Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:19:40 · Mikey Shulman
[00:19:40] S0: This is definitely a new era. It is an exciting one. It is a very dynamic one. Things change very quickly. I think this is an incredible story of Nikki, who is the the lady behind Xania Monet, who is an incredible poet, who has now found a new way to share her work with the world by turning her amazing poetry into songs that really touch people in a significant way, and you see that in in how popular her music has become. But in some sense, it's not all that new. And if you rewind, let's say, thirty years and digital production of music started to come out. And so before, you could only make music in a studio on a giant console, and it was really hard and cost a lot of money. And then a lot of money. Yeah. And now you can make music on your laptop. And everybody said, this isn't real music. And everybody said, like, what's going on here? And then you start to discover 13 year olds making amazing music in their bedrooms, and new genres of music like EDM get invented or created, whatever you wanna say. New stars get found who are... Would never have been found before because they were too young or they were in their parents' basements or whatever it was. Right? Like, they weren't in the mainstream. And I think this is very similar. New people have access to making music. New types of music will get made. New genres will get created. You will find music that you would never have otherwise found before, and that's actually amazing for the entire ecosystem. And then I think the thing that's important is that we keep an open mind here because if you rewind thirty years ago when EDM started to to be a thing or when electronic music and electronic production started to be a thing, at the time everybody said, okay. Okay. Fine. Maybe it's music. But who in their right mind is gonna go to a concert just to see someone click play on their laptop? Like, that sounds really stupid. And fast forward to today, the biggest concerts in the world are these giant electronic music festivals where you're more or less watching somebody click play on their laptop. And I I think we have to be, like, a little bit open minded and humble about, like, what can become here because it's, like, largely counterintuitive how all of these things play out. And just to realize that people thought it would cheapen music by being able to make it on your laptop.
00:21:53 · Mikey Shulman, Alexa von Tobel
And actually, the result is hundreds of thousands of people at a time connect with one another in real life through that music. And so the... I'm very excited for what is going to happen. I don't think I know what is gonna happen, but I'm very excited. [00:22:08] S1: Mikey, just because music is obviously something I think we all love. Right? It is it is very, very innate to to to us as a species. We we love music. It lifts us. It's emotional. It's surprising. As somebody who's music obsessed, which I would say most people on the planet probably describe themselves as being pretty music obsessed. What are some of the stories that you have seen that have just... And and I know what a sincere human you are personally. What are the stories that have sort of motivated you guys as a team? Give us some of the few... Give give us a few nuggets of things that you've just been really impressed or surprised by.
00:22:48 · Mikey Shulman
[00:22:48] S0: Yeah. Look. I wish I could open my inbox for you and just show you all of them. Some of them are, like, honestly, like, too deep and touching to talk about in public. But things like we've partnered with a charity who was already using Suno, and, basically, we're just giving them a lot of free credits now. But amazing work of connecting volunteers to make personalized songs for sick kids. Like, this is amazing, and this is something that will brighten the day of a child with a serious illness. Or tons and tons of people who are re picking up their instruments that they put down twenty years ago because they found Suno, and they were reminded how much they love to make music, and maybe they played at a really high level, and they put it down when they got to college, and now they're picking it back up. Something like that. Or somebody taking the poetry of, you know, an aging relative and turning that into a song and having their whole family connect through it. And these are incredible moments. They are what get us out of bed. They are what motivate us to keep doing what we're doing. And then again, I think in some sense, surprising. In another sense, almost obvious. Like, this is what music was... I don't want to say invented for, but this is sort of what music was invented for. It's like, it's part of every culture. It is meant to tell stories. It is meant to bring people together, and it is meant to be for everybody. And so when you factually finally put it in the hands of everybody, it's almost not surprising that there are so many surprising use cases. And, yes, it's also incredible when we find out that our favorite artists and producers are using it.
00:24:18 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:24:18] S1: Mikey, there's a thread in what you're doing, which I'm sure everyone listening to this knows well, Apple Music and Spotify, etcetera. But there's a thread of what you're doing that is, I think, some of the most interesting. There's something inherently social about what Suno is building that is different from the existing decade plus old platforms of the past of music. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing on the social side around Suno? And, you know, I remember talking to you maybe six months ago where you're like, Alexa, it's sort of an interesting thing that's morphing, which is we are a social platform, a creation platform, but also a listening platform that is a new dawn. Tell us what you're seeing on the social side.
00:25:04 · Mikey Shulman
[00:25:04] S0: Yeah. Look, I'll preface with music was invented to be social and be between people. And unfortunately, to some extent, for many people, it has largely become a non social activity. It's like, I put it on in my ears, I put my phone back in my pocket, and I don't even know who I'm listening to, and it kind of removes the human connection from it. We see a lot of different social dynamics. So they're like, I make a song just for you. Maybe it's actually a really touching song, and you and I will both listen to it, you know, hundreds of times. But maybe it's actually kind of a a song with some amount of levity meant to just brighten your day, you're going to listen to it once, and then never listen to it again. The same way there's probably pictures in your phone that you've looked that you've looked at once and haven't looked at again until Apple reminds you to go look at them. There's lots of group dynamics of songs for particular groups, whether that is I'm going to a wedding and everybody in the wedding is going to know the song, but it could be like a group of old friends and somebody, you know, takes one of the Apple photo reels and and puts a song to it and makes it more touching. But then I think the crazy thing is there's a really robust remix ecosystem on our platform. And, like, a quarter of the songs made on platform are actually remixes of other songs on platform. And this is what kind of what music was invented for. It's like it's like we're going to adapt. We're going to take a piece of music, and we're going to change it in some way and evolve it, and not have it be static. And you see platforms like SoundCloud got really, really big five years ago with that whole ecosystem. And when you give that power to literally everybody, and everybody has taste in music even if they don't currently have mastered, you know, production software like Ableton. Everybody has taste. And when you give everybody the ability to do that, everybody likes to do it. And so I almost see remixing as a gateway drug into making your own music. It's like, I have this thing to start with. I really like the song. I'm going to make it my own. I really like it how I've made my own. I'm gonna take the next step, and I'm gonna start to make my own music. So it's... Yeah. It's it's it's... The social dynamics are really powerful.
00:27:15 · Mikey Shulman, Alexa von Tobel
And then I think the last thing I would say there is, in life, just regardless of music, just in everything, the most valuable interactions we have are with other people. And so, again, it should not be surprising that the best types of musical interactions you have are with other people. [00:27:31] S1: That's really well said. By the way, I'm really excited to hear that the gateway drug into music creation is is is remixes. Mikey, talk a little bit about the business model of Suno. I I mean, in so many ways, there's such a clear business model. In other ways, you're literally inventing something in a totally new type of platform. This isn't just Spotify but new. You know, there really is a different dynamic that's happening here. How do you think about the business model and how it could evolve? [00:27:58] S0: I think about this a lot. I think we have no immediate plans to change our business model, which today is... There's a free tier and there's a subscription tier. [00:28:06] S1: And what are those costs, Mikey, just so that everybody knows?