00:51:20 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:51:20] S0: you think we are in this sort of arc of? [00:51:22] S1: No, I mean I think it feels very evident to me that that's just what the future of, I don't know, all media is. Like, I mean we're seeing more and more companies adopt, like mature, large companies adopt strategies that look like that because they're finding that their performance channels just like don't work, and they need some way to reach people and to talk to people. So this is very clearly like, we've looked at any number of b to b companies doing like some version of this, and we're gonna look at a lot more over time. I'm really bullish on the idea. We'll at healthcare companies. I'm really bullish on the idea that we're gonna find these kinds of like creator led opportunities horizontally, not merely within like, you know, consumer discretionary categories. Yeah, running a newsletter can definitely feel like running a marketing channel [00:52:14] S0: without I a mean, thankfully our events business [00:52:17] S1: You have a, yes. [00:52:18] S0: Has delivered on like, Oh, that's something that, people just don't love paying for content. Know, obviously, Sam is married to Jessica Lessin, who I work for, and really believes in subscription. Even she has expanded the business beyond just subscription. But I just think, as much as I love our subscribers and think it's a cornerstone of newcomer's business And
00:52:18 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:52:18] S0: Has delivered on like, Oh, that's something that, people just don't love paying for content. Know, obviously, Sam is married to Jessica Lessin, who I work for, and really believes in subscription. Even she has expanded the business beyond just subscription. But I just think, as much as I love our subscribers and think it's a cornerstone of newcomer's business And [00:52:40] S1: yet you never say thank you to I'd be curious to go back. Like where do I, you know, where am I? What number subscriber, couldn't be, I must be a triple digit subscriber. I might even be a double digit subscriber. [00:52:54] S0: Oh, I can try to check. Paid, I bet. I mean, I just think people don't like paying for media. They have this feeling that quality content will just get to them. And so, I think this idea that you use media as a way to with build a people then sell them something they're more inclined to pay for makes a lot of sense. Do think I should get in the chocolate bar business? [00:53:20] S1: The Well, certainty, I think it's an interesting exercise that genuinely, like, sometime when Megan's in New York or you're in The Bay, I think you guys should get up on the whiteboard together and be like, I'm 100% serious. I think you guys should get up on the whiteboard together, and like, what are the kinds of products and opportunities? Like, you know, I think what you've done in conferences, for example, is like fairly directly extensible off of the media, off of, like, it's still within It's the media media still part
00:53:20 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:53:20] S1: The Well, certainty, I think it's an interesting exercise that genuinely, like, sometime when Megan's in New York or you're in The Bay, I think you guys should get up on the whiteboard together and be like, I'm 100% serious. I think you guys should get up on the whiteboard together, and like, what are the kinds of products and opportunities? Like, you know, I think what you've done in conferences, for example, is like fairly directly extensible off of the media, off of, like, it's still within It's the media media still part [00:53:47] S0: I didn't invent the idea that you pair a newsletter with media, with events. [00:53:53] S1: I would bet that if we sat here for five minutes, we could come up with like a list of 25 things, and some of them would probably require capital for you to do. You know, like, it's crazy to me that you don't have a headhunting business. [00:54:05] S0: It's unbelievable. Oh yeah, they're business is similar to where they do [00:54:09] S1: Yes, it's you could make so much money if you hired a recruiter to work within the Newcomer brand. And like, that's not hugely capital intensive, because that's like paying a salary, and they're probably largely commission based, so you don't really need it upfront. But if you then told me like, you know, there's this product I really like, Aaron Harris used to be a partner at Y Combinator. Right. He now, you've probably interviewed him or met him or something. [00:54:38] S0: Yeah, I've talked to him.
00:54:38 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:54:38] S0: Yeah, I've talked to him. [00:54:40] S1: You know, he now has this product called like the Venture Codex, which I use. It's like a really cool like, hey, like who should my company raise from? It's sort of in the overall category of like a pitch book or something. But like But [00:54:51] S0: he doesn't monetise that. He monetises like an investment banker for fundraising. [00:54:56] S1: Correct. But my point is like if you told me that you were gonna build some, if you told me like you were gonna build a product like that, that's a really interesting product that you have good distribution for. [00:55:06] S0: I've thought about building a data product, but then it's not my expertise. Honestly, my biggest challenge for a lot of these ideas is just like getting a coder excited about, I'm looking for a coder. Know, it's always finding the right- [00:55:20] S1: Haven't you heard? We're all coders now? [00:55:22] S0: I know. I've tried, I have vibe codes, you know. I just feel like [00:55:26] S1: challenge it's isn't shipping something, working it's for getting it from 70% to 90% and then maintaining it. That's not [00:55:32] S0: And then my time is not well spent there. Yeah. You know, it's like I have a lot, a long list of
00:55:32 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:55:32] S0: And then my time is not well spent there. Yeah. You know, it's like I have a lot, a long list of [00:55:36] S1: things that And so by the way, I that would be on the list of things where it's like, well, as like a creator CEO, my time is too constrained. I just like, don't really have the budget for this. It's kind of like highly exploratory and it's risky. There's maybe a lot of upside to it, but it's hard for me to underwrite with like, you know, a relatively fixed pool today. I could just basically pay the person out of my own pocket. That's the case where we come in with the creator fund and say like, hey, show us those 10 experiments that you wanna run, and we'll give you the money to run all of them, and like something will work as long as we're like disciplined about choosing and prioritising those experiments, and we find people who are entrepreneurial and ambitious and aspirational enough to actually do them and have the execution ability to pursue them doggedly, that's the business. [00:56:24] S0: And have you stuck to this idea that your investment really needs to be in the person rather than the company? Or you're just worried people will run away from the company, or why?
00:56:24 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:56:24] S0: And have you stuck to this idea that your investment really needs to be in the person rather than the company? Or you're just worried people will run away from the company, or why? [00:56:34] S1: Well, it's because the whole sort of thesis undergirding it is that the distribution is what differentiates it, and you know, like we want to bet on a person to run all of those experiments. I mean MrBeast is a good example of like where this kind of doesn't work, where like Beastburgers didn't work. Beastburgers, like if you would have invested in Beastburgers you would have lost all your money, even though you totally made the right, you know like, this by the way goes back to like weird take on important story. You're like, hey I think this influencer has like a huge amount of reach, gonna like build this really awesome thing. You'd be completely right on a directional basis, and completely wrong about the vector of approach. [00:57:13] S0: Like, he doesn't Keep them all within the same conversation. He might not, [00:57:17] S1: He he's the risk I now does, there's BeastCo. [00:57:21] S0: He run like Jeffrey Hausenbold from Softbank to be a top executive. [00:57:25] S1: If you say so. Yeah. [00:57:28] S0: Chamath, I think, is a big investment. [00:57:30] S1: I would believe, I mean look, we have our issues with MrBeast specifically, like we're more focused on kind of like topic. [00:57:36] S0: Wait, you have your issues or?