0:00

There's a creator in one bubble and the

0:02

fan in another bubble, and there's one arrow

0:04

going from the creator to the fan that

0:06

says podcasting. And then there's one

0:08

below. It's the same thing, the creator and fan

0:11

bubbles, but there's an arrow going both ways. And

0:13

it says every other medium of the internet. They're

0:16

so mad that the RSS

0:18

feed doesn't harvest data. They

0:20

hate it. Hello

0:38

and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us made in partnership

0:40

with The Nation magazine. I'm your host, Paris Marks.

0:42

And before we hop into this week's episode, I

0:44

wanted to let you know that I have some

0:46

events coming up in New Zealand. I'll be speaking

0:49

in Christchurch on February 4th and in

0:51

Wellington on February 8th. I don't know if all

0:53

the details will be out by the time this

0:55

episode airs. If they are, you know, you'll find

0:57

the links in the show notes. If not, you

0:59

can certainly visit my website, parismarks.com, where,

1:01

you know, the information will be there once it's

1:04

all finalized. I'm also working on setting up

1:06

an event in Auckland. So hopefully I'll have

1:08

some details on that for you next week.

1:10

And I would also just say I don't

1:12

have current plans to go to

1:14

Australia. You know, it's not in my itinerary

1:16

at the moment. But if there are any

1:19

groups or anyone in Australia who would be

1:21

interested in having me come speak across the

1:23

ditch, get in touch and maybe we can

1:25

set something up. I have an interesting episode

1:27

for you today. Last year, we spoke to

1:29

Emily Hund about the influencer economy and how

1:31

that kind of all developed. And I was

1:33

surprised by the interest in that topic. People

1:36

seem to really like it. And so I

1:38

figured in this episode, we dive into that

1:40

a bit more, but with a specific focus

1:42

on the podcast industry. You obviously listen to

1:44

podcasts because you listen to the show. So

1:46

I thought that you might be interested in

1:49

learning a bit more about what has been

1:51

going on in that arena, especially

1:53

as major tech companies and Spotify in

1:55

particular have been making a big move

1:57

in recent years to kind of capture.

2:00

the podcasting space, and that not really

2:02

working out so well. So this week

2:04

my guest is Eric Silver. Eric is

2:06

head of development at Multitude, which is

2:08

a podcast studio. And he's also

2:11

a producer in his own right who has worked

2:13

on a bunch of different shows over the years

2:15

and is actually going on tour soon with a

2:17

show he does about Dungeons and Dragons. Eric

2:19

and I have been talking about doing an

2:21

episode on this topic for quite a while

2:23

now. And you know, I just had a

2:26

bunch of other things that I wanted to

2:28

do episodes on. But in recent months, it

2:30

really has seemed like Spotify strategy for taking

2:32

over the podcast industry has been unraveling. There

2:34

have been a lot of layoffs, a lot

2:36

of changes to its internal

2:38

workings and how everything is

2:40

put together. And there really does

2:42

seem to have been a pullback on

2:45

this strategy that was once very aggressive

2:47

in trying to make podcasts exclusive, in

2:49

making acquisitions in the podcasting space.

2:52

And that has really changed as

2:54

the interest rates have risen. But

2:56

also there's an expectation now that

2:58

Spotify actually makes some proper money

3:00

for investors. And so that means

3:03

that trying to take over podcasting becomes a

3:05

secondary goal. So you might have seen a

3:07

lot of headlines in recent months about, you

3:09

know, difficulties in the podcast industry about a

3:11

bunch of podcasts being shut down. And

3:13

sure, that is on one side of the

3:16

podcast industry, but that doesn't mean that it

3:18

necessarily applies to every podcast going

3:20

right now. And so that's an important distinction

3:22

that we try to draw in this conversation

3:24

between this industry that has a lot of

3:26

money flowing into it that is kind of

3:28

the part of the podcast industry that Spotify

3:31

is interested in, and then kind of the

3:33

more independent side of things that is very

3:35

different from that. So I think

3:37

this is a pretty fascinating conversation, actually, and

3:39

especially maybe helps you try to understand what

3:41

is happening in the podcast industry and the

3:43

types of things that I consider when I

3:45

think about strategies for the podcast and the

3:47

ways that we're going to try to reach

3:49

more people this year, and the ways to

3:52

just kind of make the podcast more sustainable,

3:54

even the landscape that exists. We've

3:56

already taken a move this year to partner with the nation

3:58

in order to try to reach more people. people and we

4:00

have other ideas that we're working on in order

4:02

to do that. And also, you know, to make

4:04

tech won't save us more sustainable as well, so

4:06

that we can keep doing this for a long

4:08

time to come. And so yeah, just hopefully you

4:10

find this episode informative. If you do make sure

4:12

to leave a five star review on Apple podcast

4:14

or Spotify. You can also share the show on

4:16

social media or with any friends or colleagues who

4:18

you think would learn from it. And of course,

4:20

if you do want to support the work that

4:23

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4:25

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4:27

industry and what it's doing to every part of

4:29

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4:33

in Philly, Pennsylvania, Andrea C from Vancouver and

4:35

Henry in Manchester in the UK, by going

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4:39

become a supporter as well. And if you

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do that, I'll send you some stickers in

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the mail and you'll also get access to

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some premium episodes that we have been putting

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up on the patreon feed that

4:50

give you a fuller insight into Elon Musk

4:52

and his impact on the world after

4:55

our Elon Musk on mass series that we did

4:57

last year. So thanks so much and enjoy this

4:59

week's conversation. Eric, welcome to Tech

5:01

Won't Save Us. Paris, I'm so happy to be

5:03

here. This is so exciting. I could talk about

5:05

the podcast industry forever. Thank you so much for

5:07

having me on, on one of the shows that

5:09

I listened to all the time. Awesome.

5:11

I feel like the audience here is too much.

5:13

I love the show. I listened to the show,

5:15

but this is it, right? The people who I

5:17

talk to tend to be also the people who

5:19

would be interested in this kind of stuff. So,

5:21

Paris, you deserve people saying nice things to you.

5:23

Like there's no comment box. The

5:26

all you get are emails and tweets

5:28

saying you mispronounce something. You're allowed to

5:30

have people say nice things to you to your face. I'm

5:32

going to give you that present. I

5:35

appreciate that. So, you know, to jump right

5:37

into it, obviously we're talking about the podcast

5:39

industry, the podcast business, what actually goes into

5:42

this. I was surprised last year when we

5:44

did some episodes on like the creator economy

5:46

and the influencer economy that people were really

5:48

interested in these sorts of topics. So I

5:51

figured since they're listening to a podcast, they

5:53

would probably be interested in knowing a bit

5:55

more about how everything works around this as

5:57

well, not just about tech won't save us.

6:00

but like this kind of broader industry and the

6:02

influences on it and how tech has been moving

6:04

in. So just to start to kind of start

6:06

to get an overview, you know, how did you

6:08

get into podcasting and how would you

6:10

describe the industry that exists around it?

6:12

Oh, that's such a good question. I

6:16

kind of got lucky because I

6:18

feel like my journey, how

6:20

I started in podcasting reflects

6:23

how all the different ways that people

6:25

got into podcasting, but how I was

6:27

on the outside of where it originally

6:29

started. So I was a high school

6:32

English teacher back in 2013, and

6:34

I was listening to a lot of WNYC in my car.

6:36

I live in New York and I had a car because

6:38

I hate myself. So

6:41

I was driving to listen to

6:43

WNYC, and then this new show

6:45

called Startup came along in 2014

6:47

where this guy Alex Bloomberg, who

6:49

used to work at This American Life, started

6:51

a podcast company and he was going to record

6:53

it and put it out and share with people

6:56

what it was like. And I'm like, this is

6:58

so interesting. I can't believe this is something I

7:01

could do. And when I stopped being a

7:03

high school English teacher, because there was a

7:05

grades fixing scandal at my high school, so

7:07

I got kind of disillusioned with public education

7:09

kind of quickly. I'm like, I could do

7:11

this. This makes sense to me. I love

7:13

how you can tell a story with audio,

7:15

both in this formal way that they do

7:17

with This American Life, this kind of long

7:19

form audio journalism, but also just like listening

7:22

to people talk about stuff. I love sports.

7:24

So listening to sports talk radio and having

7:26

conversations like that, I'm like, my phone is

7:28

plugged in and I can just listen and

7:30

I can queue it up whenever I'm driving

7:33

or doing whatever. So it took a while

7:35

for me to kind of drive my way

7:37

there because it turns out the only way

7:39

to get educated on how to make a

7:41

podcast was if you were an intern at

7:44

these public radio stations. Paris, like imagine if

7:46

the CBC was not like a

7:48

full thing for the country, but just

7:50

distributed a little bit to little public

7:52

radio stations in various cities, and they

7:54

kind of did their own drives and

7:56

they're related to NPR, but not really.

7:58

It's very confusing. One is like

8:00

they've been doing these types of things for a

8:03

very long time, but like you needed to be

8:05

an intern there, which means you were in college

8:07

and also it was unpaid. So you

8:09

needed to do that or you could be a

8:11

volunteer where you basically like worked

8:13

there for free for only like a

8:15

$30 a day stipend. And

8:18

I couldn't get any jobs because I didn't

8:20

have enough experience to work at these new

8:23

private companies like Gimlet. And I know one

8:25

would teach me how to make a podcast

8:27

and there was like one summer camp in

8:29

New Hampshire for like adults that

8:31

would teach you how to make podcasts and I

8:33

couldn't do it. So slowly I got these jobs

8:35

that were like podcast adjacent and

8:37

my friend Brandon who I worked at

8:40

Sirius XM with taught me how to

8:42

record and edit. And finally years later

8:44

in 2016, a bunch

8:46

of podcasts got together and we started multitude

8:48

the collective and we created a business based

8:50

off of that making shows for other people

8:52

and helping other people and selling ads. And

8:54

like we were able to do it ourselves

8:56

because there was such a large gap because

8:58

no one would teach us. So

9:00

we learned it ourselves and then we realized there was

9:03

a lot of space to do a good job. I

9:05

say this all the time, especially in

9:08

a post Spotify owning everything world. I'm

9:10

so glad so many people are bad

9:12

at the podcasting industry, probably the same

9:14

way that bloggers feel they don't understand

9:17

how to monetize and make this life

9:19

sustainable. They're like, we can exist and

9:21

we can thrive. So podcasting

9:23

isn't dead. I think that the

9:25

people who invested so much time

9:27

into it and like coalesced around

9:29

it and conglomerized, they failed

9:32

spectacularly by giving a ton

9:34

of money to Prince Harry

9:36

and Megan and giving

9:38

all the money to Joe Rogan

9:40

instead of like cultivating the actual

9:42

business of making podcasts,

9:45

creating a community and then selling ads

9:47

and getting people

9:49

to pay for it. It's so fascinating to hear

9:51

you say that because I feel like it kind

9:53

of picks up on something that we were just

9:55

talking about before we started recording right because you're

9:58

talking about listening. to the Gimlet

10:00

podcast and kind of learning that model

10:02

and being interested in kind of getting

10:05

in through that kind of more, I

10:07

don't know, official professional route that I

10:09

guess was very common in the podcast

10:11

industry. And that was an element

10:13

of this that was completely out

10:16

of my understanding or was not something

10:18

I had any association with when I

10:20

thought about podcasting for all those years

10:22

that you're talking about. It was really

10:24

something I would say I learned more

10:26

about as Spotify started to kind of

10:28

take things over and I started

10:30

to learn about this broader ecosystem because for

10:33

me when I thought about podcasting, it was

10:35

like independent interview shows and

10:37

like chat shows like Trash Future or

10:39

something like that, that predated Tech Won't

10:41

Save Us. And these were the

10:43

types of things that I was listening to. And

10:45

so when I approached, you know, starting my own

10:48

podcast in 2020, it was kind of like, of

10:50

course, I was going to look at these models

10:52

for how to set this thing up. Of course,

10:54

I couldn't start one of these long form kind

10:57

of very expensive podcast to put together anyway. But

10:59

like that kind of way of approaching

11:01

it just seemed completely divorced from

11:03

my understanding of how this all worked.

11:05

And so I think it's

11:08

fascinating now to kind of explore what

11:11

this broader industry looks like and how it

11:13

works. Yeah, I think that that makes a

11:15

lot of sense because when you look at

11:17

an independent podcast, the making of money, the

11:19

business side is almost the same as making

11:21

the show. Okay, what are we going to

11:23

talk about this week? Who's going to edit

11:25

it? When is it going to come out?

11:27

And also, are we going to

11:29

have ads? Are we going to have a

11:31

Patreon? How are we going to make this

11:33

thing worthwhile to us, the people making it?

11:35

And then as soon as the big forces

11:37

come then and try to blow it up,

11:40

then it becomes an industry. What an incredible

11:42

episode, by the way, with Emily Hunt. I

11:44

love this episode. But as we've seen there,

11:46

people were so surprised in the

11:48

post financial crisis that someone wanted to give them

11:50

money for the little blog they had. And

11:53

I'm saying that not to be dismissive. I

11:55

think that there's a self consciousness from making

11:57

a little thing and then it gets big. the

12:00

proto influencers that Emily Hund was talking about, when

12:02

someone said, oh hey, can I give you some

12:04

money to run an ad? And they're like, oh

12:06

my God, yes, thank you. I love that. Because

12:08

this was happening in the 2010s, I

12:11

think that although we still, the independent podcaster

12:13

was like, oh my God, what money? This

12:15

is my stupid little podcast I have. They

12:17

were aware from the jump that there is

12:20

money to be made in digital media creation.

12:22

I think that this is very interesting how

12:24

the podcast and the influencer are in kind

12:26

of conversation with each other, that we're all

12:28

part of the creator economy. In

12:30

that the influencer is exactly

12:33

on these social media platforms

12:36

that have an algorithm and they follow

12:38

the algorithm. While the podcast is relatively

12:40

very slow media, it uses the RSS

12:42

feed, this ancient piece of technology. There

12:44

is no comment box, you just kind

12:46

of put it out in the world

12:48

and then people come back in their

12:50

own way, back to us. And yet,

12:52

the way then you make ads on

12:54

podcasts are very similar to the way

12:56

that influencers are. You decide they look

12:58

at your reach and how popular you

13:01

are and they're like, hey, I made up

13:03

some math and here's the amount of money

13:05

I think you deserve, but podcasts keep that

13:07

download secret. That's not a public number while

13:10

the influencer is very public. So it's kind

13:12

of funny how these two things are in

13:14

conversation with each other. And yet the podcast

13:16

is like, I always say it's the speed

13:18

run of how all the other

13:21

media industries are dealing with, like everything

13:23

that happened in blogging and YouTube in

13:25

the 2000s and then into the 2010s, is

13:28

happening super fast in the podcasting world. So

13:30

when you're looking at that independent creator, who's like,

13:32

oh yeah, of course we're off of Patreon, of

13:34

course we'll try to sell ads, dynamic ads, I

13:36

don't know, they kind of are annoying, but should

13:38

I do them? Is there a passive way to

13:40

make money? I don't know. Or

13:42

should I give this up to a

13:44

network who will then decide whatever they

13:47

want to, or should I just do

13:49

whatever Spotify's telling me to do? They're

13:51

just getting barraged by so much stuff

13:53

because so many people were ready to

13:55

disrupt the podcasting industry, the tech industry,

13:57

Hollywood, and media people are all trying

13:59

to be. disrupted all at the same time. It's

14:01

a little bit of tech, a little bit

14:03

of blogging, a little bit of a backdoor for

14:05

pilots. And that's why we're at where we're at

14:08

with podcasting and why so much has happened over

14:10

the last few years now everyone's declaring it dead.

14:13

Yeah. And you know, let's get into that,

14:15

right? Because I think your description of it

14:17

is really interesting as we've seen

14:19

kind of media film and television, we've seen

14:21

the growth of YouTube over two decades, we've

14:23

seen, as you say, what's happened in blogging,

14:26

and I think you can almost see sub

14:28

stack as a renewed version of kind of

14:31

commercialized more commercialized blogging where the revenue models

14:33

are kind of, you know, easier to come

14:35

across. So you're not kind of doing this

14:37

for free. Substack or

14:39

the aftermath defector new thing which

14:42

is happening this year, which is

14:44

very interesting. Absolutely. You know, kind of

14:46

building on this development and also kind

14:48

of the failure and the

14:50

difficulties in traditional media, right? And so now

14:52

you have this move where all of these

14:55

companies are seeing that there's this or at

14:57

least there was this opportunity in podcasting. And

14:59

we can talk about that, where it was

15:01

using this old RSS feed, it was still

15:04

relatively open, it was not as kind of

15:06

commercialized and taken over as these other spaces.

15:08

And so at least there was a belief

15:10

by these larger companies that you could move

15:12

in here and kind of do something with

15:15

it. And I want to dig into all

15:17

that. But I think before we do so,

15:19

maybe we should talk about these narratives that

15:21

people have probably been seeing over the past

15:23

year, right? Where I feel like on one

15:25

hand, everything is supposedly going really poorly in

15:28

podcasting and a ton of shows are being

15:30

canceled. And it's like the end of the

15:32

world. But then on the other hand, when

15:34

you dig into it, you know, listener numbers

15:36

are rising listeners are spending more time actually

15:38

listening to podcasts like as individuals, and ad

15:40

revenue is relatively healthy and seems to be

15:43

poised to grow this year. So where's the

15:45

disconnect between these two narratives where on one

15:47

hand, things are the end of the world

15:49

and on the other hand, things seem to be okay. Yeah,

15:52

I think it all has to come down to

15:54

money. I mean, this is a tech podcast, money

15:56

is much less cheap. And now all the people

15:58

knocking on the door like You know, all

16:00

the money I gave you for you to buy

16:02

every single company, Spotify, I need that return. I

16:06

wrote down a list of all the

16:08

notable companies that Spotify acquired and the

16:10

people that they gave exclusive money to.

16:12

Can I just read this out? Absolutely.

16:16

Okay. February 2019,

16:18

Spotify acquired Gimlet and Anchor.

16:20

Gimlet made really high quality,

16:22

high touch podcasts and Anchor

16:24

just let you kind of

16:26

make whatever you wanted as

16:28

fast as possible, right? Spotify

16:31

then in March 2019 acquired

16:33

Parcast, which basically was like

16:36

a true crime podcast factory.

16:38

They then got the exclusive rights to last podcast on

16:41

the left in November 2019, which is

16:43

a kind of like a spooky true crimey podcast.

16:46

May 2020, Spotify announced the exclusive

16:48

rights to Joe Rogan for $100 million at

16:50

the time.

16:54

At least. At least. Now and they

16:56

got to renew him soon, which is going to

16:58

be easy. I'm a fan of doing it. November

17:00

2020, Spotify acquired Megaphone, which

17:02

was hosting and also dynamic ads,

17:04

which kind of asserts ads whenever

17:06

you're listening to a podcast. They

17:08

then acquired this company called Pods, which

17:10

was a podcast discovery app. Recommending

17:13

podcast is still the white whale of technology, but I

17:15

still think that the best way to do it is

17:17

hearing it from a friend. They're still

17:20

trying to disrupt that. December 2021,

17:22

Spotify acquired Wushka, a

17:24

company only existing to get

17:26

acquired, a podcast tech company

17:28

that developed specialized technology that

17:31

allowed radio broadcasters to easily

17:33

turn their existing audio content

17:35

into on demand podcasts. Okay.

17:37

We're still buying. Spotify

17:40

bought Chartable and Pod sites

17:42

to podcast data companies. And

17:45

that is kind of, and there's still some small

17:47

stuff in between that I glossed over. From February

17:49

2019 for three years, they

17:51

were just buying everything. And then this year

17:53

they're like, Hey, maybe we shouldn't have given

17:56

so much money to Harry and Megan to

17:58

not make any shows. We shouldn't

18:00

have given money to Obama and Springsteen to

18:02

make six episodes of a podcast and then

18:04

no one remembers it anymore. You know,

18:06

you can't blame Obama and Harry and Meghan.

18:08

They made off pretty well with Spotify money

18:10

there. When you

18:13

give a celebrity some money, they're going to

18:15

do, like everybody, they're going to do the

18:17

bare minimum unless you tell them to do

18:19

something. And if you're so dazzled by their

18:21

celebrity, they're going to play on that. I

18:23

don't want to leave all of this at

18:25

Spotify's feet. It's notable to say that Stitcher,

18:27

that SiriusXM acquired Stitcher in 2020 and

18:29

then promptly shut

18:32

down the podcast app a few years

18:34

later. They bought Stitcher for

18:36

$325 million

18:39

from EW Scripts, but EW

18:41

Scripts bought it from Midroll

18:43

Media for $4.5 million four

18:45

years earlier, which is kind of wild

18:47

how that number just ballooned. And it's

18:49

also notable that Entercom, which is now

18:52

known as Odyssey, bought Pineapple

18:54

Street Media, which is a prestigious

18:56

podcasting studio, and Cadence 13, which

18:58

is an ad distribution platform and

19:01

production company for a combined $70

19:03

million. And

19:05

now Odyssey has just filed for bankruptcy.

19:07

That seems to be kind of

19:09

the story with so many things

19:11

over the past year where we

19:13

had these significant acquisitions and now

19:15

so many of these really kind

19:17

of experimental plays whether in podcasting

19:19

or elsewhere have resulted in bankruptcies

19:22

or kind of getting rid

19:25

of these companies that these larger ones

19:27

bought assuming that it was going to

19:29

be this kind of extension of what

19:31

they were doing. But maybe it's worth

19:33

talking about why Spotify was moving into

19:35

this space, right? Because I know that

19:37

one of the general narratives that we have is that

19:40

there was this podcasting explosion kind of during the pandemic,

19:42

and we can get into that. But you talked about

19:44

how the acquisition of Gimlet was February 2019,

19:46

which was about a

19:49

year before everything really took off with COVID.

19:53

So what was leading Spotify in

19:55

this direction to see podcasts

19:58

as this thing that it really wanted to do? take

20:00

over and move into. I think it became the

20:02

new thing that like, you know, in a company,

20:04

they kind of look around for the youngest person

20:06

in the room and says, hey, make us a

20:08

Twitter, or make us a YouTube

20:10

channel, or make us a Twitch stream. Podcasting

20:13

became that. But I think that there

20:15

were a lot of very popular things

20:17

that breached the zeitgeist. I mean, startup

20:20

was a little bit more niche, but

20:22

serial was huge. And everyone

20:24

was like, oh, that's the podcast. And

20:26

I think that for so many, it

20:28

still is the podcast. It's also worthwhile

20:30

to note that serial was made by

20:32

another former This American Life journalist, Sarah,

20:35

that's what Sarah Koenig was doing before.

20:37

And it was a spin off of This American

20:39

Life. It was first premiered on

20:41

this massive radio station that had

20:43

a podcast RSS feed and was

20:45

premiered on that. It's also

20:48

worth to know after that, there's S-town,

20:50

which was another very popular true crime

20:52

show came out from them. And then

20:54

the New York Times bought serial productions

20:57

in 2020. So now it's

20:59

a part of whatever the hell the New

21:01

York Times is doing with their podcast division,

21:03

as they're pumping out the daily and making

21:05

Michael Barbouro into a sex symbol question mark.

21:09

Spotify also acquired the ringer, which was the

21:11

new thing from Bill Simmons after his stint

21:14

at ESPN. And like people

21:16

started listening to podcasts a lot, and

21:18

they started building these relationships with the people

21:20

making them. I think it's funny how the

21:23

word chat show has kind of permeated as

21:25

the thing, which is just people talking, because

21:27

I think that's the thing that actually is

21:29

the backbone of the industry,

21:31

the relationships that people have with the hosts. And

21:34

I must say love listening to the hosts bounce

21:36

off of each other. But like, when you say

21:38

chat show, it feels really derogatory

21:40

in the way that it's just like, oh,

21:42

it's like a talk show with

21:44

then that's what my mom watches in the middle of

21:47

the day. It's kind of

21:49

like, oh, it's so low class. It's so

21:51

low culture. And yet when we look at

21:53

Joe Rogan, listen, every man under 45 who's

21:56

just asking questions, this is

21:58

Joe Rogan. He has a massive. voted

22:00

community and audience that revolves around him

22:02

and all him and all of his

22:04

friends do stuff and just hang out

22:06

in Austin and say Weird

22:08

trans jokes, they're all terrible But it's

22:10

like that really is what podcasting is

22:13

in the way that you've talked about

22:15

on the show about how ads

22:17

are sold on the internet and how

22:19

influencers make their money is like people

22:21

are selling ads on podcasts because listeners

22:24

trust The podcaster and

22:26

the podcaster knows they have a devoted fan

22:29

base I think that I love podcast

22:31

listeners. You guys are so devoted and wonderful

22:33

and I feel like we do have a

22:36

strong Parasocial, but if

22:38

you respect it, it's a respectable relationship

22:41

between creator and audience I

22:43

think it's the stickiest medium that exists out there

22:45

I feel like everyone who listens to the show

22:47

is like very into it as opposed to like

22:49

I don't know throwing a twister Which I do

22:51

throwing a twist dream up for like six hours.

22:53

I didn't really pay attention But

22:55

I think that that's where they're trying to

22:57

make money So it's kind of funny how

22:59

many people when pineapple Street and Gimlet were

23:01

being invested in and what's happening with like

23:04

pushkin Malcolm Gladwell making his

23:06

own podcasting company and these like

23:08

prestigious podcasts being known as the

23:10

types of podcasts It's like but

23:13

that's very funny You got to invest

23:15

so much money into six episodes and

23:17

then how do you build audience that

23:19

way? It's almost like these

23:21

two things are in conflict with each

23:24

other the quote-unquote prestigious version and what

23:26

podcasting is which is relatable Conversations that

23:28

people love I call them conversational podcasts

23:30

because it does also take a lot

23:33

of time and effort to make them

23:35

sound and feel Conversational I

23:37

think it's also interesting to think that

23:39

like tech is moving in and a

23:41

lot of money is moving in the

23:44

prestige podcast route came from public radio

23:46

where you get money from in a

23:48

non-profit sort of way and So it's like what

23:50

is the profit center? How do you make money when

23:53

you spend a bunch of work

23:55

hours and money on? The

23:57

show that only puts out six episodes There

24:00

is no profit center, which explains why Gimlet was

24:02

trying to sell itself to Spotify the whole time.

24:04

Like, how did they make money? I don't know.

24:06

I don't know if they knew. And it's kind

24:08

of funny, like the way that Gimlet as a

24:11

tech story is no different than all the other

24:13

tech stories where we're going to make something, we're

24:15

going to make it tasty, and then we're going

24:17

to get bought. Like, that is the step by

24:19

step plan. That's how it feels looking back on

24:21

it in 2023. Yeah.

24:24

And because we're in kind of the zero

24:26

interest rate era, we can keep kind of

24:28

stringing in this along for a little while

24:30

until we get that acquisition, and then Spotify

24:33

or whoever has to deal with it, right?

24:36

I want to pick back up on what

24:38

you were saying about the relationships there and

24:40

the different types of podcasts in just a

24:42

minute. But I want to come back to

24:44

Spotify, because there's another angle to what you're

24:46

talking about as well, where Spotify is this

24:49

audio company, it would position itself that

24:51

way. But at its core, it's a

24:54

music company, right? And one of the

24:56

reasons for moving into podcasting was to

24:58

try to diversify away from its reliance

25:00

on music, to also have these other

25:02

kind of areas of revenue or listening

25:05

or what have you, that was not

25:07

just about kind of giving this money

25:09

back to the recording labels, to

25:11

then distribute to the artists, right? Because there's kind

25:14

of a set formula there for what it has

25:16

to be. And so as it expands into other

25:18

forms of audio, you know, that kind of disrupts

25:20

that and creates potentially new profit centers. But

25:23

as we know, with, you know, with approach to podcasting,

25:25

that is not necessarily how it played out because

25:27

of what we've been seeing over the last little

25:29

while. But I feel like there's something notable in

25:32

the approach to podcasting that Spotify took, and I

25:34

was hoping to talk about this a little bit

25:36

more where, you know, we were saying that the

25:38

podcast is kind of dependent on the RSS feed,

25:40

but Spotify really wanted to enclose

25:42

this really wanted to take it over. And

25:45

also wanted to ensure that the shows that

25:47

you know, we're part of its ecosystem were

25:49

exclusive to Spotify, you had to go to

25:51

Spotify to listen to them. So can you

25:54

talk to us about the approach that Spotify

25:56

took? And how kind of different that was

25:58

from how podcasting usually works? It's

26:00

kind of interesting that Spotify was

26:02

trying to win the tech game

26:04

against Apple, who wasn't even really

26:06

playing. Apple is too busy

26:08

making kajillions of dollars on their hardware

26:10

to kind of dabble. In

26:13

the way that Apple TV Plus, there's just

26:15

these wild swings. It's like, well, they could

26:17

just kind of do whatever they want, but

26:19

Spotify is trying to beat them, even though

26:21

they're not even participating. So they want people

26:24

on their app doing everything. It's funny, you

26:26

brought up the music thing, and I think

26:28

that that's why people saw podcasting is so

26:30

tasty, because it was a new

26:32

medium that was developing but didn't have

26:34

any of the red tape like music

26:36

does, dealing with royalties and for the

26:38

artists and also for the record companies.

26:41

So almost like Spotify tried to do a vertical

26:43

monopoly. It reminds me of the movies in the

26:45

30s, where it's like we own the actors, we

26:47

own the director, we own the script. You're going

26:50

to film it on our lot. Our editor is

26:52

going to be overseen by a guy in a

26:54

suit standing over his shoulder. We're going to make

26:56

sure he's not a communist. And then

26:58

we're going to put it out in our theaters. And

27:01

that feels very similar to what Spotify

27:03

did. They bought Anchor so that you

27:05

made the podcast inside of the Anchor

27:08

Spotify app, and you edited there too.

27:10

You put it out through Spotify, and

27:12

you can even make it Spotify exclusive

27:14

or at least Spotify privileged. While

27:17

the RSS feed, the whole point of the RSS feed

27:19

is it goes anywhere. That's why

27:21

people have podcatchers as these apps. Like, yeah, you

27:23

could use Apple and you could use Spotify, but

27:26

you could use Pocket Cast so you could use

27:28

Podcast Attic or you could use Overcast. It's

27:30

just kind of a place that grabs the RSS feed.

27:32

It's just kind of out there. My

27:35

favorite image on the internet, which I sent

27:37

to you a little while ago, was from

27:40

Spotify's annual meeting, which they've been

27:42

really blowing out recently. It's

27:44

almost like when Apple does their big thing,

27:46

but Spotify's is colorful. That's how they

27:48

want it to stand out. This is from

27:51

last year. Ashley Carmen, who is a podcast

27:53

reporter at Bloomberg, saw this slide, and

27:55

it talks about the limitations of the RSS

27:57

feed and how they call it outdated tech.

27:59

So there's a creator in one bubble and

28:02

the fan in another bubble, and there's one

28:04

arrow going from the creator to the fan

28:06

that says, podcasting. And then

28:08

there's one below. It's the same thing, the creator

28:10

and fan bubbles, but there's an arrow going both

28:13

ways. And it says every other medium of the

28:15

internet. They're so mad

28:17

that the RSS doesn't harvest

28:19

data. They hate it. And

28:22

it demonstrates that Spotify wants to own

28:24

it like old-timey Hollywood. I think this

28:26

demonstrates how much when they acquired shows

28:28

or studios like Joe Rogan or Call

28:31

Her Daddy or Gimlet, that they made

28:33

them Spotify exclusives, which, because podcast listeners

28:35

don't understand it and it's not part

28:37

of the medium, you don't go to

28:39

Twitch. You don't go to YouTube. You

28:41

go to your app, which can be

28:44

anything. They're like, well, the show's gone,

28:46

so I guess I'm not going to

28:48

listen to it anymore. I guess it's

28:50

just not publishing anymore. So

28:52

then it's gone. This was proven. This

28:55

was reported a few years ago, but

28:57

the Gimlet Union said that

28:59

they told Spotify it would destroy their

29:01

numbers. And Spotify was like, ah, shut

29:03

up. And then their numbers got destroyed.

29:05

They lost 75% of their downloads. So

29:09

then when Spotify was like, ah, this sucks.

29:11

And now Gimlet and Parkast are now a

29:13

part of Spotify. Those companies don't exist. They've

29:15

been subsumed into Spotify Studios. It's like, well,

29:17

it's because your downloads were down. Well, how

29:19

do you think that happened? It's because no

29:21

one knew where to get them except for

29:23

the 25% of Spotify app users. So

29:28

again, it's like Spotify is doing big

29:30

company conglomerate things when it doesn't

29:32

necessarily make sense for this nascent

29:35

medium built upon community

29:37

and listening to those podcasts

29:39

and then giving $5 on Patreon or

29:41

something. And then, you know, the ads

29:43

and the ads working and making sense.

29:46

They can't see the kind of

29:48

like simple solutions in front of them because

29:50

they're too busy being a big tech company.

29:52

Yeah. Because everything is about scale, right? And

29:55

if you have some small podcasts that have

29:57

a little Patreon or make a little bit

29:59

of ad revenue. That's not going to

30:01

you know Keep the investors happy or pay

30:03

back the massive acquisition cost of bringing this

30:05

in or like, you know achieve this kind

30:07

of Grand revenue dreams that you have if

30:10

you're a company like Spotify and are trying

30:12

to like massively expand You talked a bit

30:14

about Apple right and I wonder how you

30:16

compare that a bit with what Apple is

30:18

doing because Regardless of how invested

30:20

it is It is obviously still a big

30:22

player in the space simply because of the

30:24

scale that it has because so many people

30:26

use its devices And as a

30:28

result then use the Apple podcast app because it's just

30:31

there on the phone and it's easy to use You

30:33

know, how do you compare Spotify's move

30:36

into the podcast industry to the things

30:38

that Apple has been doing? That's

30:40

interesting I think Apple has started kind of

30:42

realizing there they haven't they are the tortoise

30:44

in this tortoise of the hair race So

30:47

they really should start walking at some point.

30:49

So they have kind of cleaned up some

30:51

stuff They've kind of relied on a metadata

30:53

like they reveal your episode. They're really into

30:55

like fiction They make it really easy to

30:57

like make seasons and designate seasons and episodes

30:59

like it was a TV show So

31:02

they have picked it up a little bit and they've also like

31:04

I think they've started their own Way to

31:06

pay them money instead of going through patreon

31:08

That's like the new way to like kind

31:10

of take patreon's lunch I still remember like

31:12

all of my old terrible bosses using the

31:14

phrase eat their lunch And I feel like

31:16

it's just all these like executives trying to

31:18

like beat each other these rich guys trying

31:20

to beat each other in this Way. So

31:22

yeah, they realized they had to do some

31:24

stuff. I think back to 2018

31:28

in 2019 when like my biggest bugbear was like no

31:30

one knows where Rated five

31:32

stars on Apple podcasts came from it

31:34

was almost like a folk myth It

31:37

was like oh if you if you get a

31:39

hundred five star reviews Then the

31:41

algorithm or the editors who

31:43

would put you on the podcast of the day

31:45

would put you up there And you get a

31:48

massive boost none of that was true We just

31:50

hoped they're like that How else are you supposed

31:52

to break through as I said discovery has still

31:54

always been quite difficult? It takes a lot of

31:57

clicks to listen to a podcast. You really need

31:59

a recommendation from a friend who's like,

32:01

no, no, no, this show is good, I promise. So

32:04

Apple has let their largesse kind

32:06

of speak for itself and

32:08

kind of the folk ideas of

32:11

Apple, the company, almost spoke for

32:13

itself in podcasting. I think

32:15

it's really fascinating when you talk about like kind

32:17

of the myth that if you've got so many

32:20

five-star reviews, all of a sudden like Apple would

32:22

treat you differently or whatever, but you see that

32:24

in like so many different areas of like whether

32:26

people are self-published authors and trying to like game

32:28

the Kindle store or whatever and figure out how

32:31

Amazon is going to treat them and what when

32:33

they need to publish and what how many pages

32:35

they need or whatever in order for Amazon to

32:37

like be happy with them or like the right

32:39

ways to post on Twitter so that your posts

32:42

go up. It's like we're always trying to find

32:44

this way to like game the algorithms or

32:46

figure out how it's gonna work. There's just

32:48

all these black boxes because they're controlled by

32:50

these corporations that like don't really care as

32:53

long as you're like making some cash for

32:55

them or whatever. Especially with Apple because it

32:57

is growing it's like services business which this

32:59

would fit into but the real kind of

33:01

money still comes from the iPhone at the

33:03

end of the day. Yeah I

33:06

think that people tried to think of podcasting

33:08

like the other media that existed out there

33:10

it's like oh well there must be an

33:12

algorithm. YouTubers are always having to pivot and

33:14

always are having to figure out what makes

33:16

sense. So we should be doing something

33:18

too. Obviously these rankings have to

33:21

have some sort of formula behind them and

33:23

isn't just one person moving shows around it

33:25

has to be something and like you know

33:27

it's still Apple like we've applied for plenty

33:29

of spotlights or these forms that you see

33:31

or don't see or recommend it to you

33:33

and then like it's very slow and maybe

33:35

they see us or maybe they say no

33:37

or all of a sudden you're on new

33:40

and noteworthy and you're like how did this

33:42

happen I don't know maybe I just sent

33:44

the right email to the right person then they

33:46

had a free minute so they moved your thing on

33:48

a new and noteworthy. I think podcasting spent so much

33:50

time looking at other mediums to be like we want

33:52

to be like that it reminds me a lot of

33:54

word video games are like I don't know if you

33:56

care about it like you know the video game industry

33:59

also is going through massive layoff issue like

34:01

podcasting is. And the game awards, which

34:03

is supposed to be this like big

34:05

Oscar like awards, are still very supplicant

34:08

to movies. But video games are huge.

34:10

Video games make so much money and

34:12

it's how I feel about podcasting. I'm

34:14

like, people wouldn't be

34:16

so invested in trying to break

34:18

and disrupt podcasting if we weren't

34:20

important and doing something interesting. I'm

34:22

not saying we're huge, because again,

34:25

the digital marketing budgets that people

34:27

buy ads on are still like

34:29

the same digital marketing budgets that they

34:31

throw thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars

34:33

at their Instagram ads. And they're like, oh,

34:35

yeah, let's try something in podcasting. You know,

34:37

let's try it. Let's try it. It still

34:39

is relatively small, but we're growing and it

34:41

keeps growing and people love this stuff. It's

34:43

part of their daily routine. And we also

34:45

don't have to fight podcasting doesn't have to

34:48

fight the eyeballs conversation. You know, the one

34:50

sport, the NFL and the NBA are always

34:52

like, Oh, we got to make sure people

34:54

are we need our ratings and everything like

34:56

you can listen to podcasts when you are

34:58

driving when you're washing dishes when you can't

35:00

watch a YouTube video. So it's almost

35:02

like it's something out of time and

35:05

space. And yet, both the

35:07

creators because they're so self conscious about making

35:09

their stupid little podcast and the big companies

35:11

that are like, look at this silly little

35:14

thing. They don't see that it's something that's

35:16

so unique, which is why I love it

35:18

so much. I think that's actually

35:20

a really interesting point, right? Because podcasting is

35:22

something that we think of as an audio

35:24

medium, right? You stick your headphones in, you

35:26

play on your phone or whatever, and then

35:28

you can cook, you can go for a

35:31

walk, you can drive your car, you can

35:33

do the dishes, like it really doesn't

35:35

matter, right? You don't need to worry about looking at

35:37

a screen to know what's going on. But I feel

35:39

like in the past year

35:41

or so, we've been seeing a real

35:43

shakeout in social media where Twitter is

35:45

not what it used to be because

35:48

of the Elon Musk acquisition. People have

35:50

moved to these other platforms like Mastodon

35:52

and Blue Sky and threads, and there's

35:54

this kind of real disruption that's happening.

35:57

Meanwhile, it feels like TikTok is taking

35:59

off Instagram. and YouTube Shorts are

36:01

trying to emulate it. Elon Musk

36:03

now says Twitter is going to go video first

36:05

way, however that's going to look. And so it

36:07

feels like social media is moving in this direction

36:09

where there's a big pivot to video happening. We'll

36:11

see if it's going to stick. But it feels

36:13

like there's a push to do that in podcasting

36:16

as well on the one hand, so

36:18

you have kind of clips to share

36:20

on TikTok and Instagram and all this

36:22

kind of stuff to try to reach

36:24

audience. But also, Google is shutting down

36:26

its podcast app and moving over to

36:28

YouTube Music and kind of promoting having

36:30

this stuff on YouTube. Like, how do you see

36:32

this kind of push to go to video in

36:34

podcasting as well? Because it feels like it's, you

36:36

know, as a podcaster myself, it feels like there

36:39

is a pressure to move in this direction. I

36:41

think the clips thing, just the clips thing, it

36:43

kind of makes sense. Yeah, let's make some clips

36:45

and distribute them. Makes sense. I talked for an

36:47

hour. You're not going to get convinced to

36:49

listen to an hour of a podcast. That's why so many

36:51

people listen on 1.5 and 2X speeds. Like,

36:54

I get it for sure. Yeah, that's me. Yeah,

36:57

what an absolute sicko. I can't

36:59

believe it. That's ridiculous. Whenever someone admits

37:01

it to me, I'm like, damn, Doc.

37:03

You just told me that like you

37:05

eat frozen bread, you don't toast it.

37:08

I'm like, I guess if that's how

37:10

you like it, that's fine. But I

37:12

felt very seen by the influencer episode

37:14

where it's like social media is kind

37:16

of the bastion of we got to

37:18

keep changing and even if

37:20

it's good. We're following trends and I

37:22

guess video is the trend because everyone

37:25

is taping TikTok. I kind of

37:27

went into podcasting because I didn't want to be a YouTuber.

37:29

I didn't want to follow the algorithm and I wasn't

37:31

really stoked on having my face out there

37:33

just yet because it was like my how

37:35

I was slowly coming to and also like

37:37

I was like a blogger and a writer.

37:39

I was really excited. I like Twitter. There

37:41

were a bunch of research that said that

37:43

like most podcast listeners used Twitter when Twitter

37:45

pre Elon Musk. So it's like, oh, it

37:47

was a link distribution thing. It's like, oh,

37:49

yeah, you think I'm funny when I write

37:51

you might think I'm funny when I talk

37:53

kind of makes sense. The pivot to video.

37:55

This is the tech trend, right? We have

37:57

to follow what they say because that's That's

37:59

how we're how we got to market this

38:01

hard thing to market. So we're going to

38:03

do it the way that they say. At

38:05

the same time, I'm not sure how TikTok

38:07

helps. Like it's kind of funny,

38:09

you saw that there was an article a

38:12

few months ago, time doesn't mean anything, where

38:14

like, they realized that TikTokers were using the

38:16

podcast set as the way that

38:18

they made TikToks because it made them seem

38:20

more like authoritative. And they

38:23

had like a microphone and we're wearing

38:25

headphones. So it's almost like

38:27

it's a genre. It's like a it's a

38:29

form of TikTok. But TikTok wants you

38:31

to stay on TikTok. It doesn't want you to

38:33

leave and click a link and go to an

38:35

app. So it's still like,

38:37

I don't know if TikTok

38:40

is going to give me more downloads for

38:42

my podcast. And just from

38:44

the way that the whole thing is set up,

38:46

I believe in experimenting and it's definitely the new

38:49

frontier. But is it actually helpful is always the

38:51

question for being a part of such a nascent

38:53

medium like we are. I'm not

38:55

sure that TikTok actually helps because TikTok wants

38:58

you to stay on the app. And

39:00

how is that going to be a marketing tool for me? And

39:03

this happens to a lot of people. I think

39:05

a lot of people are big on TikTok. And

39:07

then it doesn't do anything. Like, I mean, but

39:09

we've seen this in the past, right? It was

39:11

like, Oh, I'm huge on Twitter. I have a

39:13

massive I guess Instagram this actually works for both

39:15

like I have a massive tumblr, you got to

39:17

do something else. You got to have a book

39:19

deal, or you got to get a job as

39:21

a comedy writer. I think this is like when

39:23

we learned about drill is like he's just a

39:26

dude, you know, and if you can't like the

39:28

month, where does the money come from? Unless

39:30

you are literally doing influence deals. Like, yeah,

39:32

I could be big on TikTok. But how

39:34

does it actually go to my podcast where

39:37

I have a economic funnel

39:39

set up? The whole point of making

39:41

something and not being an influencer in

39:43

the way that we understand it now not the

39:45

proto and not the bloggers from the beginning from

39:47

the Julie and Julia days is

39:49

like we made something so it stands in front

39:52

of us. We want the work to stand

39:54

and we want people to be into the work.

39:56

Now that doesn't mean there isn't a parasociality

39:59

with it. and a sense of

40:01

authenticity of us being what we say

40:03

we make and are. I think journalists

40:05

and bloggers and video creators and video

40:08

essayists and all these people and streamers

40:10

all deal with this because podcasting is

40:12

decentralized. It's like we kind

40:14

of have to figure it out on our own

40:17

because it wouldn't be better if it was centralized.

40:19

If it was centralized, then Spotify would be good

40:21

at their jobs and everyone would do the things

40:23

Spotify is telling us to do. This is a

40:25

really good example. A new thing is that

40:27

Spotify has introduced a comment section. It's

40:30

like Q&A for episodes. We

40:33

were kicking it around in multitude and we

40:35

were like, hey, should we start doing this?

40:37

Should we invest in it? Should we do

40:39

questions? I'm like, wait a second. This is

40:41

unhelpful for me, the creator. It doesn't do

40:43

anything for me. It's an add-on for the

40:45

Spotify app so that it's for users.

40:48

It's a user feature. Now

40:50

I've got to spend an extra how many

40:52

minutes a day, a week, a month keeping

40:55

up and publishing these comments and making

40:57

new Q&As. I'm not going to. It

40:59

doesn't help me. It's not for me.

41:01

It's for Spotify. I think that we

41:03

get tricked as creators who make things

41:06

where people try to disguise things

41:08

that are good for the platform as good for us,

41:10

but we're the ones with the audience so they should

41:12

be doing the thing that we eat for us instead

41:14

of trying to trick us. I

41:17

think it's really interesting because I've encountered that feature

41:19

as well and I don't use it, but it

41:21

automatically added a question to my shows and then

41:23

I get random emails saying, hey, there's people who've

41:25

responded to the Q&A and I'm like, what Q&A?

41:29

To pick up on what you were saying

41:31

earlier, I feel very similarly about video. It's

41:35

obviously something that I've been throwing around now

41:37

that it's becoming a thing that's expected and

41:39

TikTok is growing and whether we're

41:41

going to do clips as well, I don't think the

41:44

whole episode because part of the reason I wanted to

41:47

do a podcast instead of a YouTube

41:49

show was because it was audio and I didn't

41:51

need to be on video all the time. But

41:54

earlier, before we went into

41:56

talking about Spotify, you were talking about

41:58

that kind of relationship piece, right?

42:01

And how these relationships, you know,

42:03

between the listeners and the host

42:05

are quite important. And especially in

42:07

kind of a long running show,

42:09

an interview show, a conversation show,

42:11

as you would say, you know,

42:14

this does become a really important piece

42:16

of what continues to drive, you know,

42:19

listenership and gets more people to discover

42:22

the show over time. And that

42:24

is kind of difficult to have when you just have

42:26

these kind of short series and what

42:28

have you. Because I feel like during

42:31

the early stages of the pandemic, when people were

42:33

in lockdowns, and you still couldn't be around a

42:35

lot of people, I feel like, you know, there

42:37

was a lot of takeoff in a lot of

42:39

different mediums. But I feel like podcasting, you had

42:41

a lot of people starting podcasts to, you know,

42:43

even just talk to people who they knew. And

42:45

of course, you know, this podcast

42:47

started in April of 2020. But I feel

42:49

like you also had a lot of people

42:51

listening to podcasts to listen to

42:53

people and kind of have that relationship

42:55

and hear these conversations and things like that at

42:58

a time when, you know, our kind of personal

43:00

contact with people was was limited. So I

43:02

guess it's a very broad question, feel free

43:04

to answer it how you want. But what

43:06

do you make of kind of the importance

43:08

of relationships in the medium of podcasting in

43:11

particular? That's so

43:13

interesting. If we can get like philosophical

43:15

for a second, the way that like

43:17

anthropology intersects with tech, everyone

43:19

felt very disenfranchised in 2020,

43:21

at all parts of the

43:24

political spectrum. And it's like, oh, if I

43:26

just buy this microphone, that is a USB

43:28

wire, and I plug it into my computer,

43:30

and I use one of the

43:32

various things to throw that records my voice

43:34

with my bros, then I'm just gonna

43:36

make the thing and it's gonna go out there. And I

43:38

think it was a chance for everyone to kind of say

43:40

the thing they wanted to say. Now, some of

43:43

that was like anti vax garbage. But at

43:45

the same time, a lot of that stuff

43:47

was for me, from my own leftist perspective,

43:49

I think listening to that stuff and people

43:51

wrestling with where the world was, and how

43:54

our institutions failed us, especially surrounding

43:56

the galvanization around the George Floyd demonstrations and

43:58

how so many people saw that like centrist,

44:00

the Democrats weren't being helpful at all. And

44:03

we're sending out those cops to go get

44:05

everybody. And also reckoning with like how our

44:07

institutions failed us just about the pandemic at

44:10

large, like lots of people wanted to talk

44:12

to each other, and then publish that and

44:14

put it out there. That makes a ton

44:16

of sense to me. I think at

44:19

the same time, when we're talking about the ad market,

44:21

all the ads disappeared in

44:23

2020. Everyone was like, oh,

44:26

we don't know what's going to happen with the economy. Our

44:29

marketing budgets are gone, everyone gets furloughed.

44:31

There are no podcast ads for months.

44:33

Now, that is I'll say this anecdotally,

44:35

but I think a lot of people

44:37

would say the same thing. Our patreons

44:39

grew significantly during that time. I think

44:42

it was like the small business idea

44:44

started to latch in people's minds of

44:46

like, oh, we need to support small

44:48

businesses or then they will disappear. When

44:50

everyone's like, I got to buy restaurant

44:52

merch, I got to buy like plants,

44:54

and I got to buy pillows and

44:56

support my vintage stores. I mean that

44:58

with no sense of glibness in

45:01

my voice, I truly, and I think that

45:03

the independent media creators also got

45:05

into that bucket that everyone started supporting

45:07

patrons at higher and higher levels, and

45:10

podcasts use patreon quite a lot and

45:12

have that deep relationship. So there's something

45:15

about like hearing people in your brain.

45:17

Like think about it, especially for AirPods,

45:19

which I use all the time, you

45:21

stick them into your ear holes, and

45:24

then you hear people talking and laughing

45:26

and debating and fighting and making

45:28

jokes with each other and making inside jokes

45:31

with each other for that matter. Inside of

45:33

your brain, there's of course, a very popular

45:35

image of like the young woman next to

45:37

the people who are eating ice cream, the

45:39

ad of eating ice cream. It's like this

45:41

is how I feel being when I'm listening

45:43

to my podcast. It's just like, oh, we're

45:45

all friends, right? Of course they know me.

45:47

There's almost like, like you're

45:49

listening into the conversation, but because it's so

45:52

close to you as a human, you almost

45:54

feel like your brain is tricked to be

45:56

in the same room in the

45:58

same way that like our brains can't fathom. them being

46:00

in an airplane because it's so crazy that we're

46:02

in a tube flying through the air and that's

46:04

why we cry so much on airplanes. I think

46:07

it's very similar. It's just the way that our

46:09

society is kind of developed. I

46:11

think it's important. Again, I love podcast listeners

46:13

and I also love there's no comment box,

46:15

but people do reach a go out of

46:17

their ways both to email us and tweet

46:19

at us and also see us at live

46:21

shows and say like this show got me

46:23

through a really hard time and I appreciate

46:26

you for making it. I

46:28

think that so many creators are embarrassed by

46:30

it. The other thing about 2020,

46:32

which is the beginning of everyone

46:34

and their mom has a podcast,

46:36

is we started being embarrassed by

46:38

having a podcast and I just

46:40

don't really understand it because it's

46:43

so good and important and could

46:45

be the backbone of so many

46:47

people's working lives. I

46:49

think that's where the chat show thing comes through

46:51

is like unless I worked with the New York

46:53

Times or I worked with Ira Glass and I

46:55

spent $500,000 on this and I spent three years

47:00

and it was about like a heart wrenching

47:02

subject. It's not a true podcast.

47:04

That haughtiness is definitely there, but those are

47:06

all of the people who got laid off

47:09

because those media companies didn't want to fund

47:11

these shows. They took a lot of time

47:13

and money and didn't make a return because

47:16

they put out six episodes and then they

47:18

didn't build anything. Again, it takes a long

47:20

time for people to find a show and

47:22

fall in love with it. That's

47:24

why I think so many people got laid off and that's

47:26

when everyone said the podcasting was

47:28

dead. They meant these big bets on

47:30

it, these big media bets on it

47:33

and instead it's like, oh, well, you

47:35

stupid chat shows, you

47:37

just record by yourself and it doesn't take any

47:39

time. It's like, well, no, it takes a lot

47:42

of time and we're out here surviving. We're

47:44

out here thriving. I have a company that is

47:46

out here doing it. I just feel like I

47:49

spent a lot of time in 2023 being like,

47:51

no, we're good. We're hiring. We

47:53

had more shows. We're putting out 52 episodes a

47:55

year and that shouldn't be something to be looked

47:57

down on because I think that's the base. of

48:00

the American dream of being

48:02

a digital media creator. Yeah,

48:05

and I think you see even like

48:08

these large companies that got into this

48:10

podcasting space, doing these expensive kind of

48:12

limited series and stuff are increasingly shifting

48:14

to what they would consider

48:16

kind of lower cost conversational content and stuff

48:18

like that, right? And I will just say

48:21

kind of anecdotally, like on a

48:23

personal level, we did the Zia LaMuck series

48:25

back in October and it was

48:27

nowhere near like the standards

48:30

or the quality of what one of these media

48:32

organizations or something would put out. I disagree, it

48:35

was really good and really well made. Come

48:37

on, I disagree, but I see your point.

48:39

I see your point. Thank you, thank you.

48:41

But there wasn't nearly as much resources to

48:43

put into it and we couldn't make like

48:45

custom music or anything like that, but the

48:47

amount of work that went into

48:49

like just putting that together, like it

48:51

almost crushed me and Eric because like

48:53

that whole month of October was just

48:56

like a write off because it was

48:58

just all the Elon series. Can I drill down

49:00

on that for just a moment? Is it,

49:02

what is the thing that took the most

49:04

amount of time? The research and the scripting

49:06

largely I would say. Okay, yeah. And

49:09

I think that the research totally makes

49:11

sense, but it's like scripting is just

49:13

a type of podcasting. It's just a

49:15

form, one popularized by very intelligent, but

49:17

also sometimes can be kind of pretentious

49:20

and stuffy and a very specific format.

49:22

But that doesn't mean it's better. It

49:24

just means that it's the type of

49:26

thing you want to do to

49:29

communicate this almost like this essay, this report.

49:32

And like scripting something is not

49:34

inherently a better form than the

49:36

interview form or the talk

49:39

about whatever with my friends form.

49:41

If it's structured, if it makes

49:43

sense, if it provides value and

49:45

it's unique and does the thing

49:47

that the show is supposed to

49:49

do. Like a podcast, I

49:51

think the best podcast does something

49:54

that no other podcast, but maybe

49:56

not even no other piece

49:58

of media can do. really got to

50:00

find your uniqueness because you're trying to stand

50:03

out from the crowd, especially post 2020 whenever

50:05

one of their mom has a podcast. So

50:08

you spend a lot of time trying to

50:10

make it as high quality as possible. But

50:12

I don't think the form of scripting this

50:14

type of audio journalist long form thing is

50:16

not better. It's just different. And I think

50:18

that a lot of people fooled themselves in

50:20

thinking it was better, and then

50:22

got stuck only knowing how to make that

50:24

thing. And then they got laid off. Because

50:27

also when you start working for someone else,

50:29

kind of the fundamentals of this whole podcast,

50:31

right? It's like when you are just a

50:33

creative person, you take that job, they

50:35

will never, ever, ever, ever show you the numbers,

50:37

because they want to do it over in their

50:39

little office. And they get to tell you that

50:42

you're like a silly little artist and pat you

50:44

on the head that you don't know what you're

50:46

talking about. And then they're going to make whatever

50:48

slashes or whatever and try to 10 exit. And

50:50

then when they when the money becomes regular price

50:52

again, they're going to ask for returns and cut

50:54

all of your jobs. So I

50:56

think that people are getting really stuck in

50:58

that thing. We go all the way back

51:00

to Gimlet to this American

51:03

life and public radio, it was

51:05

a nonprofit opportunity that is

51:07

funded by the fact that in a very

51:09

PBS or NPR sort of style, this should

51:11

exist. It's very beautiful funded because it's important

51:14

to art, right? Alex Bloomberg,

51:16

the senior producer was like, Hey, what if

51:18

we made a private company of this? And

51:20

that's where Gimlet began. It's interesting

51:22

to know that his co founder and

51:24

like the CFO was this guy named

51:26

Matt Lieber, who was a radio producer,

51:28

but also was a consultant

51:30

at the Boston Consulting Group, like

51:32

a really, really big, dangerous consulting

51:34

group, right? And then they got

51:37

tons and tons and tons of startup

51:39

capital through their initial raise and their

51:41

series a their series a they did

51:43

in December 2015, they

51:45

raised $6 million on a $30 million

51:47

valuation. Again, like after one year of

51:50

being in business and only making a

51:52

few shows. So I want to know,

51:54

was there ever a plan to make

51:57

money on their big spreadsheet because it

51:59

seems like, they couldn't figure it out. They're

52:01

like, oh, we're going to make shows, we're going

52:03

to make stuff for other companies, we're going to

52:05

make shows for other companies, and we're going to

52:07

sell ads, but we're not that good at it,

52:09

and it's not bringing in enough money. And then

52:11

they got even more money from their series B.

52:14

And then they got bought by

52:16

Spotify. So was there ever a

52:19

profit center in these very big,

52:21

very expensive types of podcasts? It

52:24

seems like the answer is no. Now, is that a

52:26

good reason to make art? No, we

52:29

don't have to have a profit center. But

52:31

like, if we're talking about a nascent media

52:33

industry, yeah, but you kind of have to be

52:35

able to answer that question. But I guess the

52:38

tech people kind of like, nah, we'll worry about

52:40

it later when someone buys us. The

52:42

bill was then passed on to Spotify, that kept

52:44

racking up more and more bills. Yeah,

52:47

I think that's really interesting, right? Because it

52:50

suggests the industry side of podcasting was really

52:52

kind of built on a false foundation that

52:54

was supported by the zero interest rates of

52:57

the past 15 years and kind of built

52:59

on that. And the tech industry, of course,

53:01

absorbed it. And they also

53:03

didn't see the need to make

53:06

a lot of money initially, as they

53:08

sought to capture the space, ensure that

53:10

people weren't just getting podcasts or their

53:12

RSS feeds and their feed apps and

53:14

all this kind of stuff, but had

53:17

to go to Spotify or had to go to Apple, or

53:20

had to go to YouTube in order to listen to

53:22

them. And we see that they have largely failed in

53:24

doing that. And I think for the better, because I

53:26

don't think that that would ultimately be a good thing.

53:28

And I think that we're also seeing a refocusing

53:31

from that kind of version of the podcast

53:33

to something that is much more familiar to

53:35

what I do and the people who I

53:38

know do where, you know, we interview people,

53:40

we have our conversations, we have some fun,

53:42

hopefully, some of us can make enough money

53:44

to like do it as a job, but

53:46

not everyone can. And I think

53:48

that also explains some of the shakeout too,

53:50

right? If you had a lot of people

53:52

start podcasts in 2020, sure, you have like

53:54

on the upper industry side of things, the

53:56

money equation is not working out, but also

53:58

people who just started podcasts for fun in

54:01

like early 2020 because they were all

54:03

in lockdown and you know now

54:05

have gone back to regular jobs or doing other things

54:07

and just don't have the time for it anymore

54:10

and it never really became a job for them. There

54:12

really was a speculation boom in 2019

54:14

when Gimlet got bought. Multitude

54:17

was making a show for Sony Music and

54:20

it was the only show that Sony

54:22

Music ever did outside of its internal

54:24

because then they ended up just buying

54:26

studios to be their internal Sony Music

54:28

podcast up with they contracted the show

54:30

with us and we made this budget in

54:32

late 2018 and we're like oh

54:34

I think this makes sense about what we're doing

54:36

and then when Gimlet got bought we're like dang

54:39

our budget is like a third of what

54:41

everyone else is now charging because the companies

54:43

are now going to spend a lot of

54:45

money on this thing. So there really was

54:47

a jump post 2019 and now the large

54:49

corporate bill is coming due in 2023

54:52

which has absolutely nothing to do

54:55

with all these people thriving, having incredible

54:57

communities listening to podcasts and making a

54:59

living based on the ad revenue and

55:01

the Patreon stuff and touring and live

55:04

shows now that there is a life

55:06

to be made. It's a great life.

55:08

It's a good life to be

55:10

a digital media creator. Again you don't have to

55:12

follow the algorithm. You got to do the thing

55:14

that's best for your audience and keep trying to

55:16

grow which is kind of everything. There's nothing wrong

55:18

with that. Totally. To

55:21

close off our conversation, we've talked about

55:23

how there has been this real shakeout.

55:26

We've talked about how Spotify's big plan

55:28

has not worked. It's retrenched. It's

55:30

merged some of these companies, got rid of others,

55:32

laid a lot of people off because its

55:35

whole strategy that it put all these hundreds of

55:37

millions of dollars into wasn't working. Where

55:40

do you see this all going in 2024? What

55:44

does 2024 mean for podcasting? I think that

55:46

people are still trying to figure out what

55:48

to do right now. People are still

55:50

running around like chickens with their head cut off

55:53

being like, what do we do? What

55:55

do we do? Everything's crumbling around us. I think that

55:57

eventually people are going to realize the things that they need

55:59

to do. that everyone is figuring out

56:01

and blogging and in media, like reporters over

56:04

the last few years is like, we're going

56:06

to start our own thing. And we're going

56:08

to start a Patreon and hopefully competitor to

56:10

Patreon shows up so we don't have to

56:13

all just use Patreon. Or we're going to

56:15

start our own website like aftermath and what

56:17

defector is done. And like, what is the

56:19

podcast equivalent of that? I think people are

56:22

going to start figuring that thing out and

56:24

realizing they can't just rely on institutions. And

56:26

also like, you know, it does intersect with

56:28

like public grant art grants, which is something

56:31

I don't really understand. But a lot of people

56:33

get grants to make their long form reporting thing.

56:35

And we can't just rely on that. We got

56:37

to, unfortunately, for the people who are making capital

56:39

A art that should get are supported by others,

56:41

they got to figure out how to support their

56:43

own money. But then what does that look like?

56:46

I think we're going to all start turning our

56:48

eyes towards the things that make sense. And then

56:50

we're just going to make a new form. What

56:52

I hope is that we're not

56:54

going to look down on the conversation or

56:56

podcasts anymore and realize how much value is

56:58

in there. Or we're all going to kind

57:00

of go back to this like, maybe there's

57:02

going to be like an indie filmmaking boom,

57:04

how it's like, how can we do the

57:06

most interesting thing with the least amount of

57:08

budget? And I think it's just going to be

57:10

different rules. I'm not just going to get this six

57:13

figure salary from a media company and

57:15

I'm going to like, spend 60 hours

57:18

making one episode, I got to do something else. I'm

57:21

telling you, it's working. I have a

57:23

job, we have a company, it's all

57:25

happening. It's great. So I think

57:27

when people start listening to the ruffians that

57:29

they did, they kind of didn't want to

57:31

listen to before, everyone's going to be a

57:33

lot happier and we can really cut out

57:35

these massive institutions. Yeah.

57:37

And just to build on what you're saying, like,

57:39

on my end of things, you know, not associated

57:41

with this more industry side of

57:44

things, I guess, you know, sometimes

57:46

it's incredible to me to see how much money

57:48

it costs to make one of these podcasts. And

57:50

I'm like, we make

57:52

this show with so much less than that.

57:54

And I think have, you know, quite a

57:57

respectable impact for what it is. And it's

57:59

still incredible to me that after almost

58:02

four years of doing this, so many people listen

58:04

to the show, so many people like it, so

58:06

many people support the work that goes into making

58:08

it. Yeah, it's, I don't know,

58:11

just fantastic that it worked out. But

58:13

Eric, it's been great to speak to you about the

58:15

podcast industry to learn more about how all this works.

58:18

Thanks so much for taking the time to come on

58:20

the show. So happy to be here. I could literally

58:22

talk about this for another 10 hours. So let's stop

58:24

so that editor Eric has some time to work on

58:26

it. I'm fine.

58:29

But thanks again. Absolutely.

59:15

Eric Silver is the head of development at Multitude. Back

59:18

on Save Us is made in partnership with The

59:20

Nation magazine and is hosted by Maine Paris News.

59:22

Production is by Eric Woodfield. My transfers are by

59:24

Bridgette and Luke Fry. Helpful service relies on the

59:27

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59:29

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59:31

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59:33

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59:35

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