Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:28:06 · Alexa von Tobel, Mikey Shulman
[00:28:06] S1: And what are those costs, Mikey, just so that everybody knows? [00:28:09] S0: So the free tier is free, and the subscription tiers are either $10 a month or $30 a month. And I think that our product evolves so quickly. My my personal bias here is we should not be evolving the business model while the product evolves so quickly. But I think a lot about this with music more generally, that the business model has always been really impacted by the format of recorded music, and technology is the thing that actually most impacts the format of recorded music. And so, you know, thirty years ago, the recorded music format was like a physical good with your music on it, like a CD or a vinyl or a cassette. And you had to go and you had to buy that, and that's one business model. And today, the format is like, I feel like all of the world's music lives on my phone, and that's digital streaming. And that is a a huge unlock for consumers, but a different business model. And the format in the future will be different. It won't just be streaming lots of music, some of which was made by AI. It will be music that is more interactive. It will be music that you play with. And it is my very strong suspicion that when you have a new format, a new business model will have to pop up around it. And so I don't know what it is. I'm, like, totally dodging the question in that sense, but I do know that it won't be what it is today.
00:29:27 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:29:27] S1: That's well said. And I mean, I could imagine that you could continue to expand tiers where it's real professional creation tools. There's a lot of places this can go, and I agree with you right now. You're just honestly harnessing an unprecedented consumer growth that very few point 01% of businesses even get a chance to see. And so just following this where the world takes you, I think is the right answer. Wanted to quickly just ask, you're you're building a company at a time where the broader music industry is rethinking what creativity looks like. And in so many ways, Mikey, you're like in the perch of watching what creativity is and how we define it. And and to your point, you know, you've got... I was at Carnegie Hall last week with my son. You've got, you know, a concept of one, what music is that is old and classic and extremely high brow. And in some ways, you are reshaping the snow globe. Right? You're shaking it, and we're kind of reimagining what this looks like. How do you think Suno is currently reshaping music for the broader industry? What are you seeing there?
00:30:46 · Mikey Shulman
[00:30:46] S0: You know, it's kind of amazing to see that the same platform and tools get used by everyday people who are finding music making as enjoyable for the first time in their lives, all the way up to the top producers in the world using it in bits and pieces in their everyday workflow. And the thing that I find really inspiring there is there's there's an amount of, like, let's say, ambition and admiration and joy that I can get knowing that I'm using the same tools as a top professional. And I think that there are other brands that have this, and I think that it is a huge boost for them and also just a huge, like, incredible feeling for all of the people who use that brand. So as an example, Wilson tennis rackets. I like... I'm an amateur tennis player, and I enjoy it. And there's something that's amazing knowing that I'm using the same equipment as Roger Federer even though there are no illusions here that I'm ever going to play at that level. Or Nike running shoes that I can run-in the same shoes as who's ever gonna win the Boston Marathon this year. There are no illusions that I'm ever gonna run that fast. And I think that somehow that is missing from music that the way a professional interacts with music today is very different from how, you know, ordinary people interact with music. And actually having that happen on the same platform is amazing. And I think that, yeah, that actually probably is disruptive, but it's also probably really cool because it is a way for fans and artists to interact with one another through music. And that is something that is, like, completely absent today. Fans and artists really only get... Ever get to interact with... Through music at a concert, which is, like, kind of a rare thing. Most people will go to zero or one concerts a year. But if you could do that every day, interact with your favorite artist through music because you're both using the same platform, I think that is an incredible unlock for the entire industry.
00:32:50 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:32:50] S1: Mikey, I know there's a ton of legal dynamic that you have to manage, and you probably can't even talk about a bunch of that. But I would love just for you to share what you can on how boundaries around creation are being reshaped and maybe anything that you see.
00:33:09 · Mikey Shulman
[00:33:09] S0: We see a lot more people creating. I think that is like the first order thing. And then we see a lot more music getting made, and that is the next effect. And I think that a lot of the industry is not necessarily set up for how much music will get made in the future. Forget what happens today, and forget just Suno. You know, like, there are going to be lots of other companies that have these capabilities. And I think about this because the same thing happened with photography. You know, everybody now walks around with a camera in their pocket, and there's just way more images than there used to be. And that reshapes the place that imagery has in the world, makes it bigger. That reshapes how many people can make their livelihoods through imagery. It makes that bigger. But it changes things. And I think that people need to think a little bit harder about what what will happen when music is much more ubiquitous than it is today. I think that, you know, I'll I'll say it like this. I'm a I'm a big believer that most technologies are neutral, and it is how you use them, and that there is a really good future of music to build. But if we just sit here and say, like, well, we know music and AI is coming, and we know much more music is coming, and we can just sit back and relax and watch that happen, then it won't happen or it won't happen in the right way. And so what I tell people here is, like, we we have an incredibly lucky and privileged position to be at the forefront of shaping the future of music and AI, and we should not take that for granted, and we should be a little bit intimidated by that, but we should also really believe in human agency and our ability to shape it in the way that we want it to happen. And I think that actually that did not exactly happen for images. And I think it was like a little bit more haphazard. And so it actually makes me really optimistic about what the future of music can be if we do things right.
00:35:13 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:35:13] S1: Mikey, I wanna interject here, which is from where you sit today, if you dream five, ten years out, give us a sense of some of the things that you see that could be reimagined because of Suno? What do you see that's possible that maybe ordinary people listening don't, you know, don't fully appreciate?