00:24:23 · John Coogan, Emily Sundberg, Jordi Hays
[00:24:23] S1: Or you already on Road to Christmas like us? [00:24:25] S4: We... I am on the Road to Christmas, but we did a month long screening series of scary movies at a movie theater in Brooklyn. Mhmm. We called it Monday Scaries. That was the the best deal we could get on renting out the theater. Was Monday night. It's great. Instead of Sunday Scaries, we did Monday Scaries. That's awesome. [00:24:40] S1: Yeah. What what what stuck out to you? What's the underrated scary film? What's the... What what's your approach? [00:24:46] S4: Really good. Have you seen March of Lost and Creep? [00:24:48] S2: No. Never watched a scary movie. [00:24:50] S4: Really? It's sad. [00:24:52] S2: I I I don't think I've watched a horror movie, like, start to finish. [00:24:54] S4: And then we watched another one called trick our treats trick our treats, which is more of like a campy [00:25:00] S1: Okay. Cool. [00:25:01] S4: Halloween one, which I... Yeah. That was great. Everyone loved to hang out. People were sort of, like, bringing their zines and trading zines, did free popcorn. [00:25:10] S1: Yeah. That's great. So does Zines? Like, old magazines? Like, zines are, like, one off, more [00:25:16] S4: More zines. More DIY. There's a there's a local news boom happening in Brooklyn right now. A lot of it is originating on Substack, So people are kind of becoming their own little paper men and town criers. [00:25:29] S2: Publishing on Substack, but also printing it and distributing it by hand. Yeah. [00:25:32] S1: They'll put it in, like, a newsstand on the... Just on the street. Right?
00:25:32 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Emily Sundberg, Joe Weisenthal
[00:25:32] S1: They'll put it in, like, a newsstand on the... Just on the street. Right? [00:25:35] S2: Very clear. [00:25:35] S4: Exactly. What's the Or, like, stacking them at cafes and stuff or bringing them to Feed Me events Yeah. To to get it in the hands [00:25:41] S1: of Is Byline a good example of that? [00:25:43] S4: Byline, I would consider a magazine. Okay. [00:25:45] S1: Magazine. Not a zine. [00:25:47] S4: But, there's, like, the Carroll Gardens [00:25:50] S2: Mhmm. [00:25:50] S4: Chronicle and Cool. The Park Slope Gazette. [00:25:53] S1: I like that. [00:25:53] S4: Yeah. It's cute. [00:25:54] S1: That's fun. [00:25:54] S2: Yeah. [00:25:55] S1: Okay. So now that we're... Have Halloween behind us, are you fully in the sprint, the road to Christmas? [00:26:00] S4: Yes. I actually said [00:26:01] S1: earlier around... Today. [00:26:03] S0: The... So you [00:26:03] S4: know how New York Magazine does the the the approval matrix in [00:26:07] S1: the past? Yes. [00:26:08] S4: They said that stores that are already playing Christmas music are despicable and low brow. What? What? I think it must have been a mistake. [00:26:17] S1: Because I think it's [00:26:18] S4: this print. They should brilliant. [00:26:20] S1: Yeah. They should issue a fraction. [00:26:22] S2: Do not Do show do not show them. [00:26:24] S4: My favorite bar, Pete's Tavern, put up Christmas lights yesterday. [00:26:27] S1: That's great. [00:26:28] S4: Yeah. Yeah. The next question is back
00:26:28 · Emily Sundberg, Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[00:26:28] S4: Yeah. Yeah. The next question is back [00:26:30] S2: at this point in q four is, like, how do you honor and respect Thanksgiving while properly giving Christmas attention and giving it enough time to bake. Right? [00:26:39] S4: Sure. I think they can share decorations and spirit. [00:26:42] S1: Yeah. I see Thanksgiving more as, like, a speed bump in the road. [00:26:45] S4: Yeah. [00:26:46] S1: It's like Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. You get one day, celebrate Thanksgiving, back to Christmas. [00:26:51] S4: Is part of the Christmas season. [00:26:52] S1: Back to Christmas. [00:26:53] S2: Yeah. That's good It is a good reason. [00:26:54] S1: It's easy to blend in. [00:26:55] S2: Yeah. Like the pregame. [00:26:57] S4: For sure. Yeah. Exactly. [00:26:59] S1: Oh, well. Reflect. So Yeah. You're you're you're one of the most classic overnight successes. Correct? [00:27:05] S4: Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:06] S2: Four years. [00:27:07] S1: Yeah. You have four years now [00:27:08] S2: Industry in the plant. [00:27:10] S1: Yeah. How is it going? What... Take take us back through some of the early days. [00:27:15] S4: Oh, gosh. Year One of Feed Me. I started it at my desk at Meta, famously Yeah. Hudson Yards office. [00:27:21] S1: Oh, sort of full circle moment with the Mark Zuckerberg interview. [00:27:23] S4: Sort of. There you go. Yeah. Totally. [00:27:26] S1: And I gotta do, like, take this super shove it. [00:27:29] S4: And then, [00:27:29] S2: like, now you gotta talk to super positive response. Right? [00:27:32] S4: Yeah. That was so fun. We we were together in Cannes
00:27:32 · Emily Sundberg, Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[00:27:32] S4: Yeah. That was so fun. We we were together in Cannes [00:27:34] S2: when that was [00:27:35] S4: real blast. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's... I... When I started writing on Substack, I didn't ever expect that it would be a full time job or even something where I started hiring people and had, like, a built out company... Media company, and now I'm getting photos of people running the marathon with a Feed Me hat or people who are on... In an airport in London, like, who see the Feed Me hoodie. It's a really good feeling. And on top of that, on top of, like, I feel like we all embrace sort of fun as part of this job. When you start a business that is kind of a little piece of culture, it also sort of cracks open the world for you, and you get so many interesting experiences. And you meet so many cool people, and you get access to secret rooms and secret gardens. And, like, I just... If it all was over tomorrow, I'd be so happy. Like, it's been such a fun ride. [00:28:31] S1: That's great. [00:28:32] S4: I'm so happy I started when I did and that I've been able to [00:28:35] S1: Yeah. [00:28:35] S4: Play around for over the last years. [00:28:37] S1: The latest growth initiative? Is that the job board, or is there other stuff going on? [00:28:41] S4: Job board isn't really a growth initiative. It's just, a fun thing to build. Sure. We started a podcast last year called Expense Account. [00:28:48] S1: I remember Joe Weisenthal was one of the first guests. Fantastic episode. [00:28:51] S4: Overlaps. Go [00:28:52] S1: listen to it if [00:28:53] S2: you wanna know if you
00:28:53 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Emily Sundberg, Joe Weisenthal
[00:28:53] S2: you wanna know if you [00:28:53] S1: want more Joe. [00:28:54] S4: I think I was... Last time I was here, we were discussing the launch. Yeah. Since then, we signed a production deal with Higher Ground, which is Cool. The Obama's production company. It was cool. We've doing... We've been doing a lot more events. I mean, the... Like, that movie series was one. [00:29:08] S1: Sure. Sure. [00:29:09] S4: We're throwing a pie contest this month with Walmart. [00:29:12] S1: Okay. [00:29:12] S4: It'll be a blast. We have a big poker game next week. [00:29:15] S2: Pie [00:29:15] S4: contest. Contest. Yeah. Yeah. High contest. Yeah. You wanna dupe dupe? [00:29:19] S0: I feel [00:29:19] S1: like tree lighting ceremony. We would... [00:29:20] S4: We could do that. Yeah. [00:29:23] S1: Tree lighting ceremony. They do one here at the New York Stock Exchange. [00:29:25] S4: They do. Brought Villa [00:29:26] S1: Roach one. So... Yeah. I I think it's... You're you're in the major leagues here in New York in terms of tree lighting. You're going up against some of the most elite tree lighting ceremonies. But if you can play in this league, you can play anywhere, really.
00:29:26 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Emily Sundberg
[00:29:26] S1: Roach one. So... Yeah. I I think it's... You're you're in the major leagues here in New York in terms of tree lighting. You're going up against some of the most elite tree lighting ceremonies. But if you can play in this league, you can play anywhere, really. [00:29:39] S2: And you can play spot. You felt... How have you tried to balance covering AI? Because something that's... AI has become so unavoidable that every single media company, podcast, newsletter, etcetera, is now... Is effectively like an AI. Whether they they want to or not, it feels like Stories... There's just like Yeah. Yeah. No matter what the the category of podcasts it's in Yeah. Whether it's, like, politics or health [00:30:02] S1: movie podcast, and then you're like, well, we gotta talk about how AI will affect movies, or you could be a health podcast. [00:30:07] S4: Yeah. I mean, specifically, in [00:30:09] S2: some way, like, feels like it feels like, in some ways, like, TBPN emerged at a time when every tech show was focused on politics. Not every, but, like, a lot of them were focused on politics. Sure. And by not focusing on politics, we created, like... People, like, were, like... It was refreshing to be able. Sure. Sure. And so it feels like there's almost, like, an opportunity right now to have, like, a business and culture thing that's just, like, yeah, we're just not gonna talk about that. There's plenty of other...