03:05:20 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Stacy Rasgon, Reed Duchscher
[03:05:20] S1: Fourth round of the year. We knew they were gonna be raising a lot, so we decided to get these suits. [03:05:24] S0: And when we initially yeah. When we initially thought of the bid, oh, let's get some yellow suits, I sort of assumed that we'd just go and buy, like, a yellow suit from Target. Jordy called our tailor and and got a very nice tailored yellow suit. And I was like, that's that's hilarious. It was very funny, but we wound up using it a lot. [03:05:43] S1: Looked great for us. [03:05:43] S6: It looked [03:05:44] S0: really great. Anyway, please introduce yourself for those who might not [03:05:46] S9: Yeah. My name's Reed. Founded a company called Knight. Yeah. You and I have known each other Yeah. Now going on probably like three years. Yeah. But we represent the biggest creators on Twitch, YouTube. It's it's kinda taken on a life of its own now. I'd say we're like, the the idea at the beginning was like be the Internet's management company. Sure. That's kinda transitioned to like be the Internet's media company. And so we bought a podcast network from Warner Brothers called The Roost. Okay. We have a venture studio. A few things that have come out of that like Feastables [03:06:12] S0: Mhmm. [03:06:12] S9: With Mr. Beast, Tone with Kai Sinat Mhmm. Outtake Yeah. Which is a company that you guys are probably familiar with. So that that's a little bit of the company. And then, you know, I represented MrBeast for seven years. So it was a crazy seven years.
03:06:12 · Reed Duchscher, John Coogan
[03:06:12] S9: With Mr. Beast, Tone with Kai Sinat Mhmm. Outtake Yeah. Which is a company that you guys are probably familiar with. So that that's a little bit of the company. And then, you know, I represented MrBeast for seven years. So it was a crazy seven years. [03:06:23] S0: Okay. Maybe maybe we start with, like, a like a state of the union in just, like, where opportunities are for creators. It felt like TikTok was the hottest place to to if you were gonna be a creator, TikTok was the place you could go break through. Then Mark Zuckerberg copied it with Reels, and and YouTube answered with shorts. And maybe the plateau in TikTok world was like a little bit like, maybe they were slowing down and then they were going through this, will it get banned? Will it won't? And so there's a little bit of hesitance if you're a new creator to maybe pick that platform. Mhmm. Is that overstated? Is there still opportunity on TikTok? [03:06:59] S9: No. There is. I I think being a creator today, it's the easiest it's ever been just because discoverability is so easy. Yep. You know, I think I think that also becomes the hard part with TikTok is the algorithm has gotten so good that like if you the three of us pulled up our For You pages, like all of them would be completely different. Totally. Yeah. So I think breaking
03:06:59 · Reed Duchscher, Jordi Hays
[03:06:59] S9: No. There is. I I think being a creator today, it's the easiest it's ever been just because discoverability is so easy. Yep. You know, I think I think that also becomes the hard part with TikTok is the algorithm has gotten so good that like if you the three of us pulled up our For You pages, like all of them would be completely different. Totally. Yeah. So I think breaking [03:07:16] S1: makes it more competitive for existing creators where the if you were living in a world that was like wasn't algo feeds, if you just got to a critical mass of subscribers, it wasn't it wasn't as competitive with like a new creator would have to grind it out for five, ten years before they could actually be competitive. And now, if you're just making better content, it will get surfaced faster.
03:07:16 · Jordi Hays, Reed Duchscher
[03:07:16] S1: makes it more competitive for existing creators where the if you were living in a world that was like wasn't algo feeds, if you just got to a critical mass of subscribers, it wasn't it wasn't as competitive with like a new creator would have to grind it out for five, ten years before they could actually be competitive. And now, if you're just making better content, it will get surfaced faster. [03:07:37] S9: Yeah. Yeah. If you like, during COVID, everyone was seeing Charli D'Amelio dance videos. Like, she went from zero to a 100,000,000. That's very challenging to do in today's world just because your content gets fed to the people that only wanna watch that, and your content doesn't get seen by people who don't want it. Mhmm. I think the the platforms have actually done the same thing across the board where they don't really want creators to break out and become a Mr. Beast anymore. They'd rather like widen out the mid tier. And so they'd rather have, you know, YouTube for example, think would rather have 10,000 creators with 5,000,000 subscribers than have a 100 creators with a 100,000,000 subscribers. Like, they don't they don't want that. I think a lot of that is like they don't they also don't want creators to have any leverage against the platforms. Yeah. And so it's been interesting seeing that like shift over the last three years to this like, you know, push down a little bit further and make make it harder for people to really break out.
03:07:37 · Reed Duchscher, John Coogan
[03:07:37] S9: Yeah. Yeah. If you like, during COVID, everyone was seeing Charli D'Amelio dance videos. Like, she went from zero to a 100,000,000. That's very challenging to do in today's world just because your content gets fed to the people that only wanna watch that, and your content doesn't get seen by people who don't want it. Mhmm. I think the the platforms have actually done the same thing across the board where they don't really want creators to break out and become a Mr. Beast anymore. They'd rather like widen out the mid tier. And so they'd rather have, you know, YouTube for example, think would rather have 10,000 creators with 5,000,000 subscribers than have a 100 creators with a 100,000,000 subscribers. Like, they don't they don't want that. I think a lot of that is like they don't they also don't want creators to have any leverage against the platforms. Yeah. And so it's been interesting seeing that like shift over the last three years to this like, you know, push down a little bit further and make make it harder for people to really break out. [03:08:28] S0: And what is the nature of of MrBeast's leverage over YouTube? Is it just that if he says YouTube isn't treating creators, you know, correctly, that'll be front page news? Or is it something more about the structure of his business?
03:08:28 · John Coogan, Reed Duchscher
[03:08:28] S0: And what is the nature of of MrBeast's leverage over YouTube? Is it just that if he says YouTube isn't treating creators, you know, correctly, that'll be front page news? Or is it something more about the structure of his business? [03:08:42] S9: I think a lot of it is when, you know, there is, like, negative press. And we we saw this for those people that are like OG YouTubers like PewDiePie kind of went through this whole like adpocalypse back in the day. Yes. Yes. That was very negative on the platform as a whole. Sure. And so I think when you when you get individuals that are at the top of those platforms and they start to almost overshadow the platform because they've gotten so big Mhmm. That when negative press starts to come out about them, now advertisers are pulling out. Mhmm. We started to see this a little bit on Twitch Yeah. Because it is a very top heavy platform. And so I think that has a lot to do with it. You know, I think in in Jimmy's case, like, for the longest time, you would go on Trending Page and he was just dominating Trending Page. And so it's you know, now it's like people don't really go on Trending Page. But even on on homepages now, there's a lot of variety of different content. That's ultimately what the platforms want. They're trying to widen out their fan base