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...
00:30:09 · Jordi Hays, Emily Sundberg, John Coogan
[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... [00:30:37] S4: Yeah. I mean, it would be impossible to write about culture and business without touching upon AI. I would say it's not like a a a beat of ours that I'm, like, consistently keeping keeping my readers up. But, like, I don't think anybody's reading Feed Me to I hear responsibility. Latest of what's happening in AI. But whether you're writing about, you know, literary magazines or hiring or art or or even, like, food ordering systems, like Sure. It does creep into everything. I mean [00:31:08] S1: Yeah. [00:31:08] S4: You walk around New York and you see the ridiculous bodega signs that are AI generated photo of, like, a sandwich. Like, it it is part of the city, and I do write about it [00:31:19] S1: Yeah. [00:31:19] S4: Probably every day. But I wouldn't say it's something that I'm, like, consistently going deep on. [00:31:24] S2: Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:25] S1: Have you used artificial intelligence to book a restaurant reservation?