 

657
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,600
but the big, the big question. 
Eric is really where does scale 

658
00:31:57,900 --> 00:32:00,400
fit in media? 
This is really kind of the fun. 

659
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,000
I think one of the fundamental 
things that people need to 

660
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,100
understand and it's hard, right?
It's hard to scales. 

661
00:32:07,300 --> 00:32:09,800
Well, be you know what? 
How do you build something that 

662
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:14,600
actually can can can like scale?
Like how big can one thing be? 

663
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,300
For you have to go enough that 
it drives traffic to itself. 

664
00:32:18,300 --> 00:32:20,700
Or what's the importance? 
Well that maybe that's the think

665
00:32:20,700 --> 00:32:22,900
the question as investors, 
right? 

666
00:32:22,900 --> 00:32:25,300
So from the capital standpoint 
from the money coming in 

667
00:32:25,300 --> 00:32:28,700
standpoint, we want things that 
can scale investors are looking 

668
00:32:28,700 --> 00:32:32,200
for businesses that that have, 
you know, unlimited growth 

669
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,900
potential, right? 
Like one of the early 

670
00:32:33,900 --> 00:32:35,200
Investments we made at Three 
L's. 

671
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,300
Go puff, right? 
Go puff is quick. 

672
00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:41,100
Commerce company plays in a 
market that is so big in the 

673
00:32:41,100 --> 00:32:44,400
u.s., it can be this company 
cadby, it is becoming a very big

674
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,700
business. 
But for media, how do you play 

675
00:32:47,700 --> 00:32:49,100
it? 
You know, how do you do it if 

676
00:32:49,100 --> 00:32:51,800
you're in news, right? 
Well, how big can the New York 

677
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,200
Times V will New York Times has 
to do have to buy things in 

678
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:55,700
sports? 
That's why they think about 

679
00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:57,400
buying something like the 
athletic, right? 

680
00:32:57,900 --> 00:33:00,500
Like there's always these 
periods and you just have to 

681
00:33:00,508 --> 00:33:03,500
understand where you are in the 
cycles of aggregation and 

682
00:33:03,500 --> 00:33:06,300
disaggregation. 
And we were just earlier this 

683
00:33:06,300 --> 00:33:08,000
aggregation phase of digital 
media. 

684
00:33:08,500 --> 00:33:11,400
I'm going to give voice to the 
sort of the journalistic or 

685
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,600
though the the position that I 
think reporters would have or 

686
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:18,000
Our companies are built that our
product oriented and there are 

687
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,800
companies that are built that, 
see some sort of problem in the 

688
00:33:20,808 --> 00:33:23,600
market and say, we're going to 
Salt in like where the business 

689
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:25,900
guys and we see there's like 
money to be made here and we'll 

690
00:33:25,900 --> 00:33:27,900
go higher it, like the product 
people. 

691
00:33:28,100 --> 00:33:32,900
And in a way the fact that this 
was such a torque towards where 

692
00:33:32,900 --> 00:33:35,900
the business guys versus 
correct, what's a great product?

693
00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:38,300
That no matter what is going on 
in the world? 

694
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,000
There are customers for this and
so then and so. 

695
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,200
So you can translate this even 
Beyond just like Media wrote 

696
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,900
technology company, dependence 
to say anytime you know you're 

697
00:33:49,900 --> 00:33:54,900
building a company to solve sort
of peculiarities of how sort of 

698
00:33:54,900 --> 00:33:58,200
the business landscape set up 
your more vulnerable that if you

699
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,000
build a company that sort of 
from first principles saying, 

700
00:34:02,300 --> 00:34:05,300
what's the product where service
is and people are people going 

701
00:34:05,300 --> 00:34:06,900
to want your hat for a long 
time. 

702
00:34:06,900 --> 00:34:08,800
Very much so. 
And the magic is when you get 

703
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,000
both of those things working 
together, that is the magic. 

704
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,000
And unfortunately, what happens 
if you know the aggregation 

705
00:34:15,100 --> 00:34:19,000
Model is what you found is. 
You've bought a buzz, a bunch of

706
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,000
businesses that were truly good 
and organic on their own but 

707
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:24,800
they just got to a certain place
that they were going to really 

708
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:26,699
get much bigger. 
It was really hard for them to 

709
00:34:26,699 --> 00:34:28,900
kind of think about how they 
were going to get much bigger 

710
00:34:29,100 --> 00:34:30,600
like a cracked or something. 
Dress. 

711
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,400
A oh that's like a good product.
But right. 

712
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,000
We've hit the sort of ceiling of
what the audience. 

713
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:36,800
Exactly. 
Right. 

714
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:38,600
Or that's right. 
The scale thing is so 

715
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,900
interesting with media because 
it's very clear to me how demand

716
00:34:41,900 --> 00:34:45,300
approach that which was paying 
people like me a couple of Bucks

717
00:34:45,300 --> 00:34:47,000
to write articles. 
And if you do that in Mass, you 

718
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,400
can get enough articles that 
there is some sort of scale 

719
00:34:49,699 --> 00:34:52,300
scale, like Advantage, you have 
a Workforce, a freelance work 

720
00:34:52,300 --> 00:34:54,100
force. 
I remember having this exact 

721
00:34:54,100 --> 00:34:58,200
conversation with Jonah at 
BuzzFeed like five years ago or 

722
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:00,700
so because they were questions 
about them at the time, after 

723
00:35:00,700 --> 00:35:02,500
they had raised a bunch of money
from NBC. 

724
00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:05,100
And, and whatever is too like, 
how are you going to scale? 

725
00:35:05,100 --> 00:35:08,000
BuzzFeed, you know, it can 
media, it's just intrinsically 

726
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,400
hard to do because it's not, 
it's a labor-intensive projects 

727
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,400
for most people and his line at 
the time I think was, you know, 

728
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,800
this is when Food was really 
trying to grow internationally 

729
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,800
and they were opening up, 
BuzzFeed Brazil and BuzzFeed UK 

730
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,900
and maybe some I don't Australia
or something. 

731
00:35:22,900 --> 00:35:25,300
And that was his, that was his 
approach is like if we can kind 

732
00:35:25,300 --> 00:35:29,900
of spin off locations and we can
just produce content there, 

733
00:35:30,100 --> 00:35:31,500
that's some sort of a global 
scale. 

734
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:34,100
And they've since closed, almost
all of those offices. 

735
00:35:34,100 --> 00:35:37,400
I mean, business has taken a 
turn for the worse in many ways.

736
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,800
So doc has gotten so low that 
it's do it. 

737
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:43,800
I feel like it's survived some 
of the market turbulence, a 

738
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,600
little bit just because It's a 
got to like 500 million market 

739
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,600
cap or something, right? 
I haven't looked at it. 

740
00:35:49,900 --> 00:35:52,100
Yeah, yeah. 
Might be lower than well 

741
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,900
Enterprise Value. 
Yeah cash. 

742
00:35:54,100 --> 00:35:55,900
Oh yeah, Enterprise, yeah, 
exactly. 

743
00:35:56,300 --> 00:35:58,400
I want to get too Buzzy more 
specifically in a second but 

744
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,300
just like in this broader topic,
do you think there is an 

745
00:36:01,300 --> 00:36:04,100
approach for media to scale in a
way that other tech companies 

746
00:36:04,100 --> 00:36:05,500
can? 
I mean, is it foolhardy to 

747
00:36:05,500 --> 00:36:09,100
expect it and by that, by that, 
you know, answer like is it a 

748
00:36:09,100 --> 00:36:14,600
bad VC investment is Media like 
just not a great you know, fit 

749
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,500
for The Venture Capital. 
Yeah, that's really, it depends,

750
00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:19,100
I would say you. 
That's why you don't see a lot 

751
00:36:19,100 --> 00:36:22,700
of Silicon Valley investors 
investing in media. 

752
00:36:23,100 --> 00:36:25,200
It is hard. 
It's they do from time to time. 

753
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:26,600
And every once in awhile, they 
did, you know? 

754
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,000
Because sometimes there are 
things that do kind of break 

755
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,700
out, or their platforms, or, you
know, things, you know, there 

756
00:36:32,700 --> 00:36:35,900
are some things that can rise 
above the levels that they need 

757
00:36:35,900 --> 00:36:37,800
to be for people to generate the
returns they do. 

758
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,400
But it's hard. 
I mean, I look at and I think 

759
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,100
you guys both have hit on it, 
its product authenticity and the

760
00:36:43,100 --> 00:36:48,000
labor, it takes to create At a 
great media experience, and you 

761
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,000
can't just necessarily 
replicate. 

762
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,000
If you guys have a great podcast
about business, you can't just 

763
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,900
say, hey, let's go to a podcast 
on gardening, you just like 

764
00:36:56,900 --> 00:37:00,800
right is it doesn't really, it 
doesn't really flow so, but I 

765
00:37:00,808 --> 00:37:03,100
think dot dash, I think there 
are a couple of companies like 

766
00:37:03,100 --> 00:37:06,600
one of the the company that has 
I don't doesn't get a good ton 

767
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,400
of coverage of people. 
Never really talked about it but

768
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:09,800
the winner. 
Okay. 

769
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:14,300
Of the, from the if you look at 
the media business from 20 2010,

770
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,400
10 to 20 20. 
I guess that decade. 

771
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,200
Hmm I don't know. 
Tom who would you think is the 

772
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:23,300
winner and and media in that 
era? 

773
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,300
This is going to be some like 
some like lateral choice that 

774
00:37:27,300 --> 00:37:29,600
I'm not going to come up with 20
10 to 20 knots. 

775
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:30,500
Are you? 
I'll give you another Hint. 

776
00:37:30,500 --> 00:37:33,100
It was an l.a. company only 
company. 

777
00:37:33,300 --> 00:37:37,000
I don't know Snapchat that 
immediate area Brandt internet 

778
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,700
brands which one is an 
interference and see that's a 

779
00:37:40,700 --> 00:37:43,800
kind of long. 
Yeah you know once WebMD. 

780
00:37:44,900 --> 00:37:47,800
No, but if Parts because this is
Kevin. 

781
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:49,900
How is your health History 
Podcast? 

782
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,300
Yeah, I mean, it's it very big 
company. 

783
00:37:53,300 --> 00:37:55,400
I mean, it's, I think it's that 
one by KKR. 

784
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:57,300
Okay. 
It's been recapitalize the 

785
00:37:57,308 --> 00:38:02,100
number of times in the billions 
of dollars and like them J2 and 

786
00:38:02,100 --> 00:38:05,700
I think dot dash are like the 
best of that the best media 

787
00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:08,900
companies around. 
Sure J2, I'm more familiar with 

788
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,000
because they own a couple of 
sites of people have heard of 

789
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,500
like IGN, and they're always 
kind of in the mix for You know,

790
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:16,900
their codes can like a stalking 
horse bitter when certain 

791
00:38:16,900 --> 00:38:19,600
companies are going bankrupt II 
can't remember who they bought 

792
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:20,700
not lie. 
Think it was when they bought 

793
00:38:20,700 --> 00:38:22,400
IGN. 
It was one of my favorite 

794
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,900
stories covering La Tech at the 
time, because J 2 is an online 

795
00:38:25,900 --> 00:38:28,700
began as an online, fax company 
correct. 

796
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,900
And I think they probably still 
do that to a degree, but like if

797
00:38:32,900 --> 00:38:35,400
they sold it, I think, I think 
they just sold it. 

798
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:37,900
I feel like it's all that but 
like, you know, I remember if 

799
00:38:37,900 --> 00:38:40,500
you ever watched 30 Rock, you 
know, there was a joke about how

800
00:38:40,500 --> 00:38:43,800
NBC was like a subsidiary of The
sheinhardt Wig Company. 

801
00:38:44,500 --> 00:38:46,900
I was thought it was funny that 
IGN was a subsidiary of an 

802
00:38:46,900 --> 00:38:49,800
online fax company, like the 
biggest gaming site, it just 

803
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,200
happens, right? 
Like your stubbornness. 

804
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,200
Yeah, like a random facts of 
insurance company. 

805
00:38:54,700 --> 00:38:56,900
That's about it. 
So as internet brands so WebMD, 

806
00:38:56,900 --> 00:38:59,900
well, that's obviously, you 
know, like remains like it's of 

807
00:38:59,900 --> 00:39:02,600
a certain of a different era. 
It's like probably unlikely 

808
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:07,000
e.com are right, but remains 
like a hugely visited site. 

809
00:39:07,300 --> 00:39:09,400
Well, if there are businesses 
that have done well, they 

810
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,300
continue to do well, driving 
organic traffic from Google, you

811
00:39:13,300 --> 00:39:14,700
know. 
And now Rightly. 

812
00:39:14,700 --> 00:39:16,700
So they're probably just not 
talking about it that loudly, 

813
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:18,700
right? 
Because why would that? 

814
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,300
So, what do you think about 
BuzzFeed then? 

815
00:39:20,300 --> 00:39:23,400
I mean, you see them going 
public is obviously hasn't gone 

816
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,000
to well in terms of their share 
price. 

817
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,500
I mean, what happens, I looked 
it up like, it's 590 something 

818
00:39:29,700 --> 00:39:33,000
market cap, it seems like yeah, 
the Enterprise Value is like, 

819
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,700
440 is thereabouts. 
Yeah, and I think that's on 

820
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,800
Revenue, Eric, and as we get 
that for you, but pretty 

821
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,100
significant Revenue, right? 
It's like, right. 

822
00:39:43,100 --> 00:39:46,900
The multiples are under Yeah, I 
mean I think there are real 

823
00:39:46,900 --> 00:39:49,500
questions about whether growth 
continues, you know. 

824
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,700
Yeah. 
And I think you look at a lot of

825
00:39:51,700 --> 00:39:54,000
these companies and I don't know
the ins and outs of were 

826
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,200
BuzzFeed businesses today, I'm 
guessing they've got a pretty 

827
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,500
good sized production business. 
That's like a fee-for-service, 

828
00:40:00,500 --> 00:40:03,900
they probably got, you know, 
still a decent sized media 

829
00:40:03,900 --> 00:40:06,000
business. 
I just I honestly don't really 

830
00:40:06,300 --> 00:40:08,400
and again as I told you guys, 
I've been out of the out of the 

831
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,500
game, you know, for the last 
whatever 56 years. 

832
00:40:11,500 --> 00:40:14,800
So I mean, I think they've done 
is, you know, But as well as 

833
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:16,400
they can. 
I mean, I don't know what else 

834
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,900
they could have done, you know, 
and I think about some other 

835
00:40:19,900 --> 00:40:23,200
successful Investments like bar 
stool, which is a really 

836
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,300
successful very successful 
Venture investment for the choni

837
00:40:26,300 --> 00:40:28,500
group. 
But you know, they figured out. 

838
00:40:28,500 --> 00:40:31,100
Okay. 
Well, they had an angle, they 

839
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:32,900
then figured out. 
Well, there's a, there's online 

840
00:40:32,900 --> 00:40:35,700
betting in Commerce, that worked
really well. 

841
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:39,100
And I just feels like the best 
way to play media is if you can,

842
00:40:39,100 --> 00:40:42,100
if you're in something, if you 
can invest in something in the 

843
00:40:42,100 --> 00:40:44,100
sort of, you know, tens of 
millions of dollars. 

844
00:40:44,300 --> 00:40:48,300
Dollars and sell it in the load 
of medium sized, hundreds of 

845
00:40:48,308 --> 00:40:50,800
millions of dollars. 
Like there are still 

846
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:52,500
opportunities to be able to do 
that. 

847
00:40:52,700 --> 00:40:56,300
But to think about the next 
Billion Dollar Plus Media 

848
00:40:56,300 --> 00:40:59,200
Company. 
It's really hard to I don't I 

849
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:00,900
don't know what the formula is 
for it. 

850
00:41:00,900 --> 00:41:02,600
I just I don't know. 
I don't see it and obviously 

851
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:06,300
BuzzFeed you know with whatever 
how big they are 700 million 

852
00:41:06,300 --> 00:41:09,400
Revenue I mean or whatever the 
numbers they're still not third 

853
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,100
half third you know 400 million 
Enterprise Value, right? 

854
00:41:12,100 --> 00:41:15,500
So you know you'd what you would
have Of to bed a bed of BuzzFeed

855
00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:18,800
investor, if you invested at 40 
million Priam and then an even 

856
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:20,800
something like the New York 
Times, I mean, you're seeing a 

857
00:41:20,808 --> 00:41:25,100
lot of their growth come from 
like the puzzle games and there 

858
00:41:25,100 --> 00:41:27,900
is sort of an argument that, you
know, some of the upside there 

859
00:41:27,900 --> 00:41:31,600
is just so, well, we'll get more
into games and lesson 2. 

860
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:33,700
Well, I thought. 
Yeah, what was really revealing 

861
00:41:33,700 --> 00:41:36,300
with the times two is they had 
this goal of getting to 10 

862
00:41:36,300 --> 00:41:40,200
million subscriptions and then 
when they seemed like they were 

863
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,100
slowing down, it wasn't like in 
the realm of possibility, the 

864
00:41:43,100 --> 00:41:46,200
next couple of years, they Wire 
the athletic and something like,

865
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,600
hey, we reach 10 million and 
it's like, well, yeah, you did 

866
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:50,400
what you had to buy those 
subscriptions to get there. 

867
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,200
Yeah. 
But but they've done like the 

868
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,100
New York Times did a great job 
with their product. 

869
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:56,800
I think the product remains, you
know top-notch. 

870
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:58,900
Oh totally, you know the daily 
their dog. 

871
00:41:58,900 --> 00:42:02,600
Their you know did a good job in
audio they're interactive 

872
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:04,900
formats or amazing. 
The video that they're producing

873
00:42:04,900 --> 00:42:07,100
is incredible. 
I'm going to just there, you 

874
00:42:07,107 --> 00:42:10,300
know, it's a high quality 
product I mean they've done a 

875
00:42:10,308 --> 00:42:12,600
good job, every time you 
probably remember that day they 

876
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,100
were struggling part of it. 
The reason like demand was worth

877
00:42:16,100 --> 00:42:17,800
more than New York Times. 
At one point it was because 

878
00:42:17,900 --> 00:42:20,500
people were just worried about 
the demise of print, right? 

879
00:42:20,700 --> 00:42:24,500
And so so that that point, there
were probably 70% print, maybe 

880
00:42:24,500 --> 00:42:27,800
30 percent digital, maybe that 
80/20, right, the newer drives 

881
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,600
is worth seven. 
Seven point three billion 

882
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,300
dollars. 
It is it still a tiny business 

883
00:42:33,300 --> 00:42:37,700
in the scale of it's like, you 
know, the most prestigious media

884
00:42:37,700 --> 00:42:41,100
brand in the world and compared 
to the technology company. 

885
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:43,100
It's still. 
Yeah, I knee. 

886
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:47,700
But you That's why I think it's 
sort of indicative of you know 

887
00:42:47,700 --> 00:42:49,500
like great product is probably 
going to grow it. 

888
00:42:49,500 --> 00:42:51,400
Whatever the market rate grows, 
you know? 

889
00:42:51,700 --> 00:42:54,600
I mean that's that that I don't 
know what their Top Line growth 

890
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,600
is you have to probably in that 
I'm guessing in the 10 to 15%. 

891
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,100
I don't even know if it's that 
high but right there's also 

892
00:43:01,100 --> 00:43:04,000
companies like Reddit I mean, is
we do we think of read it as a 

893
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:05,400
media Cup, right? 
Right it right. 

894
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,300
It's like oh we don't have to 
pay people at all to produce our

895
00:43:08,300 --> 00:43:10,200
content. 
I mean, it is amazing. 

896
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,000
These moderators, spend so much 
time doing work for, right? 

897
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:18,500
Edit and when there is yeah, you
can see it so much as like the 

898
00:43:18,500 --> 00:43:21,700
game is, can you figure out a 
way to make a bunch of content 

899
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,400
while paying as little as 
possible for labor and still 

900
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:28,200
getting the best possible 
content? 

901
00:43:28,300 --> 00:43:30,900
Yeah. 
Yeah, I mean, and then of 

902
00:43:30,900 --> 00:43:32,400
course, you've got Facebook, 
right? 

903
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:34,700
So, right. 
Which it turns out. 

904
00:43:34,700 --> 00:43:37,200
It also is a platform company 
just that platform happened to 

905
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,500
be apple and when they change 
their their rules and 

906
00:43:39,500 --> 00:43:40,600
regulations right. 
There you go. 

907
00:43:41,700 --> 00:43:44,100
Yes platforms, do you want it 
with the last? 

908
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:45,400
Minutes here. 
Do you want to tell us a little 

909
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,400
bit about 3L and sort of what 
you guys are approaching their 

910
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:50,400
mean, you mentioned. 
Yeah, puff you guys were fairly 

911
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,600
early on there, which I'm sure 
has turned out nicely so far, 

912
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:57,100
but you know what else is kind 
of in the 3L portfolio and 

913
00:43:57,100 --> 00:43:59,700
thesis. 
I mean we've been, you know, 

914
00:43:59,700 --> 00:44:02,000
early growth. 
Investors were investing ten to 

915
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,600
twenty five million dollars 
into, you know, businesses that 

916
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:08,000
are generally between 5 and 50 
million in Revenue. 

917
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:09,700
So we're not really in the 
Venture business. 

918
00:44:09,700 --> 00:44:11,800
We're really in the early 
growth. 

919
00:44:12,100 --> 00:44:14,900
It's kind of what we do and I 
think, We've done really well, 

920
00:44:14,900 --> 00:44:17,800
is find the right combination of
things. 

921
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,600
We've sort of touched on on his 
podcast, which is, you know, 

922
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:26,800
great, teens, big markets, 
disruptive businesses and ones 

923
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:29,300
where we really have a good 
understanding of the underlying 

924
00:44:29,300 --> 00:44:31,700
profitability in the unit 
economics of those companies. 

925
00:44:31,700 --> 00:44:36,100
So we can try to project and, 
you know, build our models to 

926
00:44:36,100 --> 00:44:38,700
suggest when they're going to 
get to cash flow Breakeven. 

927
00:44:38,700 --> 00:44:41,700
And then profitability, how do 
you do that model and go puff? 

928
00:44:41,700 --> 00:44:44,100
I mean people you know, it feels
like we're on. 

929
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:48,000
Another cycle of on-demand will 
never make money. 

930
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,400
Yeah, I'm like fatigue diet 
because we sort of watch that 

931
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,300
with Ubers and or dashes and 
whether, you know, yeah, those 

932
00:44:55,300 --> 00:44:57,500
are big companies, I don't know.
How do you do that with a 

933
00:44:57,500 --> 00:44:59,300
doordash? 
I mean, with a go puff. 

934
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:01,700
Well, first of all, when we 
invested in Cope of, it was 

935
00:45:01,700 --> 00:45:05,500
profitable in Philadelphia, it 
was generating ebitda. 

936
00:45:05,700 --> 00:45:09,700
And we, there were, there's the 
Nuance that now, the market 

937
00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:12,200
really appreciates, but didn't 
for a number of years because go

938
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:16,500
puff is a, it's a filly company.
So, you have to like really do 

939
00:45:16,500 --> 00:45:18,900
some research to find out when 
the first article was written 

940
00:45:18,900 --> 00:45:21,000
about this business, but by 
then, they had probably already 

941
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:22,700
raised a couple hundred million 
dollars. 

942
00:45:22,900 --> 00:45:25,300
They never publicized around, 
they didn't talk about the 

943
00:45:25,300 --> 00:45:28,300
business. 
It's fascinating looking back at

944
00:45:28,300 --> 00:45:29,900
early. 
Go puff coverage because it's 

945
00:45:29,900 --> 00:45:32,800
mostly articles in, like the 
Philly Enquirer and like the 

946
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,500
Philadelphia weekly, you know, 
very much positioning it as this

947
00:45:36,500 --> 00:45:38,100
leg. 
Hey, a couple of bro, started a 

948
00:45:38,100 --> 00:45:39,600
thing where you can get hookah 
delivery. 

949
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:41,900
Yeah, I mean, like, if you're 
making money, guys, you know, 

950
00:45:41,900 --> 00:45:43,500
the best strategies make money 
quietly. 

951
00:45:43,700 --> 00:45:47,900
I mean, So silly not really is 
you know, that's what you want 

952
00:45:47,900 --> 00:45:50,300
to be. 
Without any wasn't rejection 

953
00:45:50,300 --> 00:45:52,300
with go puff by the way, to kind
of tell them like. 

954
00:45:52,300 --> 00:45:53,900
Yeah, you guys are building this
thing, it's nice. 

955
00:45:53,900 --> 00:45:57,100
But don't go out there and like,
get the Splashy TechCrunch 

956
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,300
information. 
They they were when we made our 

957
00:46:00,300 --> 00:46:04,100
investment, they've had already 
gotten that religion, so and so 

958
00:46:04,100 --> 00:46:06,200
we didn't even announce it newer
today. 

959
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,100
And, and but the beauty of that 
model is, you know, it's they 

960
00:46:09,100 --> 00:46:11,700
are the inventory provider of, 
so they're making money on the 

961
00:46:11,700 --> 00:46:14,700
wholesale retail spread. 
So it's like a 7-Eleven In store

962
00:46:14,900 --> 00:46:17,300
except that the store comes to 
you, right? 

963
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:20,500
And so we've got, you know, it's
just a better, it's a better 

964
00:46:20,500 --> 00:46:22,300
operating model. 
They can make money on 

965
00:46:22,300 --> 00:46:24,600
Advertising which they're doing 
now. 

966
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,400
And you know, now they're Market
continues to expand because once

967
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,000
you've got this footprint, you 
can start to add some of your 

968
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:32,600
own products. 
They launched their own, you 

969
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,900
know, their own white label set 
of products called basically, 

970
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,200
they've acquired, you know, 
coffee businesses. 

971
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,900
So now they can bring you coffee
that they're that, they're 

972
00:46:41,900 --> 00:46:45,800
supplying so and not business. 
All about delivery efficiency 

973
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,100
and orders delivered per hour 
and when you have a 

974
00:46:48,100 --> 00:46:52,600
point-to-multipoint distribution
system, it's way better than 

975
00:46:52,900 --> 00:46:55,500
something like doordash, which 
is pick up one place, go to 

976
00:46:55,508 --> 00:46:57,200
another place, pick up, go to 
another place. 

977
00:46:57,500 --> 00:47:00,900
So would the way we look at the 
economics are far superior to 

978
00:47:00,900 --> 00:47:04,600
what do ashes doing. 
And that's why we think go puff 

979
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,600
is going to be just a really big
company, but we do that with all

980
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,500
of her, you know. 
And I mean, we try to find that 

981
00:47:10,500 --> 00:47:12,900
combination of things with all 
of our investments. 

982
00:47:12,900 --> 00:47:17,300
Whether it's, you know, so go 
Powe for chow or Roman or Daily 

983
00:47:17,300 --> 00:47:22,200
Harvest or, you know, now it fun
to businesses like, you know, in

984
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,100
code or dealer policy, different
markets, you know, some of them 

985
00:47:25,100 --> 00:47:28,000
are Ensure text of a delivery 
summer Logistics, summer 

986
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,000
Telehealth, how big is fun, 2, 
fun 2 is going to be probably 

987
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,900
between four and five hundred. 
We're still investing it will 

988
00:47:34,900 --> 00:47:37,300
already investing out of fun too
but we're still, we should be 

989
00:47:37,300 --> 00:47:39,800
wrapping that up but in the 
March cool. 

990
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:42,400
So, any any any other companies 
you want to bring up to us? 

991
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,000
You guys doing anything in a 
web. 

992
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,500
In crypto, we're spending some 
time. 

993
00:47:46,500 --> 00:47:51,600
Thinking about how web three 
crypto are going to influence 

994
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:53,300
the industries of which were 
investing. 

995
00:47:53,500 --> 00:47:56,200
So, I mean, the short answer is,
you know, know, I think we're 

996
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,700
making some personal Investments
and in different funds and 

997
00:47:58,700 --> 00:48:01,700
companies and things like that, 
but nothing nothing at the fund 

998
00:48:01,700 --> 00:48:05,000
level yet. 
But we've had some interns, 

999
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,600
we've had some, you know, some 
of the team has been spending 

1000
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:10,400
time. 
Try to understand it. 

1001
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,200
Like we looked at one thing that
was sort of in the crypto I 

1002
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:14,700
erase paste. 
Which I thought was pretty 

1003
00:48:14,700 --> 00:48:17,600
interesting but obviously you 
know you would have loved to 

1004
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,100
invested in coinbase you know 
way that one, right? 

1005
00:48:21,100 --> 00:48:23,300
So things like that and yeah 
board platforms, are you doing 

1006
00:48:23,300 --> 00:48:26,800
anything just with sort of the 
market being all over the place?

1007
00:48:27,100 --> 00:48:30,400
Did you pause investing at all? 
Or have you just continue to 

1008
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,000
invest or what sort of your 
approach? 

1009
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,500
But by the way, I'm going to put
one more fine, final point on 

1010
00:48:34,500 --> 00:48:37,200
the demand meetings or so, or 
so, by the way, Richard 

1011
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:40,000
rosenblatt, and inside his 
sound, is the CEO of a company 

1012
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,800
called autograph, which is a 
pretty high-profile business in.

1013
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,200
The Nft Marketplace since the 
one with Tom Burke. 

1014
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,500
Tom, Brady so good for those 
guys. 

1015
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:53,800
Do you own any of these? 
Not directly no through a fun 

1016
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,700
and I do, but yeah, correctly. 
Okay, now, you invested in a 

1017
00:48:56,707 --> 00:48:59,100
fund do, is just gonna buy a 
bunch of and I've asked to do, 

1018
00:48:59,100 --> 00:49:02,600
they create a crypto fund, a 
fund that's been investing and 

1019
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:04,100
fund managers friend. 
So, yeah. 

1020
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,500
Yeah, indirectly. 
But because, you know who's 

1021
00:49:06,500 --> 00:49:08,600
going to pick, you know, the 
best ape. 

1022
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:09,900
I don't know how to do that, 
that's not mine. 

1023
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:14,700
Yeah, so, but no, Eric took some
terms in was so, I think it's a 

1024
00:49:14,700 --> 00:49:17,300
very, very in a very, very 
healthy part of the market right

1025
00:49:17,300 --> 00:49:19,300
now. 
I think there's been a lot of 

1026
00:49:19,300 --> 00:49:21,600
things got pulled from. 
Forward last year, the last 

1027
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:26,000
quarter of the fourth quarter of
last year was just massive Pace,

1028
00:49:26,100 --> 00:49:29,200
like the the investment paste, 
the timeline that you had to 

1029
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,100
make decisions. 
Everything got accelerated and I

1030
00:49:32,100 --> 00:49:34,400
feel like there's definitely 
been a little bit of a pause, 

1031
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:35,800
you know. 
I don't know what the numbers 

1032
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:37,900
will show in terms of like 
dollars invested in the quarter 

1033
00:49:37,900 --> 00:49:39,700
Etc. 
But at least for us it feels 

1034
00:49:39,700 --> 00:49:43,200
like the it's a it's a bit more 
normalized. 

1035
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,300
We're having a little bit more 
time to look at and evaluate 

1036
00:49:46,300 --> 00:49:50,400
companies and that we do know 
it's been looking at Really 

1037
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:51,800
interesting. 
Interesting businesses and I do 

1038
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,000
think the video like the pricing
is adjusting to. 

1039
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,200
I mean it's usually a little bit
slower to adjust the private 

1040
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:00,400
markets it but it's something 
that we've always got to be 

1041
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,100
mindful of when you're making an
investment. 

1042
00:50:02,300 --> 00:50:04,400
And one of the things that we 
usually do in our Android and 

1043
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:05,800
processes. 
Just look at the five-year 

1044
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:09,200
historical trading average for 
multiples and so you can really 

1045
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:11,700
can look at within cycle. 
Okay, well, you know, suffer 

1046
00:50:11,700 --> 00:50:14,200
companies, use to try to 10 
other 20. 

1047
00:50:14,900 --> 00:50:18,400
Now the back down to 12. 
I mean, so, you know, if you if 

1048
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,300
you kept that sort of some 
Rippling in terms of pricing it 

1049
00:50:22,300 --> 00:50:24,000
so we'll gosh. 
Okay, we know the markets at 20 

1050
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,800
but if we pay 20 and and the you
know, what's the multiples 

1051
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,500
collapse? 
You could you can get killed 

1052
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,000
right or takes. 
It's very hard for companies to 

1053
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:32,600
go through that multiple 
compression. 

1054
00:50:32,900 --> 00:50:34,800
You gotta grow 100% for a couple
of years. 

1055
00:50:34,900 --> 00:50:35,500
Right. 
You're right. 

1056
00:50:35,500 --> 00:50:38,800
Gotta play with red. 
So I know it's just feels like 

1057
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:40,600
it's a good time and we've bet 
we can see. 

1058
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:42,700
It's really interesting 
companies and, and it's nice to 

1059
00:50:42,700 --> 00:50:46,400
have such a strong. 
A folio, vitarka is so when 

1060
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:51,100
starting a A media business. 
Should they stay away from you 

1061
00:50:53,100 --> 00:50:54,700
know, they should stay with 
Friday. 

1062
00:50:54,700 --> 00:50:57,000
I know the guy I love talking 
about it. 

1063
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,300
I mean the sort of love-hate 
relationship with the beauty 

1064
00:50:59,300 --> 00:51:03,000
business, I mean, I so wait. 
I don't want to discourage 

1065
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,800
anybody from doing it. 
I mean you can do well you guys 

1066
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:07,900
can, you know, you guys can have
a, you can have a good business 

1067
00:51:07,900 --> 00:51:12,300
and make money be profitable and
I'm happy to share like platform

1068
00:51:12,300 --> 00:51:15,900
were stories that mean, you 
know, you just don't you have to

1069
00:51:15,900 --> 00:51:18,900
start with that the authenticity
of like, He's Brands. 

1070
00:51:18,900 --> 00:51:21,300
And if you get the product side,
right? 

1071
00:51:21,300 --> 00:51:23,400
And it just you get that product
Market fit, right? 

1072
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,600
Then they, you know, that's when
you can start to figure out, 

1073
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:29,300
okay, well, how do we can we 
engine, can we use, you know, 

1074
00:51:29,300 --> 00:51:32,000
some Capital to engineer thing 
to know? 

1075
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,400
Do we want to buy a? 
If you guys have an audio 

1076
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,700
business is their video business
that maybe is a JC are 

1077
00:51:36,700 --> 00:51:38,800
complementary in, right? 
You can start building a 

1078
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,300
building a business like that. 
Actually another business one of

1079
00:51:42,308 --> 00:51:45,100
the more successful businesses, 
I think of the last decade to 

1080
00:51:45,100 --> 00:51:47,100
its skiff. 
I think, I think interesting, 

1081
00:51:47,100 --> 00:51:52,000
you've done a Really good job. 
Rifat is a smart product 

1082
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,400
oriented. 
That's the, the travel focused 

1083
00:51:54,500 --> 00:51:56,600
Media Company. 
Yeah, they always put them in 

1084
00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:58,700
the same category. 
I used to have Eric and I both 

1085
00:51:59,100 --> 00:52:01,700
were at the information and I 
feel like they have groups 

1086
00:52:01,900 --> 00:52:05,300
frequently as like, you know, 
category-specific loyal. 

1087
00:52:05,300 --> 00:52:08,000
Subscriber base media 
differences. 

1088
00:52:08,500 --> 00:52:09,700
Is it private? 
Do you know it? 

1089
00:52:09,700 --> 00:52:12,200
It's you have a guest on 
private, how much it's worth. 

1090
00:52:13,300 --> 00:52:15,400
I don't know how much it's worth
but all I could say is it's 

1091
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,100
good, you know, like it's good. 
They've raised some money. 

1092
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:21,500
I think people investors in the 
company will make money. 

1093
00:52:21,500 --> 00:52:24,000
What do you do, you know, do you
know, do you think your view on 

1094
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,400
what the information is worth? 
I haven't seen the numbers 

1095
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:27,700
lately. 
I don't know. 

1096
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,700
It's a good question. 
Yeah, they're never going to 

1097
00:52:30,700 --> 00:52:33,900
sell so it's, I don't know. 
It's hard to guys value to it. 

1098
00:52:34,300 --> 00:52:37,000
I mean, I see I feel like 
they've done well, I mean, I 

1099
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,200
again, they built a good product
that people like and they're 

1100
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,000
growing a lot these days is a 
big investment from the top 

1101
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,300
right on a. 
Yeah, on hiring yeah, borders. 

1102
00:52:45,300 --> 00:52:47,400
But see the problem is so but 
here's the challenge, here's 

1103
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:48,800
what you don't want. 
See you don't want to see 

1104
00:52:49,100 --> 00:52:51,800
businesses that then raise too 
much money, right? 

1105
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:55,400
Because if they raise, and this 
is the, this is the part of the 

1106
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,500
challenge in this business is 
you grow a business, and then 

1107
00:52:58,500 --> 00:53:01,300
you feel like you have to raise 
money to keep growing it. 

1108
00:53:01,300 --> 00:53:03,500
But sometimes you do, if you 
obviously need the capital, but 

1109
00:53:03,500 --> 00:53:06,000
then you might raise too much 
and you might be at, too high, a

1110
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,200
price and then you're in a trap,
right? 

1111
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,200
Because now you're like, how do 
I justify this price? 

1112
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,100
What do I do with the money? 
And then, of course, the next 

1113
00:53:14,100 --> 00:53:15,400
round. 
I mean, just look at, look at 

1114
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:18,900
the look at the financing 
progression for BuzzFeed Right, 

1115
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:20,500
we raise money at a billion 
five. 

1116
00:53:20,500 --> 00:53:22,500
Now we got to get, we got to 
think about how do we make this 

1117
00:53:22,500 --> 00:53:24,900
thing worth five billion, you 
know or vice? 

1118
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,800
I mean oh yeah so these 
companies are now there are you 

1119
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:31,000
get you get trapped because 
investors will give you the 

1120
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:33,100
money but it's really hard to 
kind of. 

1121
00:53:33,300 --> 00:53:35,200
As I said like it's hard to 
figure out how to scale. 

1122
00:53:35,300 --> 00:53:38,100
Vice has been such a disaster 
writing, the it's complicated. 

1123
00:53:38,100 --> 00:53:39,900
I mean, they've clearly, you 
know, they actually own their 

1124
00:53:39,900 --> 00:53:43,100
own have six to seven hundred 
million in Revenue which that's 

1125
00:53:43,100 --> 00:53:45,600
without doing a, you know, a ton
of Acquisitions like, BuzzFeed 

1126
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,500
has to do their revenue comes 
from lightly different avenues 

1127
00:53:49,500 --> 00:53:53,100
like affiliate because they own,
you know, a cable network. 

1128
00:53:53,100 --> 00:53:56,100
But the funny thing about Vice 
to Me, Maybe funny isn't the 

1129
00:53:56,100 --> 00:53:59,400
right word is that, you know, 
they raise money from tpg. 

1130
00:53:59,500 --> 00:54:01,700
So there's, you know, you want 
to talk about like you can raise

1131
00:54:01,700 --> 00:54:03,000
the money. 
It's like, well there's a huge 

1132
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,100
amount of caveats that you get 
raise money from a tpg and all 

1133
00:54:06,100 --> 00:54:09,100
the terms that they put in which
is really come back to bite them

1134
00:54:09,100 --> 00:54:11,000
now. 
I mean, there are cases from 

1135
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,900
slicing tbg back in the game 
with Puck didn't Puck raise 

1136
00:54:13,900 --> 00:54:17,400
money from that, we do we know 
that yet they say, yeah, GPI is 

1137
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,300
the, is the back. 
Sure of it but you know how much

1138
00:54:20,300 --> 00:54:23,400
money have they floated to 
public maybe like less than 100 

1139
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,800
million like, you know, with 
with Vice they were, you know, 

1140
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:28,900
meeting valuations that like 
four and a half billion. 

1141
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,100
I mean it was it was I'm saying 
it e and and they have all these

1142
00:54:32,100 --> 00:54:35,400
like, you know, this essentially
debt. 

1143
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:37,300
I mean, it's Venture debt. 
Like they're gonna have to pay 

1144
00:54:37,300 --> 00:54:40,400
this off and they're not 
profitable, so it's really messy

1145
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:41,300
for them. 
It's hard. 

1146
00:54:41,300 --> 00:54:43,300
Yeah, again, it's because it's 
go back to. 

1147
00:54:43,300 --> 00:54:46,700
It's hard to scale, you know, 
branded media businesses. 

1148
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:48,500
But but I Would, by the way. 
Hey, Eric. 

1149
00:54:48,500 --> 00:54:51,500
I would never, I never refer to 
companies as a disaster because 

1150
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,400
I now heart fake. 
Yeah, I know how hard it is to 

1151
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,900
build Rises and people work hard
every day to try to make them 

1152
00:54:57,900 --> 00:55:00,600
better, right? 
And so you know, sometimes 

1153
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:02,900
businesses don't go as well as 
you think, but I always you 

1154
00:55:02,900 --> 00:55:05,600
know, I was try to keep it 
positive and be like sure o 

1155
00:55:06,100 --> 00:55:09,800
entrepreneur and protein and 
yeah it's my job pointy. 

1156
00:55:10,500 --> 00:55:12,400
I do - yeah. 
Yeah. 

1157
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:25,800
Yeah. 
Tweets though. 

1158
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,900
You know, we're just, we're just
optimizing for anger on Twitter.

1159
00:55:28,900 --> 00:55:31,300
So, well, done there. 
I mean, do you think there are a

1160
00:55:31,308 --> 00:55:34,200
lot of, like fake views out 
there or just sort of the idea 

1161
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:36,600
that like, media companies that 
aren't in the subscription 

1162
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:40,000
company subscription business? 
But are in still sort of the 

1163
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,300
audience? 
Business. 

1164
00:55:42,300 --> 00:55:44,500
Like how? 
Now that you're away from it. 

1165
00:55:44,500 --> 00:55:46,800
Like, do you think they have a 
pretty clear? 

1166
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:51,000
I'd send some of what their 
actual like engagement in an 

1167
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,700
audience's? 
Or I don't know in your heart. 

1168
00:55:53,700 --> 00:55:56,700
You have a view of how real the 
internet is. 

1169
00:55:56,700 --> 00:56:00,100
Oh well. 
Like if Facebook, you know, who 

1170
00:56:00,100 --> 00:56:03,100
should be the expert in this can
just like change overnight? 

1171
00:56:03,100 --> 00:56:06,400
Like the video, you know, how 
their views on like video 

1172
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:07,900
consumption anything? 
I don't know. 

1173
00:56:07,900 --> 00:56:11,700
I'm just always paranoid that 
there are a lot of like Because 

1174
00:56:11,700 --> 00:56:14,500
even the biggest most 
established Media Company, some 

1175
00:56:14,500 --> 00:56:19,400
of their practices around views.
I find super questionable. 

1176
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,600
It's complete bullshit, right? 
So a ton of ore shipments of the

1177
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:26,500
audience size is? 
Yeah I know I yes there's a lot 

1178
00:56:26,500 --> 00:56:30,000
of crap that goes into whenever 
I see first of all if somebody 

1179
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:32,200
comes in with a slide and show 
me how big their their 

1180
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:36,500
audiences, I just I never really
I don't even look at it right, 

1181
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:40,000
show me how many email addresses
you have and she'll be like time

1182
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:44,300
on site like jelly. 
The engagement metrics and 

1183
00:56:44,300 --> 00:56:48,100
that's how I'll I can sort of 
tell you how, you know, how real

1184
00:56:48,100 --> 00:56:50,200
the audience is. 
Yeah, that's where the momentum 

1185
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:52,100
is with the media. 
Now, like I work at, you know, 

1186
00:56:52,100 --> 00:56:55,300
Insider now which as, you know, 
for the longest time was the 

1187
00:56:55,300 --> 00:56:57,500
traffic website. 
You know, they were all about 

1188
00:56:57,500 --> 00:57:00,000
telling people how much, you 
know, page views, different 

1189
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:02,700
articles had, and in the last 
few years, have switched over to

1190
00:57:02,700 --> 00:57:06,200
subscription so they could prove
actual value and have one 

1191
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:09,500
stainable Revenue so that's, 
that's where yeah, I mean, yeah,

1192
00:57:09,500 --> 00:57:11,500
I know, like, people have been 
that's why the New York, Tesla 

1193
00:57:11,500 --> 00:57:13,100
subscription dozens, right? 
So yeah. 

1194
00:57:13,100 --> 00:57:15,500
If you could build a subscriber 
base and serve them. 

1195
00:57:15,500 --> 00:57:19,100
Well, that's the best way of. 
I mean, I was really the only 

1196
00:57:19,100 --> 00:57:21,700
way I guess truly can build a 
Dependable lie business because 

1197
00:57:21,700 --> 00:57:24,700
otherwise you depend you are 
really and on Google's, when I 

1198
00:57:24,700 --> 00:57:28,600
Facebook and and you just, you 
know, worked for those clicks. 

1199
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:30,300
Yeah. 
Right. 

1200
00:57:30,500 --> 00:57:32,100
All right, son. 
Well, thanks so much for doing 

1201
00:57:32,100 --> 00:57:33,700
this. 
And this has been very, like I 

1202
00:57:33,707 --> 00:57:35,500
said, very personally fulfilling
to me. 

1203
00:57:35,500 --> 00:57:39,200
I feel like I've been able to go
full circle from from working 

1204
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:41,100
for you. 
I'm so glad you are ordering. 

1205
00:57:41,300 --> 00:57:43,200
You will, I was at the LA 
Business Journal to. 

1206
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:47,300
Now, speaking to you, not as an 
equal, but as someone who can 

1207
00:57:47,300 --> 00:57:49,400
maybe speak the same language? 
Yeah, no. 

1208
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:53,300
I well I think it was cathartic 
for me, too, so I enjoyed it 

1209
00:57:53,300 --> 00:57:55,400
great. 
It's always good to talk about 

1210
00:57:55,500 --> 00:57:57,100
demand. 
And by the way, I apologize to 

1211
00:57:57,100 --> 00:57:59,700
anyone out there who took my 
advice on converting records to 

1212
00:57:59,700 --> 00:58:02,700
CDs and play their phonograph 
directly to their computer. 

1213
00:58:02,700 --> 00:58:04,600
Apparently, you can't do that. 
Yeah. 

1214
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,900
And there was a day by the way 
that I think you guys Adam and 

1215
00:58:07,900 --> 00:58:10,400
announced that you were getting 
rid of low quality content just 

1216
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:13,200
in one Fell Swoop. 
Up the leading like 100,000 

1217
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:15,800
articles or something. 
I think all of my work that I 

1218
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:18,700
spent during the summer, 2009 is
gone. 

1219
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:20,600
There you go. 
Yeah, with washed away in that 

1220
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,200
rightfully so, yeah. 
So well, when I also read 

1221
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:25,500
underweight way back, so no one 
will ever find those articles. 

1222
00:58:26,300 --> 00:58:27,400
Okay, there we go. 
That's right. 

1223
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:30,000
Yeah, that, well, we'll have to.
All right, let's get trivia that

1224
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:30,900
away. 
Sean, thanks so much for 

1225
00:58:30,900 --> 00:58:31,900
joining. 
Thank you so much. 

1226
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:46,600
Thanks, guys. 
Goodbye, goodbye. 

1227
00:58:46,700 --> 00:58:49,300
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, 
goodbye. 

1228
00:58:49,300 --> 00:58:49,900
Goodbye.