Podcast appearances and mentions of spencer burke

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands. Establishing trust with consumers is crucial for brands, as it greatly influences purchasing decisions. Leveraging technology and first-party data presents brands with an opportunity to cultivate trust and deliver highly personalized experiences, fostering strong brand loyalty. Today, Spencer discusses ranking trust, privacy, affordability, and personalization.Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands. Establishing trust with consumers is crucial for brands, as it greatly influences purchasing decisions. Leveraging technology and first-party data presents brands with an opportunity to cultivate trust and deliver highly personalized experiences, fostering strong brand loyalty. Today, Spencer discusses ranking trust, privacy, affordability, and personalization.Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands.As AI enables deeper personalization, marketers must balance consumer desires for tailored experiences with concerns about data privacy and security. Consumers are skeptical about sharing personal data and demand transparency from brands regarding how their data is collected and used. Today, Spencer discusses what consumers want from brands.Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands.As AI enables deeper personalization, marketers must balance consumer desires for tailored experiences with concerns about data privacy and security. Consumers are skeptical about sharing personal data and demand transparency from brands regarding how their data is collected and used. Today, Spencer discusses what consumers want from brands.Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke is a girl dad to two young daughters, an experience that has helped him hone the patience and listening skills he needs as the senior vice president of growth at Braze. Spencer got his master's degree in information systems from the London School of Economics and started his career at PwC as a management consultant before joining Braze in 2011. Back then, it was still a small company in the early days of the mobile ecosystem. Over the past 12 and a half years, Spencer has held many different roles across the company, and today he is leading their data team in consulting with customers and managing their go-to-market strategy.Braze is a customer engagement platform that helps its clients communicate with customers through push notifications, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and more, as well as in product messaging channels like surveys. Braze powers cross-channel marketing for the world's largest enterprise and digital-first brands in 40 countries across six continents. They are at the center of all cross-channel orchestration for companies like Bombas, Wendys, Nestle, and Papa John's, helping them with cutting-edge marketing strategies and empowering them to use technology to harness their creativity. On the show today, Alan and Spencer talk about customer engagement and experience best practices and common pitfalls by highlighting some of the recent findings from their 2024 global customer engagement review. Spencer also gives us some actionable items that marketers can be doing right now as many of us are reentering the workplace after the pandemic, and he outlines how brands should think about moving into new channels like messaging apps or push notifications. Of course, we also talk about how marketers are using AI technology based on survey results and how to experiment with the technology effectively and efficiently.In this episode, you'll learn about:Key takeaways from Braze's 2024 Customer Engagement Report Common challenges marketers face in achieving great customer experience and action items all marketers should implement to overcome themHow Braze is helping brands optimize their channel mixHow to best experiment with AI Key Highlights:[01:50] Learning patience and listening skills as a #GirlDad [05:05] Spencer's path to Braze and his current role[06:50] What Braze does and who they serve [07:45] Common challenges in achieving great customer experience [10:20] Key takeaways from their 2024 Customer Engagement Report [12:30] What do marketers need to focus on? [16:00] How to get started on returning to the basics [17:30] How Braze is helping brands optimize their channel mix[19:30] A case study with WhatsApp [21:30] How to be effective AND save money [23:50] How are the 99% experiment with AI[27:15] How the debate team shaped his life[29:50] Advice to his younger self [31:05] What is Spencer trying to learn more about [33:10] Trends to take notice of [36:20] Let's get better at storytellingLooking for more?Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jack Armstrong and team (Thanks to James Buck, Spencer Burke, Leon Spiess, and Alex Barnes) spend the unofficial holiday speaking with industry professional, tourists, and locals who all gathered at Denver's 420 Festival.

Embracing AI for Marketing and Customer Experience  Shep Hyken interviews Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze. He talks about the significance of collaboration within organizations, the impact of multichannel engagement on customer interaction, and the role of AI in enhancing customer experiences.  This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions and more:    How can companies use AI effectively to enhance customer experience?  How can businesses leverage multichannel marketing to increase customer engagement and retention?  Why is it important for marketers to balance personalization with customer privacy concerns?  What are the fundamentals of marketing and customer engagement that businesses should prioritize?  What role does AI play in unleashing creativity and improving customer experience?  Top Takeaways:    Effectively connecting with customers is a crucial aspect of marketing and customer service. Understand where your customers are and what tools and data are available to create personalized experiences. The goal is to provide value to the customers and meet their expectations while respecting their privacy and preferences.    Keep focusing on the fundamentals when it comes to customer engagement. Just like in sports, where great athletes consistently work on the basics, we should do the same. Our fundamentals include understanding our customers, communicating with our customers, and serving our customers.      It's essential to be where the customers are and experiment with different channels to understand their preferences and effectively engage with them. Using multiple channels, such as email, SMS, push notifications, and other emerging platforms, can improve customer relationships and increase retention and conversion rates.     One of the top trends that The 2024 Global Customer Engagement has discovered is that creativity and strategy work together with AI. Artificial Intelligence and technology can help automate processes, allowing marketers and customer support agents more time to focus on creativity and strategy. This can include automating repetitive tasks, enhancing analysis, and predicting customer segments. You can access The 2024 Global Customer Engagement for free.    Companies should aim to find the right balance between personalization and avoiding the "creepiness factor" by understanding and meeting customer expectations. Customers expect brands to provide value by understanding their preferences and needs. Companies need to use data to create personalized experiences while respecting customer privacy.    Plus, Shep and Spencer discuss what successful brands are doing to engage with their customers. Tune in!  Quote:   "Marketing is about connecting brands and consumers. There are a lot of touch points in the customer journey that involve customer care and customer support that are done through traditional marketing channels."  About:    Spencer Burke is the Senior Vice President of Growth at Braze, a customer engagement platform that offers messaging solutions spanning push notifications, email, in-app messaging, and other channels.  Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands. Establishing trust with consumers is crucial for brands, as it greatly influences purchasing decisions. Leveraging technology and first-party data presents brands with an opportunity to cultivate trust and deliver highly personalized experiences, fostering strong brand loyalty. Today, Spencer discusses ranking trust, privacy, affordability, and personalization. Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands. Establishing trust with consumers is crucial for brands, as it greatly influences purchasing decisions. Leveraging technology and first-party data presents brands with an opportunity to cultivate trust and deliver highly personalized experiences, fostering strong brand loyalty. Today, Spencer discusses ranking trust, privacy, affordability, and personalization. Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands.As AI enables deeper personalization, marketers must balance consumer desires for tailored experiences with concerns about data privacy and security. Consumers are skeptical about sharing personal data and demand transparency from brands regarding how their data is collected and used. Today, Spencer discusses what consumers want from brands. Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, delves into consumer expectations for brands.As AI enables deeper personalization, marketers must balance consumer desires for tailored experiences with concerns about data privacy and security. Consumers are skeptical about sharing personal data and demand transparency from brands regarding how their data is collected and used. Today, Spencer discusses what consumers want from brands. Connect With:Spencer Burke: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is Collaboration a "holy shenanigans"? Join Tara and Spencer Burke as they celebrate innovation and collaboration to foster wholeness for people and organizations.In the summer of 2022, spiritual innovator Spencer Burke, organized an Online Conference with 30 Spiritual Leaders called, "The Next Sunday Summit". Holy Shenanigans Podcast muse, Rev. Tara L. Eastman joined Spencer for a conversation about change, church, collaboration and innovation.  Questions for further discussion:1. What does the "Next Sunday" look like in my church/community of faith/spirituality?2. How can innovation and collaboration help leaders navigate adaptive challenges?3. Who might be a co-collaborator in waiting - to help foster wholeness in my community?Gratitude to Spencer Burke for permissions to re-release this segment of "The Next Sunday Summit".  Thanks to Ian Eastman and Matt Kendziera for sound editing. To learn more about Spencer's work, go to: https://www.spencerburke.com/Bio: Spencer Burke is a widely sought after speaker, coach, trainer and strategist in the field of spiritual innovation. When ministries want to dream or feel stuck or confused, and want to love more and discern faster, they consult Spencer. As Director of Lean Faith, he helps spiritual communities discover the right questions, minimize risk, and test their ideas through rapid iterations. He is also the Founder of Hatchery LA - an incubator for Spiritual Entrepreneurs, as well as creator of The OOZE - the original website and magazine for Progressive Christianity. Spencer has authored several books including, A Heretics Guide to Eternity and Making Sense of Church. For more than twenty years, Spencer has been a practitioner of the Enneagram. He is an ordained Disciples of Christ Minister, serving as the Minister of Innovation and New Church Development with the Pacific Southwest Region from 2015 to 2019.Email - Spencer@SpencerBurke.comPhone - (949) 216-0006Wild Goose Festival is a transformational community grounded in faith-inspired social justice. We learn and grow by co-creating art, music, story, theater, and spectacle, engaging in a wide variety of robust, courageous conversations with each other and with thought leaders and artists from other communities. Apply the discount code TARA at checkout for a $50 discount on the price of an adult weekend ticket. Support the showWhen in Western New York, please join Pastor Tara in worship at First Presbyterian Church of Jamestown NY on Sundays at 10:30 am.

Recorded on June 14, 2023 - National Bourbon DayDetroit City Distillery - National Bourbon DayDetroit City Distillery - National Bourbon Day toast and news from Garrett Passiak join us to find out what is new at DCD. Hint: It is an Experience not to be missed. In the studio with Jamie is special co-host Spencer Burke. https://www.detroitcitydistillery.com/https://www.whiskeyfactorydetroit.com/https://www.facebook.com/DetroitCityDistillery/https://linktr.ee/ManCaveHappyHourwww.ManCaveHappyHour.comJamie Flanagan @DJJamieDetroitMatt Fox @fox_beazlefoxMerch www.WearingFunny.com

Soularize founder Spencer Burke talks about his vision for Soularize and lays out its goals – to be a bridge between people working at the different intersections of faith with social justice, youth empowerment, migration, the environment, and longevity.

My good friend Spencer Burke, Executive Director at Lean Faith, is host a Next Sunday Summit featuring interviews with 30 incredible voices of faith who are wrestling with the question of what is next in regards to faith and church. This episode of the Chasing Goodness podcast features my interview with Spencer from the Next Sunday Summit.Sign up for the Next Sunday summit today at:www.spencerburke.com------------Be sure to check out my website to listen to past episodes and see what else is happening including info about my upcoming book Bring it Home which is set to be released in September at www.mattkendziera.comFind me on Instagram @mattkendzieraFind me on Facebook HEREReligion has too often put a dark stain on history and has left a lot of destruction in its wake. Because of this, we are at a time in history when many are rethinking religion and faith altogether. The exciting part is that In in the midst of this faith shift lies hope for a better future. A future where faith acts not as an opportunity to oppress but as a catalyst to do good.Outside of the religious systems of our past life is beginning to bloom as many dedicated people of faith are coming up with new culture changing ideas to create a better and more humane world. The work being done is difficult and time consuming leaving little space for those engaged in it to share their stories. Matt Kendziera uses his voice to elevate the voices of these changemakers.Stories give courage to the dreamers and hope to the discouraged. Each one has the ability to motivate and inspire the next brilliant idea from the next social entrepreneur or faith leader. Through speaking, writing, and producing Matt brings these stories, causes and thoughts to the forefront so that they can be seen heard and experienced.Matt has had the honor to work with incredible difference making organizations such as Fierce Freedom, Rachels Challenge, Ashoka, Soularize, Celtic way and others create the space necessary to inspire the world to act out of kindness, compassion and love.There is hope in the voices and stories of people of faith. When hope emerges, change happens. When change happens, the world becomes a more beautiful place.

Tara talks with writer and agent of change Spencer Burke from Lean Faith about some tools to aid us in times of change: curiosity, courage and community. She ponders letting go of fear and holding on to peace in the midst of change. Let's take some time together to learn how to be courageous, curious, community-builders.About our guest:Spencer Burke is a widely sought after speaker, coach, trainer and strategist in the field of spiritual innovation. When ministries want to dream or feel stuck or confused, and want to love more and discern faster, they consult Spencer. As Director of Lean Faith, he helps spiritual communities discover the right questions, minimize risk, and test their ideas through rapid iterations. He is also the Founder of Hatchery LA - an incubator for Spiritual Entrepreneurs. Spencer has authored several books including, A Heretics Guide to Eternity and Making Sense of Church. For more than twenty years, Spencer has been a practitioner of the Enneagram. He is an ordained Disciples of Christ Minister, serving as the Minister of Innovation and New Church Development with the Pacific Southwest Region from 2015 to 2019. You can learn more about his ongoing work at: spencerburke.comTo sign up for weekly email insights, event info and general Holy Shenanigans - email us at: holyshenanigans@gmail.com Support the show

Even before the pandemic, the fate of the Christian Church in America was in question, with thousands of young people leaving the faith every year, and churches closing down or merging with other churches just to keep the lights on. So, what is the future of the Church in America? If it survives, what needs to change? In this episode of Threads, Keith sits down with his good friend Spencer Burke, who has spent most of his life thinking outside the box, and together they explore what the Church of tomorrow could and should look like.   *New episodes release every other Monday *Connect with Keith on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Visit the blog at keithgiles.com

Author, Film Maker and Academic Raj Patel joins founder Spencer Burke and Co-Host Matt Kendziera for a conversation about climate change and Raj's documentary film, The Ants and the Grasshopper For more on Raj Patel go to: www.rajpatel.org For information on how to view The Ants and the Grasshopper go to: www.antsandgrasshopper.org Special thanks to our sponsor fro this episode, the Igniting Imagination Podcast from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. Learn more about the show at:www.wesleyaninvestive.org/igniting-imagination-podcast See see what's on the horizon with Soularize click HERE

Our special musical guests HuDost comprised of Moksha Sommer and Jemal Hines join Spencer Burke and Matt Kendziera this week to discuss music, the arts, humanity and spirituality! For more information on HuDost go to:www.hudost.com Special thanks to our sponsor fro this episode, the Igniting Imagination Podcast from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. Learn more about the show at:www.wesleyaninvestive.org/igniting-imagination-podcast For more information on Soularize click HERE

Soularize is a learning party comprised of spiritual innovators working toward humane spirituality. On this weeks episode Matt introduces you to this new project started by author and innovator Spencer Burke. Hear several voices from this years Soularize event in Los Angeles.For more on Soularize go to:www.soularize.liveMessage Rize Nutrition HERE for your free Wellness Profilewww.jesusneverran.com

In the first episode of the Soularize Podcast hosts Spencer Burke and Matt Kendziera introduce Soularize and share highlights from the 2021 Soularize live/virtual event For more information on Soularize and to join the conversation go to: https://www.spencerburke.com/soularize

Today Spencer Burke joins us to discuss Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself. A wildly exciting Hulu original special, designed to look deeper into what self identity means. Take a listen and let us know what you think!

For more on the Lean Faith Canvas go tohttps://www.spencerburke.comTo order the book Heretics guide to Eternity click HEREwww.jesusneverran.comMessage Rize Nutrition HERE for your free Wellness Profile

Keith Giles was formerly a pastor who walked away from organized church over a decade ago to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today he is the author of the best-selling “Jesus Un” series of books, including "Jesus Unexpected; Ending The End Time to Become the Second Coming" which is available now on Amazon. He’s also a host on the Heretic Happy Hour.  Today, Keith is joining us to talk about the process of deconstruction and reconstruction in faith. Too often do we only focus on deconstruction and leave our faith in the rubble. While deconstruction is essential, we must also focus on rebuilding faith as we grow and journey forward. Keith is also hosting a new online conference for pastors deconstructing their faith called Ground Zero: Renew Pastoral Deconstruction. The conference includes the various voices like Alan Smith, Desimber Rose, Richard Jacobson, Lisa Martinez, Spencer Burke, and Jason Elam. If you're not a pastor, don't worry, there will be also more conferences available to everyone in 2021.  Keep up to date for future conferences and teachings by going here for more information: https://www.bk2sq1.com/ Sign up here for Ground Zero: Renew Pastoral Deconstruction ~ there are a few free seats available while supplies last. You can find all of Keith's books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Keith-Giles/e/B0076E0UA8 Keith's blog on Patheos: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/ Heretic Happy Hour: https://heretichappyhour.com/

Spencer is a Principal with The St. Louis Trust Company (https://www.stlouistrust.com/), a multi-family office for 50 families in the United States managing in excess of US $10 billion, where he heads the Family Business Advisory Practice. Spencer is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Family Business at the Olin Business School (https://olin.wustl.edu/EN-US/Pages/default.aspx) at Washington University in St. Louis. Standout Quotes: * “Multi-family businesses are acts of inadvertence in the initial years or the initial generation, they're usually a force of necessity, and then it becomes more opportunistic as the family gets bigger, and by the time you get to the 3rd generation it's more process-driven and ultimately becomes strategic” – Spencer Burke * “At the end of the day, it's not about having a board and all that, it's about the quality of the people, the vision, the culture and purpose of the organization; that's what creates great companies of all kinds and family business is just a large subset of great companies in the world” – Spencer Burke * "In the United States, you can own 100% of the votes and not own any of the economics of a company" – Spencer Burke * "I don't think there's anything better to own than your own company and the ability to compound earnings" – Spencer Burke * “When it is time to sell the business that's great, that's not a failure” – Spencer Burke * “The key to happiness is, don't let other people be the measure of your success; If you're not happy doing what you're doing, go do something else” – Spencer Burke Key Takeaways: * Some families walk away from a wealth of knowledge because they don't know what they're getting; although they need the advice, they just have the wrong person giving it to them * Multi-generational family businesses are acts of inadvertence in the initial years or the initial generation, but get more opportunistic as the family gets bigger, and by the third generation, ultimately becomes strategic and process-driven. * “Hygiene" refers to some cost-free measures that can be set up in the beginning to increase your chances of getting beyond the 2nd and 3rd generation, however, if not taken care of, you have no chance of success * The key characteristic shared by enduring companies whether family business or not is "Total Control by One Person” * In most families where there are issues, how the socio-emotional wealth is getting shared is just as prominent as how the money is being shared. * To succeed over long periods (100 years), successful families have extracted a great deal of wealth out of the business so they have the resources to protect the business when necessary. * The 3 fundamental factors that may impede the success of a family business; the Family tree is the first because it tends to grow faster than most business * One of the number 1 keys to family business success is "Set the policies for the future when there are no names attached to them". * The matriarch of the family is usually the keeper of family harmony, the patriarch of the family is usually the keeper of running the great business, but the patriarch more often than not, does not have the power in that family. * The three interest groups represented in a family business; the people in the business, the people that own the business, and the people that are just in the family neither as owners nor in the business. * The key to happiness is ‘don't let other people be the measure of your success; If you're not happy doing what you're doing, go do something else' Episode Timeline: * [01:28] A concise overview of Spencer's professional background * [07:55] Spencer's thesis on starting a multi-generational family business * [10:50] Instead of a Family Business Course, Spencer calls his course Ownership Insights * [11:36] Common characteristics shared by enduring companies whether family business or not * [14:19] The concept of Spoils of Ownership * [16:35] The 'tyranny of the internal rate of return' versus 'creation of real wealth' * [20:41] The 3-circle diagram (http://newsletter.mikeboyd.com.au/issues/three-circle-model-of-the-family-business-system-282619) in family business education depicts Family, Business, and Ownership, with how they interact. * [22:32] The 3 fundamental undertows that affect a family business * [28:57] The continuum of behaviors; a Business Family and a Family business. * [35:20] The tradeoff between running a great business and maintaining family harmony * [38:00] How is family harmony maintained as businesses progress through multiple generations? * [53:40] A letter from Spencer to his kids. For more episodes go to BusinessOfFamily.net (https://www.businessoffamily.net/) Sign up for The Business of Family Newsletter at https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter (https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter) Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeBoyd (https://twitter.com/MikeBoyd) If you feel it's appropriate, I'd so appreciate you taking 30 seconds to Leave a Review on iTunes (http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1525326745), I receive a notification of each review. Thank you! Special Guest: Spencer Burke.

With the privilege of owning and operating a multi-generational family business comes tremendous responsibility to educate children in the family about the business and wealth management. This panel discussion from the Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, moderated by Dave Whorton, highlights “what not to do” and draws on the expertise of leading family office and multi-generational business experts Spencer Burke, Executive Vice President, St. Louis Trust Company; Kim Sheehy, Vice President, Fidelity Family Office Services; and Loren Feldman, Senior Editor, Forbes.

Maps. More maps. The summer term of my last year of my M.Div. in Seminary included the course, Biblical Backgrounds. Looking back it may have been better to take that course over a normal fall or spring semester. Compressing all the material covered into a few short weeks … Continue reading The post Distance and Proximity: Seeing the Context with Alan Cross appeared first on patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian. Related posts: Love Can't: An Interview with Thomas J Oord Beauty May Liberate Us From the Cul-De-Sac: An Interview with Bill Walker III Still Making Sense of Church: An Interview with Spencer Burke

New challengers in the content streaming space! HBO Max and Disney+ enter the race for video delivery dominance. Listen in to hear VP of Growth, Spencer Burke, and Strategic AE, Patrick Forquer, discuss the lay of the streaming land, offering packages, and the frontrunners.       TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] Spencer Burke: Have you guys watched ET recently?   [0:00:20] PJ Bruno: Pretty much every Christmas, yeah.   [0:00:22] Spencer Burke: Really?   [0:00:22] PJ Bruno: No.   [0:00:23] Spencer Burke: Oh.   [0:00:24] Patrick Forquer: This is our best content in years.   [0:00:25] PJ Bruno: It's the best yet. Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your martech industry discussed digest. My two esteemed guests today, close friends and colleagues, once again, Spencer Burke of the [house growth] and Patrick Forquer from the sales org. Gentlemen, welcome back.   [0:00:41] Patrick Forquer: PJ.   [0:00:42] Patrick Forquer: What a pleasure to be with you and Spencer again.   [0:00:46] PJ Bruno: I'm very excited about today. Spencer, good to you. You're looking very tanned.   [0:00:49] Spencer Burke: Thanks, Pat.   [0:00:50] PJ Bruno: Where did you go?   [0:00:51] Spencer Burke: Thanks for having me, PJ.   [0:00:52] PJ Bruno: Yeah, man. Always good to have you back on. You always have insightful big words.   [0:00:55] Patrick Forquer: I just drank some excellent cold brew on tap. I'm fired up.   [0:00:59] PJ Bruno: That's good. Me too. I forgot that you're supposed to dilute it with water.   [0:01:02] Spencer Burke: Yup.   [0:01:03] PJ Bruno: I just do straight-up.   [0:01:03] Patrick Forquer: Yeah.   [0:01:04] Spencer Burke: Wow.   [0:01:04] PJ Bruno: That's right. I'm fired up. My vision is vibrating a little bit, so let's jump in before I can't see. So this episode, we're getting in the streaming wars. We're all aware of how many different companies are trying to capture the apple as far as streaming services. We've got Netflix, which has been around for a long time. There's Hulu. Now we have two big contestants jumping in the ring. First of which, HBO Max joins the growing mob of streaming services, chasing after Netflix. Their parent company AT&T, they unwrapped this direct-to-consumer streaming service this past week. HBO Max will feature 10,000 hours of content from HBO, Warner Brothers, DC Entertainment, CNN, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and other Warner media properties, planning to launch next spring. It's the first major venture to come from AT&T's $104 billion takeover of Time Warner. They're going to have a lot of titles. They're taking Friends off of Netflix, which is pretty huge. I know every once in a while, I'll jump into a few random episodes just because it's chicken soup for the American soul. It truly is. Also, Patrick mentioned to me that some Reese Witherspoon movie is coming to HBO Max too, and you're the Reese Witherspoon fan.   [0:02:21] Patrick Forquer: I am a huge Reese fan. I'm on the board or director of the Reese Witherspoon fan club, a huge supporter of all of her work. Very excited to have that.   [0:02:33] PJ Bruno: Yeah. What's it called?   [0:02:34] Patrick Forquer: It's called The Reese Witherspoon Story.   [0:02:37] PJ Bruno: That's good.   [0:02:38] Spencer Burke: On a serious note, which ... Do we do serious on this?   [0:02:42] PJ Bruno: Yeah, we can slide into the serious.   [0:02:44] Patrick Forquer: Let's try it on for size and see how it feels.   [0:02:46] Spencer Burke: As Netflix loses content, I often feel like I'm on an airplane, a little bit trapped. I'm not really excited about any of my options, but I'm at home on the couch. I want to watch something. Do you guys think Netflix can sustain its edge as it's losing some of this content, Friends and The Office or some of its most streamed shows? When you sit down and put on Netflix, are you really excited about the options? How do you feel about their current content library?   [0:03:14] PJ Bruno: I think their sweet spot as far as ... It all comes back to original content because yes, they were first in the space. They were quick to absorb some of our favorite shows, but as they start to lose some of those tried and tested sitcoms that we love so much and keep going back to, they still continue to put out really, really great "original" content. When I say "original", there's quotes around that because it's not super original. It's just paying people for their content and branding it Netflix, but the original content that's come out of there ... Stranger Things, I just burned through in a day and a half, season three, and I'm ready for season four. They just keep putting out great things.   [0:03:51] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, I think the interesting part if you look at the evolution of Netflix since it really doubled-down on focusing direct-to-the-consumer, evolving from the DVD business back in the day-   [0:04:02] PJ Bruno: They still have that DVD mailing service, though, by the way.   [0:04:04] Patrick Forquer: Do they really?   [0:04:05] Spencer Burke: Do they?   [0:04:05] PJ Bruno: They do. It still exists in case you guys want a mailed DVD.   [0:04:09] Patrick Forquer: Ugh, I would love that.   [0:04:10] PJ Bruno: It's nostalgic.   [0:04:11] Patrick Forquer: But they took all this content from the big linear players, NBC, CBS, etc, before the linear TV folks really knew the gold that they had on their hands. So to see this now retraction of that to say, "Oh, wait ..." They built this tent pole around this really popular chicken soup for the soul type of content, Friends, etc, and are pivoting now to towards the original content. So they built the audience, leveraging all the great content from other folks, and now that those folks are pulling that back, they have critical mass. So I actually see it ... I don't see that as a huge threat to Netflix overall because they're putting out something like 80 to 100 original movies every year. Think about that. Think about that scale.   [0:04:59] Spencer Burke: Half of them are Adam Sandler movies.   [0:05:00] Patrick Forquer: Yeah.   [0:05:00] PJ Bruno: Oh man.   [0:05:02] Spencer Burke: He keeps doing it, though, doesn't he? He's trying his best. He's staying.   [0:05:05] PJ Bruno: He is trying.   [0:05:05] Patrick Forquer: But they're playing a volume game right now. They're putting out a massive amount of content. Only 5% or so needs to hit. As long as they're getting single digit hits out of the massive volume they're putting out, they're going to continue to see subscriber growth. They raised their prices recently. They now have that mass where it doesn't matter that things are going away, as much as it helps those other services. To Netflix, they've already got that.   [0:05:32] PJ Bruno: HBO Max and chill doesn't quite have the same ring to it, I don't think.   [0:05:36] Patrick Forquer: Right. Well, the interesting thing about HBO, though, if you think about the different big players, HBO is obviously one of the big ones out there where they're known for lower volume but extremely high quality content. Game of Thrones, etc. But what'll be interesting to see now is as they scale that ... And their CEO has talked a lot about that, especially since the merger with AT&T. They'll scale that, and the idea is keep the extremely high level of content, and maybe not get to the level that Netflix is getting, but you're getting at a much higher "hit rate" of things that work and things that resonate with the audience, even though the overall volume may be lower than Netflix. It'll be higher than where they are now. There are so many different universes coming together with DC, Turner, etc. I'm excited to see what that looks like and takes shape. The original lineup that they've come out with looks awesome in addition to ... Yeah, you probably know double-digit people that watch Friends every night before bed. So that alone is just like ... It's one of those shows that people just watch and feel better about [inaudible].   [0:06:47] Spencer Burke: With Netflix, it's not just that they need 5% to 10% of the shows to be winners. Their equation is slightly different because their audience is so broad. They're creating really niche content, and in linear TV, niche content takes up a time slot. So the opportunity cost of that is really high. Do I want this show for middle America to take the 7 o'clock time slot, but I know no one in San Francisco is going to watch it? Versus on Netflix, we can ... I don't even remember what that Ashton Kutcher show where they're out on the ranch is called. The Ranch? Is that it?   [0:07:20] PJ Bruno: Oh yeah, I think it is called The Ranch. Sam Elliott.   [0:07:23] Spencer Burke: Yeah, we can release that and Stranger Things and Dark. There's this horror sci-fi thing going on at the same time as this western-type story. So what they're trying to do is create content that really hits different parts of their audience and have winners for each of those segments. I think HBO and Disney have both done the opposite, really high-quality, broad appeal, Game of Thrones. Disney has a huge history of some amazing winners in that category.   [0:07:53] PJ Bruno: Right. Not taking risks is just fully inline with that vision. When you look at the remakes of recent with Aladdin coming back to live action, Lion King ... I'll probably go see that on Friday.   [0:08:04] Patrick Forquer: Definitely.   [0:08:04] Spencer Burke: Ooo, date time?   [0:08:06] Patrick Forquer: I think it's Friday date night.   [0:08:07] PJ Bruno: We do work directly next to a movie theater.   [0:08:10] Spencer Burke: We do. Yeah, just walk next door.   [0:08:12] PJ Bruno: Speaking of Lion King, we might as well move on to our next big one: Disney. Disney+ streaming service. The release date, the price, the shows and movies to expect. So as we know, Disney is betting big on its 2019 streaming service, Disney+, the future home for streaming almost all things Disney. It'll be the hub to watch the big budget Star Wars series, Marvel Cinematic Universe films, all the Pixar movies including the just-released Toy Story 4 sometime next year, and a bunch of original shows and movies based on those franchises and others.   [0:08:49] Spencer Burke: Yeah, so I guess the rivalry with Netflix is heating up.   [0:08:52] Patrick Forquer: What's interesting about the Disney+ product to me is first of all, I'm really excited about the original content they have coming out on Pixar and in the Star Wars universe and the Marvel Universe. Again, they're pulling all that Marvel content off of Netflix, for instance. So they have what HBO has, which is this blend of the tent pole original content that's very high quality, and they have a history of putting out great content, but also having the older Disney shows and older Disney movies to pull you in. But the third pillar that they have that I think is unique to Disney is parks. So what they have ... Spencer actually sent me an article on this a month or so ago, but what they have is they build these universes like Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo, etc. People get really into those ecosystem plays, but then they're also drawn to then go visit those types of experiences in real life. Spencer and I were at Disneyworld last year, and I can tell you business is booming. If you look at the-   [0:09:58] Spencer Burke: It's amazing.   [0:09:59] Patrick Forquer: It's amazing. It's amazing what they're able to do in real life at the parks, and then you look at their earnings reports and they are crushing the margins on that.   [0:10:07] PJ Bruno: Have you guys been to a park recently? Have you seen-   [0:10:10] Spencer Burke: Last year. We'll be back.   [0:10:11] Patrick Forquer: We're going back. Yes.   [0:10:12] PJ Bruno: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Did you get to see some of these experiences?   [0:10:16] Spencer Burke: Disney is incredible. The films, absolutely, but in the parks, they've thought through every detail down to ... The bars in the hotel are experiences. There's just really nowhere like that where you get the thrill of an amusement park combined with such a thoughtful experience. Everyone who's there, the cast members as they call them, is really engaged as a character in that experience. It's amazing.   [0:10:50] Patrick Forquer: If you look at the price point for all of those top end services that we're discussing here, HBO, Netflix are going to be comparable in the $12 to $20 range depending on where they land. But Disney's is much lower because as they build these fanbases on the streaming service, that then points them to the in-park experience where they make up the difference in how much lower they are than the other services by pushing people to their other experiences that are live. That's where they make a ton of money.   [0:11:26] PJ Bruno: I haven't been to a park in maybe 15 years. I think it's time.   [0:11:28] Patrick Forquer: PJ, you would love it. Let me tell you.   [0:11:31] Spencer Burke: I think that's an interesting thing about this space, though, because even ... PJ, you opened it up, the streaming war. I think people look at music streaming. All right, there's Spotify. There's Apple Music, and it's zero-sum. There has to be a winner, and everything is a trade-off. In the music space, the catalog of tracks that are on each platform is really similar. They're all licensing the music from the major labels. Spotify, Apple Music, largely going to be the same except for some of the curation that they can do. Netflix was the first mover, really, in the streaming space, especially at scale. So they at first bundled everything together. It looked a lot like your cable package. It looked a lot like Spotify might. Now that's coming undone as these other content creators are creating their own platforms and their own services. I think to have Disney really invest in that and to have consistent access to some of these titles where previously on Netflix, you'd lose it season to season, things like that, I'm super excited about that. I probably will end up spending more. Let's say you're a parent and you're looking at Disney+. You already have Hulu. You have Netflix. It's a no-brainer to add to your catalog.   [0:12:50] PJ Bruno: All right. Well, let's just jump in to taking a look at best video streaming services of 2019. This is a top three from PC Mag. We'll see what they say, and I'm interested to hear your favorites too, gentlemen. We'll get into that in one second. Number one topping the charts is the front-runner, Netflix, at $8.99 a month as you know. It's been around a long time. Impressive catalog. Shows like Altered Carbon, Black Mirror. Bojack Horseman, hilarious. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I also watch. The Crown, Lost in Space, Mindhunters, Narcos, Orange Is the New Black, Santa Clarita Diet, and Stranger Things. Another cool thing about Netflix: what they do as far as video quality alongside Amazon Prime video, is they allow 4K streaming and it supports offline downloads should you be traveling and want to be able to watch a film on a flight. Coming in at number two, YouTube for $49.99 a month. I was going to say that is a high price point for me. That is too rich for my blood, but one thing I will say that does interest me is they offer that excellent selection of live sports, including other cable networks, ABC, AMC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, FX, and NBC. Also, they have unlimited cloud DVR storage. Number three, Hulu. Good one. $5.99 a month or $44.99 for Hulu plus live TV, just undercutting YouTube there. Yeah, Hulu impresses with its best all-in-one options for cord-cutters ... I love that term ... Given its diverse set of streaming options. In addition to the strong library of classic shows, it also has a good selection of movies, live TV options, more than 60 channels of news, sports, and entertainment programming. Humans in the room, what do you guys have as far as apps on tap? What are your top things that you watch?   [0:14:47] Patrick Forquer: In our house, Netflix, HBO, and then Hulu is a distant third, I'd say. I think of the ones on this list ... I don't agree with this list, but of the ones on this list, I think Hulu is the one that will change the most over the next 12 to 24 months. Disney basically, through the acquisition of Fox and buying out the other additional investors, are taking control of Hulu. The market guesstimate at this point is that ESPN will be their home for sports, Disney+ is going to be their home for original content and children-focused entertainment, and then Hulu is going to be more the "adult", more comparable to an Amazon originals or Netflix originals for adult shows.   [0:15:33] PJ Bruno: Where do you watch your sports?   [0:15:35] Patrick Forquer: We have Verizon cable and Internet package.   [0:15:40] PJ Bruno: Gotcha.   [0:15:40] Patrick Forquer: But it's this-   [0:15:41] Spencer Burke: So you haven't cut the cord yet.   [0:15:42] Patrick Forquer: Well, so I cut the cord, and then I uncut the cord because the streaming got a little untenable where I couldn't [inaudible] the various games I wanted to watch. Verizon, AT&T, it's an interesting thing. They figured out that people are cutting the cord, so then they made it so you couldn't buy just cable. Buying cable plus sports channels basically is what we have. We have the sports package. We get ESPN and all the sports channels so that we can watch football, basketball, etc. They figured it out a couple years ago, so their bundle changed. Then I got back into it because it didn't make sense to do just cable, for instance.   [0:16:24] Spencer Burke: That's the nice thing about YouTube TV. I did a trial of it last week during Wimbledon. You can watch live sports. You can watch live TV. So it fills that gap for cord cutters who still want to watch sports or who want to watch some stuff live. For me, Hulu had filled that gap a little bit since it was a partnership across a lot of the traditional broadcast companies, but now Hulu fits in this different spot where for me, the ranking is similar. I subscribe to some of the same services. I just don't watch Hulu quite as often.   [0:17:01] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, and they're going to lose ... A lot of their popular content is the NBC content, which they're going to lose when NBC launches their thing. So it'll be interesting to see how they backfill that because that's what we, frankly, use it for is watching the shows on NBC that we miss and essentially using it as a DVR-type service.   [0:17:19] Spencer Burke: Same. Same.   [0:17:21] Patrick Forquer: Yeah. I don't-   [0:17:22] PJ Bruno: Like the Bachelorette?   [0:17:24] Patrick Forquer: Yeah.   [0:17:25] Spencer Burke: Like The Good Place.   [0:17:26] Patrick Forquer: The Good Place. Jimmy Fallon.   [0:17:29] Spencer Burke: Oh, you watch Fallon? Ugh.   [0:17:32] Patrick Forquer: Seth Meyers.   [0:17:32] PJ Bruno: He's not a client, right?   [0:17:35] Patrick Forquer: Jimmy Fallon. Great guy. I'm hanging out with him this weekend.   [0:17:37] PJ Bruno: Your apps, Spence. Your top.   [0:17:40] Spencer Burke: Same as Pat. I've been getting into Amazon Prime for the movie selection just because it feels very broad but also really random titles that I'm not seeing anywhere else.   [0:17:50] PJ Bruno: What are some examples?   [0:17:52] Spencer Burke: Teen Wolf.   [0:17:54] Patrick Forquer: It's pretty specific.   [0:17:56] Spencer Burke: Dune. There's some really nerdy stuff that I like that's in the realm of either-   [0:18:01] Patrick Forquer: Which Dune movie?   [0:18:03] Spencer Burke: The original. Is there a new one? The guy from Twin Peaks.   [0:18:08] Patrick Forquer: Twin Peaks.   [0:18:09] Spencer Burke: Oh, classic.   [0:18:10] Patrick Forquer: Remember? Then they brought it back in 2017.   [0:18:10] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I've never watched it.   [0:18:10] Patrick Forquer: So PJ, what would be your ranking of the apps?   [0:18:16] PJ Bruno: Oh, by use, I would probably say Netflix and HBO have to be right there at the top just because I think half of my watching is documentary. From what I've seen, they have some of the best catalogs.   [0:18:28] Spencer Burke: What kind of docs?   [0:18:32] PJ Bruno: I'm obsessed with cult documentaries. I've seen every cult documentary that exists.   [0:18:38] Spencer Burke: Doing some research?   [0:18:40] Patrick Forquer: PJ is going to be an up and coming-   [0:18:42] PJ Bruno: You've noticed I'm charismatic, right? I'm not letting this go to waste. No, there's the Wild, Wild Country, which was very popular on Netflix, but then there's also my favorite one called The Source Family. Super, super interesting. I'll just give you the boilerplate in 30 seconds. So this guy, he was dubbed the world's strongest boy at age 12 in the 40s or something like that, and then fought in the war. He was a sniper and had 14 registered kills. Moves to Southern California and opens up a chain of health restaurants, and this was before healthy eating was actually a thing. He kicked it off in Southern California. At this point, he's in his mid-50s, and this group of mid-twenty-somethings just rally around him because he loves yoga. He loves eating healthy. He loves free love. So all of a sudden, he has this group of people they call the Aquarians. It's 12 twenty-somethings and this 50-some year old guy is leading them. Of course, in every single documentary, series, or film, it's like they worship this person, this person starts to think they're God, and then all hell breaks loose, basically. But that's the formula for pretty much every single one.   [0:19:59] Spencer Burke: I'm speechless, PJ. That was amazing.   [0:20:01] PJ Bruno: Oh, there's plenty more.   [0:20:02] Patrick Forquer: I regret asking. We'll cut that.   [0:20:07] PJ Bruno: With Amazon, we have that as well through our Prime membership. That's the interesting part about it is that-   [0:20:12] Spencer Burke: You ever thought about canceling your Prime?   [0:20:15] PJ Bruno: Well, here's a question, Spencer. You're married. Do you guys have one Prime account or two Prime accounts?   [0:20:21] Spencer Burke: One, of course.   [0:20:22] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:20:25] Patrick Forquer: Did that foil your follow-up question?   [0:20:28] PJ Bruno: Same.   [0:20:31] Patrick Forquer: You thought you were going to fool him.   [0:20:32] PJ Bruno: No, I just-   [0:20:32] Spencer Burke: Oh, you simple man.   [0:20:33] PJ Bruno: We haven't consolidated yet. So that's stupid. Also, you're going to see that Apple is coming out with a TV product. Amazon already has Prime Video, which is out. We're going to see a bunch of other tech players get into the space as well. Over the next two years, I think we'll see a glut of new entrants, and then over a five year period, we'll see who's going to win out because it's not going to make sense to invest the type of money that Netflix and HBO, etc, are investing in this if you're not going to come full-on because people are coming at this with a lot of money, a lot of attention, and a lot of great content. If you're not up to execute at a really high level across every aspect of the business, it's not going to make sense.   [0:21:18] Spencer Burke: And potentially build a theme park.   [0:21:20] PJ Bruno: Yeah, you also-   [0:21:20] Patrick Forquer: Oh man, what a differentiator that is.   [0:21:22] PJ Bruno: You should build a theme park.   [0:21:22] Spencer Burke: A Stranger Things theme park?   [0:21:25] Patrick Forquer: Oh my God.   [0:21:27] Spencer Burke: He'll love it.   [0:21:27] PJ Bruno: [crosstalk].   [0:21:28] Patrick Forquer: Oh wow. Perfect.   [0:21:29] Spencer Burke: That's exciting.   [0:21:30] PJ Bruno: The last question that I have for all of these services is as the smart home evolves, as Amazon and Apple are building more and more smart home products, the cable companies own the pipes. But if you're Apple and you own the TV of the future, or Microsoft or whoever, then similar to the app store and all of the stuff that we see on our phones, you're going to prebake all of your original content into the device, which is the unspoken thing because we're not really there yet from a smart home perspective. The quality of the screens, etc, isn't there from those products. So as a Amazon home device, even Facebook, etc, as they-   [0:22:08] Spencer Burke: Self-driving cars.   [0:22:08] PJ Bruno: Self-driving.   [0:22:09] Spencer Burke: Guys, as we wrap up, I'd like a prediction from you. Old Town Road. Is it going to continue to be number one? Is it going to hit 17 weeks? Break the record?   [0:22:20] PJ Bruno: I think that it will. I care very medium for that song. I'm just so impartial. I'm like, "It's all right." But I think it probably will continue.   [0:22:32] Spencer Burke: Do you think you could do a better Old Town Road?   [0:22:34] PJ Bruno: Like take the song and cover it?   [0:22:36] Spencer Burke: No, like-   [0:22:37] PJ Bruno: Write a song.   [0:22:38] Spencer Burke: Yeah.   [0:22:39] PJ Bruno: Yeah, I think so. I think if I have our BI team's bandwidth for a week, it's all about doing some research. All right, it's this cadence. All right, all the hits are in this key. Here are some top words that we hear from most popular songs. Systematically, with this company, we could create hit after hit after hit.   [0:22:56] Patrick Forquer: I do think that was some of the most clever marketing of the year.   [0:22:59] Spencer Burke: To put a hip-hop song on the country charts? It worked, obviously.   [0:23:04] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:23:05] Patrick Forquer: I love the song. Lil Nas is [inaudible] great Twitter follower.   [0:23:07] Spencer Burke: He's your follower?   [0:23:10] PJ Bruno: He follows you?   [0:23:12] Patrick Forquer: He's a huge fan of mine. No, sorry. Great Twitter follow. Yeah, definitely. The Internet is going crazy. Every time he puts out a remix, it just continues to stay [up].   [0:23:22] Spencer Burke: Mariah Carey might be the next one.   [0:23:23] Patrick Forquer: Mariah Carey.   [0:23:24] Spencer Burke: I think people are trying to be really clever and use new platforms. This is getting totally off our topic, but it's related to music streaming, and actually streaming on YouTube as well.   [0:23:35] Patrick Forquer: TikTok.   [0:23:35] Spencer Burke: TikTok, yeah. I think the two really exciting and cool things and clever things about what they did ... First, if you're a hip-hop artist, breaking into the hip-hop charts is really hard. There's just a lot going on there. A lot of people are trying to do that. A lot of things sound pretty similar. Country, however, way easier to disrupt. So from a marketing perspective ... And this happens in the App Store too. People look at which categories and try to figure out what's the best category for me to rise through the rankings. So just being super clever about doing that, then it happened to get him all of this press because they kicked it off the country charts. That's when Billy Ray came in. Some really brilliant marketing there. Then using social media, including emerging platforms like TikTok, to help build a following, he's done that in a way that no other modern artist has to this level.   [0:24:27] PJ Bruno: HBO and Disney could take a note, I guess, from the kid.   [0:24:30] Patrick Forquer: Or PJ Bruno.   [0:24:32] PJ Bruno: We'll see.   [0:24:32] Patrick Forquer: We'll have to put you out there, PJ.   [0:24:33] PJ Bruno: That's about all the time we have for today, gents. I'd like to thank Spencer Burke and Patrick Forquer for being here with me. Thanks, guys.   [0:24:41] Spencer Burke: Thanks, PJ.   [0:24:41] Patrick Forquer: Thanks for having us.   [0:24:42] PJ Bruno: And thank you for stopping by. Take care. [0:24:45]

Self-proclaimed scooter experts, Cody Thornton (Digital First AE) and Pat Forquer (Enterprise AE), give myself and Spencer Burke (VP of Growth) their views on the proliferation of e-scooters in major cities, the safety risks involved, and the competitive landscape for micro-mobility talent.       TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ: Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your mar-tech industry discuss digest. I'm thrilled today to have with me Spencer Burke, VP of growth. Spence, how we doing?   [0:00:28] Spencer Burke: Doing Great, thanks PJ.   [0:00:30] PJ: Also, Patrick Forquer from our sales org here in the east. Pat?   [0:00:34] Patrick Forquer: Oh, PJ. Doing excellent. Thanks for having me.   [0:00:37] PJ: And first time ever having a remote guest in from LA from our sales org on the west coast. Cody Thornton. How you doing buddy?   [0:00:45] Cody Thornton: PJ, I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me. Excited for this.   [0:00:50] Spencer Burke: Coast to coast.   [0:00:51] PJ: Coast to coast. It feels good. I mean, also this is the scooter episode. We have a lot of articles that we're going to digest today all around scooter sharing companies. Cody Thornton is a big scooter guy.   [0:01:03] Cody Thornton: Big. I am so pro scooter. It's not even funny.   [0:01:06] PJ: One of the biggest. Before we jump into the content, let's just start with a little disclaimer. The company Braze, we work with plenty of scooter sharing companies. All the comments you're going to hear today are just personal opinions. Braze does not promote or disparage any scooter app. We are advocates of all of them. So Patrick, I feel like you have a strong opinion perhaps.   [0:01:27] Patrick Forquer: Ugh, love scooters. Like I'm so onboard with scooters. I'm fully ... I don't know how you call being on a scooter, but I'm on scooter on board.   [0:01:37] PJ: Both.   [0:01:37] Patrick Forquer: Both feet. Left foot, right foot, gripping tightly signaling with traffic, the whole thing. I'm onboard.   [0:01:45] PJ: Spencer, where do you lie?   [0:01:46] Spencer Burke: I have a confession. I've never ridden a scooter.   [0:01:49] PJ: Wow.   [0:01:49] Spencer Burke: Escooters are brand new to me, so I'm a blank slate. I am happy to hear PJ's perspective. Cody and pat, try and convince me. All righty. So Cody, you are a huge advocate for the scoot scoot. Am I right?   [0:02:01] Cody Thornton: Yes. I am a major advocate. I feel like ... I'm from Los Angeles, live in San Francisco., I feel like two great markets for the scooter industry and these companies. I'm just a big fan of micro mobility from the accessibility and practicality of it to the environmental benefits. I think there's a lot of short distance transportation that is much easier and quicker with, per se, a scooter rather than using an Uber, driving your car, filling parking garages. So I will admit I think there's a lot to figure out from safety to legislation in the space, but overall I am a big fan of scooters. I think it's pretty promising.   [0:02:44] PJ: Well, let's just kick it off. Our first article of the day, Byrd is launching a two seater electric vehicle to become more than a kick scooter startup. Byrd has just unveiled the Byrd cruiser, an electric vehicle that is essentially a blend between a bicycle and a moped. The Byrd cruiser can seat up to two people, and depending on the market, the cruiser will either be pedal assist or just have a peg. Also equipped with hydraulic disc brakes. Very exciting. They can stop. 52 volt battery, and many ebikes have it as well. It's designed to handle hills. So off-roading is an option. I mean it gets pretty hilly out in SF, so you must be thrilled about it, Cody.   [0:03:24] Cody Thornton: The two things I'm most excited about are definitely the hills and the hydraulic disc brakes. I was in Austin last week riding a scooter that the brakes were definitely not working, so I was worried I would end up in one of our later articles about injuries, but yes. San Francisco being quite hilly., I think this is a big opportunity. Honestly, it's pretty interesting as well. I think too Byrd launching this cruiser has been able to categorize it as an ebike rather than a scooter, so they've been able to avoid a lot of the local legislation and government policies and politics around it. So, I'm personally super excited about this. I cannot wait to throw Patrick on the back of my Byrd cruiser and just launch up these SF hills man.   [0:04:09] PJ: What a dream. It reminds me of Dumb and Dumber. I can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog.   [0:04:16] Cody Thornton: We are going to be the first people that take a Byrd to aspen.   [0:04:19] PJ: We can only do it in Aspen. That's the best obviously. I mean does this open the door for like other vehicles where they're going to come out with a whole like series?   [0:04:28] Spencer Burke: I think we will continue to see more diversity because to Cody's point right now it's scooters are fantastic for like last mile delivery of like point A to point B, you know, 10 minute ride, 15 minute ride, but you're not going to be doing your daily commute unless you live and work in Santa Monica where Byrd is located, which is my dream, just saying. It's like taking a scooter to work. I mean, [crosstalk 00:04:50].   [0:04:50] Cody Thornton: I don't know. Once they're in New York why wouldn't you?   [0:04:53] Spencer Burke: I mean can you imagine riding a scooter in New York? That is literally my nightmare.   [0:04:57] Cody Thornton: Oh my gosh.   [0:04:58] Spencer Burke: I'm so scared. I can barely ... I'm afraid to walk in New York [crosstalk 00:05:00].   [0:05:01] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, you got to wear a helmet while you're walking in New York.   [0:05:05] PJ: You got to wrap yourself in bubble wrap to get on that scooter. There's a lot of precautions.   [0:05:10] Patrick Forquer: Is that a thing yet? Is there an aggressive scooting community?   [0:05:14] PJ: In?   [0:05:15] Patrick Forquer: Anywhere? Like you know ...   [0:05:17] Cody Thornton: You're talking to it right now.   [0:05:17] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I was about to say exhibit A over here. Cody I think is the president of a local advocacy groups for scooters.   [0:05:24] PJ: Let's talk a little bit more about Byrd because Apple announced his support for Apple Pay and this is relevant to Byrd as well as Bonobos and a handful of other companies. Cody, you want to, you want to speak to this one a little bit? I know you were pretty jazzed about it.   [0:05:37] Cody Thornton: Yeah, definitely. I thought this was really interesting. I actually recently got a new iPhone, had to go through the whole registration process for Byrd again and when I went through you buy it and pretty much the number of rides you want right now, so they have a 20 package ride. If you want to buy, that's their most popular one. You click it, you go through the checkout process, etc. I'd like to think I'm a little bit more technically savvy than the mass market out there, so just going through this process, I saw a larger opportunity for them to make this more seamless. From firsthand experience when I was in San Diego last year, I had a really interesting epiphany I guess. Because I was there around Memorial Day weekend and there was a ton of people who I'd say not your target demographic for scooter riders, older men and women, younger girls and boys, etc. But everyone was just wondering how to get onto the scooter. So I haven't had to download the app. And you know, I just saw it as a big organic growth vehicle for them. So I think partnerships like this with Apple Pay's NFC technology only lower the barrier of entry for all these people that are trying to figure out how to get on these scooters or ride and conversely in San Francisco right now, Lime and Byrd are not allowed in San Francisco. So I believe it's Spin, Jump, and Scoot are the three brands there, right? So most people, if you're an avid scooter goer like myself, Patrick, etc, you're most likely going to use a variety of different services depending on the city where you are. So I think technology like this, partnerships, just makes it way easier to get up and running and ultimately become a user of these different companies' services, or the scooter.   [0:07:22] PJ: So Cody, what is the reason that like Byrd and Lime are barred in SF versus these other companies?   [0:07:28] Cody Thornton: To my knowledge, it is all local legislation. So it was a pretty guerrilla-esque marketing tactic when these companies first started going. So you would just wake up one morning and there was just dozens of these scooters on the street and no one had any idea of where they came from, what to do with them. And again, these thoughts are our own and I am not entirely sure, but I'm pretty confident that Byrd and LIme were two of the first that went out to market in San Francisco specifically. So these scooters just were all over the street. And I remember it was a mess honestly. It was crazy. You all know San Francisco is a relatively condensed city. So you were just walking to work. There's scooters everywhere, scooters in trash cans, scooters all over the sidewalk, scooters leaning up against buildings. So, they wanted to put some legislation in place, one, to have a little bit more of a framework to operate in the cities specifically, but also limit the amount of sheer scooters that were there. I'm not sure exactly what the process was of how they determine the three vendors that were for the initial shared scooter rollout in San Francisco, but Scoot, Lime, and Spin were of the first three that got rolled out. So I'm speaking with various people that work at these organizations. They are extremely optimistic that they will be back in San Francisco sooner rather than later, but they're just going through the necessary to making it "more legit" if you will.   [0:08:59] PJ: Got you. Got to make it legit.   [0:09:01] Cody Thornton: Too legit to quit.   [0:09:02] Spencer Burke: Obviously. I mean that does kind of speak to one of the articles we're going to talk about later, PJ, about around the consolidation and kind of like partnerships happening within the scooter industry right now. It makes sense for someone like an Apple who maybe doesn't know excel in scooter production, right, to partner with someone like Byrd, just to kind of get their foot in the door so to speak, but also lead to a better overall user experience. So I use the Apple Pay on the Byrd app as well. It works. It's incredible.   [0:09:29] Cody Thornton: Nice.   [0:09:29] PJ: Have any of you guys a bit the dust on a scooter yet? Pat, Cody?   [0:09:36] Patrick Forquer: I'm clean. My record's clean so far. I'm going to LA tomorrow, so check back with me in a couple of days.   [0:09:43] PJ: Yeah, Spencer, I know you have yet to ride. So I think we know your answer. Cody, what do you have over there?   [0:09:51] Cody Thornton: Oh, I most definitely have. I have a few battle wounds that I'm quite proud of myself. Can't wait to tell my kids about these one day. Some pretty awesome scars. But no, in all seriousness, it happened in the time that I actually fell in Santa Monica. I'd like to think I'm ... You know, I like to snowboard, I like to skateboard, I like to surf, all that jazzy stuff. So I feel like I'm inclined to riding these things more than your average consumer, if you will. And so I was riding one morning in Santa Monica, I'm still not quite sure what happened to be completely honest, but it just beeped twice, went, "Beep, beep," real quick and just ejected me over the handlebars. And luckily I didn't get to seriously hurt, but I was honestly laughing. I looked like Gabby Douglas in the Olympics just mounting the handlebars. I had a puffy jacket on. I slid for like 20 feet. People ran over to make sure if I'm okay, I'm just laying there hysterically laughing. I'm like, "How did this just happen?" But yeah, I got a nice little raspberry on my hip, on my elbow. And so you know, I'm kind of in this weird middle ground of the injury topic we will talk about because it's inevitably dangerous. You can move quickly, very nimbly. People do not obey the sidewalk laws, the bike lane laws, random freak of nature accidents similar to the one I went through. That said, I mean I could wholeheartedly say I fell because of an issue with the scooter. I think most of the time in a lot of the injuries that are happening, they are rider induced so people are not riding responsibly. They're potentially under the influence of, say, alcohol potentially. But yeah, I guess we can get into that. But that is my story of how I really ate it on a scooter.   [0:11:51] PJ: I mean, why don't we just get into right now? This next article here is the boom in electrical scooters leads to more injuries and even fatalities. So as stand up electric scooters have rolled into more than 100 cities worldwide, many of the people riding them are ending up in the emergency room with serious injuries. Others have been killed. There are no comprehensive statistics available. But a rough count by the Associated Press of media reports turned up at least 11 electric scooter rider deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018. Nine were on rented scooters and two were on ones the victims owned. Spencer, you have some thoughts on this [crosstalk 00:12:34].   [0:12:32] Spencer Burke: Yeah, this article is pretty frustrating for me because it doesn't add any context. They're clearly trying to sensationalize the fact that people have been hurt and killed, which is terrible. Don't want to minimize the impact of that to anyone. But I think there's a bigger picture issue here that it's really challenging to be a pedestrian, to be a cyclist, now to be a scooterist, or whatever the official term is, in really dense cities. It's not safe. In New York City, in many cities in the U.S. there's something called vision zero which is getting pedestrian deaths to zero as a result of traffic fatalities. So I've got some stats here that I pulled up, but every year 4,000 New Yorkers are injured and 250 are killed as a result of traffic crashes. And it's the leading cause of injury related death for kids under 14, so cars in cities are dangerous and people who are not in cars tend to get hurt. Even people in cars get hurt. So I would have liked to see in an article like this, and generally in the coverage, it is not just unique to this one article, more of an understanding of what it's like to be someone who's commuting not in a car and not in public transit, and how we can make that safer and more accessible.   [0:13:50] Patrick Forquer: Yeah. I think when you look at it to this articles from the Santa Monica Daily Press, which if you've ever been to Santa Monica scooters are a very polarizing topic there. Just like they are my hometown of Atlanta. When I go home, people are either ... It's very polarizing, one side or the other. You either love them or hate them. And what I don't understand about the hate part, especially in a place like Atlanta where if you need to go half a mile, you get in your car and drive there, right? It's like, they're all over the sidewalks there, you know, people are just leaving them parked.   [0:14:24] Spencer Burke: When was the last time you were on the sidewalk?   [0:14:25] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, exactly. Like when was the last time you walked anywhere in Atlanta? Zero times have you walked anywhere that wasn't like your backyard. But the interesting stat to me from this article was a vast majority of the injuries were after, I think, 6:00PM or 7:00PM so I think we can all use our imagination there.   [0:14:44] Cody Thornton: People are just super tired, just crashed on the scooter after a long day.   [0:14:48] Patrick Forquer: Right, exactly.   [0:14:49] Cody Thornton: Exhausted, 6:30, just exhausted. But I think we will continue to see like a maturation of the regulatory environment around this, which is probably warranted and needed, but at the same time, I think if it was kind of wild west to start, we're kind of moving towards a place that's much more controlled in a safer environment. So hopefully you get some kind of guardrails in place and people can scoot and peace.   [0:15:13] Spencer Burke: It's the same for bicycles. Like this hate isn't unique to scooters. People get upset that they're building bike lanes in their neighborhood and it's taking away parking. So bikes have been around for a couple of hundred years. I think that the regulatory environment could maybe be improved. But I think we're just seeing the repeat of some same problems people have with making dense, urban areas less car friendly.   [0:15:36] PJ: Do you think they're gonna start making it legal in New York City? Do you think that's going to happen?   [0:15:41] Cody Thornton: I sure hope so.   [0:15:42] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I feel like New York is such a interesting market because it's so crazy. Could you imagine just an onslaught of scooters just coming into Manhattan? Oh my gosh.   [0:15:52] PJ: I mean where I live-   [0:15:55] Spencer Burke: The Santa Monica Daily press will have a few thoughts about it.   [0:16:00] PJ: I mean in Brooklyn where I live it would be fine, right? But like midtown Manhattan on a scooter-   [0:16:04] Spencer Burke: Like where we work, yeah.   [0:16:05] PJ: Yeah.   [0:16:06] Spencer Burke: It would be a nightmare.   [0:16:06] PJ: Like where we are right now would be tough.   [0:16:10] Cody Thornton: Yeah. I had a interesting ... Because that was actually one of the primary storylines out of South be y Southwest this year in Austin, Texas was the number of emergency room admissions they had or scooter related injuries and it was a pretty interesting thread on Twitter that I was following about all these injuries and different people that were there covering the conference that were going into the emergency room for scooter related accidents. Yeah, I think to Spencer's point, there definitely needs to be, whether it's better onboarding ... In San Francisco there's the service, Scoot, if anyone is familiar with that. So it's similar to the Byrd scooter we talked about, but they're more moped like so I'm not sure what they top out at miles per hour, but they have a helmet in the back you get on, you can take them up hills, you can ride them across the city. It's like an electric moped. But prior to getting access to the application once you go through onboarding, it requires you to watch a 20 minute video. So I don't know if something like that will happen with these scooter companies in terms of like educating their riders more. But back to the Austin point and South by Southwest, similar to what Patrick said, 90% of the injuries were reported to be after 6:00 PM, so again, we can use our imaginations of what is happening then. Like Spencer said, bikes have been around for hundreds of years. We see the Go bikes popping up everywhere, the Jump bikes, like we're not just going to get rid of bikes. Bikes are inevitably dangerous as well, but I think we just need to have a little bit more understanding on both sides. But yeah, it's a complex issue and I don't have the answer. I'm just going to go ahead ride with my AirPods in and let my hair flow in the wind on those bad boys.   [0:17:54] PJ: Cody. I don't have the answer. I'm just a dude.   [0:17:57] Spencer Burke: Just a guy.   [0:17:58] PJ: Wait, Cody, do you need to wear a helmet or is that not even a thing?   [0:18:03] Cody Thornton: Man, you're really hitting all my scooter knowledge today. That's another a soft spot for me that you do not need to wear a helmet. I will not disclose which one, but I personally worked with one of the scooter companies to bring them on board to become a customer Braze. And the example that I gave them is last year in 2018 Memorial Day weekend in San Diego, I was riding and my friends and I around eight in the morning were ushered over to the side of the road by a group of police officers. And we were cited for not riding with helmets. We had no idea that you even had to wear a helmets when you were riding these scooters at the time. So we get our citations. It was very, you know, cordial, fine experience, frustrating to say the least. But we go away and this older woman says, "Haven't you been watching the news? They have been handing out tickets to everyone not wearing helmets on the scooters." And I'm like, "No, I'm not watching the San Diego Daily News on my vacation. I'm sorry." But so we talked about using geo-fencing technology that we have here at Braze to run a notification to these people saying, "Hey, they're issuing citations in this area. Make sure you're wearing a helmet." Since then, I believe it was January 1, 2019 a statewide law has been passed that helmets are no longer required to ride scooters in California. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't want to wear a helmet when I wear these things.   [0:19:29] PJ: Based on personal experience.   [0:19:30] Cody Thornton: I also want people to be safe too.   [0:19:32] PJ: That's so California. "Hey man, you going to ride a scooter?   [0:19:36] Spencer Burke: No helmet needed. Just a slip tank in the summer months.   [0:19:40] Patrick Forquer: For what it's worth ... This doesn't apply to scooting since you're not doing any work, but I think there have been some studies in Australia where they looked at the net benefit between the increase to injury of not riding with a helmet and the health benefit of riding your bike every day for commuting, and on the whole it's better for you if you're every day riding a bike, getting to work, getting some exercise. So, that's been a lot of the influence for just increasing people's mobility, giving them access to these kinds of things, even if they don't require a helmet, which is the same for city bikes here in New York.   [0:20:13] PJ: All right, well you guys one more to go left. We're tight on time, but let's get to it. So scooter sharing startups slug it out in a war for niche talent. On demand scooter sharing startups are competing to hire from one another as they struggle with a limited talent pool chasing niche skills. These startups fast emerging as alternatives to last mile mobility require people with experience around internet of things based supply chain, design, and manufacturing. These are specialized skills as the technology itself is relatively new. So, it sounds like there's just not enough people to go around that know how to do this stuff right now, especially in your-   [0:20:49] Cody Thornton: Yeah, I mean, they know where to find me. [crosstalk 00:20:52].   [0:20:54] Patrick Forquer: The one thing that surprised me most when I first rode a Byrd was just how like the product is great. It looks great, it works really well. The check-in process, seamless. Offline, online, the whole thing was fantastic. So, I could imagine this like this is a booming space. Five years ago, no one was talking about last mile scooter delivery. So, not surprising and it's like that's the most kind of Silicon Valley thing ever is like competing for scooter talent.   [0:21:27] Spencer Burke: What about all those guys at Razor that were in the market 10 years ago?   [0:21:31] PJ: Razor. Throwback.   [0:21:34] Patrick Forquer: Getting crushed   [0:21:35] PJ: Yeah. Where's razor and all of this? Huge missed opportunity Razor.   [0:21:38] Patrick Forquer: Totally.   [0:21:39] PJ: To Pat's point, I thought it was pretty interesting when working with a few of the scooter companies myself. I didn't really realize it either until like ... In all seriousness, like five years ago, no one was talking about like this mass mobility or the scooter phenomenon that is going on, right? And to Pat's point as well too, I think from the onboarding experience and signing up and aside from realizing how great of a product it was, obviously first and foremost, how liberating riding a scooter is. Like that is just the greatest feeling in the entire world. I felt like I was a 10 year old kid, again. It's interesting. They're pretty well built products honestly. And you know, they have a very functioning mobile application that's powering these things. They have the actual physical scooters themselves. A lot of these companies are poaching talent from the likes of Lyft and Uber that not only from, you know, like on the mobile side of things but also from the legal side. Like these companies have massive battles in front of them on local government, statewide government, federal government and having experience with that. So I think, one to, obviously the consolidation aspect is pretty interesting from a manufacturing and supply chain perspective as well. But also I'm sure there's going to be a lot of acqui-hires in this space as well by these companies that will emerge as the juggernauts and I guess it's yet to be determined who those companies will be. And to anyone out there looking to have a career change, maybe look into last minute mobility tech. I don't know. It sounds like there's a need. Spencer, Cody. Patrick, thanks so much for being with me, you guys.   [0:23:13] Spencer Burke: It's my pleasure, PJ.   [0:23:14] Patrick Forquer: Thanks, Peej.   [0:23:15] Cody Thornton: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Be safe out there people. Don't be afraid, but be smart while being dumb.   [0:23:20] PJ: Absolutely, and for all those first time listeners out there, we are Braze. Braze is a customer engagement platform. If you don't know what that is, go to Braze.com. Find out. Thanks again for being with us.

Longtime buddies Will Crocker (Senior Director of Customer Experience)  and Spencer Burke (VP of Growth) chat the return of Game of Thrones, a ban on the government from creating free tax-preparation software, and a potential ban on crypto mining in China. Also, Prince Harry calls for a ban on Fortnite?!        TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ: Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. This is PJ Bruno, and I'm thrilled to have with me two very close buddies. I have Will Crocker, senior director of CX, that's customer experience. Hi, Will.   [0:00:32] Will: Hey, how you doing, PJ?   [0:00:33] PJ: And also, of course, my good friend Spencer Burke, the head of the House Growth. He's here with us today.   [0:00:40] Spencer: Hey, hey, it's good to be back.   [0:00:42] PJ: It is good to be back.   [0:00:43] Will: You guys grew a house?   [0:00:46] PJ: I'm just trying to rewatch more Game of Thrones, and I had that moment where Melisandre's like, "Robert of the House Baratheon." And I wanted to do something similar for Spencer, but I don't know if it hit.   [0:00:57] Spencer: PJ of the House Bruno.   [0:00:59] PJ: Exactly. Just makes you sound more special, I think.   [0:01:02] Will: So Game of Thrones is coming back real soon, right? What do you guys think?   [0:01:06] PJ: Oh, yeah. Sunday night. I'm thrilled. I'm gonna be in the UK, so I'm trying to find people there that ... For a watch party, because as you know, Game of Thrones takes place in England. Or so it may seem. I'm pumped. I'm so freaking pumped for the last season. Spence, any predictions?   [0:01:25] Spencer: I feel so far behind. I'm up to date, but my wife, Jenny, like you, is rewatching. She rewatched everything.   [0:01:33] PJ: You have to.   [0:01:33] Will: Everything? That's a lot.   [0:01:35] Spencer: Over the past couple months. Yeah. And so I'm going through, and I'm like, "All right, who's this again? What did they do?" And since she's been rewatching it, I'll come in at season four and be like, "Oh yeah, that's the guy who ..." And she's like, "No, that hasn't happened yet." And then when she got [inaudible], I was like, "Oh, but that's the guy who did this." She's like, "No, that was three seasons ago."   [0:01:54] PJ: Right.   [0:01:54] Spencer: So I'm just totally discombobulated, but I know once it gets started, there's the action, there's the dragons. We have a big battle coming. Gonna get straight into it.   [0:02:03] Will: Yeah, and you have a cheat sheet that's going to tell you what's going on in the new episodes.   [0:02:07] Spencer: Exactly.   [0:02:07] Will: Meanwhile, I am my girlfriend's cheat sheet, and I am in the same place as you, so I'm just gonna start making things up. I'm just gonna go out there and just say, "That's the secret Stark over there, that one. Just pay attention."   [0:02:21] PJ: They're gonna need to level up those recaps. That's gonna become a five to 10-minute thing of just, "Okay, wait, what ... There's all the sub-threads."   [0:02:30] Will: I'm actually shocked HBO didn't release a pre-episode which was a condensed, 30-minute explainer of what happened in the last season. They should've done that this week. They could've gotten a ton of views on that.   [0:02:40] PJ: Dude, tell me about it. I really ... I need something like that. I need-   [0:02:43] Spencer: That must exist somewhere. A supercut.   [0:02:45] Will: I'm sure YouTube has created that.   [0:02:47] PJ: There's a fan out there that's made that, for sure.   [0:02:49] Will: My main prediction is that HBO is gonna make a lot of money.   [0:02:52] PJ: And then they're gonna go back, they're gonna do a prequel, right? I think there's already talk about some sort of ... Around the time of Aegon and the Mad King. [crosstalk]   [0:03:01] Will: There are apparently four or five in production right now.   [0:03:04] PJ: Jeez.   [0:03:04] Will: Yeah.   [0:03:05] Spencer: Wow.   [0:03:05] PJ: It's a cash cow. What're you gonna do?   [0:03:07] Will: Got to milk it.   [0:03:09] PJ: That's what you do with a cash cow, man.   [0:03:11] Spencer: Did you guys watch SNL this past weekend?   [0:03:13] PJ: I didn't, no. Was there-   [0:03:14] Spencer: Kit Harington was the host.   [0:03:15] PJ: Oh, nice.   [0:03:16] Will: Yeah, he looked like he's 12 years old when I saw that ... The photo. It was really weird.   [0:03:20] PJ: When he's clean-shaven, he does look very young.   [0:03:22] Spencer: He also has a very laddish accent compared to his Jon Snow character. But they had a skit that was a parody of all of the spin-offs, so they had a Game of Thrones that was a Law & Order ripoff, just all of these different versions taking characters and then putting them into a sitcom or a drama or whatever. It was really funny.   [0:03:41] PJ: Classic. Yeah, I mean, I wonder ... Those guys ... You would think you just have a calling card to any job you want after you were on Game of Thrones, but I don't know. It's tough to break out of that when you've made a role for yourself.   [0:03:54] Will: Yeah, you can get pigeonholed pretty easily, I think. I think some of the other characters like that, like Robb Stark, who died seasons ago, what's he been in? Who knows?   [0:04:03] PJ: I don't know. I just see flashes of his face in different-   [0:04:06] Spencer: Actually, I do know.   [0:04:06] PJ: You do know?   [0:04:06] Spencer: He's in that Bodyguard show.   [0:04:08] Will: Oh, really?   [0:04:09] Spencer: I forget what ... Is it Netflix?   [0:04:12] Will: Is Sean Bean at a Starbucks now, shilling coffees? Is that where he is after he said "No, I need more money," and they were like, "Well, we'll kill you in season one. It's fine."   [0:04:20] Spencer: Yeah, he was in the Bodyguard on Netflix. Check it out.   [0:04:24] PJ: Check it out. We're plugging it. Plugging it here. All right, guys, we could talk about Game of Thrones forever, we might as well move on. But in light of Game of Thrones coming up and all the exiles that happen throughout Game of Thrones, this is the Banishment Episode-   [0:04:40] Speaker 8: You are banished!   [0:04:42] PJ: -of Braze for Impact.   [0:04:46] Spencer: Dun dun dun.   [0:04:47] PJ: Exactly. Dun dun dun dun dun dun ... We're really thrilled about it. We're gonna talk about some bans and some tentative bans that are on our radar right now. Starting off with number one, the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that includes language that would permanently bar the Internal Revenue Service from creating a free, electronic service for Americans to file their taxes, advancing a primary objective of the industry of for-profit companies like Intuit and H&R Block. Companies like Intuit, which produces TurboTax, which I use, and H&R Block allow most Americans to file for free as long as they earn less than $66,000 for the year, but most eligible Americans don't take advantage of that, with just three percent filing for free. Are you guys TurboTaxers? Do you-   [0:05:37] Will: TurboTax, yeah, regrettably.   [0:05:38] Spencer: TurboTax.   [0:05:39] PJ: We subscribe over here. TurboTax. Yeah, I was one of those late bloomers for doing my own taxes. It was kind of like you'd check off things as becoming an adult. "Oh, got to do this. Got to do this." Taxes was the last thing. It was like my dad did it, and I paid a guy to literally handle all of it. Now I'm TurboTax-ing, and I'm a grown, grown man now.   [0:05:58] Spencer: Consider yourself an adult?   [0:06:00] PJ: I thought ... For me, that was the last bit of criteria to say, "Okay, I've made it. I'm an adult."   [0:06:05] Will: It's truly ridiculous that we have to file like that. It's crazy. No other country in the world does it that way. Apparently, I think, in the UK, you have to make ... This number might be a little bit wrong, but it's something like 125,000 pounds a year to have to file. Other than that, what happens is the government just mails you your tax return, because they've got all the data like the IRS does. And they say, "If you want to contest this, go for it. Otherwise, here's your check."   [0:06:32] Spencer: Good to go.   [0:06:33] PJ: Yeah. Super easy. Why are we making it so hard on ourselves?   [0:06:37] Will: It also really screws poor people as well, here, because people have this idea in America that paying taxes ... You are always paying your taxes, right? Filing taxes your taxes is synonymous with paying your taxes. When in reality, if you make $30,000 a year, you're almost certainly going to get a refund. They're leaving money on the table, and if the IRS isn't automatically doing it, they don't get the refund, and IRS doesn't call them to complain, either.   [0:07:03] PJ: Yeah.   [0:07:06] Spencer: They have the information. Especially for a simple filer. You're just getting your deductions, you worked at the same place, you've lived in the same state. They know ... They know it. They could just do it. Estonia does this. Estonia. But apparently, I was reading-   [0:07:24] Will: They have e-citizenship, too, though.   [0:07:25] PJ: It just would ... Is it ... What's the reasoning? It's just it would take a lot of work for that to happen?   [0:07:30] Spencer: Well, there's a couple of reasons. One, these companies spend a lot of money lobbying our Representatives.   [0:07:35] Will: Tens and tens of millions of dollars every year.   [0:07:38] Spencer: The second is the party that prefers to remove taxes, they tend to do it for the people with the most money. But that aside, they think that if it's too easy ... Too easy to pay your taxes, it'll be as a result too easy for our Congress to increase taxes. So they try to make it harder so that people have to go through the pain and we all hate taxes. So there's-   [0:08:08] PJ: So wait, the thinking is that taxes will be increased if we did less work?   [0:08:13] Will: They want you to associate misery and pain and nonsense with taxation every year, and they've been highly successful, I would say.   [0:08:21] PJ: Yeah, tell me about it.   [0:08:23] Will: So, it's ... I don't know. I hope that someday we get there, but this bill that's about to go through with the tax free preparation software, banning all that stuff, it's, I believe, a bipartisan-supported bill, which just makes me really, really ask virtually everyone in Congress, "Guys, what the hell's going on?"   [0:08:49] PJ: I mean, it's just they're making money, right? Is it just-   [0:08:52] Will: Yeah. I think it costs the IRS more money to deal with these external agencies, too. Because you have to imagine on the technical side, they're building integrations and accepting all these form factors from all these different places. If the IRS just built this internally, or some other service built it that was easy to use and free, everyone would start using that, and then all of a sudden all of the overhead costs and all that starts to go down, too.   [0:09:20] PJ: Well, let's hope there's a different future for us, because I think that should be a free tool, hands down.   [0:09:26] Spencer: For sure. Have any of you guys had to deal with cryptocurrency and paying taxes on that?   [0:09:33] Will: I have, yes. It was pretty damn confusing. That might be the exception for where you might have to file something yourselves.   [0:09:43] Spencer: Yeah, right. Here's this new, sketchy asset that I made some money on.   [0:09:47] Will: Yeah, I made ... Not, I would say, a well-informed investment on it, because I don't think virtually anyone's investment on it is well-informed, unless you're a Ph.D. Mathematician who's dug into the source code. But yeah, I'd go as one of the lucky ones and got out while I was sensible, so I had to figure out where the hell to put that in TurboTax. It was weird.   [0:10:06] PJ: I'm sure it was. Did you, as well, or-   [0:10:08] Spencer: Yeah, this year. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it now, but-   [0:10:13] PJ: Well, since you're mentioning crypto ... Nice segue. Appreciate it. Onto our next ban. China considers ban on cryptocurrency ... Mining, that is, because it's a stupid waste of energy. Regulators in China are considering a ban on cryptocurrency mining as an undesirable economic activity, according to a government document released Monday. Basically, the whole thinking is that it's a huge waste on valuable resources because it takes so much energy to do this crypto mining. According to a recent report in Nature Sustainability, crypto mining emits anywhere between three million and 15 million tons of carbon dioxide globally. China making a decision that's good for the environment? I'm a little confused.   [0:10:59] Will: Yeah, although they've actually been getting a lot better about that. I think they won the race to the bottom in terms of environmental impact, and then realized how awful the bottom was and are trying to desperately claw up the other side now.   [0:11:12] Spencer: Yeah, I think with the Olympics, when they had to just close factories so that it wasn't so polluted that people were hacking up a lung while running a marathon.   [0:11:21] PJ: Jeez.   [0:11:21] Will: Yeah. It's still not good there, but they're doing a lot more, I think. Anyway, on the crypto subject, I just don't know. It's just like ... I see the potential, maybe, of something like this in the future, but right now, I read some article ... This was a year ago, that said that a year ago, Bitcoin itself was taking as much electrical energy every month as the nation of Germany.   [0:11:51] Spencer: I think it's one percent of global energy consumption is going to Bitcoin mining.   [0:11:55] Will: Yeah, and they kept saying that it's gonna go up. And that's only Bitcoin, too. There are, what, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other cryptocurrencies? If you assume Bitcoin is maybe half the market, probably? Something like that? Or maybe it's a third. Who knows? Anyways, that means a huge portion of global energy is essentially right now going to give people another store of money. Banking's a hell of a lot cheaper. Do you know how much energy J.P. Morgan probably spends? I don't know what it is, but I guarantee you it's not one percent of energy.   [0:12:31] PJ: Right.   [0:12:31] Spencer: Especially since most of the mining happens in China, and they're still pretty reliant on coal for a lot of that energy consumption, so not great with the whole global warming thing and the future of humanity, but who knows?   [0:12:44] PJ: Yeah, but I mean, you mentioned it, Will. Maybe sometimes you need to hit the bottom first to know that you need to dig yourselves out.   [0:12:52] Will: I just want to thank you guys as the hosts of this podcast for picking really uplifting topics. [crosstalk]   [0:12:57] Spencer: Do you have a story about hitting rock bottom you'd like to share with us?   [0:13:01] Will: No, that's coming in an upcoming episode of When Shift Hits the Fan.   [0:13:03] PJ: That's true. Look forward to our Rock Bottom Episode, starring Will Crocker.   [0:13:07] Spencer: Will, didn't you ... You were telling me before the show a little bit about graphics cards and how the changing and use in mining was affecting the prices.   [0:13:17] Will: Oh, yeah, there was a point where I ... I play computer games, so I own a graphics card, and there was a point where I bought a graphics card, and usually any piece of technology you buy depreciates over time. It's just because newer stuff comes out, and it gets better. But the market for GPUs, which are graphical processing units, was so nuts because of Bitcoin a couple years ago that I realized my graphics card had appreciated almost 50% at one point. And there just came a point when I was like, "Should I just sell this thing and wait for a while and get out of the market?" But it's absolutely insane how much the prices were fluctuating based upon that. If anybody who's an nVidia stockholder, you rode that wave right with everyone else.   [0:13:59] PJ: The graphics card biz. I see you, Will.   [0:14:03] Will: I'm long on the graphics card biz. They have real applications, too, like neural net processing and a lot of the kind of things that you see people doing, like libraries like TensorFlow to do understanding complex deep learning problems in computer science. All of that requires GPUs, essentially, so it's gonna come forward, but it's gonna fall a little bit for the crypto.   [0:14:26] PJ: Will, since you are such a gamer, and I am as well ... Spencer, were you a little bit in your heyday, probably?   [0:14:32] Spencer: A little bit.   [0:14:33] PJ: I mean, I think given that, Will, you should probably take some beef with Prince Harry, because this next article: Prince Harry calls for a ban on Fortnite. I know that's not your top game, but still, I mean, let's take a look at this.   [0:14:47] Will: Yeah. Fortnite's all right.   [0:14:49] PJ: Ahead of one of the biggest nights in the gaming industry, Prince Harry has called for a ban on Fortnite due to its supposed addictive qualities. Harry said, "That game shouldn't be allowed." In a British accent, of course. "That game shouldn't be allowed. Where's the benefit of having it in your household?" And then, also, Harry suggested Fortnite, a shooter game focused on survival, was responsible for tearing families apart. "It's like waiting for the damage to be done and kids turning up on your doorstep and families being broken down."   [0:15:24] Spencer: Is this real?   [0:15:24] PJ: This is real. This is a legitimate quote.   [0:15:26] Spencer: No.   [0:15:26] PJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.   [0:15:27] Will: You're tearing me apart, Lisa!   [0:15:30] PJ: "You're tearing me apart, Prince Harry!" Yeah. So that's where he stands on it. Ironically enough, he feels the same way about social media, feels like it's real poison in general. And I guess a day later, him and Meghan Markle started their own Instagram page, so you can follow them on that, which is nice.   [0:15:51] Will: Oh, yeah, which also isn't destroying society at all, right? That's just totally fine that everyone's addicted to Instagram and those things.   [0:15:58] PJ: Exactly. I mean, ban on addictive substances, i.e. Video games. This is ... We're addicted to our tech, obviously, right? But thoughts on video games? To me, my argument was always: video games, yes, they can suck time and everything, but to me, it was always ... It's like an interactive art form. I'm witnessing somebody's art they've put together. Especially MMORPGs, massive multiplayer online role-playing games. Anything that has a big, big, huge world, and I just want to run around all of it, I just really appreciate the design and thought that goes into all of it. That's my feeling.   [0:16:33] Will: It's like a concert in some ways, right? Like at a concert, you're coming to watch music, but you're also coming together to experience that with everyone else around you, and I think multiplayer games are the same way. You're creating that human interaction, which creates the art around it.   [0:16:44] PJ: Yeah.   [0:16:46] Will: Yeah, I don't know about this. I wonder if EA bribed Prince Harry to pick on Fortnite. It was like, "Epic Games needs to be taken down a notch." Because couldn't you just make this claim about most games?   [0:16:58] Spencer: Yeah, why Fortnite, Prince Harry?   [0:17:01] Will: Just because it's the big target. I don't know.   [0:17:03] PJ: Yeah, that's probably what it was. He was thinking about it, and it's just-   [0:17:06] Spencer: It's the only video game he's heard of.   [0:17:07] PJ: I mean, for a guy who smokes as much pot as Prince Harry, I would've thought that video games would be right ... What do you do, then, when you're stoned?   [0:17:13] Will: Is he a toker? I didn't know that.   [0:17:15] Spencer: Yeah, if we want to talk about tearing families apart, how about the royal family of the British Empire?   [0:17:20] PJ: Oh, man. Dude. Counterargument in your face.   [0:17:24] Will: Whoa, guys. Whoa, guys. We have EMEA customers here.   [0:17:28] PJ: Of course, we're just playing. This is all in jest. But no, I think it's a genuine thing. I'm sure plenty of parents are concerned when their kids are spending hours and hours in their room. I'm sure they also don't understand how social gaming actually is.   [0:17:42] Spencer: Especially Fortnite.   [0:17:43] PJ: Especially Fortnite. But what I will say, if you want to ban Apex Legends, you can just go ahead and do that as far as I'm concerned, because I can't even get in a session without throwing the remote against the wall, everyone's so good.   [0:17:54] Spencer: Talk to this guy.   [0:17:55] Will: It's just because you're bad. But it's just the ... Real talk. I'm sorry. Don't just run around in the open and just flail about. Hide behind things. Shoot people.   [0:18:04] Spencer: You should get a lesson from Will.   [0:18:05] PJ: I thought that when you run out in the middle of the board and you kind of scattershot and spin in circles-   [0:18:10] Spencer: He can't be taught.   [0:18:11] Will: I need clay to mold.   [0:18:14] PJ: I'm too old. I'm too old. This old sponge is dried up. There's not much I can learn left.   [0:18:18] Spencer: "This Old Sponge," that's our new show.   [0:18:21] Will: On the subject of ... "This Old Sponge," with PJ Bruno. But on the subject of addiction and games, I do think it's a problem. It is something that ... it's not great for kids to spend infinite hours on these sort of things, but I think there's some interesting, far less intrusive ways than banning the stupid thing. I think ... I've seen some things I think in Vietnam or China, somewhere in Asia, there're some countries now which have stipulations that if somebody has n hours of consecutive play time, that they then have to pop up a message that says, "Hey, are you sure you want to keep playing? Maybe it's time to go take a break or go outside."   [0:19:00] PJ: That's pretty cool.   [0:19:00] Spencer: I like that.   [0:19:00] Will: Or I think some of the games also have something where you have to ... you get reduced experience or something like that after you play for too many consecutive hours.   [0:19:10] PJ: Interesting.   [0:19:11] Spencer: In-game punishment.   [0:19:12] Will: So the game ... Yeah, so you basically get decreasing rewards in the margin.   [0:19:17] Spencer: That's smart.   [0:19:18] PJ: That is really smart. Or if they could have a feature that causes your parent to care more and actually put some restrictions on how much you're playing the game. That's just me. Anyways, we're at our time. Will, thank you so much for being here.   [0:19:35] Will: Thank you, PJ. I hope you find yourself in the game someday, and stop hating the game. Hate the player.   [0:19:43] PJ: That's true. And I'll never stop searching for myself in-game. Spencer, thanks for coming along for the ride.   [0:19:48] Spencer: Thanks, Peej.   [0:19:49] PJ: And you, too. Thanks for joining us, guys. You take care. [0:19:52]

Product professionals Diana Kim and Sarah Wilson give me the scoop on SXSW 2019. DK sat on a panel with Maria Menounos and the Female Quotient to talk personalization. Sarah saw every female-fronted band she could get her eyeballs on. Listen in to hear about the great food, scooter saturation, and meeting celebrities.        TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: Hello there again. This is PJ Bruno. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest, and I'm thrilled to be with two very good friends today. We have Diana Kim; hello, Diana.   [0:00:30] Dianna Kim: Hello.   [0:00:32] PJ Bruno: And also, we have Sara Wilson. Both product girls. DK, a product manager, and Sara, a product designer. Hi, Sara.   [0:00:39] Sara Wilson: Hey!   [0:00:40] PJ Bruno: How you guys doing? So, I have them with me because they're fresh off of South by Southwest. They're here; we missed you guys, first of all.   [0:00:47] Sara Wilson: Aw.   [0:00:47] PJ Bruno: The whole office just felt empty without your energy. But I gotta ask. South by Southwest: I want to hear it all. Firstly though, it's Austin. It's South by Southwest. It's 2019. Was it just CBD everything, down there? Was it just-   [0:01:03] Sara Wilson: [crosstalk] There was a good amount of it.   [0:01:04] PJ Bruno: Yeah?   [0:01:05] Dianna Kim: Yes.   [0:01:05] PJ Bruno: CBD toilet paper. CBD fidget spinners.   [0:01:08] Sara Wilson: They just handed it to you when you walked off the plane.   [0:01:10] PJ Bruno: Right, exactly. "Welcome! Get weird. Here."   [0:01:11] Sara Wilson: Yeah, "Open your mouth, take a drop." Yep.   [0:01:14] Dianna Kim: I did go to a Viceland party. It was called Skateland, and a bunch of people were roller skating, and there was a bus there. And I was by myself, and I went into the bus, and people were just rolling up joints and doing a lot of CBD oil, and I was like, "What did I just get myself into?"   [0:01:30] PJ Bruno: You were like-   [0:01:30] Dianna Kim: Just immediately walked out. I was-   [0:01:32] PJ Bruno: Hello?   [0:01:33] Dianna Kim: Hello? Hello?   [0:01:34] Sara Wilson: What are you guys doing in here?   [0:01:35] Dianna Kim: I felt like the lost child, like I just didn't belong.   [0:01:40] Sara Wilson: But for real, when I got off the plane and was waiting for a cab, I thought it was going to be Fyre Festival-   [0:01:45] PJ Bruno: Oh no!   [0:01:45] Sara Wilson: Because it was a line, of like one hundred people, and it took forty-five minutes to wait for a cab, and I was like, "If I get to my Airbnb, and it's a wet mattress, I'm going to be really mad."   [0:01:54] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:01:54] Sara Wilson: But like-   [0:01:55] PJ Bruno: Where's my luxury?   [0:01:56] Sara Wilson: Yeah, but, thankfully, it was a really nice Airbnb. And a really nice week.   [0:02:01] PJ Bruno: Lovely! Well, let's jump right into it! What do we got here? First off, I do need to hear about Nancy from Stranger Things, because that's been driving me crazy.   [0:02:10] Sara Wilson: Oh boy! What a night. We were out-   [0:02:13] PJ Bruno: Oh, what a night.   [0:02:13] Sara Wilson: We were out Saturday night, and ran into some celebrities, and-   [0:02:18] PJ Bruno: Pretty standard.   [0:02:18] Sara Wilson: Yeah, so we saw Nancy, from Stranger Things-   [0:02:22] PJ Bruno: Who I like.   [0:02:22] Sara Wilson: And then I guess one of the girls from 13 Reasons Why was also out, but I haven't seen it, so I didn't recognize her.   [0:02:28] PJ Bruno: Were they at South by Southwest for events? Or they just, were down there, hanging?   [0:02:32] Dianna Kim: So, looking back, I think that they were having events, but I did not hear about them.   [0:02:38] Sara Wilson: Yeah, it was pretty much a drive by, take a picture, and then keep moving.   [0:02:42] Dianna Kim: Yeah.   [0:02:42] PJ Bruno: Okay.   [0:02:43] Sara Wilson: They weren't interested in being friends, sadly.   [0:02:45] PJ Bruno: Aw.   [0:02:45] Sara Wilson: But I still have a picture.   [0:02:47] PJ Bruno: The picture tells a different story.   [0:02:49] Sara Wilson: It proves that-   [0:02:50] Dianna Kim: Best friends for life; BFFs.   [0:02:51] PJ Bruno: Firstly, it proves that.   [0:02:52] Sara Wilson: Did it really happen if there's not a picture on my Instagram? I don't know.   [0:02:57] PJ Bruno: I'm always asking myself that question. The humidity? Was that a gross thing?   [0:03:01] Sara Wilson: Oh, first impression: my hair grew like three inches when I stepped off the plane.   [0:03:05] PJ Bruno: Oh!   [0:03:06] Sara Wilson: Yeah. It was a constant battle to get my hair to con-   [0:03:10] Dianna Kim: I just gave up.   [0:03:10] Sara Wilson: Yeah.   [0:03:11] PJ Bruno: You're like, "No."   [0:03:12] Sara Wilson: Yeah, I turned it into, just, frizzy pigtails. I just gave into it.   [0:03:16] Dianna Kim: [inaudible]   [0:03:16] PJ Bruno: I like that look, though.   [0:03:17] Sara Wilson: Yeah, it worked.   [0:03:19] PJ Bruno: It works down there, I think.   [0:03:21] Sara Wilson: And, I can say that I am still bloated from all the food.   [0:03:24] Dianna Kim: Barbecue. So great.   [0:03:26] Sara Wilson: Barbecue, donuts, tacos.   [0:03:27] PJ Bruno: And it was just, stands are trucks? They're big into trucks there, or no?   [0:03:31] Sara Wilson: Trucks, restaurants-   [0:03:32] Dianna Kim: Yes.   [0:03:32] PJ Bruno: Food trucks?   [0:03:33] Sara Wilson: Everything.   [0:03:34] Dianna Kim: Yup. We didn't make it to the Salt Lick, which is about forty minutes outside of the city, and that's the place you go to for barbecue, but we heard that- Just, given, we didn't have a car, we had to get an Uber, that would have been like a hundred dollars, one way! And the line would've been ridiculous, so we decided not to.   [0:03:52] Sara Wilson: Yeah, we passed. And there's enough good food inside Austin-   [0:03:54] Dianna Kim: Yeah.   [0:03:55] Sara Wilson: That, we ate plenty good, all day, every day.   [0:03:56] PJ Bruno: Right. And they had, you know. South by Sex- Southwest. Ugh. "South by Southsex" actually has a lot of great food, and humidity, but it has other things, too, right?   [0:04:08] Sara Wilson: Yeah! Like what?   [0:04:09] PJ Bruno: That's what I'm asking you guys! Tell me what's up!   [0:04:11] Sara Wilson: There was a lot of good music. I'm-   [0:04:13] PJ Bruno: You were stocking out all of it.   [0:04:14] Sara Wilson: I'm a music-   [0:04:15] Dianna Kim: She was there for two weeks!   [0:04:16] Sara Wilson: Well, like nine days. Yeah, I'm kind of a music snob, and so I had my big list, and I still feel like I could've gone and seen like fifty more bands, and I'm still kicking myself for it, but I just want to say, there were so many awesome female artists up there. That was the majority of what I saw, were really strong female frontwomen, and that was so dope. King Princess, she's amazing. Ratboys is one of my favorites; I've seen them like four times in the past year. Emily Blue is from my hometown; she was super dope. There were just, band after band, that were just so dope, and that's kind of the heart of South by Southwest.   [0:04:50] PJ Bruno: You introduced me to a lot of new music, because, just watching your story, I was like, "Oh, gotta check that out, gotta check that out too!"   [0:04:56] Sara Wilson: I'm currently building a playlist of all the things I saw and heard about but didn't make it to at South by, so stay tuned. I can share out that playlist.   [0:05:03] PJ Bruno: Everyone stay tuned for that South by Southwest playlist.   [0:05:06] Sara Wilson: I'm pretty big on making my playlists.   [0:05:08] PJ Bruno: What about the work stuff? We did work stuff, too, right? Or was it all dancing, and-   [0:05:13] Dianna Kim: Work hard, play hard.   [0:05:14] PJ Bruno: And CBD.   [0:05:14] Sara Wilson: Well, Dianna's not going to toot her own horn, so I will. She was on this really dope panel at the Female Quotient, and-   [0:05:22] PJ Bruno: Dope, dope.   [0:05:22] Sara Wilson: It was just super dope. It was just this amazing moment, to see her sitting up-   [0:05:26] Dianna Kim: Thank you.   [0:05:27] Sara Wilson: Among these powerful women-   [0:05:30] Dianna Kim: And a celebrity.   [0:05:31] Sara Wilson: And a celebrity!   [0:05:32] Dianna Kim: Not me. Of course.   [0:05:33] PJ Bruno: And, I'm a celebrity!   [0:05:36] Sara Wilson: Tell everybody how you made buddies!   [0:05:38] Dianna Kim: Oh yeah, no, so the Female Quotient, awesome organization, and, Shelley, the CEO of the Female Quotient, is really good friends with Maria Menounos, who is a reporter, on E!, and, so, I see this beautiful woman, just walking by with her glam squad, and I'm like, "What is she doing here?" And, next thing you know, they're pulling up another chair next to me; I'm like, "Oh. She is-"   [0:06:02] Sara Wilson: Gonna be in it.   [0:06:02] Dianna Kim: She is right here with us, in it.   [0:06:04] PJ Bruno: Oh, she's here to talk shop. Okay.   [0:06:05] Dianna Kim: Yeah! And I didn't realize all the things that she did. She has an organization called Rally, which seems awesome. She's also building a platform for the ESPN of after-show buzzworthy stuff. But it was very intimidating, being on a panel with her. She's so well-spoken, very polished. And also, I didn't realize that she survived brain cancer, so, after we're doing our introductions-   [0:06:31] Sara Wilson: And her mom, too.   [0:06:32] Dianna Kim: Yeah, and her mom! So, after we're doing introductions, they're like, "Okay, tell us something that you wouldn't say on LinkedIn." And so she said that, and I'm sitting here, like, "What am I going to follow this up with?" And the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "I'm a cat mom."   [0:06:49] PJ Bruno: Wait, the prompt was, "What would you not post on LinkedIn?"   [0:06:52] Dianna Kim: Yeah, like, "Tell my about yourself."   [0:06:53] PJ Bruno: Well, that's accurate.   [0:06:54] Dianna Kim: Yeah. I guess, maybe I would say that on LinkedIn. Would that, [inaudible] third job-   [0:06:58] PJ Bruno: I feel like the scope of things I wouldn't say on LinkedIn is vast! [crosstalk] You really could've picked a lot of things out of the dark and hit bullseye.   [0:07:05] Dianna Kim: Right?   [0:07:05] Sara Wilson: That's pretty harmless.   [0:07:06] Dianna Kim: And I had to keep it pretty PG, for the audience.   [0:07:09] PJ Bruno: Right, exactly, so it narrowed the scope a bit.   [0:07:12] Dianna Kim: But great conversation, with her. She had, actually, a lot of input on personalization and how it impacts with technology, and we bonded over dominoes. Apparently, she loves dominoes, and I do, too, so that worked out.   [0:07:24] PJ Bruno: So, best friends!   [0:07:26] Dianna Kim: Best friends.   [0:07:26] PJ Bruno: Yeah, I've never seen her outside of a taxicab television, trying to sell me some sort of television program. But, she seems fantastic. I'm glad she was there for the Female Quotient. That's rad.   [0:07:39] Dianna Kim: Yeah, it was really cool.   [0:07:40] PJ Bruno: Cool! Also, what else? Bumble?   [0:07:43] Sara Wilson: Yeah, we went, and saw a number of pop-up shops, or takeovers, and, I think that there was a strong theme of human experiences, not only in the talk tracks, but also just in what brands were doing at South by. Like Bumble took over this coffee shop, and they were handing out free coffee. Because they're not just giving you a free pen, or a bag. It wasn't just handing out free stuff that you don't need. It was about giving you an experience and bringing people together.   [0:08:11] PJ Bruno: Right, right. But at the coffee shop pop-up, somehow the women needed to start the conversation, or something, or?   [0:08:17] Sara Wilson: Surprisingly, no.   [0:08:19] PJ Bruno: No?   [0:08:19] Dianna Kim: So, I actually texted my boyfriend before this, because you needed to download the app, in order to get in, and I was like, "Just to let you know, I'm downloading Bumble, I'm not here to date," but, when you download it, you can actually go for networking, which I didn't know.   [0:08:31] PJ Bruno: Yeah, big time!   [0:08:32] Dianna Kim: And for friends!   [0:08:33] PJ Bruno: Exactly. Roxy Rosales did that, that one night.   [0:08:37] Dianna Kim: I thought it was a cool experience. I think the question I have for brands, as a performance marketer, in my previous role: I'm like, "How much do these things cost, and does it actually have an output?" And it seems really, really cool, to be there for the interactive experience, but, I'm always curious to what the ROI is [crosstalk]-   [0:08:54] PJ Bruno: Exactly. So, did you get your questions answered, somewhat, by that?   [0:08:59] Dianna Kim: No.   [0:08:59] PJ Bruno: You just continue to-   [0:09:00] Dianna Kim: I mean, we saw the Bumble thing, which is really cool. No puppies, though.   [0:09:04] Sara Wilson: There were supposed to be puppies. We missed the puppies. We did see puppies-   [0:09:07] PJ Bruno: Oh, they advertised puppies.   [0:09:08] Dianna Kim: Yeah, they advertised puppies. And free coffee.   [0:09:11] Sara Wilson: But there were puppies at Madewell. Which, doesn't make much sense, but there's a good picture of Diana with a cute little puppy.   [0:09:18] Dianna Kim: Yes, yes.   [0:09:20] PJ Bruno: Aw. Which you can see, right here, if you guys can see at home. There it is. Good. Sorry.   [0:09:29] Dianna Kim: We also got free food, from Uber Eats. They had a pop-up shop. They flagged us; we were walking by, and they were like, "If you show us you have the app downloaded, we'll give you free-" What was it.   [0:09:39] Sara Wilson: Popeye's, or something? Fried chicken?   [0:09:41] Dianna Kim: Oh, yes. And it was right after we had lunch, too. So, I love Popeye's chicken.   [0:09:46] PJ Bruno: There's no way to say no.   [0:09:47] Dianna Kim: Oh, there's no way to say no to a biscuit and some chicken tenders.   [0:09:50] Sara Wilson: I said no, but Diana was like, "We can do it." And we did.   [0:09:53] Dianna Kim: There's always room for more.   [0:09:54] Sara Wilson: There's always room.   [0:09:55] PJ Bruno: Exactly. Don't say that "don't" or "I can't" around me. You can. I know you can.   [0:10:01] Sara Wilson: We just have to work hard enough.   [0:10:01] Dianna Kim: Get rid of that negativity. You can always do it.   [0:10:04] PJ Bruno: Exactly.   [0:10:04] Dianna Kim: But, I think that was a great way to get downloads, or, if you haven't used the app, to actually use it for free stuff. The actual output of that; I loved it. And they actually had ice cream, the next day!   [0:10:14] Sara Wilson: They did. They had different food-   [0:10:15] Dianna Kim: Each day!   [0:10:16] Sara Wilson: Yeah, to bring you in.   [0:10:17] PJ Bruno: Jeez.   [0:10:18] Sara Wilson: Yeah, it was pretty cool.   [0:10:19] PJ Bruno: They know how to get us going.   [0:10:20] Sara Wilson: One of them that didn't require an app download was Facebook. We missed this event; I really wanted to go. Like, every couple hours, they had a screen printing workshop, and it was off in this warehouse, kind of a little bit away from Downtown, and the first fifteen people to come, you could screen print your own bag.   [0:10:36] PJ Bruno: Oh, cool!   [0:10:38] Sara Wilson: And it was a whole workshop where you would learn how to screen print.   [0:10:41] PJ Bruno: That's really fricking cool. I've never heard anything like that, actually.   [0:10:44] Sara Wilson: It's an experience, you get to make something, you get to be proud of it, you get to keep it. And then, that brand, you're going to remember them, every time you use that bag.   [0:10:52] PJ Bruno: Everyone's just going to think fondly of Facebook now, I'm sure.   [0:10:55] Sara Wilson: So fondly.   [0:10:56] Dianna Kim: Hopefully.   [0:10:58] PJ Bruno: I mean, that was the goal, was it not? AI? Personalization?   [0:11:03] Sara Wilson: Yeah, everything was- I looked and there were at least seventy events or talks that had the word AI in the title. We kept going, "What's the difference from this one, from that one?" Because they all had the same title, pretty much. And it's all about, "How do we use AI? How do we personalize everything? How do we make it human?" Which is very on topic. We definitely support that. But it kind of hit a point where we were like, "Is there even anything to take away from this?"   [0:11:33] Dianna Kim: It was saturation of the message. Everyone was talking about the same thing, or, I'm not going to blatantly say which companies were on this panel, but it was just so high level, because they only had [inaudible] or executives on it, that they weren't getting into the actual, "How do you implement AI? How do you [crosstalk] it."   [0:11:49] PJ Bruno: Right. It was just the philosophy behind it. It got very zoomed out.   [0:11:52] Dianna Kim: Yeah, it got kind of tough, in some of the talks. It's definitely a very hot topic right now, but I think that, execution-wise, it could be helpful from a Keynote perspective, or, what I would like to see in the future, more of a Keynote perspective, with someone actually doing this in a meaningful way.   [0:12:09] PJ Bruno: Yeah. Same.   [0:12:10] Sara Wilson: And that's what I can say about the Female Quotient panel that Diana was on. There were a lot of real-life examples, and it was tangible. It was just something that, I walked away, and I felt like, "Oh, I could take that idea, and I could implement that," and it wasn't just a really broad concept of feelgood ideas.   [0:12:16] PJ Bruno: Exactly. You could actually take it and do something with it, right?   [0:12:16] Sara Wilson: Yeah.   [0:12:16] Dianna Kim: The other thing to touch on is the human element, because I feel like, if I saw that in any sort of conference, like ten years ago, I'd be like, "This is weird. Why are we talking about this?" I feel like it's over-exaggeration of how robots are going to take over, but I don't necessarily think that's the case.   [0:12:49] PJ Bruno: Yeah, do you think it's that course-correcting of, "Don't be scared that robots are doing all these things. There's still this human element." It's like a way to alleviate that panic, around, "Oh my god, Skynet knows where I am."   [0:13:01] Dianna Kim: Yeah.   [0:13:02] Sara Wilson: Yeah, I think that was a big part of it, is, they were asking, "How do you teach robots to be human?" And it's like, "Well, behind every bot, or everything that is artificial, is a human!" So, it inherently gets some of that, but there is some amount of correcting that you can do, to make sure that it doesn't just take over.   [0:13:21] PJ Bruno: What's the wildest comment you heard, during one of the- Did you hear anyone being like, "Yes, but how can you assure me that a robot won't take my life at some point?"   [0:13:31] Dianna Kim: Gosh.   [0:13:33] Sara Wilson: I don't think that we heard that at any one talk track.   [0:13:37] PJ Bruno: Because, "There are no stupid comments."   [0:13:40] Sara Wilson: Right. "Everybody's feelings are valid."   [0:13:42] PJ Bruno: But what was the most idiotic thing that you-   [0:13:45] Sara Wilson: People on scooters.   [0:13:47] PJ Bruno: Oh. Okay.   [0:13:48] Sara Wilson: That was the worst thing that we saw, were people on scooters.   [0:13:51] PJ Bruno: Because they're a big scooter-   [0:13:51] Dianna Kim: And we were one of them.   [0:13:53] Sara Wilson: We were-   [0:13:53] Dianna Kim: On a-   [0:13:54] Sara Wilson: Exactly once.   [0:13:55] PJ Bruno: Self-loathing.   [0:13:55] Sara Wilson: And, I have to say, they got me. They were like, "Load twenty dollars into the app." And I was like, "Yeah, dope!" And then I spent, like a dollar fifty, and was too afraid to use some ever again-   [0:14:04] PJ Bruno: Why were you afraid?   [0:14:05] Sara Wilson: Because they're not stable. They go, quickly. You have to ride on the roads. There's a lot of traffic in downtown Austin-   [0:14:13] PJ Bruno: And they're like a scooter town, anyway, so this must have been like-   [0:14:16] Sara Wilson: Like thousands of scooters. They hire people to go and wrangle the scooters, put them in the back of their truck, and take them back.   [0:14:23] PJ Bruno: God. It's like Vietnam.   [0:14:23] Dianna Kim: Yup. It was a lot of scooters and electric bikes.   [0:14:26] Sara Wilson: Yes, the bikes.   [0:14:27] Dianna Kim: I think that, just to get people around the city quicker, I think it makes sense. But, at the same time, not having proper bikes lanes freaked me out. We caused traffic on a pretty busy road, going down a hill.   [0:14:42] Sara Wilson: We just took over the entire lane and turned around and there were like thirty cars backed up behind us, because it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk.   [0:14:50] PJ Bruno: Oh, wow. But, totally legal to ride in the street.   [0:14:53] Sara Wilson: You're supposed to. When you-   [0:14:54] PJ Bruno: You're expected to.   [0:14:55] Sara Wilson: When you download the app, you have to consent to, "These are the rules, I have to ride in the road, these are the certain things I can do."   [0:15:03] PJ Bruno: What about riding on the median? Is there a rule there?   [0:15:06] Dianna Kim: You go for it.   [0:15:07] Sara Wilson: You want to do some tricks? Catch some air?   [0:15:09] PJ Bruno: Exactly. I just want to put my life at risk, for once.   [0:15:13] Sara Wilson: Oh no, I felt like just going straight and flat was enough of putting my life at risk.   [0:15:17] PJ Bruno: I haven't been on one of these. So, these are Birds?   [0:15:20] Sara Wilson: Yeah.   [0:15:21] Dianna Kim: There are a few others.   [0:15:21] Sara Wilson: Lyft has it now, and you can locate them, in the app. It'll say, "Show scooters nearby," and you can go pick one up. One was a Lime brand; there were five or six different brands. They all kind of looked the same.   [0:15:34] Dianna Kim: Jump was another one; I think that was an electric bike service.   [0:15:37] Sara Wilson: Yeah. And then they also had these people on bicycles with the little carts behind them, the pedicabs. Those are dope.   [0:15:45] PJ Bruno: Oh, it's like a rickshaw, right?   [0:15:47] Sara Wilson: Yes!   [0:15:48] PJ Bruno: That's the one. They had those in New York.   [0:15:49] Sara Wilson: Yeah, great service.   [0:15:51] PJ Bruno: Really good?   [0:15:51] Dianna Kim: Oh, so great. So cheap. It was like five dollars.   [0:15:54] PJ Bruno: Because in New York, they cost an arm and a leg, I think.   [0:15:57] Dianna Kim: Do they?   [0:15:57] PJ Bruno: Yeah, because I think they romanticize, like, "Ah, take in the city, don't [crosstalk] of a car!"   [0:16:02] Dianna Kim: Well, in Central Park, yeah. No, this was five bucks, we got a nice breeze in our hair. It was just wonderful.   [0:16:08] Sara Wilson: And the music was so good.   [0:16:09] Dianna Kim: He had a speaker. Yeah. It was great.   [0:16:12] PJ Bruno: Excellent. So, outside of DK throwing it down for the Female Quotient, what was your favorite, or most inspirational, thing that you saw? Or took in? On the weekend? I know it was a lot.   [0:16:27] Sara Wilson: I don't know. My answer has to be that panel with Diana. That was-   [0:16:31] Dianna Kim: Aw. Thank you.   [0:16:32] Sara Wilson: That's like, kind of cheesy, but it was just a good moment for Braze. It was a good moment for women. It was a good moment for my good friend. There were just so many great things about it. I was like a proud mama.   [0:16:44] PJ Bruno: I'm getting a little-   [0:16:45] Sara Wilson: I know.   [0:16:45] Dianna Kim: You guys, I'm going to cry.   [0:16:48] Sara Wilson: Aw.   [0:16:48] Dianna Kim: I think that the Female Quotient did a- I'm just going to give them a huge shout-out, because, even the panels before, the one I spoke on and the panel after; they did such a great job with the content. Whether it's the personalization equation, which is what we talked about on my panel, or just looking at diversity, or how men view women in the workplace, which was an all-male panel, afterwards. I think they did such a great job with content generation. And also just diversity, in general, was a big, big theme, at South by Southwest, this year.   [0:17:19] PJ Bruno: It sounds like they nailed it. It sounds like they nailed all the right spots.   [0:17:22] Dianna Kim: Yeah. The one thing I didn't see, though, but I wish I did, but the lines were so long: the Instagram founders were speaking at a Keynote, or like a fireside chat. Just talking about their experience at Facebook and why they left. I think it's a very cool moment to see, because, right now we have a lot of executives leaving Facebook. The Facebook Execudus.   [0:17:45] PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm. Oh, that's not yours? Or that's-   [0:17:48] Dianna Kim: I don't know. Can I take that?   [0:17:50] PJ Bruno: I think so. I'd never heard it.   [0:17:52] Dianna Kim: I'm just going to take it.   [0:17:52] PJ Bruno: Patent pending.   [0:17:53] Sara Wilson: You heard it here, first.   [0:17:55] PJ Bruno: Execudus.   [0:17:55] Dianna Kim: But, it kind of shows, especially with that big of a company, what Mark Zuckerberg's trying to do with the privacy pivot, and how they're really trying to focus on privacy, but is it really more of a PR play? We'll see about that. But I wish I was there to see it, in person.   [0:18:12] PJ Bruno: So, did you get any hot takes? Do we know at all, what they were gawking about? Did they talk a little bit about the-   [0:18:19] Dianna Kim: They lost a lot of autonomy. I feel like-   [0:18:21] PJ Bruno: Right. I read the article that was something like, that was the victory, in a way. Taking that responsibility off, and now they're moving on. It's kind of like, the finality of them now, "Okay. Fully acquired now."   [0:18:33] Sara Wilson: They've done their job.   [0:18:34] Dianna Kim: Goodbye.   [0:18:35] PJ Bruno: We did it.   [0:18:37] Dianna Kim: I read an article about the WhatsApp CEO, thinking, "No, still delete Facebook, we are our own company." I wonder how long that's gonna last, until Facebook really has their arms fully into the WhatsApp platform. TBD, but we'll see.   [0:18:55] PJ Bruno: The Facebook Execudus. It is so much better as one word.   [0:19:01] Dianna Kim: I'm going to take that.   [0:19:03] PJ Bruno: It's yours! It's yours.   [0:19:04] Dianna Kim: Cool.   [0:19:06] PJ Bruno: Cool. I mean, any predictions for next year's? Do we have anything that we think we'll see? Hopefully, you guys will be back there, next year.   [0:19:15] Dianna Kim: Hopefully.   [0:19:16] Sara Wilson: Yeah, maybe.   [0:19:16] PJ Bruno: Was this your first time going, Sara?   [0:19:17] Sara Wilson: Yes, this was my first time in Austin, first time at South by. All, a lot of firsts. It was great.   [0:19:23] Dianna Kim: I'm trying to think of any shows that are- So Game of Thrones had a huge thing, there. It was like, they had a blood drive. A lot of the content producers put a bunch of stuff on. I'm wondering what show is coming up next year, because I feel like a lot of content producers are going to have huge buyouts of bars, and cool interactive things.   [0:19:43] PJ Bruno: Yeah, it sounds like they're setting the bar, for these cool interactive experiences.   [0:19:49] Sara Wilson: Yeah, bringing celebrities in, and giving you something to take home that you made. Some really cool, innovative things that brands are doing.   [0:19:57] PJ Bruno: Well, South by Southwest, sounds like you're setting the bar. Other conferences, you better get up on that. MAU, we're looking at you.   [0:20:06] Sara Wilson: Check in with Diana after that one.   [0:20:09] Dianna Kim: I'll be there. I'll be there in Vegas.   [0:20:10] PJ Bruno: We will. We'll be there. I'll be there as well! Looking forward to it!   [0:20:14] Sara Wilson: You guys have fun.   [0:20:14] Dianna Kim: I'll be at the crabs table.   [0:20:17] PJ Bruno: Yo, wait, is that the highest odds? The crabs table? It is, right?   [0:20:21] Dianna Kim: I don't know, I just think it's the most fun.   [0:20:23] PJ Bruno: I think it's also best odds in the house, according to Spencer Burke.   [0:20:27] Dianna Kim: Oh, and he knows everything, so.   [0:20:28] PJ Bruno: Well, he knows how to gamble.   [0:20:30] Dianna Kim: I gamble with Spencer.   [0:20:32] PJ Bruno: I'm telling you, you're in good company. I told him I'm not super lucky, but he was like, "You come with me."   [0:20:37] Dianna Kim: Beginner's luck. You'll totally make it.   [0:20:39] PJ Bruno: So excited. Well, I guess we'll see you guys at MAU. MAU, you got something to top, right now. Thanks again for joining us this week, you guys.   [0:20:48] Sara Wilson: Of course, thanks for having us.   [0:20:49] Dianna Kim: Thank you.   [0:20:51] PJ Bruno: This is PJ Bruno, and I'm accompanied by Diana Kim, and also the lovely Sara Wilson. Thank you guys again for being here. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night.   [0:21:01] Sara Wilson: Bye.   [0:21:01] Dianna Kim: Bye. [0:21:01]

Lord of Growth, Spencer Burke, and SaaS Sales Mercenary, Patrick Forquer, talk Slack and Lyft heading for IPO while Gap is splitting into two independent public companies.        TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: Hello there, welcome back to Braze For Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. I'm PJ Bruno, and joined with me again, the lord of growth, Spencer Burke. How's it going?   [0:00:29] Spencer Burke: Hey, PJ.   [0:00:30] PJ Bruno: And also with me, from the sales org, the man who churns out more hot takes than hot cakes, Patrick Forquer.   [0:00:38] Patrick Forquer: Hey... Great to be with you Peter.   [0:00:40] PJ Bruno: It's good to have you guys back. This is a good episode too, we're talking all about IPO's, IPO readiness, who's getting themselves out there now, who plans to do it in the future. And then also, a nice little article about Gap splitting up later. But, before we jump in, level setting. Everyone's good? Patrick, you're feeling nice?   [0:01:00] Patrick Forquer: I'm just looking at your... Pineapple shirt.   [0:01:03] PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm (affirmative)   [0:01:04] Patrick Forquer: And... It's really inspirational.   [0:01:06] PJ Bruno: I think it's going to get us in the right zone.   [0:01:08] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, I'm ready for summer, it's the coldest day of the year.   [0:01:11] PJ Bruno: Yeah, sheesh.   [0:01:12] Patrick Forquer: Pretty depressing here in New York. I can't leave because my wife could have a birth at any moment, so I can only think about Florida. And I see your shirt and I'm transported to another world PJ, so thank you.   [0:01:23] PJ Bruno: Is the birth imminent?   [0:01:24] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, we're in the red zone, as they say.   [0:01:27] PJ Bruno: Oh, wow.   [0:01:28] Patrick Forquer: T-minus six days until the due date.   [0:01:31] PJ Bruno: Holy cannoli! [crosstalk]   [0:01:32] Spencer Burke: Wow!   [0:01:33] Patrick Forquer: So, to say I'm a ball of stress and emotion would be an understatement.   [0:01:39] PJ Bruno: It'd be a good day.   [0:01:40] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, it'd be great.   [0:01:42] PJ Bruno: Awesome.   [0:01:43] Patrick Forquer: Everyone pray for me, that's all I have to say.   [0:01:44] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:01:45] PJ Bruno: Everyone out there, please, pray for Patrick Forquer.   [0:01:47] Patrick Forquer: Yes, please. (laughs) And my wife.   [0:01:49] Spencer Burke: Obviously. (laughs)   [0:01:49] PJ Bruno: Obviously, and the child to be-   [0:01:51] Spencer Burke: That's a lot more stressful for you obviously. (laughs)   [0:01:55] PJ Bruno: All right, first article of the day, we got this seven billion dollar Slack has filed to go public. Slack, one of the most hotly anticipated IPOs of 2019 announced Monday that it had confidentially filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which sells an enterprise collaboration and chat platform, joins the ranks of Silicon Valley unicorns like Lyft, Uber, and Zoom, that could make history as the largest cohort of multi billion dollar privately funded companies to hit the public markets.   [0:02:28] Patrick Forquer: Wow.   [0:02:29] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:02:30] Patrick Forquer: Quick aside, when I was-   [0:02:32] PJ Bruno: Oh, good.   [0:02:33] Patrick Forquer: (laughs) About Slack. So, when I was interviewing at [inaudible], now Briz, I was also at the same time interviewing at Slack. And so I'm in this, one of their big glass conference rooms in their office down in Soho, and I'm interviewing with a woman on video chat. And like halfway in, kind of normal conversation going on, and then all of a sudden, apropos to nothing, she just kind of freezes up and gets super awkward. Starts stuttering, is like, "uh-" And then I turn around and Stewart Butterfield (laughs) standing outside the door, just waiting to come in. And then his PR woman came in and kicked me out of the room, mid-interview. So that was my-   [0:03:14] PJ Bruno: That's why you didn't get the job.   [0:03:15] Patrick Forquer: That was great.(laughs)   [0:03:16] PJ Bruno: That was when you met Stewart.   [0:03:18] Patrick Forquer: (laughs) Yeah, so Stewart and I are old friends-   [0:03:19] PJ Bruno: Old buds, from back in the day. [crosstalk]   [0:03:20] Patrick Forquer: Really happy for him. Spencer, what do you think of this story? I don't know, start us off.   [0:03:27] Spencer Burke: I mean, it's really exciting, we have a couple IPOs we're talking about in the cast today. Slack, I think, has become pretty iconic in the sense that it came out of nowhere, it feels like.   [0:03:40] PJ Bruno: Out of nowhere.   [0:03:41] Spencer Burke: And now, it's everywhere. In interviews, customers, Slack is all over the place. People want to connect with us over Slack more than they do over email. So I think it's exciting to see companies that you know IPO-ing on this kind of timeframe. Because, you know we're going to talk about Lyft, but like Airbnb, Uber, these companies that signify the unicorns in a lot of peoples' minds. We haven't really seen a lot of velocity towards IPO yet, so this really one of the first ones.   [0:04:16] PJ Bruno: Right, exactly. They're moving quick. They started working on the app at the end of 2012, they did their soft launch in August of 2013. And then they had, I read this article they did this crazy friends and family press blitz, and in the first day had 8,000 people using it. And then in two weeks, 15,000.   [0:04:36] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, also big shout-out to the U.S. Government for shutting down for a month, so all these IPOs that we're talking about we probably could've talked about a month sooner had the government been open but, you know...   [0:04:47] PJ Bruno: (laughs) Exactly, well hey, we're on their clock.   [0:04:49] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, one thing I find interesting too is as I read more about the Slack IPO was, they're doing a couple things differently. First they're a direct listing, so instead of doing a traditional IPO you're hiring an underwriter, who then likes to stint the stock pricing, and goes out to institutional investors for you. They basically, during direct listing to the exchange where their initial investors and employees who have stock can essentially create an exchange on their end, and then sell their stock individually, and to the upper market. The two benefits for the investors are there's not a lock-up period, you don't have to wait any specific amount of time. And it can be good and bad I guess, but since there's no defined price, the market sets the value, so it's super interesting. Which is why they're able to file confidentially, where they're not releasing the type of info that we'll talk about with Lyft. Where we see more detail on the growth [crosstalk] metrics et cetera. And what I was also looking at was interesting because they sell traditional subscription software at per seat pricing. And their per seat pricing and user base has gone up rapidly, as we've talked about, which is obviously a huge attribute to their success. They've made about 380 million in revenue last year, and somewhere I read that they have 900 million on the books, so, unlike Lyft they're not IPO-ing to raise money for the company, they're basically just IPO-ing so they can pay their initial investors back, they raised about a billion dollars. So completely different... State of business for most of the IPOs that we'll talk about for the rest of the podcast where its like they have a ton of money on hand, they're growing at a huge clip, they're relatively profitable for a company at their stage. And, you know, super interesting. I think they're the first to reck listing since Spotify, and I can't wait to see where the price falls, and how much shares go into the market from an availability perspective. So, be super interesting to watch, unlike traditional...   [0:06:53] PJ Bruno: Yeah, I was looking at some stats for IPOs generally, and one thing that was really interesting for me is most IPOs, it's like 40%, are in healthcare. I think we get really immersed in technology being in a tech space. Like, if its an IPO it has to be a tech company. In reality there's a much broader market that exists around IPOs and across industries. And actually, on the confidential filing, I think it's like 99% of companies do that, so that's the common trajectory for the process.   [0:07:29] Spencer Burke: That's interesting.   [0:07:32] Patrick Forquer: Also, I was reading about the general enterprise collaboration space. It's growing at a 15% year over year clip, which is awesome for Slack, and obviously they have a huge market share. But I was also reading about their competitors and I saw Yammer...   [0:07:46] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:07:46] Patrick Forquer: Would you like me to repeat that? [crosstalk]   [0:07:48] PJ Bruno: I haven't heard that word in so long.   [0:07:51] Patrick Forquer: Yes. Slack totally changed the game for this space, and everyone else is just trying to catch up. But, I was just thinking back to past softwares I used before I started using Slack, and it's just like, what a disaster.   [0:08:02] PJ Bruno: Didn't Yammer try to do like the same thing, wasn't it-   [0:08:05] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, just basically, horribly.   [0:08:07] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:08:07] PJ Bruno: Right, just bad. Just bad.   [0:08:07] Patrick Forquer: (laughs)   [0:08:08] PJ Bruno: Well you know they pride themselves, Stewart says, it's always like they're veracious when it comes to user feedback. They're just constantly taking it in, and mitigating risk. I guess it's like if they tried out with a group of engineers and one engineer says, "Oh, I don't like it, I'm not going to use it," that's like... It's kind of over for that opportunity. But yeah... Also as PR goes, I think he learned with Flicker, press and doing it the right way it's like, how you win the game. They were the official sponsor of the World Cup for Christ’s sake. No tech company does that.   [0:08:44] Spencer Burke: I didn't even know that, really?   [0:08:45] PJ Bruno: Oh yeah, if you watched any of the games Slack was everywhere, you know. So, they knew what they were doing with that. Let's move on. Lyft. Files for IPO. It [inaudible] it's growth and reveals it lost 991 million last year. Yeah, I mean, how do I feel about this? I'll give you guys just the opening tagline here: "Potential investors in Lyft Inc. Initial public offering got their first look at the ride-hailing companies financials Friday, revealing a startup that's hustling to outrun it's growing losses. Lyft's revenue is exploding, and so is its net loss. Like many IPO candidates, the San Francisco company has never turned a profit. It lost 991 million in 2018 up 32% from the year before, even as revenue from the same period doubled." And yeah, I don't think profitability really matters to IPO anymore. IPO should help that kind of, that relationship has changed quite a bit.   [0:09:49] Patrick Forquer: A couple of folks had thoughts on this, and tech industry just got Slack shown also. Shout-out to Boris and Chris for their [inaudible]. I read from recode, I'm reading the stats, so I hope it's true, but 80% of companies that have filed IPO in the past year have not been profitable the year leading up to their IPO. And the last time the percentage was that high was 2000... So not good times potentially, but if you see a company like Lyft... Most of the analysis of their IPO that I was reading people look at things like competitive advantage, product market fit, their margins, and then their growth metrics. So obviously growth is really good, so it comes down to your point of view on... They're going to raise money to pay off some losses that they have, or put towards R&D and investment, and expansion. But, do we really think that their product market fit or competitive advantage is that far superior to an Uber or any of the other ride sharing competitors? And I think that's kind of the key question. If you're going to invest in something like Lyft you're going to have to ask yourself-   [0:11:04] PJ Bruno: Do you use Lyft?   [0:11:05] Patrick Forquer: I do.   [0:11:06] PJ Bruno: You do-   [0:11:06] Patrick Forquer: Well, Lyft-   [0:11:06] PJ Bruno: Over Uber?   [0:11:07] Patrick Forquer: Braze costumer, obviously.   [0:11:09] PJ Bruno: Shout-out.   [0:11:10] Patrick Forquer: Shout-out. (laughs)   [0:11:11] PJ Bruno: Got to do it.   [0:11:12] Patrick Forquer: Great cross channel, customer engagement, Lyft.   [0:11:14] PJ Bruno: Love it.   [0:11:14] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:11:16] Patrick Forquer: But in all seriousness, yeah I use Lyft, it's a great product. When you talk to drivers, drivers who do both almost unanimously tell me that Lyft is better to their drivers, they pay them more, they treat them with more respect.   [0:11:30] PJ Bruno: Right, they get bonuses now.   [0:11:30] Patrick Forquer: They get bonuses and all that jazz. So that part I really like, it's just if the idea is that we're moving towards an autonomous future, where the cars drive themselves, then the real competitive situation you have to look at- it's not necessarily with Uber but its with car manufacturers like Tesla or GM, or whoever may be making these autonomous cars and then could have a more clear enough sight into unseating some like a Lyft or an Uber. And obviously that's not tomorrow, but in terms of long-long term growth, you know, something to watch.   [0:12:04] Spencer Burke: So are you... Thumbs up, thumbs down?   [0:12:08] Patrick Forquer: I'm thumbs up on Slack, I think I'm thumbs down on Lyft.   [0:12:12] Spencer Burke: Oh, why?   [0:12:14] Patrick Forquer: I don't know. It might have a couple of good quarters, I think if you're going to buy something and just set it and forget it, it's not something that I would want to hold for a really long time, just cause I don't think that the return for profitability or margin perspective is going to be where investors want it to be over the next three or four quarters. I mean... They lost a billion dollars last year.   [0:12:34] PJ Bruno: Patrick's picks.   [0:12:35] Patrick Forquer: Yeah. (laughs) [crosstalk]   [0:12:38] Spencer Burke: Not financial advice. (laughs)   [0:12:42] Patrick Forquer: What do you think PJ, you going to buy some Lyft?   [0:12:44] PJ Bruno: no. No, I'm definitely the type of guy that I'm ETF, index funds all the way. Just hang on to it until I die, like literally that's it.   [0:12:52] Spencer Burke: Keep it simple.   [0:12:53] PJ Bruno: My father taught me well.   [0:12:54] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:12:54] PJ Bruno: It's all about low risk, live forever.   [0:12:58] Patrick Forquer: Spencer, what do you think? Slack vs Lyft, which one would you buy?   [0:13:02] Spencer Burke: I think Lyft is more exciting to me. I think, for me Lyft's IPO represents an opportunity for people to buy into this vision of the world with ride sharing, [inaudible] one. They also talk about autonomous vehicles, so, that's all on the radar. Someones not going to sneak up on them and be like, “Oh, cars drive themselves now,” and Lyft's like, “Oh shit, we didn't see this one coming."   [0:13:30] Patrick Forquer: (laughs)   [0:13:30] Spencer Burke: And I think they wanted to file before Uber, just so that their owning this conversation. So even though they're to turning a profit right now, we know Ubers in the same position. And so they can kind of own that, be out there talking about it, control the messaging, and they're going to get a wave of investment from people who haven't had an opportunity to buy Uber and some of the private financing that they've done. Now Lyft's there in the public market, you want a piece of that action, it's there.   [0:13:59] PJ Bruno: Yeah. I still don't get how they're going to grow out of that hole though. Because last year, effectively they lost $1.50 for every ride that was given. [crosstalk]   [0:14:13] Patrick Forquer: Spencer doesn't care.   [0:14:15] PJ Bruno: (laughs) He was literally was going to say, whatever Patrick says, I'm going to take the opposing standpoint, and I'm going to [inaudible] him into the ground.   [0:14:23] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I don't know if it matters necessarily. We're stuck in this idea that they need to be profitable, right now. Amazon got a lot of criticism for a long time because they were investing so much [crosstalk] back into the company, and Ubers raised, through debt and venture capital, 24 billion dollars in financing in the private markets. So people are investing in these companies at an insane scale already. So the difference now is that the three of us, anyone, can go buy a piece of Lyft. People are already investing quite a bit here, it's now just in a public market. So means there's more scrutiny, they'll have to have a track tour profitability, but I think in a public market it gives you some pressure in a form to do that.   [0:15:17] PJ Bruno: Right, I agree. I also think, and I'm not saying that I'd never buy [inaudible] if it's a slam dunk vs Slack. But if you think about, okay we're going to prioritize growth over profitability, Amazons obviously the model for that. And they've done a great job and been a great investment for a lot of people. But also, Amazon's market share and their competitive advantage is pretty vastly superior to their competitors set, if you look at overall eCommerce sales Amazon is obviously very dominant in that way. And Lyft is as well. I mean, obviously it's them and Uber kind of neck and neck, but the question then becomes do you of their marketiture long term. And I don't have an answer, but its just something to think about, something I would think about.   [0:16:05] Spencer Burke: But I think even this kind of starts the Segway into our next topic a little bit. Even the way you're framing that kind of exposes that Amazon isn't just an eCommerce business. And they don't provide a lot of reporting to break everything out, but I think it's something like AWS is 50% of the revenue. And so it's like, all right, who is their eCom competitors? Okay, you can go through Walmart and other folks in that space, but then there's AWS, and who's their competitor? Google, Microsoft, and that's it. And maybe they should be two separate companies.   [0:16:38] PJ Bruno: Maybe it should be two separate companies, on that note...   [0:16:43] Spencer Burke: Great pivot.   [0:16:43] PJ Bruno: Yeah I know, what a Segway.   [0:16:45] Spencer Burke: You're a pro   [0:16:48] PJ Bruno: So Gap will split into two publicly traded companies, and their stock surges. Gap said Thursday that they'll split into two independently publicly traded companies, one comprised of it's Old Navy brand, ans the second a yet to be named company that includes its other brands like Banana Republic and Athletica. And yeah, The Gap stock surged like 23% on that call. Any initial thoughts about this?   [0:17:15] Patrick Forquer: I always like when you know something was a semi-hastily made decision, where it's like, we're splitting into two companies, it's going to be Gap and then company Y. (laughs) We haven't named the second company yet. We just know that this one company is doing really horribly and this other one is doing really well. We need to split them up so we don't cannibalize our business.   [0:17:36] Spencer Burke: I actually thought that was a great move, because then the press is about, it's about the change and their stock surged on the news-   [0:17:43] PJ Bruno: Interesting, right.   [0:17:44] Spencer Burke: Instead of criticism of, oh why did they call it some random acronym, or why is it Gap instead of Banana Republic? It's new-co, don't worry about the name, this is super exciting.   [0:17:56] PJ Bruno: New-co right.   [0:17:57] Patrick Forquer: New-co, doesn't matter.   [0:17:58] Spencer Burke: Exactly, yeah.   [0:18:02] PJ Bruno: And it's funny because I guess it's to protect old Navy's business, because they're doing quite well, and they want to keep themselves apart from some of these other brands. But Old Navy, I remember when I was a teenager it was quite cool place to shop, but I specifically called my cousins yesterday, my 15 and 17 year old cousins to be like, “Hey, do people go to Old Navy?” And they're like, “No!”   [0:18:24] Patrick Forquer: (laughs)   [0:18:25] PJ Bruno: “Okay, well where are you guys shopping?” They're talking about Urban Outfitters-   [0:18:27] Spencer Burke: I love that you're doing this research.   [0:18:29] PJ Bruno: Yeah, Pacsun, Lululemon. I was like, “You can afford to shop at Lululemon?”   [0:18:33] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:18:33] PJ Bruno: What did they pay you in high school now! What's the salary in high school?   [0:18:38] Patrick Forquer: I was also bummed to see that their closing a bunch of Gap stores, because-   [0:18:41] Spencer Burke: Like 200.   [0:18:41] PJ Bruno: Yeah   [0:18:44] Patrick Forquer: Several times on business trips I have spilled a, you know, coffee or breakfast item onto a shirt that I'm wearing to a meeting and almost always The Gap is the nearest store that opens at 8:30- 9:00 am.   [0:18:59] Spencer Burke: You got to have a back up shirt.   [0:19:00] PJ Bruno: That's true. Except today, you currently have a stain on your shirt.   [0:19:03] Spencer Burke: Do I?   [0:19:04] PJ Bruno: (laughs)   [0:19:04] Patrick Forquer: I looked, dang it.   [0:19:08] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:19:08] Patrick Forquer: But no, The Gap clutch, the large slim fit blue Gap shirt. Can't miss.   [0:19:14] PJ Bruno: Yeah, that's true. Well you have a build like a large model, so I think that it probably fits you just right   [0:19:19] Patrick Forquer: (laughs)   [0:19:19] PJ Bruno: But you know, Old Navy, when they had those fleeces come out-   [0:19:22] Patrick Forquer: Oh, the performance fleece?   [0:19:23] PJ Bruno: They cornered the market, obviously.   [0:19:25] Patrick Forquer: (laughs) They sure did.   [0:19:25] Spencer Burke: Those commercials.   [0:19:27] PJ Bruno: That's all I remember, I was walking down the street, all I could remember was that whole advertising campaign around fleeces. I was like, God, they were in their stride then, and now I don't know if it's as accessible to the younger market.   [0:19:38] Spencer Burke: Yeah, the switch from a business Podcast to a nostalgia Podcast.   [0:19:41] PJ Bruno: You know what, I think the best Podcasts weave in both.   [0:19:45] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:19:45] Patrick Forquer: To Spencer's point, I think it'll be interesting to see if these other kind of retail conglomerates who have brands performing at different levels like Gap and Old Navy, will split off if [inaudible] comes to mind, as well as a couple of others. Abercrombie, Hollister, et cetera. Where certain brands, certain markets doing really well have really good margins, and then really good [inaudible], or really good eCommerce business. And so I think in that perspective we might see more of this as brands in retail continue to get more specialized. And obviously AWS should be a standalone company. And I think Kevin was talking about it, it would've been the fastest company to a billion in earnings in history if it had been its own thing.   [0:20:31] Spencer Burke: Yeah I think it's interesting splitting out the higher end brands from Old Navy. I was reading, apparently Diesel jeans is filing for bankruptcy, [crosstalk] (laughs) they totally missed the move to eCommerce, they took out all these leases on super expensive real estate on fifth avenue because they were trying to be a luxury brand, but the only stores that were performing were the ones that were the outlets, the discounted. So it's clear, people don't want to pay full price for these jeans, and if you look at that as two different businesses, ones really healthy, ones not so healthy. It's all rolled into one, and with some bad decisions on real estate, but I think that kind of highlights for why this is a move that's valued by the markets, right. They can understand the two different sides of this company in a more coherent way, rather than trying to lump it all together.   [0:21:31] PJ Bruno: Yeah, the way this is, it seemed like a more proactive move verses, “Oh we're drowning.” It felt a little more like, “Okay, we're going to take this...” I don't know, The Gap seems like a pretty smart company when it comes to some of the stuff they're doing, especially with personalization and whatnot. They have their, I don't know if you guys know but they have their own proprietary CDP that they use.   [0:21:56] Patrick Forquer: I think that the worse thing that happened to The Gap was... What's that movie with Steve Carell where he's the dad on the rebound, and then Ryan Gosling says to him, “You can do better than The Gap.” And I think I saw that while wearing a Gap shirt, and I felt really bad [crosstalk] about myself.   [0:22:10] PJ Bruno: Oh, it's like crazy about love or something like that. Crazy in love, or something.   [0:22:15] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, well... You can't do better than The Gap. I think Spencer's wearing Gap right now if I'm looking [inaudible].   [0:22:20] PJ Bruno: Is this Gap?   [0:22:21] Spencer Burke: I'm not, I don't do brand endorsements.   [0:22:23] PJ Bruno: Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?   [0:22:26] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:22:26] PJ Bruno: Tell us! Tell us!   [0:22:27] Spencer Burke: We don't have a Patreon, but you can send a large slim fit to-   [0:22:31] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, MeUndies, if you're listening... We need a sponsor.   [0:22:37] Spencer Burke: Actually Pat, as our historian and financial analyst I have a question for you.   [0:22:42] Patrick Forquer: Yes.   [0:22:42] Spencer Burke: In the article it says the current market cap for Gap is 9.7 billion.   [0:22:48] Patrick Forquer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)   [0:22:48] Spencer Burke: Slack could be valued at seven billion in their IPO, how do you... I think for a lot of people Gap, know them, I can see their stores, wearing their clothing, almost ten billion dollar company, sure. Slack, it's a chat app. It's almost worth the same valuation. How do you explain that to people?   [0:23:12] Patrick Forquer: I don't know what you're talking about.   [0:23:14] PJ Bruno: (laughs)   [0:23:14] Patrick Forquer: Well I mean Gap also has a very large international brand and presence, so its not just like a domestic U.S. Brand. But, I don't think you do, and especially if you look at the seven billion, I don't know what the multiplier, I think it was like 25x to earnings.   [0:23:31] PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm (affirmative)   [0:23:32] Patrick Forquer: So, I mean, we talk a lot about that here at Braze in terms of having SAS based revenue model, investors tend to like subscription based business more than they like retail business, because retail is subjects to market fluctuation and seasonal, overhead, seasonal impacts, macroeconomic impacts. You know, if Slacks an essential part of your business and the market goes down, you're still going to use it because it's how you run you're business. But I might not go buy a Gap shirt if-   [0:24:06] Spencer Burke: (laughs) I don't know, you're doing it to do business, right?   [0:24:08] PJ Bruno: So you're saying Slack is recession proof? You know that you will have to work until the day you die-   [0:24:11] Patrick Forquer: Well no, nothing-   [0:24:12] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:24:12] PJ Bruno: And that is certain.   [0:24:15] Patrick Forquer: Well when Social Security- [crosstalk]   [0:24:17] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:24:18] Patrick Forquer: When Social Security evaporates in the next 20 years we are going to all be working until we're 90 anyway.   [0:24:23] Spencer Burke: I feel like we have gone off the rails-   [0:24:26] PJ Bruno: (laughs) I think that's part of it. Well anyways, just in time for us to wrap up. Any final parting words-   [0:24:33] Spencer Burke: Kill switch.   [0:24:33] PJ Bruno: On IPO readiness?   [0:24:35] Patrick Forquer: I just can't wait for Bird's IPO, that's all I have to say.   [0:24:38] PJ Bruno: That's your jam.   [0:24:40] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, that's my jam.   [0:24:41] Spencer Burke: (laughs)   [0:24:41] PJ Bruno: So many [crosstalk] plugs today.   [0:24:42] Patrick Forquer: Shout-out to Cordy Thorten if you're listening.   [0:24:46] PJ Bruno: Spence, you want to leave the people with something good? Something great?   [0:24:49] Spencer Burke: No, I'm done.   [0:24:51] PJ Bruno: All right, well you know what, I think I'm done too. But you guys, stay sharp, keep your eyes open, eyes on the prize, and come back and see us next time.

PJ Bruno sits down with Enterprise AE Patrick Forquer and VP of Growth Spencer Burke to discuss online grocery shopping, Reddit raising a huge Series D round with a near $3 billion valuation, and Warby Parker's new augmented reality shopping tool.          TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] P.J: Hi everyone and welcome to Braze for Impact. Your weekly tech industry discuss digest. So this is a place where we get together each week and just talk about what's happening in tech. This week I'm lucky to have with me my pal Patrick Forquer who is on the sales organization here at Braze. Next week we'll hear from someone from a different department, probably Customer Success, something like that and then the following week maybe someone from product and then so on and so forth. So we can get multiple different angles at what's happening in the tech industry. Like I said today, I'm lucky to have Patrick Forquer and also Spencer Burke. I'll have them introduce themselves.   [0:00:51] Patrick: Hey, I'm Patrick [inaudible]. I'm a strategic account exec here at Braze.   [0:00:55] Spencer: Thanks PJ. I'm Spencer Burke, the VP of growth.   [0:00:58] P.J: How are you guys doing? How's the week trucking on?   [0:01:01] Patrick: It's going okay. No, it's going great. It's great to be here with you P.J. Looking great in your Heather Gray shirt and as always.   [0:01:09] P.J: It's a good color. Spence, how are we doing?   [0:01:11] Spencer: Going well. Got a ski trip planned for this weekend driving up to Vermont, so can't complain.   [0:01:16] P.J: Always at the skiing Spencer Burke.   [0:01:19] Spencer: It's a winter. I got to get it in.   [0:01:20] P.J: Got to get it in guys. You know what, without further ado, why don't we jump on to what's happening this week? This first article, 'Why people still don't buy groceries online'. This is a very interesting thing to me. Actually, let me set up the story because I think they did a really good way of setting this up in the article. Nearly 30 years ago when just 15% of Americans had a computer and even fewer had Internet access, Thomas Parkinson set up a rack of modems on a crate and barrel wine rack and started accepting orders for the Internet's first grocery delivery company, Peapod, which he founded with his brother Andrew. Back then, ordering groceries online was complicated. Most customers had dial-up still and Peapod's web graphics were so rudimentary that customers couldn't even see image of what images of what they were buying. Delivery was complicated too. So the Parkinson's drove to grocery stores in the Chicago area. They actually did this and bought what customers had ordered and then delivered the goods from the backseat of their beat up Honda Civic. When people wanted to stock up on certain goods, strawberry yogurt or bottles of diet coke, the Parkinson's would deplete whole sections of grocery stores. This is, this is wild. I mean it's interesting because we were all constantly talking about convenience and delivery of all sorts of things. Why not groceries? What's the deal?   [0:02:41] Patrick: Yeah. So when I was reading this article, the first thing that came to mind was if, if we rewind 10 years from today and we took a poll of everyone at braise about, which would be more successful grocery delivery or an app on your phone where you tap on one button and a stranger in a Honda Civic pulls up and drives you somewhere. I think we all would have bet on the grocery delivery piece of that. Right?   [0:03:07] Spencer: Every time.   [0:03:08] Patrick: So it is crazy to me and the numbers are super low. I mean 3% of people getting grocery delivery. Spencer, what was your initial take?   [0:03:18] Spencer: I'm curious, have you guys used the grocery delivery service?   [0:03:22] Patrick: So I have, I had a really bad experience actually, so I haven't done it since. And I think that's part of the challenge in this article where-   [0:03:31] Spencer: Can you get into that bad experience or is that...   [0:03:35] Patrick: So we tried to use the grocery ordering off of Amazon Alexa and my wife ordered paper towels and-   [0:03:46] Spencer: Just paper towels?   [0:03:47] Patrick: Yes. And a couple of other things, but I kid you not, they delivered us what must have been the majority of the warehouses paper towels to the point where-   [0:03:58] P.J: Jesus!   [0:03:59] Patrick: ...for two and a half years, we were using paper towels off of that one order. So obviously that's an outlier. But yeah.   [0:04:08] P.J: It seems like it's also, apparently America is really not adopting it as much as other countries like it seems like in Europe. Also in Asia it's like up to 20% or something like that of consumers are using online and it's only 3% here in America. Does that speak to anything that we're doing or what do you guys think?   [0:04:27] Spencer: Well, I mean I think part of it is most people... Most people have cars. Most people live in an area where they have some kind of large grocery store chain and so if you're driving to work, stopping at the grocery store on the way home, it's not changing the convenience kind of function for everyone in the same way that like Lyft or Postmates or Seamless might for your average consumer. Personally, I've tried it here in New York. I recently moved to somewhere that just doesn't have as many large stores as close to me. I just thought, sure, why not? Let's try Amazon Prime. Amazon just bought whole foods recently and let's see how it goes. I think there's a lot of challenges with it. You don't see exactly what you're getting. If something's out of stock, you're relying on them making replacement or not providing it at all. So, if you're planning on using one of these services to plan a dinner you might not actually be able to cook what you intended to or you might not be able to put that meal together because the delivery service wasn't 100% versus if you're in the store, you can kind of course correct as you go.   [0:05:32] P.J: Right. I feel like a lot of us order all sorts of things through the Internet. I'm sure that list goes on, but as far as grocery shopping something that...it's ordering Seamless as one thing, right? It's prepared and sent right over to you as opposed to groceries. People probably a little concerned like you want to feel your fruit, you want to see your meat, you got all these things. I feel like there's a little fear around that probably. For me anyways.   [0:05:59] Patrick: Well definitely. And then you know, they talk about the challenges that these companies have. It's a lot more complex and it would look to me that on the surface with things like some items you have to keep warm. Some items you have to keep cool, you have to do it all really quickly. And so the people put, you know, preparing the packaging, have to know where everything is and then there's delivery and it's mostly in urban areas. So then there's parking challenges and all these things that I didn't necessarily.   [0:06:25] P.J: There's tons of complications that go along with it. Apparently surveys have shown that shoppers are still concerned that they're being charged higher prices when it comes to online delivery and also complain about delivery drivers being late. Those are the two biggest complaints apparently.   [0:06:39] Patrick: Yeah. And the last thing I noticed was in the second article that we were looking at on grocery delivery, there's the casual drop of Google in partnership with Bain, with Bain commissioned a research study, which as we know working in tech means that Google paid Bain to run this survey for them likely with a hypothesis that grocery delivery was about to explode.   [0:07:03] P.J: I feel like they had an a hypothesis in mind. Yes. Something tells me, yeah.   [0:07:07] Spencer: So I don't know if this was entirely altruistic on behalf of a like, yeah, let's do it. Let's go for it. We'd like you guys.   [0:07:13] Patrick: And you know, I noticed Walmart recently pulled their products from Google Express, which is Google's grocery delivery service. So I think there's increasing competition around this for an incredibly small market at the moment. And I guess we'll see where it goes.   [0:07:31] Spencer: Yeah. Before we move on. I, despite our skepticism, I think there clearly is something here and you know, whether it's Instacart or Postmates or Amazon or anything Walmart or Jet tries to do, there's clearly value to having a hall. You're grocery shopping, just show up at your door essentially. And I think like a lot of things on the Internet, whether it was a couple of years ago when everyone's like no one's going to put their credit card into their phone to buy something online. It's like there's all these articles about how many people abandon their carts because it's on mobile and they need to go back to their desktop. No one talks about that anymore. You just do it. I think we're not that far from whole foods being a warehouse of food for Amazon delivery rather than a grocery store. Right.   [0:08:18] Patrick: Delivered by robots.   [0:08:20] Spencer: Yeah, exactly.   [0:08:21] P.J: And that's what the future looks like. Groceries delivered by robots.   [0:08:24] Spencer: You heard it here first.   [0:08:25] P.J: Yeah, we'll leave it to you guys. Next article of the day. Reddit is raising a huge round near $3 billion valuation. So Reddit is raising one. Sorry, $150 million to $300 million to keep the front page of the Internet running. Multiple sources tell TechCrunch. The forthcoming series D round is said to be led by Chinese tech giant, Tencent at a $2.7 billion pre-money valuation. And now depending on how much follow on cash Reddit drums up from Silicon Valley investors and beyond, it's post money valuation could reach an epic $3 billion. Yikes. And now my first concern that comes up immediately for this, and I feel like maybe you guys felt the same way. Censorship, right? I mean, maybe it doesn't matter, but Reddit remains a relatively safe space for trailers and conspiracy theorists alike. The currently banned apps and websites in China though, like massive lists just to shortlist as Google, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Snap, Insta, Youtube, flickr, Tinder, and Reddit of course. And that doesn't even include news publications, cloud storage products and email. So I don't know, there's something feels weird about this, right? Also like Tencent is also one of the most important architects of the great firewall of China. This is serious. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of meat here.   [0:09:53] Spencer: It's like this is a different than I expected.   [0:09:54] P.J: Oh really? It just seems like there's strange things at play.   [0:10:00] Patrick: Spencer, I know you had some hot takes on this.   [0:10:02] Spencer: No, go ahead.   [0:10:03] Patrick: Well, yeah, I think it's interesting that Reddit has had a lot of challenges over the past couple of years. And PJ, you alluded to some of that where they've had some really bad homophobic, misogynistic, racist, threads that have propagated conspiracy theories and hate speech and they've dealt with it in different ways. Some of the ways that they've dealt with it has been good. Some of it's been not so good. I know their CEO was editing comments and specific threads to make them look a certain way. And then he got caught doing that and had to apologize. If they had been a bigger company, can you imagine if Facebook did something like that? He'd be hauled in front of Congress immediately. So, and I was thinking about the valuation piece of this too, where if you took all the bad stuff out, and you're looking at their monetization model, it's through ads, right? Like most companies. They're like most social companies but they've really only recently started monetizing through ads and their real strength has been a very supportive and loyal community of Reddit users. I don't use Reddit, but I know people who do and the people that use Reddit, love Reddit. They love it. They're like in the community, they're posting and commenting and all that stuff. And the challenge as we know scaling a business model where ads are the primary revenue driver is that you can lose some of that early days, communal feel when you start layering in promoted posts and different types of advertisements and it kind of loses its initial bespoke early day feeling those.   [0:11:54] Spencer: Yeah. I think the flip side of the darker elements of Reddit is that Reddit, can be a place for really specific groups of people and that can be people in a city, someone with a certain medical condition, people who play a sport. Like recently I've been looking and there's a subreddit for woodworking and it's like, oh, this is maybe a hobby that I'd be interested in. And there's just a ton of resources and people who are helpful. So for everyone who's out there trying to make a joke, well, if there's a lot more of these people, but for everyone out there who's, who's kind of trolling and you're trying to be a little bit silly, there's a lot of people who are just passionate about something and go to Reddit to share it. And I think it's kind of inspiring actually, that those communities exist on the Internet in a place that it's not just a website for those people. It's a website that can serve any community and it happens to be Reddit for a lot of people.   [0:12:50] Patrick: Right? Do you think that this changes anything for Reddit potentially down the road?   [0:12:58] Spencer: Well, they stay in business for a little bit longer. I don't think so. I think you're probably reading too much into the the Chinese[crosstalk]   [0:13:07] Patrick: have you been spending some time on Reddit recently PJ?   [0:13:09] P.J: Actually, I've only been on Reddit maybe once in my whole life. I'm not a big ... My roommate is like obsessed. Anytime we're doing anything like watching a movie, he just is looking at his phone the whole time and he's in Reddit constantly living in the comments. Right?   [0:13:23] Patrick: Nba Reddit as a really good, yeah. Community. Right. Community.   [0:13:27] Spencer: I feel singled out now because I actually do spend a decent amount of time on Reddit   [0:13:32] Patrick: That's all we need to hear from somebody.   [0:13:32] Spencer: Don't use Facebook, don't use Twitter. Casually though love reading Reddit. The comments can be hilarious. But like I said, just moved recently. So looking for cool areas, restaurants, bars in my neighborhood and there's a subreddit for it. So just reading through it on a couple of times a week can pick out spots, find somewhere to go check out, and it's actually really interesting to see and it's like having a good neighbor or a friend recommend some places to you. You just there and it's a different feel than just going on Yelp and looking at aggregate and total summation.   [0:14:08] Patrick: Are you getting into woodworking? Is that what this is?   [0:14:11] P.J: Yeah. What do you, tell me more about that.   [0:14:13] Spencer: I won't go down the rabbit hole of the hobbies that Reddit has inspired or there's some really, I'll just ... There's some really specifics. I'll read it. That's all. That's all I'll say.   [0:14:23] Patrick: I mean, but what you're describing though, Spencer, is the kind of dual nature of all of these social media sites. On one hand, they can connect people who feel lonely or who are passionate about a certain topic that maybe others around them aren't passionate about and find that community that they'd been looking for. On the other hand, there's Jonses with hate speech and things like that and who knows, maybe Reddit Will start handling this really well and it'd be a success story, so I'll be interested to what they do with all this capital and it's a huge inflection point for their business and kind of their all or nothing shot I feel like so.   [0:15:00] Spencer: Just as an example, they're on the weeds podcast of ox podcasts. They're talking about a study of where they paid people to give up Facebook who are on the platform. They weren't planning to give it up. And those people who are basically just happier, they socialize more, they watch a little more TV, which is maybe the one question one thing.   [0:15:19] Patrick: And they have some money now, which is nice.   [0:15:22] Spencer: But they were less politically divisive. They were a little less informed on some things, but just like genuinely happier. I think one of the interesting things that happens in Reddit versus Facebook, that the communities are moderated by people from the community. So there are subreddits to help people quit smoking, to quit drinking. And when those people will talk about their success, there's so much positive in encouragement and positive feedback and the negative elements of that. Unlike Facebook where anyone from high school that you don't really know anymore can come in and comment and make you feel pretty bad about something or give you that kind of fomo feeling. There's a community of people supporting you trying to do whatever it is. Whether it's something you know, trying to get rid of some addiction or learn some new hobby, which I think so that moderating the fact is it makes it a little bit different than other types of social networks.   [0:16:14] P.J: A little more like true democracy going on over there.   [0:16:18] Spencer: Or a benevolent dictatorship. In the case of moderation.   [0:16:22] Patrick: If Reddit is the front page of the Internet, does that make Facebook like the national enquirer? Who's to say, hi,   [0:16:33] P.J: Let's move on. We got a little of time left. Last article of the day. Warby Parker's new shopping tool lets you try on and buy glasses virtually using your iPhone's camera. So now this article is Warby Parker announced new shopping tool and it's more convenient for iPhone owners, Virtual Try-on. The tool, which lives inside the glasses by mail companies app is available on February 4th. So this Monday it just launched. The caveat is you'll need an iPhone X, iPhone XR or iPhone XS to take advantage. So not just for iPhone users. If you have an old school iPhone, you're not going to be able to use this thing either. Spencer, you wear glasses sometimes, right?   [0:17:13] Spencer: Yep. You got me.   [0:17:15] P.J: You guys can't see. But sometimes he wears glasses. Do you have feelings on this? Do you get ex ... Does this get you excited?   [0:17:22] Spencer: [inaudible]radio? Yeah. Not really. I'm pretty straight forward. When I went to go buy my most recent pair of glasses, went to a store in New York, asked the guy for some help. He picked out two pairs, tried them on, chose one, locked out. And I might be an anomaly there, but I think from-   [0:17:41] P.J: Boom! I love that.   [0:17:42] Spencer: But I think this is really interesting to me because it sort of solves two problems. One is it's helping people try glasses. It's lowering friction to make a purchase. The second is it's giving people a better sense of what they're going to look like without going in the store. So it's going to reduce the likelihood that they need to go in and make a return or [inaudible] me back in, which of course has a cost to Warby. So hopefully for for them the business outcome is it's increasing revenue, making the purchase easier and they're reducing their operating costs by reducing the number of returns.   [0:18:16] Patrick: Yeah. To me, reading the article and there was a lot of buzz about this. This story appeared multiple of the new sources that I read on a regular basis and while it's cool and definitely the benefits that Spencer's talking about are real. I also didn't understand necessarily the getting as much buzz as it did because to me it just feels like they took Snapchat filters and turn them into [crosstalk] Whoa, we can do now what Snapchat could do two years ago and it's just Warby Parker glasses instead of like Elton John glasses. I mean it's cool, but I want the Elton John one.   [0:18:55] Spencer: Yeah.   [0:18:56] Patrick: So it's just definitely cool and I think there's obviously a business case to be made from a technology perspective. It wasn't super exciting. I think there's other use cases for AR for things like the way that Wayfair and other furniture stores are doing it where you can see, you can overlay a couch in a living room type of thing that would be more valuable than, productize smart Snapchat filter.   [0:19:21] Spencer: So you don't wear glasses do you?   [0:19:22] Patrick: I do not.   [0:19:29] P.J: 20-20 vision. I honestly just don't trust that augmented reality fit. I don't think it'll necessarily match real life. And I guess it's for two reasons. One, I just don't trust that just looking at yourself with this augmented pair of glasses on will necessarily look the way to look in real life. Also, we're not even considering the feel. the feel of a pair of glasses has to feel right. You know, so until they have augmented feeling technology out, I'm not buying.   [0:19:57] Patrick: Well, the other thing I was thinking about too, along those lines, PJ is 97% of Americans won't freaking order groceries, but there's going to be some huge wave of people putting something on their face every day that they saw on an app.   [0:20:11] P.J: That's what I'm talking about.   [0:20:13] Patrick: Hot tech Spencer. I don't know.   [0:20:14] P.J: There it is. It's called augmented reality. It's inherently different. It's like if you think about catching a charter as art in Pokemon go is so different from trying to catch on in real life. Have you ever tried, it's entirely different. Wait, one more question for you guys. What I want to hear, what's an augmented reality app that you're just hankering for that you just really want? And I'll give you a second to think. Well, I'll tell you mine and you know, growing up I was very into a Tamagotchi if you guys remember those little pet on your key chain, but just like a cool little Tamagotchi that only I can see my pet. No one can see them. I look around where is he? Okay. There he is on the ground. You've got to feed them. You got to take care of them. And then you know when it comes to having to really take care of him, like you just close the app, close the phone. I don't need to worry about buying pet food or any of that stuff. Something that makes me feel like I have a little buddy.   [0:21:08] Patrick: So an AR Tamagotchi   [0:21:09] P.J: An AR Tamagotchi you heard it here first.   [0:21:12] Patrick: Wow. Here's all my money. [inaudible]   [0:21:17] Spencer: You don't use Reddit. You don't order groceries online, you don't think that trying glasses on with your phone is a good idea. But they are Tamagotchi.   [0:21:26] P.J: I am on Facebook so you can find just about out of time here. You guys, thanks so much for being on here with me. This is PJ Bruno.   [0:21:35] Patrick: Patrick [inaudible]   [0:21:36] Spencer: And Spencer Burke.   [0:21:37] P.J: signing off. You guys take care. [0:21:39]

Just four years ago it was reported,  “that 1500 pastors leave the ministry for good each month due to burnout or contention in their churches.” What is a pastor to do just five years in when he or she realizes there already exists lessons from failure? Not Much … Continue reading The post Pastors Fail? A Conversation with Taylor Mertins appeared first on patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian. Related posts: Pastors Search For . . . : A Conversation with Marty Duren Still Making Sense of Church: An Interview with Spencer Burke The Circles of Faithful Presence: An(other) Interview with David E. Fitch

Often a Pastor is concerned with answering human beings search for meaning. What happens when pastors go searching? Would you be surprised that one of the most sought after bits of information for pastors concerns retreats and sabbaticals? Maybe you would expect pastors to search for articles on Jesus' … Continue reading The post Pastors Search For . . . : A Conversation with Marty Duren appeared first on patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian. Related posts: Diagnosing the Current Normal of the Church: An Interview with Tom Ingram Still Making Sense of Church: An Interview with Spencer Burke Listening to the Nones and Dones: A Interview (Reprise) with Rob Davis

There once were churches. Then Denominational Churches. Mainline Churches. Traditional Churches. Evangelical Churches. House Churches. After that Seeker-Sensitive Churches. Traditional Churches. Mainline Churches. Seeker-Friendly Churches. Purpose-Driven Churches. Emerging Churches. Missional Churches. Gospel-Centered Churches. If Christians can't make sense of these large groups and their subsets, what hope have we … Continue reading The post Still Making Sense of Church: An Interview with Spencer Burke appeared first on patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian. Related posts: Mentors- Get Some: 1 of 20 Looking Back, Looking Ahead Part 2 Legitimizing Power, The Poor, and Jesus Diagnosing the Current Normal of the Church: An Interview with Tom Ingram

Deacons I am thrilled to let you all in to a live HBC house-show & yard party with your favorite British PoMo theological and cultural super star Barry Taylor (check him on the podcast, with Peter Rollins on the Apostle Paul and at Theology After Google). The show is almost an hour and a half of interactive theology, inappropriate religious jokes, guitar strumming, Pop Culture commentary, & curse word Bingo (Barry will explain…I hear lay people at his church invented it).  If you can't imagine course language and thick sarcasm being use for something fruitful then please don't listen.  Pete Rollins may have his Pyro-theology but we got Profane Theology.  This was recorded September 30, 2011. We discuss Scot McKnight's King Jesus Gospel, Peter Rollins, Mark Driscoll's Thug Jesus excitement, reality TV (and Christianity), Phyllis Tickle, Mel Gibson's love of the Jewish people, the Passion of the Christ, Rob Bell, Love Wins, Rick Warren, Shane Hipps, techno-noise, AC/DC, the Star Wars religion, changing religious data, skulls, and trash art. Dr. Barry Taylor is the Associate Rector at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California. He also teaches theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is the Artist-in-Residence for the Brehm Center, and he teaches advertising and design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, topics that were part of his theological doctoral study program. He writes and plays music, usually with friends, occasionally for money – his songs have shown up in a few movies, and he has composed a couple of soundtracks for largely over-looked films. He has written a few books: A Matrix of Meaning with Craig Detweiler, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity, with Spencer Burke, as well as his latest, Entertainment Theology. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you do when church seems upside down? When it seems like church is more about going through the motions than anything else? ThinkFWD host Spencer Burke spends some time with Ken and Deborah Loyd, who live in Portland, Oregon.

Lord Save Us From Your Followers! That’s the name of the movie on the marquis in downtown Portland, Oregon and the backdrop for the ThinkFWD episode with host Spencer Burke and independent filmmaker Dan Merchant.

Community interpretation of the Bible helps balance our inherent biases, and we become part of the story of the book, says author Tim Conder in an interview for ThinkFWD with host Spencer Burke. Tim’s book, Free for All, posits that reading the Bible...

It started with one person in crisis, a prostitute. She came, got help, and brought someone else who needed help. Bruce Deel, founder of the City of Refuge in downtown Atlanta, shares how it all began with Spencer Burke, host of ThinkFWD.