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It's getting ugly. Trish Regan has more on the tough reality facing ABC News as Disney is expected to take a page out of Comcast NBC's book and sell off the network. Meanwhile, new developments on the Trump cabinet front: Matt Gaetz is officially out. What about Hegseth? It all comes as media bosses try to take a more neutral tone towards the next administration. Join Trish Regan for more! LIVE. JOIN TRISH REGAN LIVE!! HERE ON YOUTUBE: https://Youtube.com/TrishReganChannel Support the show: https://trishregan.shop/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
SERIES 2 EPISODE 149: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) We have a curious addition to the NBC/Ronna McDaniel timeline: Trump and the RNC fire Ronna McDaniel. 2. NBC hires Ronna McDaniel. 3. NBC fires Ronna McDaniel. 4. Trump and the RNC make a martyr OUT of Ronna McDaniel. 5. RNC threatens NBC over Ronna McDaniel. Per Politico the RNC is “weighing whether to restrict NBC's access to this summer's convention…'We are taking a hard look at what this means for NBC's participation at the convention,” says a spokesperson. OK how would limiting NBC's access to the R-N-C bullshit festival HURT NBC News? What Republicans watch NBC News? They checked out 30 years ago! So why would NBC worry? Maybe because of something Judd Legum dug up at his marvelous site "Popular Information." Of all the major corporations that vowed after January 6 to never donate to election deniers again, you know which true broadcasting company has breached its promise and donated the MOST to election deniers? Comcast/NBC. $787,500. Coincidence - no doubt. Could there be any connection between this and the fact that nobody has made headlines out of the amazing poll shift: Trump and Trump-Leaning Undecideds: 50. Biden and BIDEN-Leaning Undecideds: 50. And that's in a poll so skewed towards the Republicans (the Harvard-Harris poll) that a Harvard school paper columnist wrote about it: “Harvard Should Break Up With The Harris Poll” because the university is quote “lending its name to a methodologically flawed poll that often promotes a right-wing political agenda.” The 8% undecided lean 61% Biden including 58% of independent undecideds and 41% of Republican undecideds and that is, after all, EXACTLY what the Biden internal metrics told the president's campaign months ago. Once Trump actually became the GOP nominee the fence-sitters would have their "oh shit" moment and break to Biden. Plus, in the Bloomberg swing states poll that America erupted over when Trump led in seven states, Biden has moved ahead in one, tied in two others, and has improved in three more. Funny that these poll results aren't as big deal as the pro-thump ones were. B-Block (22:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: So when they call Baltimore's mayor "The DEI Mayor" what do you think THAT'S a euphemism for? And after Larry David eviscerates Trump so Charlie Kirk has to attack Larry David and say he's a "typical kind of New York Woody Allen-type" what do you think THAT'S a euphemism for? And when a Trump-endorsed Michigan state legislator sees people getting off a plane and onto a bus with a police escort, what do you think he assumes they are? "Illegal invaders," says the guy with no neck. The correct answer is: one of the college basketball teams competing in the NCAA Sweet 16. The hatred and racism and sense of impunity with which the bigots operate was unleashed by Trump, and to stop it we have to stop him. C-Block (34:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A break from this Week of Stupid to the simpler life of a century ago at Ohio State University, when a kid with one eye is asked to draw what he sees when he looks through a microscope. "University Days."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join Yanni as he chats with Nick Pinks, CEO and founder of Covatic, the Sports Loft member company that's revolutionising advertising through its private-by-design ad-tech. First up, the pair discuss its applications for sports, allowing Nick to explain how Covatic empowers teams and rights-holders to foster stronger connections with their audiences through targeted content distribution. The discussion then moves onto the impressive strides clients like Bauer Media Group and Comcast NBC are making by building Covatic into their advertising strategies. Nick opens up about what it's been like to work with such giants of media, and the feedback they've received along the way. Finally, on the back of its recent Series A, the pair also discuss Covatic's growth strategy, Nick's personal development as a founder, his approach to building up the team, and what the future holds for the business.
Christopher Coyle is the Founder and CEO of TAO (Tethra Advisors & Officers). TAO is an Emerging Tech, Circular Economy & Data/Analytics Consultancy which Chris founded in 2020. Christopher is an accomplished Executive with over 20 years of diverse cross-functional experience spanning multiple industries.Chris currently is a consultant/ advisor/ mentor for organizations such as Newchip Accelerator — which is the #1 online accelerator program with a global reach; Spectronn — where he handles Global Strategy, Business Development & Partnerships, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography where Chris serves a business mentor role. In addition to these, Mr. Coyle actively manages a number of roles such as — Blue Tech/Blue Economy Expert and Accelerator Program Judge at MassChallenge, Strategic Advisory Council at Cape Fear Ocean Labs, Business Consultant- Industry, Defense, Government Agencies at SIDUS Solutions, LLC, Partner Agent at Nonvoice Agency, and Consultant-Business Development/Strategic Partnerships at Exocetus Autonomous System.Chris is a member of both the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science (UNDOS) Artic Ocean Action Plan Group and the US National Delegation to the UN's Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (NASEM).He was requested to give testimony on May 8, 2018, in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Congressional House Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure regarding the Coast Guard's use of blue technology to increase efficiency, performance, duration, and cost, which President Trump signed into law on October 11, 2018.Chris has a wealth of experience in licensing intellectual property (IP) and content for use on a variety of media platforms supported by different business models around the world (Comcast NBC, Universal Music, Sony, Warner Bros., Walt Disney/ESPN, Viacom/CBS, Verizon, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Telefonica, Telcel). His clientele includes search engines, television/cable operators, mobile carriers, and social media platforms. He takes great pride in constantly pushing himself to learn about cutting-edge technologies and altering user behavior.Christopher has served in various executive management roles for 18 years, exceeding revenue targets and fostering growth through business development, strategic alliances, and public offerings of two companies (Mobile Streams on AIM and MCY Music World on NASDAQ), as well as the sale of Muze to Macrovision (acquired by TIVO and then ROVI).Support the show
In this conversation, we chat with David Beiner, Co-Founder and CEO of Hume – a web3 entertainment company pioneering music in the metaverse. David's background is in media strategy working with companies like Comcast/NBC and MGM. In 2017 he went down the Ethereum rabbit hole and never looked back. Hume's community-building approach blends music, digital identity, and storytelling to develop virtual artists, or metastars. Hume goes beyond just the music and production of their virtual artist like ‘angelbaby' — originally from the popular NFT collection FLUF WORLD— they thoroughly craft a rich backstory that embodies and humanizes their Metastars.
In this premiere episode of the 2000 Percent Raise, host and venture capitalist John Cerasani gives us an inside look at his latest investment in MoneyLine, interviewing both the CEO of the company and a major investor well known in the NFL. To begin, guest Cole Warner, CEO and Co-Founder, sheds light on how MoneyLine is different from other sports gambling companies, including the top criteria venture capitalists and early stage investors considered in choosing to invest in his business. Then, Roddy White, a former NFL All-Pro wide receiver who is being considered for the Hall of Fame, shares how he first got involved in fantasy football, and why he chose to invest in MoneyLine. Both guests, along with John, enlighten us about sports gambling trends in venture capital, and the future of the industry. Another major investor seeing the huge potential for growth in MoneyLine is Austin Ekeler of the Los Angeles Chargers. MoneyLine has distinguished itself from some of the big name players, like DraftKings and FanDuel, by targeting states not yet legalized with sports betting. Strategically,, even before sports betting became legalized in some areas, MoneyLine was transitioning from a free-to-play model to also being a real money game based on fantasy sports laws that allowed for two players from two or more separate teams. Topics covered in this interview include:—John's reasons for providing venture capital to MoneyLine, including the company's ability to be “a great funnel” into Sportsbooks, and also to train and engage novice gamblers. He also shares what qualities he saw in Cole as a successful entrepreneur. –Roddy reveals that MoneyLine enables an ease of entry, bringing common fun by allowing people to come out and play and “get their feet wet,” and “just feel comfortable” with the players. Later, they can invest if/when they want. A few insights venture capitalists and early stage investors looked for in evaluating a company like MoneyLine: The Actual Product The Customer Base And Location Total Lifetime Of A Customer The Cost To Acquire A Customer The Ability To Scale Up –Sports gambling companies are valued differently than other businesses, like market research firms, for example. One company was acquired for $80 to $90 million with 80,000 total customers. Another company was bought for $65 million with 15,000 total depositing players. MoneyLine is in the fixed-odds fantasy space, where customer acquisition numbers can be much lower, according to Cole, making for a great business model. –Football stories from Roddy White and John are shared, with fun insights like: Roddy's friendship with Julio Jones, who is now a wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, catching passes from Tom Brady. “When Tom Brady plays cards, he stacks the deck. He has all the aces, he has all the faces,” Roddy chuckles. Drew Henson, a former Major League Baseball third baseman and NFL quarterback, introduced Roddy to fantasy football, where the two later hosted a related podcast. –Discussions on getting money to college football players in fair and equitable ways, and both John's and Roddy's insights from their college days trying to earn a living while playing football (John for Notre Dame and Roddy for University of Alabama at Birmingham). Listen in to find out Roddy White's favorite movie, a question John will be asking each guest. Additional Notes: The legalization of sports betting in some states, after the Supreme Court in 2018 ended federal bans on its expansion, is creating a potential multi-billion industry, according to this article in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-opinion-online-sports-betting-future-of-american-gambling/ ABOUT COLE WARNER Cole is co-founder and CEO of MoneyLine, “the minor leagues of the sports gambling industry,” backed by Comcast & NBC. MoneyLine is a fixed-odds fantasy sports gaming operator with more than 200,000 players. Cole started the company with Jason Schubert, CTO, as a side job after graduating from Louisiana State University, majoring in sports marketing. Follow Cole: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneylineapp/?hl=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/moneylineapp?lang=en Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneylineapp/?viewAsMember=true ABOUT RODDY WHITE: Roddy is a former NFL All-Pro wide receiver with the Atlanta Falcons. He finished his career as the franchise's leader in receiving yards and catches, and has been nominated to the Hall of Fame. Follow Roddy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roddywhite8410/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/roddywhitetv Career Highlights: https://www.facebook.com/NFLThrowback/videos/roddy-white-career-highlights/179316973668345 ABOUT JOHN CERASANI: John is a highly successful serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author, who “walks the talk” in the financial world. At age 27, he left his corporate job to give himself what he now calls a “2000 percent raise” by becoming self-employed. Hence, he named his podcast accordingly. Starting at his kitchen table, John grew an insurance company, in less than a decade, into a business he later sold for tens of millions of dollars. By putting himself on top of “the Org Chart,” he was able to not only reap the benefits of increased pay, but he also built equity for himself, instead of for others for whom he worked. He now loves sharing his lessons learned along the way with the masses to help listeners elevate their game and grow from his business insights, private investment tips and life advice related to finances. The 2000 Percent Raise podcast was created in response to demand from his large social media following on Instagram and TikTok that wanted more of his expertise. Some of those social media posts include 60-second clips, ranging from telling his audience the proper way to evaluate a rental property, to insights on how he became part of the investment group that bought the Newport Beach Marriott — which they then reimagined as The Vea. Based out of Chicago and Los Angeles, John will continually bring many high-profile guests on his podcast, including: athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and industry insiders. John's no-nonsense approach to sharing is designed to entertain and educate at the same time. He encourages people to join his mailing list at https://2000percentraise.com Follow John: IG: https://www.instagram.com/johncerasani TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@johncerasani More 2000 Percent Raise Episodes and Content: https://linktr.ee/2000percentraise Produced by: https://socialchameleon.us
Hume is a Web3 label focused on developing virtual artists, what we call metastars. Hume has developed the first Web3 metastar Angelbaby. Hume is backed by notable investors including gmoney, Collab Currency, Delphi Digital, Sfermion, Distributed Global and others. Jay Stolar is the Co-Founder and Chief Artist Officer at Hume. He is a songwriter and producer who has written for Aloe Blac, Selena Gomez, G-Eazy, Demi Lovato and others. He has also written music for Epic Games, Riot Games, the NFL and the Olympics amongst others. David Beiner is the Co-Founder and CEO at Hume. His background is in media strategy working with companies like Comcast/NBC and MGM. In 2017 he went down the Ethereum rabbit hole and never looked backed.
Today we have the founders David and Jay of Hume, a web3 label and entertainment company born in the metaverse. With backgrounds in producing for Selena Gomez and crafting media and product strategy for brands like the NFL and Comcast/NBC, they dove into web3 with the intent to reshape what it means to be an artist, as well as a fan, in entertainment. Now, they are here to discuss Hume's Genesis NFT along with new music from one of their metastars, Angelbaby. *Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Gmoney is an investor and advisor for Hume.* Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 2:17 - Genesis of Hume 9:40 - First step toward metastars concept 15:52 - The realities of the music industry 24:13 - How Hume sets out to disrupt entertainment 29:52 - Talent pipeline 32:24 - Inspiration/strategy behind Angelbaby 41:14 - Rise of Angelbaby 44:11 - Process of making new Angelbaby music 54:17 - Philosophy around NFT utility 58:43 - Hume Genesis NFT 1:02:00 - Alpha on more Genesis NFTs 1:05:10 - Fave NFT
Andrew Marchand and John Ourand are joined by Men in Blazers co-host Roger Bennett. The three go over the finer points of Comcast/NBC's $2.76B deal with the Premier League and what it means for U.S. soccer. Bennett provides his usual comedic touch, while also talking about the emotions of going to see his parents this Thanksgiving for the first time in two years. The guys also discuss other news: NBC Sports' Thursday Night booth with Drew Brees taking the analyst role on the Thanksgiving broadcast, Al Michaels' potentially headed to Amazon, and a new dark horse in the NFL Sunday Ticket sweepstakes. They end the show with their "Calls of the Week," with Ourand staying close to home with a D.C. choice, and Marchand having Carolina on his mind. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
You may have seen him in Walgreens, Cherrios, and Chernin Shoes commercials, modeling on magazine covers or product ads. Our guest, Sherard Sharpe, now has his own TV show on Comcast NBC and a nonprofit to serve disadvantaged you. What a story to tell. Join us for another episode of My Morning Coffee where the conversation is always hot, bold, organic, and full of flavor. Start your week with the ladies of My Morning Coffee where the conversation is always hot, bold, organic, and full of flavor. Watch live on Mondays at 10am and subscribe to the Apple Podcast. This is brought to you by Sand and Shores, the Positive PR People #Leaders #Learners #ContentMatters #PositivePR #Leadership is Newsworthy! #MyMorningCoffee #Podcast #TonyaMcKenzie #GiaSneed #MB Follow Tonya on Twitter and Instagram @TonyaMcKenziePR Follow Gia on Instagram @themahoganybox For comments, guest opportunities or brand collaborations, contact info@sandandshores.com. #podcast #business #entrepreneur #solutions #trustory #giasneed #tonyamckenzie #mymorningcoffee
On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast we dive into two of the biggest stories swirling in the sport: Tom Dumoulin stepping away from pro cycling and NBC's decision to torpedo the Tour de France's U.S. cable television home, NBC Sports Network. First, we discuss the Dumoulin news with longtime Dutch cycling journalist Raymond Kerckhoffs of Wielerflits.nl. Kerckhoffs, who has covered Dumoulin for his entire pro cycling career, discusses the family tragedy that occurred just before Dumoulin announced his decision. Kerckhoffs also explains why he believes that Dumoulin's step away from cycling may be permanent. Kerckhoffs also discusses his recent interview with Dutch sprinter Dylan Groenewegen, who opened up about the terrifying crash at the Tour of Poland that sent countryman Fabio Jakobsen to the hospital for weeks. Groenewegen was banned for causing the crash, and he has new perspective on how it went down. Then, American journalist John Ourand of the SportsBusiness Journal joins the show to discuss the news that Comcast/NBC plans to shutter cable sports channel NBC Sports Network at the end of 2021. NBC Sports Network has been the U.S. television home of the Tour de France since 2012, and every year it broadcasts dozens of hours of Tour coverage to U.S. fans. Ourand explains why NBC is shuttering the channel, and whether or not the Tour will have a home for live television broadcast in the future. All that and more on this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast.
On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast we dive into two of the biggest stories swirling in the sport: Tom Dumoulin stepping away from pro cycling and NBC's decision to torpedo the Tour de France's U.S. cable television home, NBC Sports Network. First, we discuss the Dumoulin news with longtime Dutch cycling journalist Raymond Kerckhoffs of Wielerflits.nl. Kerckhoffs, who has covered Dumoulin for his entire pro cycling career, discusses the family tragedy that occurred just before Dumoulin announced his decision. Kerckhoffs also explains why he believes that Dumoulin's step away from cycling may be permanent. Kerckhoffs also discusses his recent interview with Dutch sprinter Dylan Groenewegen, who opened up about the terrifying crash at the Tour of Poland that sent countryman Fabio Jakobsen to the hospital for weeks. Groenewegen was banned for causing the crash, and he has new perspective on how it went down. Then, American journalist John Ourand of the SportsBusiness Journal joins the show to discuss the news that Comcast/NBC plans to shutter cable sports channel NBC Sports Network at the end of 2021. NBC Sports Network has been the U.S. television home of the Tour de France since 2012, and every year it broadcasts dozens of hours of Tour coverage to U.S. fans. Ourand explains why NBC is shuttering the channel, and whether or not the Tour will have a home for live television broadcast in the future. All that and more on this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast.
Senior Creative Director, Global Creative Content Marketing- Capitol Records. Former Professional Basketball player turned Emmy Award Winning Marketing and Creative Executive with over fifteen years of experience. Team Player who is results driven and known for creating and executing highly successful marketing strategies and advertising campaigns for brands such as ESPN, MARVEL, COMCAST/NBC, DISNEY/ABC, CHEVY, HBO and AMAZON. Innovator with a unique mix of strategic, creative, operational, and technical abilities. Specialties: Advertising, Brand Design + Creative Direction, Strategic Marketing, Demand Generation Programs, Customer Engagement, Partnership and Sponsorships, Business Development, Experiential and Live Events, Social + Digital Media, Team Building, and Content + Web Development. Purpose. Vision. Imagine. Inspire. Action. Relentless. Instagram: @thekk23 Host: Jamie Neale @jamienealejn Discussing rituals and habitual patterns in personal and work life. We ask questions about how to become more aware of one self and the world around us, how do we become 360 with ourselves? Host Instagram: @jamienealejn Podcast Instagram: @360_yourself Music from Electric Fruit Produced by Tom Dalby Composed by Toby Wright
I årets första avsnitt spekulerar vi vilt om vilka som tar hem Premier League-rättigheterna, vem köper NENT och vad kommer nu hända med Telia och TV4? Utöver det kommenterar vi Amazon's senaste uppköp av svenska streamingteknikbolaget, nya versionen av Apple's low latency HLS, Netflix kvartalsrapport och Comcast/NBC's nya streamingtjänst Peacock. Medverkande: Jonas Rydholm Birmé och Magnus Svensson från Eyevinn Technology Producent: Jonas Rydholm Birmé Programmet produceras av Eyevinn Technology - leverantörsoberoende specialister inom videoteknik och mediadistribution.
This week, we ‘Open The Pod Bay Doors’ with Craig Blair, cofounder and managing partner of AirTree Ventures – a startup venture fund on a mission to invest in ambitious founders who are looking to transform industry’s with software.AirTree like to be on the journey with founder from the beginning, often writing the first cheque. The first fund in 2014 was $60M which they deployed in 2 years, making 24 investments; this included early cheques in some of Australia’s startup darlings, like Prospa and Canva. The fund is tracking well with all 24 businesses still operating.The second fund increased five-times to an incredible $250M in 2016, with 15 investments made so far. The larger fund has given AirTree more operating capital to deploy into support services like a talent function to service their portfolio companies to help them build great teams for growth. This model is common in the US and UK, but in Australia it’s still a novel concept due to the limited number of funds and their size. 60% of fund two has been deployed, with new early seed investments a low as $250k and follow on investments as large as $20M in later stages.Craig believe it’s never been easier to raise Seed round ($250-500K) in Australia, raising a post-Seed and Series A is becoming more challenging Funding is drying up globally – it’s getting harder to raise Seed-Series A. Recent years saw valuation corrections for some of the global Unicorns, meaning a lot of money has left the VC space. Craig's advice for those looking to get into VC is to ideally have founder or product experience – you need the knowledge of how to build team, raise money, operate well, and ship product to be able empathise with founders. Plus you need to develop your own thesis – think deeply about what you think the world will look like in the future.Prior to AirTree Ventures, Craig managed a $40M fund, Netus, with AirTree cofounder Daniel Petre and Alison Deans. It was acquired by Fairfax in 2012.Craig is a founder at heart. He’s founded a number of businesses, raised venture financing and achieved several exits. Craig founded Travelselect (1998) a venture-backed online travel company based in the UK that successfully exited to lastminute.com in 2002, Beamly Australia (2012) a TV second screen business backed by Comcast/NBC, Sky and Network Ten, and was founding Chairman of PetCircle (2012) – Australia’s leading subscription e-commerce player for pet owners. He’s spent as long in the startup world as anyone in this space.Craig recently returned from a 5 month family trip to the South of France - where he still closed a deal in a San Francisco-based company – tres bien! During this time Craig visited Station F, an enormous startup hub in Paris which is home to over 1000 startups, with every major VC and angel having a presence. He thinks a major startup prescient in Australia is vital to the evolution and strengthening of the ecosystem. The tech trends that Craig and AirTree are excited about are niche applications of AI software – recent investments include FluroSat (agtech) Earth AI (geology) They’re also looking at new platforms like crypto, robotics, quantum computing that wills interesting businesses built on top of them over the coming years.This is a great and clarifying conversation about the economics of VC funds, advice on how to get into venture, and the future trends in technology with someone who is as passionate as ever about helping founders. Thanks to Craig for sharing his deep knowledge and insights with us.
EP130 - Comcast Ventures Daniel Gulati We caught up with Daniel Gulati (@DanielGulati) at ShopTalk 2018. Daniel is a partner at Comcast Ventures a venture capital firm that focus on early stage consumer internet investing. Comcast Ventures was an early investor in Away, MealPal, and recently invested in Zola (hear Zola founder Shan Lyn in episode 98). We spoke with Daniel about his background, his book, Passion and Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders, his portfolio companies, the direct to consumer market, competing with Amazon, and the future of retail. Episode 130 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, March 20, 2018. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature, Google Transcription: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded on Tuesday March 20th 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scott show listeners we are live here from the shop talk show in Sunny Las Vegas and excited to have on the show Daniel Galati [0:48] Daniel is a partner at Comcast Ventures and has Ed Stinson retail with BCG fab.com fashion Steak & More. His current portfolio companies include away mealpal Pancho shine and athletic welcome to the show Daniel. Daniel: [1:02] Hey guys great speaker. Jason: [1:05] So before we even get into it I know you you I had a little experience with Fab is my name bringing. Scot: [1:12] Bad. Daniel: [1:13] I had to do a double-take but I would say it was it was a roller coaster ride at 5 but that old good memories now so I think we're good. Jason: [1:23] That is the beauty of. Daniel: [1:24] Yeah that is video time. Jason: [1:26] Daniel one of the things we always like to do early in the show is get get a little flavor for sort of how you you came to this industry and. Scot: [1:35] What your tournament regulation was. Daniel: [1:37] Totally my matriculation well. Jason: [1:41] Paid extra for using big words I'm not quite the sesquipedalian. Scot: [1:46] I like it I just woke up. Daniel: [1:46] I just write that down so I guess I kind of made a winding road kind of photo ID Road into BC so started my career straight out of undergrad at a company called Boston Consulting Group B C J. Management consulting firm and really a BCG focused on actually read retail clients so like very large retailers. And you know at that time this car 2006-2007 a lot of those retailers were really thinking about just starting to think just starting to think about technology kind of customer facing. So I think historically they had to wait till. Kind of court and Court it is kind of his back office efficiency box that they had to check. And kind of with the growth of Amazon and and and some of the some of the other early e-commerce players Rita's or technology is a customer-facing vectors of strategic tools. Really starting to shift to the to the full front so a lot of my time there was cutting my teeth on filming digital strategy technology is big is Big retailers. [3:06] I figured out that I had a passion for technology for early stage of embryonic Technologies and wanted to kind of double down there. So you're off to a few the BCG few great use a BCG went to Business School. And started my first real company called fashion sacred Marketplace for independent fashion kind of vertical eyes that see. I was at a time where the fashion industry specifically was kind of opening up so. You know it's going to sound really Antiquated but this is 2009-2010 where you at Young blogger is coming to New York Fashion Week to the first time I don't like posting these like. Amazing photos of all the stuff that was going on. That's one of democratization of the industry of never really happened before I think fashion was always cuz it's closed. Closed-loop industry and so what you had was you had these new wave of consumer demand that was Unleashed in consumers were really. Trying to go beyond the traditional luxury brands. And an answer to the aperture so different types of fashion from different types of designers. Was increasing and we will try to hook into that so we we. Rent in your eyes Venture Capital group the team ran the business for a few years. [4:42] And a little company in New York called fab.com was just getting started in 2012. And at the time it was basically the fastest growing e-commerce company you're definitely here in the US. And and maybe even be on that and you're sad was really for those that don't know if that was really a. Highly curated design Centric e-commerce destination. Scot: [5:14] Dynastar was kind of a flash sale and then kind of built kind of more going to carry that stuff around. Daniel: [5:18] Did will actually start a bit actually. Scot: [5:20] Hook up yet. Daniel: [5:21] So was it what we had was kind of it was a hook-up site and then it became so to be a social media site. For the gay population that was Jason Bradford's stick and I had a big following and so have been pivoted to these comments destination. And so they did amazing numbers Haven today the number is kind of throw out there you know you're over a million dollars a month in the first 25 days and to the popping up from there. And I really built their business off of Home Goods actually like Home Goods in and. Home Furnishings in and fashion was always something that they almost needed to get into because of how big it was but just didn't have the right and DNA and and you know we're doing 20 other things that they around the core business. We ended up joining forces in January of 2012. And a whole team went over night I ran the fashion vertical essentially in fashion when did not hear from you know nothing to Fab's biggest vertical softwoods the palace Pacific rated men's and women's wear. Fab's biggest business. He was a bit of a sign of the times I think you'll group and some of the other companies had had popularized kind of online shopping fit for Apparel in a way that. [6:53] I'm didn't exist before end and also from imagine spective it was it was actually really attractive so. Had a great time there for let's roll let's pros and cons didn't want to get back into the early stage well. I'm sorry you're ended up joining Comcast Ventures entrepreneur-in-residence and I've been there since you know 2014. Scot: [7:20] Temples in New York right so they knew the Jew what did you move out to SFO. Daniel: [7:24] So I move to San Francisco in January of last year. So I spend a lot of time in this photo New York e-commerce saying which is like a pretty new singing group in 2007 and and. Scot: [7:39] It's all double click people a lot of it is. Daniel: [7:41] What a double quick people. Scot: [7:42] Double click Mafia that doesn't get talked about as much as I like the PayPal Mafia but there's an East Coast double-click Mafia that's behind most of the companies are. Daniel: [7:49] Totally light where R investors in a lot like really happy messaging in a company called Zoeller and Shannon was obviously a joke group and. Scot: [7:58] She's been on the show. Daniel: [7:59] Stream the show and and and and that. Sort of an issue Cadre that 2007 2008 cohort is kind of old gone in and done really great things in in your bed. To that it was pretty small community now it's a really big Community with all the d2c brands. The time they went that many that many folks in and he come over there and so you want to jump over the VC had the. So have those relationships and had the privilege of some pretty red boss daily deal fudge. It was not hard to kind of bear hug the the sector and come and get to know everyone and then and then you know as I start breastfeeding Comcast Ventures. Your San Francisco is West Coast is kind of too much too big to ignore and so I moved over here and and and try to call the New York from here as well. Scot: [8:57] Brickell. Jason: [8:58] Brief side note one of the founders of half.com Jason Goldberg and I share the same name and he's somewhat of a polarizing figure so I get. [9:08] I used to get like a ton of funny emails intended for him and so we would talk to him I do want all these and he's like only if they're really. Daniel: [9:17] I guess I'm not know my experience. You're reporting directly to him was I've not seen many people that kind of rally troops the way he can rally troops right like internally as well as accidentally with investors in touch I think it's no. It's not anyone who's ever met him into those environments I don't think would be shocked. So the amount of capital he's able to continually raise I think he's a great he's a great Storyteller and and a great salesperson in into the best. That's why I think there's a lot of things that Fab didn't do right I think Jason also has a lot of a lot of strength. Jason: [10:03] In fact he's just starting a new gig which is in the. [10:08] So he found that follow that and start getting that email the you also we talked a lot about Amazon being a friend of me they for sure for you because you have a book that's for sale on Amazon. Daniel: [10:21] I dare I do so passion and purpose. This is going back to 2011 when it was published. The book was really your kind of written at a time when. The economy was talking like this was post financial crisis you know recession was in the air and more importantly. So the ins the core institutions of business were being very much attacked right so I. Why do people pee in the cross the sun on the banking system I think that's a fair characterization. I think large companies are big corporations kind of the Fortune 100 with being. [11:12] Torn down in the in the media and dosage kind of General anti-business anti-capitalist kind of climate right. I really didn't drive with what we were seeing you know it business school and end with some of the folks. Scot: [11:27] The icons in under which was. Daniel: [11:28] But I come tonight which was folks that we using business and they're in their own start a company specifically to kind of be a force for good. And so the book was really a bad hey how did how can we eliminate the stories these kind of green shoes. Folks that are your whether it was in sustainability whether it was in cleantech whether it was in your more traditional kind of Industries trying to. Generate profits but not disregard their obligations to other stakeholders. And so sent you the book is about those people in those stories and trying to provide some inspiration to. The folks in an engender more trust in kind of market economies and and capitalist system is more generally. So I would say Amazon in that do not census is a friend because you know we pretty much know all about all that product for Amazon. Books fit on the Cowboys. Scot: [12:37] Brickell let's dig into to Comcast Center so, every VC that I know has kind of really good kind of a synopsis of what the firm's sweet spot is you guys are interesting cuz you have that Comcast word in there so I would love to hear and understand how that brings the weight of a large corporation to two potential startups, and then would love to hear kind of a Lil Bit about some portfolio highlights of the company's you've invested in while you're there. Daniel: [13:01] Absolutely so yes the way I think about it it's kind of VC Plus. Right so at Comcast Ventures we are first and foremost financially motivated. So it's a it's a completely separate your full of capital all of the partners around the table are. Compensated based on the performance about investing right which is I think. Fundamentally different from a lot of kind of quote-unquote strategic funds out there right so first and foremost was looking for. Great companies Great teams in promising sectors and yoga with the with the goal of generating Roi on this. [13:49] Plus part of it is really around a relation. Kind of special relationship with a soil P which is come to you. Comcast NBC you when you when you can I think about it between the Coca-Cola video Business Wireless bsmd side of the business. Your media side of the business the theme parks out of the visit you want to go on and on and on. It's kind of rare the startup company Weatherby you consume a company or Enterprise company that doesn't have something to gain from a relationship with compass and BECU. So where possible and kind of time these things right. Auntie on both sides we try to we try to broker relationships between between both sides and so really good example of that is showing aggression. So your NBC has your original programming. And and your TV can be really great customer acquisition tool and so y'all better pull for a company shine wear. We really tried to look for opportunities to integrate the shine message in the shine product in the shine story. Into core Embassy you don't listen to the NBC slight that's a really really it's one example of many of how. Scot: [15:21] Play a tool not every VC can bring to the table. Daniel: [15:26] Is one of these things when nothing is again you have to kind of time these things right nothing is promised and lots of stuff but it's something that I think I find at least it helps me differentiate in the Moc. Scot: [15:38] Yeah must be nice to because you could you let say your shoptalk you see this interesting marketing technology from assassin der you can go to you know imagine there's like a. Yo of Pride the best marketing people in the world you can go to and say Hey how do you feel about this cool new email thing or because you know cuz you guys are doing it at a scale that so you know top 20 kind of a scale and they may say wow that's pretty interesting or, oh I've been doing that for 8 years and after that. Must be nice on your side to go and be able to get some real verification from. From practitioners that are doing the stuff on a daily basis. Daniel: [16:12] It is that's all true I think the other point to make is. [16:18] You think about kind of I think I'll give you his financial returns almost proceed strategic value. I feel like there two ways you can look at it one is hey let me just take what Comcast NBC you can currently interested in. And go in investing of sectors by that's one lens and that's a lot of strategic funds corporate funds if the other lands like let me go out and find the best companies. And yeah I think we take that approach because we feel like those companies. Future I will actually be most beneficial to someone who come cost me see you right so that's one kind of premise which is kind of financial value per seeds. [17:03] Eventually eventually create strategic value not the other way around necessarily. I think secondly if you actually look at the data and I was going through this the other day it's kind of like the the hottest sectors of today. [17:19] Accurately predict the best returns of tomorrow I took you look at. [17:26] You're so old I threw that the different life cycles attack you know. Scot: [17:33] If it can be the case that. Daniel: [17:33] Can be the case that you're a hot sector today generates in a great great returns but in general we see that your prices got bit off you get a lot of me to competition to protect I'm sorry. What we really try to focus on his Less on. Sir sector-wide bats but he only the only stage and more and like the individual. Companies in the individual teams and we feel like they're building something kind of unique and interesting I think we we definitely take the point of view that. [18:06] Have to be you have to be contrarian rights to make money right. Scot: [18:12] Go to the you are just some of the normal DC kind of parameters is there a guy's is a certain stage we like series ABC seed and then is there a certain kind of investment amount that you're looking for, what's nice about strategic books is a lot of times I have a lot more flexibility than you know like certain BC will go to their limited partners and go get it. Pretty boxed in LW you know we are a you know, we're looking for series B and their company has to have 5 million in revenue and Scooby consumer internet and and really very specific are you guys where do you find that special. Daniel: [18:45] I would say historically we would have more specific and today we're very. When much more General ride sir historically and I think this is the driving Factor he was kind of around the table would just kind of mole latest stage in their orientation right so we used to. Your before I joined sent me focused on I didn't say post-series be investing. And probably more heavily on the Enterprise so I've been consumed inside. Your ad tax ass even infrastructure was kind of more of the focus I would say since then I've lost you in five or so years. Your appetite for early-stage investing has kind of dramatically increase the man we still we still do a lot of growth growth investing and was still. We got a grave to the Enterprise to be practiced by. Your what we saw was your mormal companies getting through locked up by deep-pocketed BC pretty early on in their in their life cycle. And you're the facts about it was just like we weren't getting a shot if we went already in those companies and so. Increasingly we you know I focus on Seton series I investing almost exclusively and my colleagues and so. You're when you still have put it all together we are a. [20:16] Relatively sector agnostic your and now stage agnostic I think there is some there is some markets that you going to where you kind of say. You know we want to let this play out a little bit and come in a little bit later and and right Bigga checks later. What weekend are we now it's too pretty big effort equipped off this year. And your we've been tracking the space for a number of years and for a variety of different reasons felt like now was a time so come in and. And we're focusing on early stage investing in in in that area and there's some other markets where. Call Madison's is one example of that where. We feel like we can be really competitive at the light stage as well as the early stage and we're happy to sometimes let things play out before kind of jumping in with an investment so it's highly. Secta dependent the teal point I think we've got the flexibility to too so to enter it at most points in the in the business cycle. Scot: [21:22] So give us some so I went through some of the portfolio companies maybe give us like a little kind of summary of some of the ones that would be most appropriate for like the shop talk kind of obvious. Daniel: [21:32] Yeah so just a couple that I've invested in your one of them is a company called a way which is a direct-to-consumer travel brand. So I invested in that company in July 2015 was was when the seed round but Don. And really the the thesis around the investment was you've gone. [21:57] You've got these pretty big incumbents in in Stamps not into me that don't actually generate a ton of. Excitement with consumers and yet at the same time your luggage is a 9 billion dollar category domestically in. Yeah it it's a it's a it's a huge Market opportunity the same time those play as one. Digital natives right and so. You know you could see the opportunity from pretty dramatic shift if someone came in you know applied the DDC model to that industry. And instead of Market themselves is so it is aspirational travel ranches what why is Don and I think. I think it's going a lot faster than than even to the. Investigative have would have predicted and I think that growth is being pretty astounding. They I think you've successfully created like one of the things that I would think about is what makes a great DC brand right like why does away succeed when others even in the category of failed. And I think the thing that makes a really good day to see if I think that away what is white has done really well is created This Woman's aspirational World for the consumer the kind of stepping right so it was never about. Nickel specifications of the suitcase it was never a. Even the suitcase it was about the story around this lighting of the travel the global traveler last all that these millennials. [23:38] I think really took too early. And the fact that matter is when you create that aspirational lifestyle that kind of gives you the license to sell a lot of things to the consumer right like starting with luggage but today they announced. Front pocket you know last week they announced your aluminum luggage a lot of other really interesting things in the pot. But you could have you could have only done that if you had first kind of laid that brand Foundation nothing that's where in the DDC will receive the bifurcation where you know. You would have glossy or away or Casper you guys done such a great job selling the lifestyle to the consumer. And I mean the ones that we see the less successful and just kind of pushing product and playing the same kind of LTD cat game is everyone else in and you got feels a lot more on Sanibel to us. Yeah I think of ways been a really exciting company for us and I think. To give you an example of as more of a Marketplace investment led the series a round in a company called mealpal. Which is a subscription service for meals that you pick up. Scot: [24:54] Meals that you take off. Daniel: [24:57] So that the. Scot: [24:59] This is made by individuals kind of so like I'm a cook I have some extra capacity I want to join the marketplace. Daniel: [25:05] Restaurant meals so existing existing restaurant in the thesis there was really. The market for a $15 cheeseburger delivered to you for an $8 delivery fees pretty tiny Market I think we got. Jason: [25:23] You're looking at that Mark. Daniel: [25:24] It's a it's a you know. The top 1% top of top of Market that you kind of solving for that and it's a pretty. It's a pretty crowded Market actually if you think about all the different plays at it there in that space it's a mealpal was really coming out of it What attracted me to point of view which is. Instead of charging for delivery we going to contact cost out of the chain I'm going to I'm going to give value to the to the consumer and so they're actually going for. You're essentially the most affordable restaurant lunch you can get right into the. The The Innovation there is such kind of the pricing model Innovation there is really to these restaurants in the thousands of restaurants on the on the platform there in 13 series you're going really quick way. The Innovation there was really supply-side innovation. There their deals with with the restaurants and kind of how they get the restaurants to the Albright profitably is being I think pretty unique. I did exactly the business actually has to Marshall a lot of really. Interesting elements right around data around to the operational aspects of the business around you know managing me. Whole Fleet of restaurants in are there a lot of things I have to kind of come together to have this. Lee seamless consumer experience and I think. [27:01] It's one of those it's one of those like complex coordination businesses where you know if you get a ride to Canby it can be really powerful and I think you know the end of the day the market for a $6 restaurant launches. Channel more times bigger than the market for a $19 cheeseburger delivered to you so that's why we got excited about that one. Scot: [27:22] Can you go to these restaurants now and I got his one Chinese on today they really have 10 devices lined up and they've gotten enough to Uber Eats tablet the GrubHub tablet there's usually like to local ones like, in North Carolina we have order up and something else and it some point you're like this is not sustainable. Daniel: [27:39] The last thing we wanted to do was just be another kind of delivery player right we wanted to really crave I for these restaurants. Jason: [27:47] What is interesting to me about that space though is that. [27:51] For a long time we had these are the traditional segmentations of these. Scot: [27:54] Segmentations of these bites. Jason: [27:56] Different ways that consumer saw their eating problem like groceries versus Ready-to-Eat versus USR versus fast casual in life. [28:04] The digital disruption of all of those businesses if it feels right at the moment like all bets are off and they all are potentially competing with each other for the consumer use cases. Daniel: [28:17] I think that's definitely true I think we in the food space generally speaking have. I think what stopped in the in in the food space. Is that you're trying to combine you know Logistics which is essentially a very low margin tough complex business with. Your food prep which is a food supply chains which is like a really low mileage and top business with delivery which is a really let you know like it. I think we're a lot of these players have really Fallen is is impetigo somebody's restaurant today. Maple is a pretty good example where they're just really really low margin complex businesses that done a lot of cash you know I think we could companies it's one where. Retention is is is Yokai the issue there any kind of what happens if you just kind of Chun through your early adopters in your Cactus and it goes off popping up and and kind of Hit the ceiling on. Basement running through your audience so I think we theoretically agree that you know that. Grocery stores selling full movies online in a way that it hasn't in the in the past but I think that will be the domain of the logic. Players so like I just walked into my local Whole Foods on the weekend like the whole front portion of the whole foods with the Amazon 2-hour delivery Prime Bridge. [29:54] And I think that like when you have that scale when you have that physical full praying you're you're really well position to. Century like execute on an omni-channel play right which is order online and they speaking store your kind of leveraging both your online and offline assets. I think for a company starting today. Scot: [30:19] That. Daniel: [30:21] It's kind of subscale I think we feel like the the the ones that are going to win have to have a pretty big balance sheets. Scot: [30:30] Yeah. Daniel: [30:32] I'm wearing dresses in a company in instacart which is a company that space where they have a really big balance sheet and they are doing really well but. Your takes it takes awhile to get there not every company and get the. Jason: [30:47] Yeah it was interesting I moderated a panel on the future of grocery at the show yesterday in one of the the That's My Pan was the founder of Chef. [30:56] And he is so there I mean okay company in his POV was very much. [31:02] The future of me on kids is on demand Not subscription because of the fatigue issues you mentioned and that it's most likely store pickup versus direct-to-consumer which feels like the sort of your bed mealpal as well. Daniel: [31:14] Yeah and I think again that's one where. [31:18] Tren can always favors the incumbents little bit more than the disruptors. And so yeah we never want to throw the baby out with the bathwater when when making Investments why we we try not to redline categories we try to really focus on the individual companies that will be the winners. But I think that one is at your pretty capital-intensive one. Jason: [31:45] Switching topics right away cuz you you mention to instacart and it suddenly dawned on me. [31:53] You you must have some relationship with Unilever because I know you're both investors in instacart and you have a really famous exhibit in our in our space that use Ulta Unilever. Daniel: [32:05] Yeah so your Dollar Shave Club was an investment that one of my partner is Rick Ross co-lead you know that. Business I mean from the get-go was pretty early stories about every business is a roller coaster and nothing goes up and to the right I think that's one where. We pretty much went up into the ride. Time you're right from the get-go right from the video all the way through the 2 to the exit I mean with a few exceptions but for the most part was a very very healthy business kind of early on and so stay that way. You know I think increasingly. For a lot of these big e-commerce Acquisitions you know whether it's in jet whether it's a Dollar Shave Club where there's a chewy. [32:54] It always becomes if you're obviously the fundamentals are important I think. [33:00] Critical to to Taconic stop the conversation. I think a lot of the times these companies and now thinking about how quickly e-commerce is happening and. The fact that if they don't move quickly they're kind of going to get left in the dust and so they're almost thinking about these Acquisitions as. Scot: [33:22] Extent of market cap. Daniel: [33:23] Percent of market cap when was like an insurance play and I think that's what's driving a lot of these kind of strategic multiples I think Dollar Shave Club could have definitely been Justified on fundamentals. But I think that was that was as much a fundamental kind of lead m&a story is it was a strategic Ma. Scot: [33:47] Yeah I think I read some stories and I don't know any of the numbers but I think they were putting some pressure on like Gillette and they're like starting to feel it at the cash register. So I was more than insurance policy is really on to something and eating our lunch. Daniel: [34:03] Totally. Totally and I think it was that was more of like a P&G story but I think the Unilever was a great opportunity to kind of get a shot at running the the male bathroom right so like it was a story around raises but I think. Other ancillary products. Scot: [34:21] Scot some interesting knock on effects there's an activist very active and P&G right now and his whole thesis as you should have bought Dollar Shave Club and you're not doing enough to go to racton, and it's really interesting to see these these really big brand get shaken up from the top down because they day or not interesting enough and direct consumer in France. Daniel: [34:41] Totally and I think you know this way cuz you have to give the Toys R Us and use your that's one where. [34:47] I just feel like that company is being really slow doing today you know it's it's they you're in this huge category. Scot: [34:55] Huge category. Daniel: [34:57] You've got the biggest physical footprint you know in the world in the category you've got almost ubiquitous awareness amongst consumer and and and Muldrow. And so why it's not. [35:13] I think I could have done a lot to Sriracha themselves into this new era and I kind of didn't see the result on the retail side what we see is almost. Application of like retail so I think it's fashionable to come out and say and Retail his dad these retail apocalypse whatever. I think what we're really seeing is there pockets of retail that actually make a lot of sense in that a growing really quickly like off price is really good example of. Actor value segment of retail is growing really fast. And I'll pry specifically are you okay to Ross you work at a TJ you look at a Nordstrom Rack you'll get a Saks OFF Fifth like all of the growth in in in the causes businesses are from the off-price channel. Increasingly Seymour Mo Supply made for channel made for a price you know I think on the other end of the spectrum you got a lot of growth in luxury I think it was as you see the premium ization of also different categories in. You know. The rich getting richer and I think the growth in the luxury segment kind of place to that I think where we see a lot of. Issues a kind of the middle ground right so where you know you know the value play to the consumer you know the luxury play. You kind of a middle play which I think is increasingly kind of nothing play because I think that's where. [36:45] A piece is that where e-commerce your kids you the hottest that's where I was on hit you really hard and I think that's where you saying a lot of these bankruptcies in and what not wear. There's no basis for differentiation in the consumers mind and you just never going to win on price and selection and so that's where they're all failing. Scot: [37:04] Yeah but if you're if you're neither value or convenient then you're toast like Toys R Us isn't like a convenient place to go and it said we not value Macy's allow these guys are closing stores are kind of stuck in that. The Death Valley in the middle there we had books from the light on and they have a really good report about this when they called the retail bifurcation and it got really good data around that that that's a definitely something that that all brands and retailer should have in mind I think. I'm going to think about who they're going after, you kind of brought it up so it was big into it and it wouldn't be a Jason Scott show we did talk a little bit about Amazon how much does that factor into your investment decisions you know what kind of, you know what used to be like when I started mine when I first companies I was like oh my gosh what do you know about Google and then it was you know, there's always some company that that's kind of top of mine with investors seems like Amazon's definitely least in the Public Market Chino they they open up pharmacy license in you have some little part of Florida in like all the, all the drug stores are down 30% is that when you guys go in is that like one of the main things you think about. Daniel: [38:02] For sure yeah I think it's really hot if you know if you have latest at our soul was Amazon is taking like 60% of every new e-commerce tall are coming on stream. And that piss and his actually. Going off of velocity is so I think he's got a tumble is a couple years ago that number was 50% now 60% and so they're actually increasing their share of new e-commerce dollars which is. Kind of scary at the same time like. [38:35] You're speaking to a Avicii friend of mine, talking about shop talk is always become like how to play defense against Amazon. [38:45] There's some retailers again that's that's probably the right you know it's probably a gender item number one. Scot: [38:51] But I don't think that. Daniel: [38:51] I don't think that it is a given that I'm as on will you know when across all categories all geographies or. Your consumer segments is that right I think there was a time where you could serve. Draw boundaries around what Amazon would do ride like they would never get into it supposedly never getting to Fresh That was supposed to be never be able to do high-end fashion like boundaries and now being kind of broken down as Amazon. And needs to be in the biggest markets and will be in the biggest markets at the same time you know I think you. As investors we really think about what are the stop with the consumer. What are the vectors on which consumers make their buying decisions. Price convenience selection experience all the way down to the list and I think you are seeing like I think the data C. The revolution is coming. Because you've got proprietary product not available on Amazon you got right brand stories and you've got your value for money. Scot: [39:57] And I think. Daniel: [40:00] I think you're you're seeing the success of these Brands I think. In a world where I'm is on his is actually you're gaining share I think you're both things can be true but I think you can have vibrant. Lifestyle brands that are worth your billions and billions of dollars and you can also have at the same time I was on kind of growing and you know I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive. You know I think that they're they're all the pockets right like I've been feeling a lot of time in. Sir cross-border near the international weather it is retail is based of the Seas or. Trying to play the geographical Arbitrage between for the east and west and kind of like what wishes done before are the categories and we've seen some great companies in the space that are really trying to. Reinvent the value equation for consumers like I think they did it say brands are really educated consumers that. Traditional Brands can be a riff off right and I think. You look at businesses like Hoshi look at businesses like wish either either going to be really really want me we shorty is a really really big business. In part because it is a value play but also because it's fun right it's fun to shop wish like we're investors in a company hold holler it. [41:27] That the vector those guys are competing on one of the back doors is a shopping experience. Scot: [41:32] And so. Daniel: [41:33] And so that's another thing that we're looking at here which is. I love this company shop shops which is kind of live streaming platform where influences can kind of come on in and talk about the products that they're excited about it and eventually have continued transact like. That's something shopping as entertainment feels like something that I'm is on. Ward get too early. And so you know. Yes roundabout way of answering question like yeah we definitely think about Amazon same time and we try to be full full. Where I'm is on would be weak. And make investments accordingly the other datapoint is like it when you talk about Fanatics or chewy or like these are all. Your horizontal multi-brand retailers right. Arguably competing head-to-head with Amazon so like some of the biggest outcomes that we say some of these companies alike actually. Directly competing with Amazon and so I don't think it's a given I don't fall in the camp that like your multi-brand retail was Dad and it's kind of Amazon forever and ever. I think that you know. [42:49] For those companies I think the main. Echo by which a computer customer service and so you really trying to get the customer to shop you for a particular category ride for cherry wood. [43:03] Yeah I think Pat's I think my pad I think Cherry Fest and I think if you can do that you can't really compete against against I was adding takes a lot of things really hard to do that increasingly difficult to do that like a job is to really try to find the. Exceptions. Jason: [43:19] We we hear that a lot though the shoppertainment component being a potential differentiator the sort of. [43:27] Discovery X-Type experiences nothing Amazon strengths but you put all those things together in the the big winner that we think at the moment is the most defensible against Amazon is branded live marijuana plants. [43:40] Just as I am. Scot: [43:41] I'm done with Dad. Daniel: [43:42] I'm going down I'm doubling down. Scot: [43:43] When I before I move on from the Amazon topic so the one tactical kind of thing that a lot of Brands struggle with and you're just too kind of pick you up you mentioned a way which is kind of a travel company. Should they sell on Amazon so you created this this brand if you're not an Amazon you're missing like 60% of e-commerce so. An unbiased on this one cuz you started companies helps people selling Amazon so but it is an interesting dilemma because you know. The argument against it would be all right now we're going to educate Amazon in this category were going to show him our best sellers will come out with private label but you're kind of like you know damned if you do damned if you don't so. Daniel: [44:22] Yeah I think where I coming come down on that is it really depends on the company I think if you are building. I think the risk with selling on Amazon for direct consumer that brand that's what we're talking about is. You get your scent to get commoditized weed in the Amazon environment I'd still like. What what happens is you of your number x on a list of products and your the consumer is essentially. Intent driven enough discovery-driven in and very very very price conscious right and so if you think about a brand that is trying to tell its story. Amazon the Amazon environment just doesn't give you much. Breath to give you much rope to tell your brand story right and they're going to a discussion earlier then give you any, way to create this world that consumes kind of step into going back to what makes a great Lifestyle brand. There are a ton of risks or d2c brands that are trying to tell this all encompassing story. Deciding to go on Amazon for the volume and find themselves speak commoditized I actually think about it last is like Amazon copy your and I have so much dead already without you being there that like. Went out investors in older than me if you look at all soon as such old is on Amazon like there are hundreds of CopyCat products already right. [45:53] Weather old veggies on there or not I think that that activities would have happens. So it's I think on the brand side it's it's kind of tough to two face. Commoditization. That's it I didn't Amazon I'm actually looking for companies that are leveraging Amazon of the platform right and so like I think that. [46:15] You know I think that there are really interesting things you can do with Amazon data outside in. I think they're really interesting things you can learn from trending products on Amazon. And I think some at the same time on the supply chain side things are getting a lot quicker than they've ever being right to life. I'd love to see more companies that are actually kind of. Playing to the strengths of Amazon and really trying to leverage Amazon and you talk about some of the biggest companies in the world like. A lot of a lot of becoming get started because you have some sort of distribution unlock. I need to think about gaming space single on Facebook right it is very obvious example where you know. You kind of unlock this proprietary distribution you can get this guy really quickly. Amazon could be. Now for for the right types of companies you know. Types of companies will be aspirational lifestyle Brands but I think there are other types of companies that are more kind of data-driven foston you know companies that you can see being I could built on Amazon and being very successful. Jason: [47:29] If you are you trying to see any like Amazon ad Tech deals yet that seems like I've been coming space. Daniel: [47:35] Definitely we pray like every off AC haven't really focus on that Tech recently. But yeah I think there's some really interesting I think I think Amazon itself is only starting to get into the potential of the their platform in that in that respect I think. Name something that we continue to look out for and we've seen a couple we haven't really. Well I'm really dog and I think to the extent that we will but suddenly interested in that in that space in those opportunities I also think that like. I think about bonobos is an example on on Facebook you on Facebook open that right rail like one of us was right there and I think they had benefited a lot from those early. Nordstrom sales perspective but just from an iguana spective like if you were on Facebook you were in their target market at that time like you sold but overhear you sore but other side and I think Amazon. Add ecosystem is out of similar kind of point in time out where it's not. I think in a couple of years it'll be very very expensive I don't think it's quite there yet so there's this kind of this window of time. Jason: [48:49] Not if it's going to be interesting to watch I think you know special. [48:53] It's becoming important platform for all the brands into your like months earlier contrarian point like I. [48:59] Probably wouldn't be very excited about adtec around Google or Facebook at the moment but but Amazon may be an interesting space and we had a couple of interesting guest on the show that I want a pivot the. Scot: [49:10] I want to put it though. Jason: [49:13] One for the last last set of questions before we have to break. [49:19] All these Trends due to the sort of the traditional notion of a store I know I am in particular you you. Scot: [49:26] Mentioned the way which I think. Jason: [49:30] A way which I think I have a couple stores. Daniel: [49:34] . yeah yeah so we spend we spend a lot of time thinking about then you store format right and I think. [49:43] That probably gives it away right which is like when not we don't think about it as. [49:48] This this nice wipe out of physical retail you think about it and he's probably a pretty consensus of you we think about it as the innovation of the stall format. And what does that actually mean right so you know you know why is example display the the easiest one to Think Through. Yeah you going to the store you got to walk to the back of the stores to find a suit, right like it is it's it's a it's a very intentionally design store. Around giving the consumer a inspiring the consumer to think about travel and. And really dig into that you're the next. Yeah that actually like it's funny like in the New York still have got a cafe with all these travel guidebooks a lot of people sit there and read these guide books and. Yeah it is the stores are intentionally designed to kind of make you think about traveling and have you think about traveling always give you this. Oasis like in your day to kind of have that space and and. Scot: [50:54] How do you buy into that buy my cell right now. Daniel: [50:54] How do you buy into that that last all right and then I serve at the end of that process your hair if you want to buy suitcase we have them to. That's a very different it's a nuanced but very important distinction. Between your something like that and you're the physical store as a repository of product. When you think about the physical stores are product repository that's kind of dying and I'll Ghibli. That death is kind of going to come about foxes in a lot of people think I think it's one of those things where you kind of declined 2% a year and then you cut a full off a cliff because the operational Leverage is is such the bad happens. [51:44] If you can and we think a lot of that stores as experiences and what does that mean for the individual brand and not trying to push you Prada. And I think some of them are tactical parameters that are typically smaller format stores typically less inventory in the store sometimes no inventory in the store. Typically an online offline sync right whether it be. The conversion happens online and pickup happens offline or is some data collection online and you know the inventory fulfillment happened I'll fly out of whatever the parameters are. Your we talked about small short-term leases only said about Tactical. I think. Scot: [52:35] We really it's. Daniel: [52:36] We really it's kind of rare the direct-to-consumer brand at scale that won't have their own stone at work I think that store network will look very different to the incumbent stone at work. Jason: [52:48] I suspect a you may well be right and Daniel that's going to be a great place to leave it for today because it's happen again we've used. About a lot of time so folks want to continue the conversation we didn't charge you to jump on her. [53:01] Page and leave us some questions if you enjoyed Today Show we would certainly appreciate you jumping on iTunes and giving us that 5-star review. Scot: [53:09] Daniel thanks for doing this today if people want to find you online what's the best way to find you. Daniel: [53:13] You can tweet at me I'm at Daniel Galati Daniel gulati on Twitter. Scot: [53:20] Awesome thanks Ryan coming. Jason: [53:22] Until next time happy commercing.
AT&T spent last week in court slugging it out with the Department of Justice over its $85 billion plan to acquire Time Warner. The DOJ argues the deal could lead to higher cable television prices for consumers, while AT&T says the deal is routine and that the agency is blocking it for political reasons. On the surface, the deal bears a strong resemblance to Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBC Universal in a deal valued at about $30 billion.
Bio Brian Woolfolk (@brianpwoolfolk) is the Founding Executive Director of Full Color Future--a new think tank and advocacy organization committed to changing the narrative about people of color in media, tech and innovation. He has been passionate about inclusive tech, telecom and media policy for more than 20 years, since he got his start on Capitol Hill. Brian served as Democratic Counsel on the US House Judiciary Committee and advised Committee Members on the Telecommunications Act, media ownership diversity, and free speech issues. He also advised members and staff on constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, criminal justice and investigative issues. Prior to his Committee work, Brian served as legislative counsel to Congressman Robert C. (Bobby) Scott of Virginia, currently the Ranking Member of the House Education and Workforce Committee. Since leaving the Hill, Brian Woolfolk has worked in private practice, representing a broad array of clients with matters before Congress, federal agencies, and state and local governments. Brian also counsels clients involved in high profile Congressional Investigations. Mr. Woolfolk has extensive technology and media policy experience. His advocacy on tech policy issues began when he ran a pro bono project that provided government relations services to minority media companies challenging anti-competitive practices in the cable marketplace. Over the years, Brian has worked on surveillance, artificial intelligence, net neutrality, mergers, set top boxes, and a host of other issues related to the fight to ensure diverse tech and media interests are protected. Brian has a B.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the William & Mary Law School. Brian currently serves as a Member of the William and Mary Board of Visitors (Trustees). Resources Full Color Future Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You?: A Memoir by George Clinton (Atria Books, 2014) News Roundup Net neutrality and media ownership caps: next steps Of course you've heard by now that the Republican-led FCC voted to repeal the 2015 net neutrality rules which classified ISPs as "common carriers". This classification brought them directly within the scope of the Commission's so-called "Title II" authority, which is the section of the Communications Act that deals with common carriers. The net neutrality rules banned ISPs from blocking, slowing down, or prioritizing speeds for content creators who can afford to pay for higher speeds, while keeping everyone else's in the slow lane. Those rules are gone now. However, the FCC did keep the so-called "transparency rule", which continues to require ISPs to be transparent about their network management practices. Still, the definition of "transparency" is subject to broad interpretation since there is no longer any underlying rules that say what ISPs are supposed to be transparent about. The FCC and FTC have said that they intended to pursue a Memorandum of Understanding which would define how the two agencies would work together to enforce net neutrality principles. But until that's done--there are no net neutrality rules--only unenforceable principles of net neutrality. So what are the next steps? Well, first off, the FCC is likely to get sued. The most obvious basis for any lawsuit would be the way in which the FCC considered public comments in this proceeding, or, should I say--did NOT consider public comments. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said last week that he would be suing the FCC for illegally rolling back the net neutrality rules. He points to the fact that there were millions of fake or fraudulent comments in the record. He also says that the Commission failed to hold public hearings. Schniederman says that repealing the rules "rewards the very perpetrators who scammed the system to advance their own agenda." Other states that are planning to sue include Washington, Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Delaware, Vermont, DC and Massachusetts. Advocacy organizations, like Free Press, have also expressed their intention to sue. The other route is legislation. Verge reporter Jacob Kastrenakes reports that Senate Commerce Committee Chair John Thune called on Congress last week to pass a new net neutrality law. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that he would force a vote under he Congressional Review Act to preserve the net neutrality rules. Shannon Liao has excellent coverage of how all of this could play out in The Verge. The FCC also passed a notice of proposed rulemaking, in which it is exploring how the FCC might reduce the broadcast ownership cap. Currently, it is illegal for a single broadcast owner to reach more than 39% of the national market. This standard was set by Congress, and it was legislation that current Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly worked on when he was a Legislative Assistant for former Republican New Hampshire Senator John Sununu. O'Rielly opposes raising the cap because he says the Commission doesn't have the authority to do so. However, he says that it is appropriate for the FCC to consider raising the cap, since it is unlikely that Congress will do so. John Eggerton explains in Broadcasting & Cable. We should also note that David Shepardson of Reuters reports that the FCC has voted behind closed doors to fine Sinclair Broadcasting $13.3 million for failing to disclose that it ran paid programming on some of its stations that was sponsored by a cancer institute. Sinclair's proposed acquisition of Tribune Media is still pending. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal calls for Comcast-NBC merger investigation U.S. Senator Richard Blumental wants the DOJ to revisit the Comcast/NBCU merger that closed back in 2011. The merger conditions Comcast committed to in exchange for the merger being approved are set to expire next fall. So Blumenthal is concerned that the market harms that some have already pointed to will get worse. He wrote a letter last week to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim asking him to consider breaking up Comcast/NBCU or, at a minimum, to extend the merger conditions. Ted Johnson reports for Variety. NASA discovers 8th planet orbiting distant star With the help of Google's artificial intelligence neural network, NASA has identified an 8th planet orbiting a distant star called Kepler 90, which is about 2,500 light years away from us. The planet, which is called Kepler 90i, has a 14-day orbit and is rocky and hot, with a surface temperature of 800 degrees Farenheit. It is within the first solar system humans have discovered with as many planets as our own. Maya Wei-Haas has the story in Smithsonian. Twitter cracks down on hate speech Twitter began enforcing a new policy to crack down on white nationalist hate speech on Monday, suspending accounts linked to white nationalists. The new policy prohibits users from advocating violence against civilians. Harper Neidig reports in the Hill. Former Uber lawyer alleges thatUber hacked and surveilled its competitors As you know, Uber, and Google parent company Alphabet's self driving car unit Waymo, have been embroiled in litigation. Waymo charges that a former employee took secrets back to Uber to help Uber develop its competing self-driving car. Well, a new letter came to light last week, and it says that Uber hacked and surveilled its competitors to gain competitive insights in a way that went far beyond industry norms. For example, the 37-page letter--dubbed Jacob's letter-- written by a former attorney to Uber's head of global intelligence, says that Uber collected the license, name and contact information of 35,000 drivers and used that information to entice them to work for Uber instead. The letter also states that Uber engaged in other less-than-savory practices as it spied on competitors. The letter was made public just days ahead of the trial that's set to commence in days. Jake Nicas reports in the Wall Street Journal. House releases answer to the Senate's Sex Trafficking bill The House of Representatives released its answer to the Senate's Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act last week. The House version, which is entitled the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, would make it so that companies can no longer claim immunity from *state* laws for third-party content that promotes sex trafficking. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act only prevents such immunity from federal law. The House bill also prohibits ads that solicit prostitution. Jack Corrigan reports in Next.gov. Democrats push back on Disney/21st Century Fox merger Democratic lawmakers are calling for hearings on Disney's $52 billion bid for 21st Century Fox. Senator Amy Klobuchar is concerned about the merger's potential competitive harms. Representatives David Cicilline and Emanuel Cleaver want hearings as well. Tony Romm reports for Recode. Senator Brian Schatz warns about a lack of diversity in AI Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz--the top ranking internet subcommittee Democrat--scolded the tech sector for its lack of diversity at an artificial intelligence hearing last week. Schatz was particularly concerned about the lack of diversity among artificial intelligence development teams. He said that these teams are predominantly white and male and pointed to the potential for bias in setting up AI algorithms. Ali Breland reports in The Hill. YouTube takes down Ajit Pai's 'Harlem Shake' video for 7 hours FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's video of himself doing the Harlem Shake to ease minds about repealing net neutrality didn't go over so well with DJ Baauer, who created the track. Bauer filed a copyright claim and YouTube took the video down for 7 hours. In any case the video's back up but the ratio of dislikes to likes is some 24 to 1. with just 9,000 likes and 217, 000 dislikes. Sarah Jeong reports in the Verge.
Host Lisa Kiefer interviews documentary film producer Joe Inderhees about his "Bay Area Revelations" series that examines the brave, brilliant, and eccentric visionaries of the Bay Area. By focusing on a particular movement, theme, or event that transformed the Bay Area into one of the most vital and innovative regions in the country, these ten one-hour documentaries tell the untold stories of the people, places, and moments that have shaped the Bay Area into the unique region it is today.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. Speaker 2:You're listening to method to the madness at biweekly public affairs show k a l x Berkeley celebrating the bay area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today I'm interviewing documentary producer Joe Inder. He's the executive producer and co-writer behind the popular bay area revelations series. [00:00:30] Welcome Joe. You're the executive Speaker 1:producer and co-writer of bay area revelations. And these are one hour episodes narrated by Peter Coyote that tell the untold stories of the people, places and moments that help make the bay area such a special and unique place. You are not from here, you're from Cincinnati, Ohio. What was your first experience here? Speaker 3:My first bay area experience was running Beta breakers and right. [00:01:00] So I didn't realize all that it entailed, but now you've got, you know, a guy in a gorilla suit and then next to naked guy. Well we don't, we don't have that in Ohio. And you know, you start running and you'll see everything that's going on and then you hit golden gate park and I mean that park is remarkable. There's a waterfall in it and then you look over and there's bison in the park. And literally I stopped and I thought to myself, totally, you ain't in Kansas anymore here son. This is a really [00:01:30] cool place. And from that point forward, I have just fallen in love with the bay area and [inaudible] Speaker 1:I'm from Illinois originally and I had the same experience here when I moved out it was, it was rev Latori sure. So good name. Speaker 3:Sure. And, and so when we decided to come up with some content, who's we? The station. So here's, here's kind of the, the genesis of how it, well, how, how it happened. We were in a room probably a little bit bigger than this studio [00:02:00] and there were a group of four or five, six station thought leaders. Okay. The general manager, the news director, I'm the brand director, those kinds of folks. And the idea was put on the table, what content could we do that no one else is doing? That could be an original proposition. And as with most things in the bay area, you start throwing out ideas and it's just pop. And Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa, papa, silly potty, right? Like that's how things happen [00:02:30] here. And so that's Kinda how it happened here. Well, I don't know if it's just here, but I know that it feels like it's here more frequently and with greater passion. Speaker 3:And then I think what really happens here that is unique is not only do you use then say silly potty, but then you go do it. I think in a lot of places they have the big idea, but then somewhere along the way the execution falls off. Um, either people [00:03:00] run out of time, run out of money, run out of support, um, run out of the runway to fail. May Be afraid. Exactly. Yeah. Um, obstacles get put up in place and I think in the bay area, those obstacles are taken down more than they're put up. So we, we come up with this idea of doing a documentary series and they say, ah, so how many episodes do you think you can do? They, so how about six in the first year, six hour long documentaries in the first year I say, oh, [00:03:30] okay. It's pretty ambitious. Speaker 3:And pretty ambitious. And the goal is, our goal for this is Ken Burns meets 30 for 30, which is the ESPN series. And if you are not watching that you can, you can dislike sports. It's just great storytelling. I watched the one on the OJ Simpson. They did a great job. Remarkable. You'll look at the credits at the end of those shows and they go on for days and bay area revelations. It's, you know, it's a very spartan crew. [00:04:00] Um, but we do try to hit that, hit that mark. And um, we developed a couple of different show ideas. Um, you know, big themes. We had the first one kind of land in our lap. And what was that? That the first one was the super, the super seven and this was on the seven Superbowl winning teams. NBC had the Super Bowl that year, so it was natural, right? Speaker 3:We're going to air the Superbowl and then we're going to air the super seven. And so that was very natural. And then the other thing that, that came right to the [00:04:30] top was political and social movements. When you think about the things that the bay area exports, political and social consciousness is at the top of that list. And again, these were things that being an outsider, you just becomes obvious. It becomes obvious. It's like as, as these are not so much about the people but about the movements. Well th they're the people behind the movements, but one of the best parts about the first one was everybody knows the score of the Games, right? Everybody knows how the game [00:05:00] played out. But Jerry Rice told this story of before his first Superbowl, he fell asleep on a training table. He was in that space. He was that prepared. Speaker 3:And that was the point that we were trying to make was that if you're prepared for something, if you're readied for it, if you've been training your whole life to be there, then yeah, you're scared cause it means something to you. And that's exactly what Jerry said, but there's this calm that can wash over you. And I think that that was illuminating. [00:05:30] The ones I watched, what I liked about it was, it's not the obvious people all the time. You get these, the smaller, I call them smaller, they're not small people, but people I hadn't heard of. Right. It's how do you find them there? There's some things that obviously immediately come to mind there. Some people that obviously immediately come to mind when we did the political and social movements piece, but you've got to go after him. So we went and you go out and get these people or do you have a team? Speaker 3:Researchers? So not me. It's you. It's me [00:06:00] and, and um, my editor and photographer, Alex [inaudible] and my co-writer and co-producer, Jim Gaughran that it's the three of us. And you're the one that goes out and gets the people. Yeah, I am the chief fishermen. So that requires a lot of research to get to the bottom of things, you know, research and then really some salesmanship. You have to get people to give of their time. We don't obviously pay for interviews. It helps when you're selling something to believe in the product, I believe in the product. How did you get Peter Coyote? Which [00:06:30] in and of itself to me was impressive. Well, first of all, anything that you write that then Peter Coyote reads sounds 10 times better than it is. Literally. I agree 100% he's from here and he's like the west coast distributor of involved in the bay area. Speaker 3:There is nothing that the guy hasn't experienced or isn't it somehow some way connected to, so he's our first audience. He was the first outside person to read the script and one of our goals [00:07:00] is to, while he's reading the script, say something along the lines of, I was there for that and I didn't know that to surprise him to, to have him learn something because he was so involved. So he read your script and immediately said, well, I want to be a part of know. In the beginning we didn't have anything. We had nothing. We had an idea, we have an idea and a promise that the thing was going to be good. And I contacted his agent, who's a great guy by the name of Jeff Dannis, uh, down in southern California. And I pitched him [00:07:30] the idea and I just kept selling it. Speaker 3:What turned Peter on originally was the fact that it was locally produced content about the bay area. And that's unusual, isn't that there aren't that many locally produced documentaries from a network television network perspective or a network television perspective. I don't see anybody else doing it in this market, so I can say no, no one else was doing it in this market. There was independent filmmakers, what network television [00:08:00] or what television that work invests an executive producer and a world-class photographer and editor and a world-class writer to this sort of product that isn't on television every day. Now. It's not an everyday newscast, which is our core business. NBC Bay area decided that they would invest, that it would invest serious resources to bring this project to bear. And that included Peter Coyote on the head. He actually was part of many of the movements. Yeah, so he, he [00:08:30] loves it here and he knows what he's talking about. Speaker 3:So that's how we got Peter. We can, I was able to watch half of these and I want to talk more about those, but how do you watch this? If you don't have cable or you don't pay for cable? Let's say you're a student at cal and you hear about this, how would, how would I watch it? Can you watch past episodes somewhere? We're trying to get them up on demand, but you'd have to have cable for that. They don't live online. And here's why. [00:09:00] The rights fees for photos and music, the licensing go through the roof. As soon as you start putting them online. At this point we're not going to see them. They're going to be on demand on infinity, on come on Comcast. Exactly that going to happen. We're in the process of figuring that out as we speak. Okay. So hopefully soon the shows have shelf life. So even the food episode, right? The culinary journey episode. Every year our bay area restaurants are awarded [00:09:30] the beard award and you know, a new restaurant opens by Michael Mina or Alice Waters gets honored by the president or some such thing. Well these people were all in our episode. Yeah, that was a good one. So it would be great for us to be able to post on Facebook, hey look at this thing that happened and if you want to learn more about that person, watch this episode on demand search bay area revelations. Speaker 1:Well it's good that you guys are going to do that because I know there are a lot of people like me in the bay area that don't necessarily watch TV. [00:10:00] Right. And so being able to watch that, I'm telling you I really enjoyed it and I want to talk specifically about two towers. Okay. Which just aired. Sure. And it is about the rivalry and friendship between Stanford and Berkeley. And in fact calyx is mentioned in that because the Oakland A's team owner, Charlie Finley made a deal with calyx way back in the day, 1978 to air their baseball games for a short while. But it was actually run out of Calex at by a couple [00:10:30] of students. And Larry Bear being one of them who was a junior at the time and he's featured in there. And the a couple of other guys back to the roots, Alex and Nikau, who were on our, our method to the madness show early on when they were just getting started. So let's talk about the genesis of that. What is the difference between Stanford and Berkeley? Speaker 3:Here's how we framed the episode. Every time we would do another piece, we kept finding that things had roots at either Stanford or cow [00:11:00] or ucsF or San Francisco state or San Jose State. It happens in news stories. There's a huge news story. The president has a shortlist for Supreme Court nominees. There's three people on it and two of the three have some sort of bay area tie. It can be the most random stuff. Nobel prize winners. Some guy that did this incredible research project in Israel. Well he got his phd at Bay Area University name it, right? So we thought about this idea [00:11:30] of the bay area being an educational nirvana. And then inside of that, right beneath that was this idea that you have one of the top private institutions and the top of public institution in Stanford, in cal. So let's tell their stories. We named it the two towers because of the two iconic towers say their tower and Hoover Tower. Speaker 3:What we did not want to do, what we avoided purposefully is this rivalry idea because it's not that the two universities [00:12:00] live in their own unique spaces and they are outstanding in and of themselves. And there's a lot of collaboration. Yeah. And, and, and you don't have to compare yourself or measure yourself against one another. You are outstanding on your own. And what I learned as we were writing the thing as we were researching, as we were digging into what do we want to talk about, I had this con, this idea from the minute you wake up and turn on [00:12:30] your, your smartphone and you look at Google news and then you look at the wais app to see how long it's going to take you to. Well, Google Stanford Ways app Berkeley from them. From that moment forward, all that you touch is informed in some way by one of the two universities. Speaker 3:And that was the sense that we wanted to give the viewer. And you gave it a beautiful sort of connection too, by showing the organs that have played in each and I didn't know that you could slitter [00:13:00] that they can see each other and also what was inside. If you can talk about what was, what's inside each tower that was really interesting. Sure. At Hoover they have the, the library of war, revolution and peace. And these are, this is memorabilia. Ephemera was the word that we used, this collection of documents, propaganda related to war. We told the story of Herbert Hoover as a Quaker being so anti war that he wanted [00:13:30] to create a library that kept people from committing war. Please see the outcomes of not peace and aim for peace. And that's what's in the Hoover tower. In addition to their marvelous bells that are played by Timothy and um, who is a tremendous character and they've been played for generations back. Speaker 3:And then in say their tower are these bones prehistoric tarpon from the labrea. Tarpits you know, you want [00:14:00] to talk about every diggers dream. There are all of these bones, saber tooth tigers and mastodons and you name it, the creatures that roamed California before man was walking upright, exist floors of them, dozens of them inside say their tower. So y'all walk by it every day and they have amazing organ concerts. Oh yeah. And, and those guys that [00:14:30] play those bells are something else, man. They're fantastic people. One of the things I noticed about the episodes I saw is that many of them started with the gold rush. And I wanna talk about that because that seems to be the starting point for a lot of innovation and ideas in your series. 1849 is kind of the, I mean that's the launching point of the state. Speaker 3:People were coming out here, but not in the way that they did once they realized that there'd be gold in them there hills. So it was a natural [00:15:00] launching point and it brings that sort of gravity, if you will, that sort of gravitational movement brings so many different people. You've got, you know, the guy that's down on his luck and then you've got the, the wealthy prospector and then everybody in between. And a lot of diverse ethnic groups. Exactly. Which created the different food movements. It really did make me think a lot more about that as a, as a jump off point, right? It's its own social movement. And I will be, you [00:15:30] know, just just frank with you and pull the curtain back a little bit. It got a little formulaic, we got a little, I'm kind of stuck in that, that we would launch from there and each of these episodes and if somebody is going to watch the series one after the other and it's like, oh my God, we're starting at the goal by the third time. Speaker 3:Like if they're starting at the gold rush again, um, you know, come on guys, come up with something different and we felt that and you don't as a, as a creator, you know this, right? As a creator, you don't want to fall into just a formula. You want to keep [00:16:00] pushing yourself, even if it's working. You kinda want to try to break it. Yeah, it did work for the ones I saw actually because you drew a line from that point and a very clear line. And so that that worked. I watched passion to preserve, which is about the environmental environmental movements here. That was great because you didn't talk about all the big names. Well John Muir you talked about, but you talked about people I didn't know. Who did you like? I really liked the Monterey Aquarium people. I had [00:16:30] no idea how that got started. Speaker 3:Maybe you can talk about that a little bit. What I wanted and what we wanted was the thing that is accessible to folks. So one of the things that you do when you moved to the bay area new is you hear, Oh, you got to do this, you gotta do that. You gotta go here, you gotta go there, and then all of a sudden your weekends for the next six months are full of all this stuff you got to do. The Monterey Bay aquarium is one of those things that everybody tells you to go do. I remember going there the first time with my mom and [00:17:00] my wife and just being blown away by the thing like this is super cool. So when the idea for an environmental show comes up, I thought we got to tell the story of the aquarium. Everybody from here goes there and you take your kids and then they take their kids and it's this generational thing at this point that was the idea was to give people something to give the viewer something that they could access in their own personal life. Speaker 3:Relate to that. There is a bay area connection and you talk about, absolutely. Steve Webster was our interview subject and he was one of the cofounders. [00:17:30] He's a character. Yeah, he's a great guy. But he said about Kelp. Oh yeah. I've got to think like a calc was saying, how did you design this? He said, you've got to think like you gotta learn. And he got that from wheeler north who was a scientist that they collaborated with. The story goes that Steve Webster and a couple of his classmates were sitting outside of the, their classroom, their, uh, the Stanford annex down there at Monterey Bay and they're looking across at this defunct cannery [00:18:00] and they think to themselves, well, it'd be nice to turn that into a little aquarium, maybe put some fish tanks in there and that'd be cool. And they're having a couple beers on a Friday night and one thing turns to the next. Speaker 3:And one of Steven's buddies happened to be dating Nancy Packard and Nancy was a marine biologist and they start chit chatting and then all of a sudden, Nancy's dad, David gets involved and says, well, you know, if you're going to go, go big, all of a sudden they had means. [00:18:30] So now they had a dream and now they had means. And the two things came together and the Monterey Bay aquarium was the result and it was by magnitudes larger than their greatest estimate. They funded a study, you know, research project to see how many folks would come through there. And it blew the doors off of that estimate and has been going strong ever since. And it's a real jewel. Yeah it is. You're from Cincinnati, Ohio. Do you think being a, so to speak, outsider [00:19:00] has helped you to see these icons, movements people a little easier than someone who's grown up here? Speaker 3:I think that the things that maybe someone who was from here takes for granted, you know, as just always being there. Someone from the outside looks and goes, well I wonder how that got there. How'd that happen? I wish, I wish my hometown had that. The real thing that being an outsider has and I definitely am one. The thing that that has allowed me to do is be ignorant. It [00:19:30] has given me license to ask very simplistic questions about origin, about start, about inspiration. And I talked to the interview subject and you know, I'll say, you know, I'm not, I'm not from here. So I may ask you a question that may be just you would think is so apparent, but if I ask one of those, just know, please go, go with me. And what ends up happening is they're more relaxed. They don't feel like they need to prove something to me. Speaker 3:They're teaching, they're teaching me something [00:20:00] and then I get to be the curious student, which I am by nature. My Mom's an educator, she's taught English, her whole, her whole life and so she taught me to be, you know, really curious about things. I listened to the interviews back in order to transcribe them. You sounded like a boy, like a child. You, some of you know, 39 year old man and I sounded like there's this little boy, but that's usually the feedback out of that is where the, the untold story comes and openings occur. Yeah, exactly right. And you get people, [00:20:30] Lisa, out of their programmatic answers and into this more personal space. I've got an example of that. The story of, of how gay marriage came to be in San Francisco. So we're interviewing Kevin Newsome in the front part of the interview. Gavin is definitely the former mayor and the lieutenant governor and I'm getting programmatic. Speaker 3:Gavin. And which of your programs was, this was in rebels and revolutions. Somehow something turned. You could just see it happen in [00:21:00] his appearance and his tone of voice. We started chit chatting a little bit about family and about membranous his of his grandfather, and then I asked him what was the spark for this idea? And he tells the story that Nancy Pelosi had an extra ticket to George W bushes, state of the Union address when Gavin had just been elected mayor. Mrs Pelosi Calls Gavin and says, Hey, I've got this extra ticket. Would you like to come? Absolutely, that sounds great. So when you go into the house, [00:21:30] you have to check your cell phones, much like a coat check. So get checks. A cell phone goes, watches the speech. President Bush gives in Gavin's words I half-hearted support of quote unquote traditional marriage speech finishes. Gavin gets in line to get his cell phone and behind him he hears these two women say the words. Speaker 3:It's about time we did something with those homosexuals and Gavin looks at me and he says, for the first time in my life I didn't say anything. I just listened and I listened to the rest of their conversation. And [00:22:00] I thought to myself, this has to end, and I got my cell phone and I walked out the steps of the capitol. Pitch-Black cold, fairly lost, and I called Steve Cava, my chief of staff and said, I'm getting on a plane tomorrow we're going to land and we're going to do something about this. And that's what started it. To hear that story and then to hear the back and forth between Gavin and Steve Who's gay and Steve was against this idea, not only from a political perspective but from a personal one, and he tells the story. He says, to get in, the hardest thing I've [00:22:30] ever done is come out and now you're telling me I have to find a spouse and oh by the way, it not working out so great for you there brother. Speaker 3:That story that doesn't get told that people don't know that the smallest thing that's the match strike. Right. Your next one coming up and it's going to air on August 4th is called the Olympians. In a nutshell, what is that gonna Cover? The Bay area. We're a country. In the last summer games, it would have placed in the top 10 in metal count in a word that's real. It's [00:23:00] really remarkable how many Olympians and then Olympic champions come out of the bay area. So we focus on a couple of them. We focus on some names that you know and remember very, very well. You know, Kristi Yamaguchi, uh, Brian Boitano, uh, Johnny Moseley, and then maybe some names that have gone a little bit forgotten like a Matt Biondi who went to cal, a guy by the name of James Gorin who played a water polo on the 56 Melbourne team [00:23:30] and went to Stanford and coached swimming at Stanford. Speaker 3:And then of course we talked to Terry McKeever who is a coach because all these athletes, all these athletes need coaches. And the Olympic coach is really something else. And Her story is remarkable. Remarkable. Loses her dad at the age of four in a car crash ends up becoming, is a part of a, uh, her mom remarries and becomes the oldest of 10 kids. And a story that unfortunately just hit the cutting room floor yesterday is she gets her [00:24:00] first head coaching job at Fresno state and the head men's swimming coach is trying to tell her when you take your team out on the road, you know, these are the things that you need to do. Now she had 14 swimmers, she's the oldest of 10 she calls her mom and says, this is a piece of cake. This is a family out here. This is easy. Speaker 3:She's remarkable. And then we interviewed Nathan, Adrian as well who's great and is on his way to Rio training out of cow. So that's what it's about. So in 2015 you did six, you have four slated for this year and [00:24:30] there's an episode coming up after the Olympians on Bay area music. And what are you going to be talking about? That's an excellent question. We are literally in right now the outlining stage of the music episode. So you have to talk about Calla. We are still, well, you know what we're talking about is we're talking about radio that will be discussed in the underground radio and campus radio plays such a huge role in that idea and getting new music out there to people. This is a continuing series. [00:25:00] The goal is for it to continue. Yes. You could almost do this in any major metropolitan area. Speaker 3:I'm thinking of specifically New York City. I'm thinking of Boston, Cambridge, mass. You've got MIT, Harvard. Have you guys thought about expanding this series to other cities? Sure. Comcast NBC owns 13 stations across the United States and I've been in conversations with another market who's interested. Their newsroom is interested in doing a series like this there. You know? That's the fun part is when you get a call from a [00:25:30] colleague that you respect who says, hey, how did you guys do this? And then to get them excited about it and to tell them, you're going to come to this fork in the road, don't go left. We went left. It was terrible. Stay, stay right. They kind of guide them. As an aside, I watched the artists, which is all about the bay area art movement, but I was inspired and I just went to the Derosa museum because of what you talk about in your film and it's an amazing museum in Napa that is full [00:26:00] of s of the best northern California art in the nation, probably the world. Speaker 3:It is such a beautiful place. First of all, thank you for that. And um, that means the world. It really does. To hear someone who's lived here for a long time say that they're learning something about their community. That's the goal. And in every episode that my question, my challenge to myself is what do I want the viewer to feel at the end of this? But I want them to feel it [00:26:30] at the beginning. What do I want them to learn in the middle and what do I want them to feel at the end? Your, for instance, passion to preserve the environmental one. My goal for what you would feel at the end is why in the hell did I just spend an hour inside television when I should be outside exploring and doing? I have to say after watching all of them, I felt almost, I'm not even from here originally, but I felt a pride. Speaker 3:Yeah. You know like getting rid of plastic bags, which is another part of your environmental segment. The people who started that w [00:27:00] you know, they were just regular people and I just feel like there's so much of that here. I am glad I'm living here and I felt like everyone should see this, the power of a person with an an idea, you know, that's the real, the power of one is a real, is a theme that rolls through this series. We are invested in storytelling. Hopefully you enjoy, have schools approached you to use this as a curriculum aid? There's a lot of pressure on a lot of documentarians today to [00:27:30] have an action plan and funding is often tied to that. So that hasn't come up at all? No. Our funding comes from our company so we don't have to revisit something you might be interested in doing? Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, because I think that I thought that immediately when I watched them. David Talbott who we interviewed for the uh, second piece, rebels and revolutions, his book, seasons season of the witch, his book was I think used by San Francisco unified [00:28:00] as there, I think they give one book to the district to read for that school year and we thought that it would be a good companion to this point. We haven't been contacted by anybody, so I think that it would be, I think that it's a natural, you, like you say, once it's on demand, perhaps it will become more of a curriculum aid. Maybe you should talk about how you got started. I got my start out of Ohio University, which is a midsize liberal arts school. I'm in the southeast corner of Ohio, kind of its own [00:28:30] little Atlantis in the middle of Appalachia. I got a phone call from a, an alum who said that there was a sports gig opened in as TV station that was about a mile drive from campus. Speaker 3:So I hopped in my car and I took my resume tape to do the TV station and handed it to the news director who said, well, this looks great. How about an audition? I said, yell whenever you would like to do it. She said, how about now? And so I hopped on the desk and got an audition and got a job before I graduated college, which was really [00:29:00] unique. I just kept saying yes. So that's my, my first piece of advice to people is just keep saying yes. When someone asks you to work a holiday, say yes. When someone asked you to work overtime, someone asks you to learn a new skill. Just keep saying yes and the doors will continue to open for you. You just gotta be passionate about it and not foe passion. I mean the kind of passion that allows you to wake up at six o'clock in the morning, go do a shoot, write your story, [00:29:30] Edit your story. See your story on television and then go bartend down the street in order to make ends meet because you're not making any money. I don't know that it's ever been more important to be good at what we do as journalists than it is right now. If somebody wants to communicate with you, email or otherwise, it's just Joseph Dot Inter. He's at NBC uni.com. All right, Joe. Well, thank you for coming on method to the madness. Speaker 3:[00:30:00] You've been listening to [inaudible] Speaker 2:method to the man. Tune in again in two weeks at the same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Extry, Extry, hear all about: Skins! The end of Rescue Me! 12-year-old people! Being Human! The Comcast/NBC merger! Regis' dwindling days on TV! Developments on the Office! Larry Sanders! And much more! ...like The Cape! A song by Cut Copy! A second half dedicated to The Golden Globes! A very special tribute to America. (One of these things is made up).
Nicole Sandler is joined by Frank Schaeffer (Crazy for God, Patience with God) talking about today's National Prayer Breakfast and why the president should have boycotted it, Tim Karr of FreePress.net on the Comcast/NBC merger hearings, PDA's Donna Smith on Healthcare not Warfare, and the wonderful tweeter @Shoq