Why Lucy Guo doesn’t think we are in an AI bubble

I'm Yasmin Gagne.

I'm Josh Christensen.

And this is Most Innovative Companies. On today's episode, Fast Company senior editor Brian Lufkin.

These jobs were probably part of this larger trend called ghost jobs, which is essentially a fake job that companies post. That they have no intention to ever actually hire for.

Lucy Guo, CEO and founder of Paxos.

We take less of a percentage. We have more features, so there's more ways to monetize.

And as always, Keeping Tabs. I think anybody who agrees to an interview with Isaac Chotiner has a death wish. But first, here's The Download, the news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. The US government has been shut down for 30 days and counting.

And as of recording, the Republican-led Senate has failed to advance a funding bill to end it. The latest casualty is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which the US—

Never knew what that stood for.

I did not know until this past week. I just knew it was, you know, the successor to food stamps, essentially.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I knew that. But anyway.

The US Department of Agriculture stated it will not be issuing SNAP benefits on November 1st to those enrolled in the federal food assistance program. food aid program. The program, which assists roughly 1 in 8 Americans with buying groceries, will not receive any of the $5 billion in contingency funds that could be allocated towards it. Ooh, we got a lot of federal government news coming up, so we're just gonna roll through it to the next one. A U.S. district judge has also stopped the Trump administration indefinitely from firing workers furloughed during the shutdown. These are crazy headlines to read. It's like, okay. It's just like, yeah, it's like, we're gonna, we're gonna punish poor people with not giving them food. We're, uh, gonna stop the administration from firing people while they're furloughed, of all things. Anyways, that's— so that's, that's happening.

Hey, but tariffs are next. That's always fun.

Oh, tariffs, tariffs! Let's move on to tariffs. Turning to tariffs, President Trump abruptly called an end to trade negotiations with Canada last week over a television ad that Ontario aired that voiced opposition to Trump's tariffs. Part of the ad featured a clip from a speech from former President Ronald Reagan about the harmful effects of tariffs.

When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.

But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.

Trump stated in his Truth Social post, based on their egregious behavior, comma, in all caps, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated. On Wednesday, during a visit to South Korea, President Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-yong reached a trade deal between the 2 countries. They agreed to keep tariffs at 15% and cut the tariffs on vehicles and auto parts from 25% to 15%.

Next up, we have a bunch of news from OpenAI. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced its restructure into both a for-profit and nonprofit entity. The for-profit arm, now called OpenAI Group Public Benefit Corporation, is created for the purpose of public and social good.

Word.

I— okay.

Word.

Dope.

The nonprofit part of the company, now called the OpenAI Foundation, will control the for-profit arm through its board. As well as hold a 26% stake in it. OpenAI is also reported to be developing a generative AI music tool, which would create music from audio and text prompting. We're about to hear some of the worst music ever written.

'Cause Sora 2 has been so good. Or, you never know.

On Tuesday, the company also announced that starting November 4th, users of ChatGPT Go in India will be able to sign up for a free year subscription to the tool. The promotion was created in order to boost in-app purchase revenue in the country, which is OpenAI's second-largest market. And PayPal is now the latest service to be integrated into OpenAI's ChatGPT tool. The option to use your PayPal wallet is now integrated into the chatbot's instant checkout feature, letting users complete purchases entirely within ChatGPT. Lastly, OpenAI released data this week on just how many of ChatGPT's users are using the chatbot to discuss their mental health struggles. This is so bleak.

Oh my God.

God.

The company says that in any given week, about 0.15% of active users, or more than a million people a week, chat with the chatbot about topics around suicide.

Wow. That's dark.

Um, that's actually like a lot of people.

That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. That makes me feel pretty rough. Pretty bad.

Yeah.

Well, spill your guts to ChatGPT.

Well, let's cheer people up with our next news item topic, a roundup of layoffs that have happened recently at big tech and public companies. A number of large corporations this week have announced mass layoffs ahead of the holiday season. Amazon on Tuesday announced that it would be cutting 14,000 jobs from its corporate workforce. The company claims that the reductions are part of its larger aim of strengthening the company's teams and culture. Okay, apparently they're going to cut— this is the first round of cuts of what could be upwards of 30,000 job cuts.

But they're not cutting any warehouse workers.

It's from their corporate offices. So yeah, their corporate workforce.

Retail—

it's because they didn't allow them to unionize. Retail giant Target also announced the cutting of 1,800 corporate roles, amounting to 1,000 layoffs of current employees and the elimination of 800 roles that were to be filled. Just continuing of a great year for Target. Paramount also cut about 1,000 positions in the US. A further 1,000 jobs are also expected to be cut in the near future. The cuts are part of a larger plan for the company to save about $2 billion in costs, a promise the company made to Wall Street after the close of the merger between Paramount and Skydance. And finally, shipping service UPS announced the elimination of 14,000 management positions, and 34,000 operational jobs for a total of 48,000 employees to be laid off. And that's just the big job layoffs that have happened recently. There have been a number of others as well. Go to fastcompany.com to keep track of all of those.

Next up, data released last week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an uptick.

Finally, finally, we get to talk about inflation.

Showed an uptick in the rate of inflation between August and September. The Consumer Price Index for September showed an increase in prices at a 3% annual rate, a tenth of a percent higher than in August. Hell yeah. The Fed on Wednesday again cut its key interest rate a quarter of a point. The cut was the second this year and may not be the last, with another cut expected in December.

Now for the saddest news item. The producer of—

Brendan Vaughan is devastated here.

Brendan Vaughan is devastated. If there is ever a landman in the, in the office, it is Brendan Vaughan, because the producer of network hits like Landman and Yellowstone Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount for NBCUniversal. Big coup for Donna Langley.

Shout out to my girl Donna.

Sheridan's contract with NBCUniversal, which includes the ability to make both movies and television shows with the company, will go into effect in 2029 after his current Paramount contract expires in 2028.

Have you ever been on Paramount Plus, the streaming service? Like, all Ty Sheridan content?

I have.

It is really— I don't know what's going to support that streaming service.

Yeah, and that shit is bad, dude. I enjoyed Yellowstone.

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. That's about it.

And finally, twitter.com is soon to be no more. 2 years after the app's rebranding to X, the domain will officially be retired on November 10th. This simply means that searches for twitter.com will no longer lead to X. I will never see X again as a result.

I will never be able to get to it on my desktop ever again. Do you think anyone's gonna buy that domain name, or do you think they're gonna graveyard it?

Like MrBeast or something?

Yeah, MrBeast would probably be the one to do it. Oh God. Well, that's the news you need to know today.

So Josh, what is the worst interview experience you've ever had? Like job interview experience?

Oh God. So you know where I'm going with this. In the theater world, interviews are called auditions, Yaz.

Right.

And every single one is the worst experience of your entire life. So when I was trying to be an actor in my early 20s, let me set the scene for you. On any given weekday, I would wake up around 4 or 5 AM, and this is when I was not in the Actors Union. You would go downtown to one of the various studios where they'd have auditions. And you would sign up on what they called the unofficial list, which was basically a piece of paper some really annoying MT would start and then hope that when the actual monitors and people running the audition showed up around 9, that they would honor that list of how you showed up. Other than that, you would just wait in line to audition. An audition usually consisted of anywhere from 30 seconds of a song that you would sing for them To sometimes less than that.

Really?

Sometimes you'd get to do like a full cut. Yeah, sometimes you would do usually like a 32-bar cut was like the usual screening interview. Sometimes you'd get to do 2. 32-bar cuts is usually about a minute, 45 seconds to a minute. Sometimes if they were particularly packed, they'd ask for an 8-bar cut, which is nothing, which is like 10 seconds of something. So they can just hear the sound of your voice for a show that they had probably already cast anyways. So you'd show up, you'd sign up for as many auditions as you could for that day, and just bounce back and forth around Midtown singing sometimes as little as 8 bars of a song and not getting asked to get called back, all while, like, wearing your audition fit, which at the time, I'm not going to tell you what I was wearing to auditions.

Fedora? Vest?

I may or may not have occasionally worn a vest to auditions.

Did you have a song?

You have a book of songs, usually from like 12 to 15 songs that you have prepared for auditions that fit different styles, different range, different types of shows. So like, do you have like a Golden Age musical song, an uptempo, a ballad, a rock song, a pop song, a folk song, all stuff like that? I had a whole book. I'd prepare what I was gonna do. Sometimes they'd ask you if it went well, they'd ask you for something else in your book. And if you're lucky, they'd ask you for a callback. You most likely would get a callback, maybe if you're lucky, 1 out of every 10 auditions that you go through.

Mm-hmm.

It is degrading and demeaning And oh, I haven't even gotten to dance calls. So anyways, what's your worst interview experience?

Man, I had a really bad one, but I can't really talk about it on air.

Oh no.

Because I don't want to burn bridges. But I will say, this makes me think of my husband who's currently in business school with a bunch of Zoomers. And he was— he went—

He's probably loving it.

Oh, he's been loving it. So he went to karaoke with them. And he decided to sing Come Clean by Hilary Duff. And none of them, none of them knew the song because they were all Zoomers and he had to sing.

That's so funny.

The whole thing, it's, it's hilarious. I was like, how did you even choose that song?

Come Clean by Hilary Duff. How do you land on that, Lou?

I don't know, but it's— I love the idea of this guy, of my husband singing for like—

that's so funny—

3 minutes in front of a bunch of Gen Zs who are like, I don't know what this is.

I wonder if all those Gen Zs have gone to business school and grad school because they graduated from undergrad and just absolutely could not get a job.

Yeah. No, I mean, I think they're a little older. They tend to be like, he, you know, we're 32. They tend to be like 30 or 29.

Oh, fine.

I think they like just missed the Disney Channel cutoff.

That's fine. I was trying to set up a transition to our intro, but—

Oh, right. Well, anyway. The reason we're talking about bad job interviews is because the US labor market in 2025 is in a precarious state. Economic uncertainty brought on by low hiring, rising long-term unemployment, the rise of generative AI technologies, persistent inflation, and tariffs is fueling anxieties for the employed and job-seeking alike. Is this simply a temporary slowdown or a symptom of a larger long-term shift in the landscape of hiring and work? In the US. To discuss some broad hiring trends and what's impacting the labor market, we talked to Fast Company senior editor Brian Lutkin. Brian, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Yes, I'm so excited to be here with you guys.

So today we're talking a little bit about hiring trends, and we came across the term ghost job. What does that actually mean?

Okay, so this is super messed up, and I'm sure listeners have maybe seen it. I saw it myself. So I was looking for work like about a year ago, and I would be on LinkedIn every single day, refreshing it multiple times a day. There would be these jobs up and it would be up for like months. And one job, this actually wasn't in a media company, but like they— I interviewed for this job and da da da da, I didn't get it. You know, that's fine. But then it was like still up and I was like, okay, like they're still hiring for people. But it was like, like half a year later.

Yeah.

And it would be— and a lot of times on LinkedIn there would be like promoting certain jobs and it's like, why is this still being hired for? Well, turns out that these jobs were probably part of this larger trend called ghost jobs, which is essentially a fake job that companies post that they have no intention to ever actually hire for. And yeah, it's becoming more and more common. You know, it makes up, according to a 2024 Resume Builder survey, it's up to 40% of job listings could be a ghost job.

Wow.

And there's tons of reasons why people do this. We are— our great Great reporter Jessica Klein did a deep dive for us for the work-life section for fastcompany.com, and she figured out why companies do this. There's lots of reasons they do this. None of them are good. A lot of times people will just post these jobs often for like maybe like the sake of the company's reputation, kind of like, see, see, we're still hiring. You know, we were, we have so much money, we're gonna, you know, like build out our workforce. No. So it's a lot of smoke and mirrors. So It's really bad. And one of the reasons they claim that they do— and by the way, all of the recruiters that Jessica talked to for this story say, like, this is, like, a super messed up practice. At best, your company is harming its reputation by doing this, even though they're trying to, you know, like, preserve it. And then at worst, it's, like, something that's actively cruel to do to people who are looking for a job. You know, and it's— it can be— it's across all industries. One of the, you know, some that we find it to be more common in are, you know, like, tech, education, care, manufacturing, retail, but it's not limited to one group of industries. And a lot of them tend to be entry-level or junior level, but I found them to be, you know, mid-senior level as well. And another reason why companies do this is because they want to build up a talent pool to like potentially tap in the future when it's actually time to hire, but it's manipulative and not transparent and deceptive.

So in terms of building up a talent pool, how does that work? You just have a lot of good resumes on file for down the line?

Yeah, pretty much. But they may not frame it that way, right? So like you'll be maybe actively, maybe, I mean, maybe this ghost job will actually respond to you and you interview, but then it kind of goes nowhere. And like I said, it's up on LinkedIn for another months and months and months. I mean, I'm sure, you know, like if you're hiring for like a really senior level, I get it, like a CEO or something, right? But like not for most of these positions. But a lot of the times people don't get a response because again, it's literally a fake job listing.

Yeah, I am curious also, you know, we've had layoffs across industries. I mean, the tech industry has been hit super hard. Doesn't that mean there's just a ton of overqualified candidates out there on top of all this?

There are a lot of talented people, right? I mean, it's, look, it's a hard, it's a strange job market right now. Like, there are, to your point, yes, there are so many qualified people out there, but at the same time, there's like layoffs happening all the time and It's strange. It's all very strange. And I think that, you know, a lot of companies are banking on the fact that like, oh, there's so many people who are talented looking for work. We're spoiled for choice. So why don't we just put up this fake job and then just, you know, fill the pipeline? Maybe that works for some people. You know, I mean, I think people have heard back and I think this is in the story. They hear back sometimes from applying to one of these jobs. A lot of times people don't. And that's, that's by design.

I think this was in one of the articles, but there was a point where you said, you know, posting ghost jobs can also just light a fire under current employees' asses. And I would extrapolate, maybe not make them ask for more money?

Yeah. I mean, there's so— well, and the other thing is that companies aren't gonna be like, this is why we do gross jobs. But it's like, I absolutely think that that could be a reason why, which is super manipulative and messed up and a culture of fear.

Yeah.

But, you know, welcome to capitalism, baby. Like, this is what people do. And, you know, it's— well, I mean, one of the good things is that sometimes it can be kind of easy to to spot a ghost job. So, the recruiters that Jessica talked to kind of gave some advice and, you know—

Yeah, tell us.

Well, I mean, parts of it, I mean, this is the thing, like, some of it's like really fricking obvious. Like, okay, like I said before, like, if it's just been up on LinkedIn for a long time, I mean, I think in general, when people are applying for jobs, a certain level of like skepticism is appropriate. Like, for example, like, I would say, and I'm sure everyone listening to this pod, you know, has been looking for jobs on LinkedIn. A lot of times you see, oh, promoted, promoted. Like, you know, you know, people probably know basically that means that the company spent extra money to get that post in front of more candidates. That can be a real job. But again, like, I've seen the job, those promoted jobs, it's like, I'm sick of seeing this thing. And I also have like X'd out on LinkedIn, like, stop showing me this job.

Yeah.

And jobs like it because, and, but, you know, if like a job description's like kind of vague, you know, that can be a sign that it's a ghost job again. Or again, like it's been up there for a long time with no updates. And sometimes it can be legit. Like some of the recruiters that Jessica talked to said that it could be like something called an evergreen posting. Which just means like, oh, maybe this is a position that they're always kind of like looking to fill kind of just like generally, maybe they're posting it, you know, again over and over. But a lot of the times, oh, and another thing you can look for is if there is like no contact information, that's kind of a red flag. Like if there's no like specific hiring manager tied to the job posting, it kind of just feels like it's just like sort of shovelware, right? Just like throw it up and, you know, see how many people respond. And then if, you know, if they have a great talent pool, I mean, I, you know, I guess that's good for the company, but then it's like, The emotional experience of, like, having to apply for a job and look for a job is, like, so profound that this is kind of, like, the last thing that people wanna deal with from the applicant side.

So let's talk about the AI of it all. There's a lot of fears, first of all, about AI replacing human workers. In our coverage, in your experience, are we seeing AI actually displace people from jobs?

This is so unbelievably interesting. So this is like a—

I love that you preface this. You're like, my answer is gonna blow your mind.

Sit down. I hope everyone's listening and sitting down, you're not ready to— for the truth bomb that I'm about to drop. I mean, well, okay, here's the thing. Like, it, first of all, this is like the craziest thing that's ever happened to humanity, right? This is like one of these like society shattering technological advances that comes around like once a generation, right? Like on the level of like internet, computers, all that stuff. So the change is profound and happening in real time. So it's very confusing. And to your point, you know, I mean, there's been, you know, months, years at this, the last couple of years, like AI is stealing our Jobs, the jobpocalypse, da da da da da. But it and there's still plenty to be skeptical of, and and you know, like make no mistake. But the data is actually showing like maybe we could like tentative, like cautiously be pumping the brakes a little bit. So for example, earlier this month, the Brookings Institution and the Budget Lab at Yale University got together, and they did a study where they basically found that. AI has not materially affected the job market. What they did was they were like, okay, like ChatGPT came out, you know, I think it was November 2022. So what they did was they looked at the entire workforce and they kind of divvied it up into 3 categories, like percentage-wise, of, uh, high exposure jobs to AI, medium and low exposure jobs. So like a high exposure job in their definition was like, this is a job that ChatGPT can do a lot of the tasks and make it faster. So like, these are jobs like, you know, like writer, translator, you know, I think maybe like data entry could be thrown in there. A low exposure AI job would be something— this wasn't in the report, but this is like a job that gets cited a lot, like young dentist or something like that, right?

Mm-hmm.

And what they found was, if you look at the chart, like all 3 of those lines, they looked over the— from the last 33 months, like how much of it has shifted, and the lines are like basically Totally straight. So in other words, there hasn't been peaks and valleys of, uh, uh, of, uh, oh, like, okay, like the percentage of high exposure AI jobs in the workforce has like gone way down because AI has stolen it. So what Yale and Brookings kind of came back with was, okay, the jobpocalypse is at least not happening now. And they made the point to, this is kind of like internet and computers where these types of effects are gonna take decades to unfold, not like weeks, months, even years. And the reason for that is because, you know, I mean, again, with a change like this, you know, there's so much that goes into it from like investments to cultural shifts to government regulation. It's such a profound topic and force that they're saying that that's probably why we haven't seen like, but then, you know, then I'm looking at the news today and then it's like Amazon just got laid off 14,000 corporate jobs and they're, they're citing AI. Which is interesting because that doesn't really match with sort of the data that these sort of like third-party sort of research organizations have come back with. So it's worth digging into.

I mean, I think a lot of it, especially at a company like Amazon, it's a public company, right? And you need to show your investors, your stockholders, that you're making hard decisions and that, you know, once one big company like Microsoft lays off a bunch of people for AI, You'll see every other FAANG stock company do the same thing. It's just like a, it's a market signal that's not really related to trends a lot of the time. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I'm curious, like, if other companies are going to be like, oh, we're laying off a bunch of people because the AI of it all. And maybe that's true. I don't know. I mean, like, again, I mean, this news just came out and it takes some digging because I don't know what companies are going to say in the press release versus what's really happening.

Sure. I mean, fairly, there's always been excuses. Restructuring.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? This seems like sometimes probably a very real thing that companies are doing. But like, we come up against quarterly earnings and they want to cut their overhead and make the bottom line look good. So they call it restructuring. They call it a shift in the labor market or retooling. Whatever euphemisms companies use, they're going to use. AI will probably be the choice du jour of companies for at least a little while.

And again, I'm not gonna sit here and say like AI is not gonna steal anyone's job because who knows? Like, again, this is so in flux and like it's crazy. But again, the data so far hasn't really aligned with that, which is what makes it interesting. And I think it, you know, necessitates this kind of like larger conversation.

Let's talk a little bit about how AI is sort of messing up job applications now.

Yeah.

Like, we can talk about broader labor market stagnation. I don't know that there's that much to say beyond, like, inflation, tariffs, uncertainty, AI. You know what I mean?

I mean, the AI stuff is super juicy. Like, another sort of interesting statistic that me and my colleague Shalene Gupta found in our research around this topic was that cautiously, like, a lot of workers are, like, kind of— there's an appetite to learn about AI. So LinkedIn gathered a bunch of data. I think it was last month where they found out that like, you know, they polled a bunch of LinkedIn members and it was like, well, first of all, like 1 in 3 are embarrassed by how little they know about AI. Like they kind of feel like they're sort of already missing the boat. Like, oh, this thing is like, we gotta learn about this or else I'm gonna get, you know, made redundant. But it was like over half, I think it was 54% of the respondents said that they are actually optimistic about AI, like making their jobs better. And this aligns with, uh, data that we found out of McKinsey as well. They did a really, um, I think it was in January, like a real deep deep dive sort of AI study. And they found that most, it was like 90% of white collar workers are already using AI and that they want their C-suite to take more action to like have a, you know, for example, a strong AI policy in place. Like, can we use ChatGPT to help make this deck? Like, what, what are, what are best practices for that? And then they want to learn more about stuff, you know, like generative AI, like the ChatGPTs, LLMs of the world. They want to get this training, they want to upskill, but they're worried that actually, like, the bosses are moving too slowly. So McKinsey found out that, like, it was 3 times as many employees are using generative AI for their work than employers thought. So in other words, employers are a bit in the dark, or they think that they don't realize, like, how much people are already using AI. And that's not even getting into people using it in their daily life, right? Like, I don't know, ChatGPT, help me plan my meals for the week or whatever. I don't know. crazy videos on Sora, which is a whole other, you know, like can of worms to get into.

Talked about it last week. Listeners, go back and listen to our episode with Chris Stokelwalker.

Yeah.

Gotta get that plug in.

But like, Yaz, in terms of the applications, I mean, AI is being involved at so many levels of the process, Yaz. Like, um, my, you know, my, my colleague Shalene, she did a story for us where she was applying, you know, for a fake job. It was like a customer service job, and she ended up being interviewed on the phone by an AI, like, for the interview. So it was like—

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's weird, right? Like, what did it sound like? It was like, hello, I am the recruiter. Like, but she said that it sounded just like a person. And she— the AI recruiter's name was Anna AI, a product of PSG Global Solutions, which is a staffing firm. And Shailene said that it was actually great. Like, Anna AI, you know, asked a lot of good questions. She, you know, provided all the relevant information. But, you know, Shalene did mention that it was, you know, it didn't feel like she was really connecting. Like, she didn't feel necessarily, like, jazzed about the job because, you know, she's kind of talking to a robot that, you know, doesn't care about you and your future, really. But what happened was, you know, PSG, um, you know, conducted an experiment with the University of Chicago where they took 70,000 applicants for a customer service job and were randomly assigned a human interviewer, or they were interviewed by the this AI that Shalene interviewed with, Anna AI, or the ability to choose between the two. And what happened was that AI interviews resulted in a 12% increase in job offers and a 17% increase in 30-day retention on the job. So like, that's good, right? And then on top of that, when offered a choice, 78% of the applicants chose to do it with the AI. And so the researchers theorized that this was maybe because the AI was maybe easier to schedule with. And then some of those numbers, like the, the impressive stats they were saying that, oh, maybe that's because the AI interviewer was able to get through more of the required topics. You know, they didn't like drift off topic like a human recruiter would. And it leads to a more consistent interview experience, they say. So if it, you know, it lets the candidate talk more, they said it has a 50% chance of covering, you know, the 10 to 14 required topics or what have you. But Shailene said that it, she spoke like like too slowly or more slow, slowly than the average applicant. And that actually flagged it for review for some reason. Like, Anna AI was like, okay, we need a human to come in and like check this. But then that also kind of shows like, okay, well maybe human recruiters aren't gonna like be totally eliminated. And this is the kind of the case with AI jobs in general. Like a lot of the conversation is starting to shift around, okay, well like what are the jobs it's going to create? Like we're still gonna need humans to like maybe check their work cuz it's not accurate all the time. Or we're gonna have to have humans, like, train other humans how to use it. So it's all very curious.

So we're seeing a lot of Gen Zs have trouble finding jobs. I also think, you know, it is a horrible market if you graduated this summer. Let's talk— before we talk about sort of trends, what are the potential long-term social and economic consequences for this generation getting off to a rocky financial start?

So I think the younger generations in work in general, they tend to get like the short end of the stick. I mean, they usually are the cheapest labor, you know, they're often the first out the door. Gen Z in particular, there's been a lot of discussion around why they're struggling in the workplace. A lot of times there's discussion around how growing up during the pandemic may have negatively affected Gen Z, right? Like with remote learning and all that stuff. Perhaps communication skills in a professional setting are not where they need to be. This is all kind of like what sort of like kind of the expert discourse is. So there's a lot working against them right off the bat. And then on top of that, yeah, there's a dramatic rise in unemployment among Americans under 25 right now, especially recent graduates. You know, it's become one of the most troubling economic headlines of the year. And there's a lot of research from economists, central bankers, Labor market analysts, a signal that appears to be a uniquely American challenge underpinned by this economy that's like no hire, no fire. And this goes into this whole idea, not just with Gen Z, but like job hugging. So like people are kind of like clinging on to dear life for the jobs that they have right now. But with Gen Z, you know, the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has echoed these economists' concerns about the cooling labor market, telling reporters at his regular press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee that it's an interesting labor market right now. And he's saying, quote, kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs, noting a low job finding rate along with a low redundancy rate. So again, it's, it's this very strange— you've got a low firing, low hiring environment. So it can be more difficult than ever for young job seekers to break in.

That makes a lot of sense. And maybe it's just time for all of us in the media or who are members of Gen Z to learn a trade and become rich.

Well, it's funny you bring that up because Gen Z loves a side gig and they love solopreneurship, which we're covering a lot on FastCompany.com. Now, that could be because out of like necessity, right? Like we've been discussing. Or it could be, you know, this is a really scrappy, inventive generation that came up during like, you know, truly like social media natives, right? They have like, you know, these people like YouTubers and people on TikTok as sort of these like business models.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The startup cost for a side gig is so much lower than it was I feel like our generation had, had Etsy shop.

I think that was our big thing. If you were crafty at all, selling things on Etsy was the side gig.

We talked a little bit about the lack of career transitions for many people in a no-hire, no-fire environment. You mentioned job hugging a couple times. What does that mean?

Okay, so it's kind of a reaction to what we had seen the last couple years with the whole job hopping trend. So this is something that's been kind of like becoming more common over the last few decades, right? Like, you know, for example, You know, my dad, like baby boomers and stuff, they were at the same company for usually their entire career, decades and decades. Well, you know, as the years have gone on, people don't do that anymore. And then we especially saw that really ramp up like around like right after the pandemic where like, you know, there's the whole— people probably remember the Great Resignation. So this was a market that, you know, like workers really had a lot of power. You know, employees were very, you know, catering to workers ranging from you know, allowing remote hybrid work, that kind of a thing. And data shows— well, showed, I don't know if it's still accurate now, but like a couple years ago, whenever you job hopped, that's how you get like the big salary bumps.

Yeah.

Like you're not gonna stick around and like, oh, get my raise or 1% incremental or whatever. Like you get the higher pay jumps by going somewhere else. So that was job hopping. Now we're seeing that basically the opposite, job hugging, where you're hugging onto your job for dear life. And, you know, there's been a lot of, you know, Obviously scuttlebutt. Is this a recession? Is a recession coming? You know, this has been on everyone's lips for a while now. And so I think that kind of environment of anxiety is causing people to not leave their current roles.

And it sounds like that's not changing anytime soon.

I don't think so. I mean, you know, through the end of July, US-based employers had announced more than 800,000 job eliminations in 2025. That's the highest number of jobs lost in the same period since the pandemic.

Job market was good then, right?

It was great. I felt like everybody, first half of 2020, nobody was losing their jobs. It was just everybody was making so much money in a very peaceful world. So yeah, to be compared to that time period is very troubling. So I think people are reading these headlines and being like, crap, like I can't go anywhere. And obviously inflation, tariffs, lower consumer spending, this all plays into it. So Korn Ferry, You know, a big recruiting headhunting firm. They were saying that, you know, market instability is one of the major reasons why candidates are reluctant to move. And, you know, especially, say, with like top performers, right, they're, they're waiting for a more stable market before they can take a risk, go somewhere else. And that ties into are they miserable at their current job? Is this other place going to pay them a lot more? But all of this is just like, you know, use a Ouija board to see if it's true or not, right? So you're just like holding on to hope hope that things are gonna get better, trying to ride this wave. And, you know, I mean, people wanna hold onto what they've got.

We'll be back with Brian for Keeping Tabs, but first we're gonna take a quick break followed by my conversation with Lucy Guo. Lucy Guo is the founder of content creator monetization platform Passes, which lets creators make money from fans through things like selling merch private chats. The company has not been without controversy and has faced lawsuits accusing it of allowing and encouraging the distribution of illegal content, including child sexual abuse materials, and of engaging in unfair business practices. We should note that Guo is also the co-founder of Scale AI, which Meta bought. That sale made her, by some metrics, the world's youngest self-made female billionaire. We spoke to Guo about why she left Scale AI in 2018, how she responds to those lawsuits, and why she doesn't think we're in an AI bubble. Let's talk about Passes. What gave you the idea to start a platform like that? You know, I heard you were kind of a big fan of Patreon beforehand. Tell me about how you decided to found this one.

Yeah, so I guess over COVID I became friends with tons of creators and I realized how creators were able to monetize their brand in a way that like nobody else really could. I think the best example was when Kylie became a billionaire through her lipstick brand and she didn't even have any marketing plan.

Billionaire status has been disputed, but yes, she did make a ton of money.

Yes, but she made a lot of money and like she didn't really have a marketing plan. Like her marketing plan was literally, I'm just gonna drop it, right? And people are going to buy it. And that's when I realized that creators have such super fans that there's no customer acquisition cost when it comes to marketing a product, which is very unique. And then we saw these other brands pop up, like Logan Paul with Prime, and even now, like, you know, MrBeast with Feastables that makes up the majority of his net worth, et cetera, et cetera. So I wanted to create a platform where creators could monetize their brand, and I was actually debating whether to start off with a platform like Passes or build something like a YC SAFE where creators would be able to get equity into brand deals that they work with. Because at the end of the day, I do think that like equity is more important than upfront cash. And I don't necessarily think Hollywood and managers understand equity yet, but it is like the way to long-term generational wealth, right? I came to the conclusion that no creators listen to us. us if we pushed on equity unless we started making them money. And the reason why creators listen to their managers is because the manager is their main source of income. So we needed to become their main source of income. And over COVID, I think it was really just like right timing, but I noticed a lot of friends were making money from Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, et cetera. And it was a time when people craved human connection and authenticity when they were locked in. And creators are also at the same time not getting as many brand deals and not having as much to do. So I thought, okay, like perfect time for creators to really connect with their fans and offer an exclusive, authentic experience. And I wanted to create, I guess, like a 360 infrastructure for them. And I saw competitors on the market like Patreon really just focused on subscription at the time. So, um, pitched the idea and ended up raising a round and here we are.

Who were the creators you were friends with or who, and who were the creators you were following and keeping track of?

I became friends with like Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul's crew, like Charlie Jordan, et cetera. And I just started observing. Really everything within the creator economy.

Now, where does the name come from?

We basically looked up all 6-letter domain names or under 6 letters that weren't taken, and then Passes was the cheapest.

That's really funny. Why under 6? Just for brevity's sake?

Yeah, brevity's sake.

So I'm curious, you know, what did you learn from your time at Scale AI that you kind of brought to Passes, whether that's things not to do again or, you know, things that you would definitely do again?

I think the number one thing I learned is that customers matter. Like, you should always have a customer-first culture. So for us, our customers are creators, but at scale, when we, for example, like messed up on a contract, let's say we accidentally gave bad data, we would like send a cake, send flowers, send champagne, et cetera, as like an I'm sorry note and really build that like emotional connection with that customer. So we got more chances to make it right. And I think it's the same with passive. You know, there's always product retention, like your product needs to be good, but I do think there's an emotional retention factor because we're such a people-oriented company. So we really make sure to have a close relationship with our creators and really make them feel special and offer this like white glove service.

You know, to put a finer point on it, because you touched on some of these things earlier in terms of providing a 360 service for creators, what differentiates Passes from say a Patreon or an OnlyFans? What are some of the capabilities that you offer that others can't?

Quite a lot. So right now, feature-wise, we have like paid live streams, paid one-on-one calls, um, pay per minute. We have merchandise, so you can sell your own merchandise or you can create merchandise on the website and sell it without having to own inventory. You could sell like membership-based ticketing. We're building out new features within the fintech space. We offer health insurance. There's quite a lot that these other platforms aren't thinking about. And this is because like long-term, we wanna create these unicorn creators and get into like wealth management.

Interesting. I think you mentioned in other interviews that there's this kind of sweet spot with creators that make a lot of money where they have like 100,000 followers. You know what I mean? It's not like the most followed people in the world that have the best relationships with their fans. Tell me more about that and why that is.

Yeah. So my hypothesis, and I haven't been able to verify my hypothesis, but I think, uh, creators that have millions of followers are very busy, right? Like they're focused on like shooting movies, uh, like flying out for brand deals, et cetera, versus the creators between like 100,000 and 1 million followers aren't getting as many brand deals, aren't getting as many opportunities. So they're really desperate for a way to monetize their fans. And they happen to have more superfans because they're creating more content on their social media and on Passes because that's their main focus to continue to gain traction on their like number of follower counts.

So I think that because they have more time, they're just creating more content and more content equals more And can you gimme an example of like, you know, just names or, you know, of influencers or celebrities who you found kind of see the most success on Passes?

I can't give just cuz like, I can't be like, these are our top, top creators. Yeah. But I can say like, you know, the names that other people might know, like we have SSSniperWolf, she's crushing it on Passes. She's a really big YouTuber. Andrea Botez is crushing it. Paige Speranik is crushing it. Alyssa McKay. And I think those are like more of the like well-known influencers that are doing really well.

Say a creator is on OnlyFans or Patreon or what have you, how do you convince them to switch over to Pass? Do you have any incentives or do you just kind of pitch them? What does that look like?

Yeah, so we actually don't compete with OnlyFans cuz OnlyFans, you know, like they're a completely different platform. We don't allow for nudity. So when someone's on OnlyFans, we actually just tell them, we're like, hey, like I get that like you no longer wanna do nude. If you switch over to passes, like you're probably not gonna make any money because all your nudes are already on the internet, right?

There are people on OnlyFans who do other stuff though.

For sure. The main issue though is that even if they're doing other stuff, like let's say they're just doing selfies on OnlyFans.

Yeah.

I think their fan base has the hopes of getting something else, right? Like there's like some hope that if you spend enough money, you're going to get something else. And because of that, people are willing to spend more on OnlyFans because you just know you're not gonna get it. As for Patreon, the pitch is pretty easy. Like, we take less of a percentage, we have more features, so there's more ways to monetize. And we've seen creators switch over from Patreon and make like quite literally 30x more.

Now, there was a 2024 lawsuit brought on by FanFics that alleged that, you know, Passes used confidential information to post clients or, you know, made some claims that they called misleading about creators' earnings. That obviously doesn't match up with what you just said. Like, tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I think in general, I'm used to like, you know, San Francisco and tech where you're competing off of merit and, you know, everyone's just trying to create the best product possible. I think that Hollywood is very litigious and in the Hollywood scene, people are willing to make up lies in order to compete. And you look at like these agencies that are built in Hollywood, a lot of them actually did win off of litigation and just like winning litigation by lying. So, um, what I basically learned is people are willing to just throw out lies to, like, as a strategy to attempt to win.

Gotcha. There's also another controversy going on. You know, you're currently being sued, saying that the platform knowingly distributed child sexual abuse materials. And I know you've put on a pretty— you put up a pretty strong defense in other places, but I guess for our listeners, like, tell me about your response to that case.

Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that like we did our own internal investigation and that the claims in the case do not match up with like evidence that we found thus far. Um, I think this is just another one of those scenarios where people are trying to shake us down in an attempt to get money, right? Like that case was dismissed in Florida.

Have you made any changes to the platform though? I, you know, I saw, I think you used to have younger creators with consent, but now it's fully 18+, right?

Yeah. So the main thing is that like we had like a handful, 'cause the idea was that like everyone should be able to monetize. Like when you look at YouTube, like, you know, a lot of people are monetizing.

It's a lot of families.

Yeah.

Exactly. A lot of families. But at the end of the day, it was like a handful of creators that generated near 0% of revenue, like in GMV, like quite literally near 0%. So, uh, we were just like, okay, like it, this is very risky and it's just not worth it, right? Like it's not like we were making any money either.

What were some of the risks you saw?

I think there are a lot of bad actors. So we can put every single thing in place, like technology-wise, to try to prevent things, right? And we did. We have way more protections than other platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, et cetera. And all these platforms see, I think, significantly more issues of like what you had described. Like we have KYC, we do a facial scan, et cetera. But at the end of the day, like a bad actor can be a bad actor.

So like, you know, a mom creating a profile for their I'm curious, you know, what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned when it came to building out trust and safety operations around creator platforms? Because as you said, I think it's been a pretty steep learning curve for a lot of companies when it comes to this stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I think that you really have to think of like every edge case scenario. And at the end of the day, like, it's a whack-a-mole problem. There's going to be someone that thinks of something creative that like you didn't block off, right? Right? But it's important that you make it a P0 in the company to fix it immediately. So yeah, we just have very quick response time. So when we find an issue, like a bad actor, and this could be like money laundering, it could be like really anything, we look at how they did it, and we immediately patch it up, and we postmortem it. We think of like edge cases that are similar, and we create patches for those as well.

What are some of the sort of patches that you've created that are now like applied throughout the company?

What does that look One thing, and I mentioned the ID thing before, where now we don't only use AI, we have human in the loop. And then when someone tries to change, like, a profile name from what was, like, you know, their KYC profile or, like, approved, then another human has to approve that. On top of that, we've done a lot of patches around, like, money laundering. So if we notice that, like, you know, large amounts are being spent on a new creator with, like, nothing that's uploaded, right?

Mm-hmm.

That's going to flag, and we block a payout from being able to be made.

That makes a lot of sense. You know, you're, you're a really high-profile founder, and I guess I'm curious what it's like for you when there are things like legal challenges that come up.

Now I'm very immune to it. I think I was very surprised at first because I was like, how could someone make up such lies? This is ridiculous. Like, we literally have evidence against this. But what I've learned in lawsuits, and this blew my mind, because I was like, oh cool. Like, for example, the fanfics one, we have data showing that like what they're claiming is not true. I was like, can't we just download all your credit card transactions and then just pass it along to the judge and be like, look at our credit card transactions. This is real. Turns out with a lawsuit, you have to assume everything in the claim is true and try to poke legal holes in that. You can't just like hand over like, oh, here's proof it's not true. Which kind of blew my mind because that just makes it so easy for people to sue off of complete lies, right? Like, I think that like the hope when people do that is that the cost of lawsuit or defending is so much—

Is greater than settling. Yeah.

Greater than settling. And I think like this is something like I debate internally with Raz. Like I refuse to settle because I like would rather spend more and prove things are like not true. But also, you know, like the lawyers are like, hey, like it's cheaper to settle. But it's just like the way America works is insane to me. Like how is that even allowed? Like why can't I just be like, oh, here's definitive proof that this is wrong on like my first response? Like I just, I don't understand it.

Yeah. Yeah. You're like, I have proof. Why do you—

Why can't I use it? Yeah.

I'm curious, you know, thinking about the future of Passes, and I guess I have a couple questions, which is it has a really high valuation. You've raised a lot of money. How do you think about the company down the road in terms of an exit, potential exit? You know what I mean? Is this a company that you wanna go public? Is this a company that you think is ripe for an acquisition? What does that look like? And don't tell me you haven't thought about it, 'cause that is a big pet peeve of mine when I talk to founders.

I mean, I generally think that any founder, like if a founder pitched me a seed company and told me, oh, like here's my plan for exit, I want to get acquired, I don't invest because I think every founder should shoot for the moon, which is going public.

Gotcha.

Because if you're not shooting for the moon, you're not going to like, there's no shot you're going to make a unicorn. So like the answer is go public.

That makes a lot of sense. And in terms of the future, you know, and I guess I'd love to ask this on a a 1-year horizon than maybe on a 5-year horizon? Like, what are some of the capabilities that you're hoping to offer?

So I think the main thing that I'm really interested in is being able to be the wealth management in a fintech because like we've already paid out creators like $9 million or 9 figures. Sorry, not $9 million. We've paid out creators 9 figures and every time we pay out to their bank account, we actually have to pay a fee. So it just makes sense to be big because then we can give them like high APY savings accounts. We have a lot of accredited investors from Passes based off how much they're making. They always ask us like, how do I turn passive income into passive equity? Who are the best wealth managers to work with? How do I set myself up for life? And this is all stuff that I feel like we should just be able to do.

Mm-hmm.

So I am excited for like that future because ideally in the future, at some point, we're generating billions of dollars a year for creators.

How long do you think that's gonna take?

I wish I could tell you.

I'm also curious, like how fast you see Passes growing, you know what I mean? Do you think there's a ceiling for the amount of creators that are gonna join? Do you think we're only gonna see more creators in the future? What does that look like?

I think the creator economy is growing and we are going to see more creators in the future just because trends follow kids, right? And when you talk to kids nowadays, they all wanna be a creator.

Yeah.

And because of that, that means that we're going to be seeing a lot more creators Especially in a range where like we monetize well, which I would say is, you know, in the 100,000 followers range.

How do you think about, you know, for instance, there's an AI actress right now that a lot of people are investing in or interested in. Like, how do you think about this sort of emergent, like generative AI talent or creator pool that might be out there in the context of Passes?

So I actually am not that bullish on AI creators specifically, um, because when you look at AI creators, there have already been a few and everyone thought it was gonna be the next big thing, right? But really we got like, you know, Lil Miquela and some others. I think what's much more likely to happen is people are going to be licensing their likeness out so they can spend more time creating content and interacting with their fans. So for example, like if a brand wanted to fly me out, instead I could just license my likeness out and I could scale myself better so I have more time doing things that I So I think AI is going to be a creator's copilot, but we're not gonna see like AI creators replace actual creators. 'Cause it's hard to have a human connection with something that you know is fake.

But do you think you can have a human connection with a licensed image of a creator?

I think no, but it's like you can't dilute your brand too much.

Yeah.

So you can't work with like 1,000 different brands, right? But at the end of the day, it's still that creator you have a connection with. Like you're following them on Instagram and you love them and you see that they like did an ad with Coca-Cola, you're still going to want to drink Coca-Cola because like you have that human connection with that creator from the human-to-human connection you feel like on your socials.

I guess I'm also curious, you know, you mentioned potentially using AI to connect the right creators with brand deals. Tell me a little bit about that and sort of other ways you are as a company using generative AI in your work right now with creators.

Yeah, so we actually have some AI features at the moment on our platform. The 2 that are like out right now are smart pricing, or we call it smart pricing, and it basically automatically prices pieces of content for creators based off just like fan history, the type of content it is, et cetera, to help optimize their earnings. When creators use this, their earnings 3x usually, which is really great to see. We're currently, hopefully this quarter, we're rolling out AI agents for creators. So we want creators to be able to really focus on just creating content and these agents do everything from like A/B test captions for them to like scheduling mass messages and running strategy on their pages.

That's really interesting. And what has adoption been like?

We've had over 50% of our creators use 'em. So yeah, we're continuously encouraging them to use it because it does increase their earnings.

Do you think we're in an AI bubble or do you worry that we're in an AI bubble?

I don't think we're in an AI bubble, and I think the valuations are higher now Because you can now build companies at much cheaper costs, right? Like, I met a company that, uh, I was in San Francisco the other week, and there was this company that scaled from like $0 to $90 million in revenue in 4 months. And when talking to them, they have Cursor AI doing 99% of the code. And I was like, that's actually insane, number one. But number two, because of all these AI tools, like, everyone is now a 10x employee. And because you now need less money to get to scale, Valuations are like predictive, right?

Yeah.

It's like, okay, we're gonna like, it might not be valued, we're gonna give you like 10x what revenue is because we believe you're gonna be 100x revenue.

Mm-hmm.

And I think a lot of investors are thinking this way where they're like, okay, like even though this valuation is very high for where you are right now, the chances you reach 100x is much more likely because you don't need to burn as much capital to get there.

This past summer you became the youngest self-made female billionaire. Obviously a lot of that is from a company that you left, But I'm curious what your reaction was when you got the news. Like, what was that like for you as a person?

Honestly, it didn't really feel different because I've like, you know, for several years it's like I've seen my net worth—

You've been close to billion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For several years. Like, yeah, exactly. I would like steadily see it increase. And I will say like at the time based off of that, Like there was always a chance Scale could go to zero. I think that like, you know, 50% of the company probably thought that. So I was just like, okay, it's still all on paper, right? Like, yeah, this could go liquid one day, this could not go liquid all day. Like I just didn't think about it much.

You know, I know you left Scale partly because it seems like there was some disagreements over the direction of the company. Why did you decide to keep your stake in it?

I think I generally like putting all my eggs in a basket when I, I was living a comfortable life already. Like I didn't need the money. Mm-hmm. My lifestyle was, I still like, you know, I woke up at 5:30 AM to do Barry's today and then I did 2 Barry's classes. I'm in the office right now.

Yeah.

I'm in the office until like 7:00 PM and then I still continue to work at home. Like it's just like a very simple lifestyle. Yeah. I didn't feel the need to have that liquidity.

So you were like, I don't need the private jets.

Yeah.

Lastly, are there any companies that you've invested in or just seen in the marketplace that you are personally really excited about that you think are game-changing, that you think might be undervalued? Like, tell me about that.

Yeah, I mean, I recently did 2 investments. One is called Soren AI. It is an AI security system. They actually use LiDAR sensors all around your house. This was founded by Kevin Hartz, who founded Eventbrite. So like, obviously I'm excited by that because it is a like founder with experience and it is a product that I personally need because I was spending way too much on security. So I was like, gimme AI security. And then the other one is an investment I don't think I would've ever made. When they first asked me to invest, I actually said no.

Mm-hmm.

It's like a Partyful competitor, and I don't really believe in that space, but the product was just so good. Like, it blew my mind. It's like 1,000x better than like every competitor on the market. And I, like, I do a lot of events, so when I use it, I was like, holy crap, like, just let me into this round. I'm just gonna take a risk. And I put in enough that even if the exit is lower, I should still make a pretty good return.

That makes a lot of sense. Well, this was great, Lucy. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Okay, we are back and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story, trend, or piece of pop culture we're following right now. And Brian, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on?

Okay, I'm gonna lose like half the audience with this. And they're gonna tell me I'm not an intellectual, and they're gonna judge me.

Oh, if they're listening to this podcast, they're already pretty convinced that the people on it are not intellectuals.

All right, they already know we're like bottom of the barrel.

Yeah, Cass and I are here every week.

Okay, great. Well, I'm excited to not raise the expectations at all, because what I'm keeping tabs on— so I am a huge fan of, like, competitive reality TV. Like social strategy games.

Yeah.

There is a show called The Traitors.

Oh yeah, of course.

All right. But guess what's happening now? Right now, the celebrity UK version is happening and I have to watch it all.

Oh, they're doing a celebrity UK version? Because they've done the normies for the first season.

Oh, it sounds like you're—

Oh, I'm a big Traitors fan. Oh, I'm frequently on the Peacock app.

Wait, I was not prepared for this, Josh. Oh my God. Okay. So, okay. We need to talk offline about this. I'm ready to kick out. Um, so The Traitors, in case anyone doesn't know, I mean, maybe you, you're aware, but the TLDR is like you're playing mafia in a castle in the Highlands of Scotland. And I'm totally obsessed. And it's so like well-made, like shout out Studio Lambert. There's something in the water over there. Like they really know what they're doing. It's like cinematic, gripping, but funny, but crazy. But so anyway, so, and what they do is, so basically there's like 20 people and 3 of them are traitors, right? So it's like every round they do a challenge, they put money into a pot. But what happens is, as Josh knows, the traitors murder someone...

Mm-hmm.

...in the dead of night, and then they go home. And then the next morning, everyone's like, oh, crap. Like, Bob is dead.

Who—

oh, who could have killed him? And then you try to figure out who the traitors are. And at the end of every episode, there's a roundtable where you are interrogating everybody, and then whoever gets the most votes gets banished. And if they're a traitor, hooray! But if you're a faithful, that's the opposite of a traitor, then, oh, no, we lost somebody. And round and round they go until the very end, And then there's like only a few amount of people left and there's this pot that's accumulated. If everyone remaining is faithful, then they split the pot. But if even one traitor remains, they get the whole thing. It's the most gripping show of all time. I love it so much. Celebrity UK is happening right now. I'm watching it live on Dailymotion because it's not available here yet. It's very janky and, you know, I have to sit through lots of ads, but you got to do what you got to do. And I actually love these kinds of shows because to kind of like tie it into like the workplace, Like, I just feel like a lot of these dynamics that you see in these very self-contained, like, social environments play out in all matters, in all ways in real life. And I think that the workplace is one of them. Yeah.

Honestly, uh, a good example of job hugging, Lord Ivar from last season. Man was boring as hell. He hung on for dear life. And hey, he got some money. Not that he needs it. He's part of the royal family.

Okay. I, I, you know, Yeah, I was upset that season. I mean, we're not gonna—I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but yes, that results upset me.

The Lord Ivar ball was so crazy. Everyone else I was so into.

I'm the finalist because because the American version has like the Survivor and Big Brother people. Those are because I'm the gamer. I love the gamers.

Oh, I love I love the housewives.

Oh, the housewives.

That's my favorite storyline to watch.

Yeah, so this show they bring on like the real housewives. There's a civilian. That's civilian. I love that term, but just like normal people in the UK, except for this current celebrity one. Josh, I did not know that you were a fellow Traitors fan.

Oh yeah. Love the Traitors. Huge fan. So excited for the new US version that's coming out.

The cast is insane. The cast is insane. My boy Rob Cesternino, who is literally my idol. He was on Survivor twice.

You need better idols.

No. Oh no, he, no, he is the man.

Community idols.

Are you a Survivor fan as well?

Not really. I haven't watched since I was like, since I was like early seasons.

Okay, well, yeah, my boy Rob is on it this upcoming season. He has— Rob has a podcast, so podcasters, you probably like— so because he has all the reality people on.

Who doesn't have a podcast? That's not a differentiating factor.

That's true, that's true. He has the best, the best reality podcast. You should watch it. He's gonna be on, and I've got some Survivor, other Survivor, Big Brother people who are going to be great. Now the rumor is that Travis Kelce's mom is going to be a traitor because she's on this season.

Oh yeah, yeah, she is on this Yaz, you gotta watch Traitors. You haven't gotten in on this.

You know what? I've tried. I honestly lose interest.

That's fair. Like, I just— yeah, you'll watch 50-something episodes of Love Island, both UK and US.

I know, my brain is broken, but I like Traitors. I can't pay attention.

Love Island people go on Traitors.

I think it requires— well, I know it's not about that though. I think Traitors just requires like slightly more keeping track of things than I want to do.

This is not a background thing.

I'm often like working in front of the TV.

People are like, Brian, like, let's have a Traders watch party. I'm like, under— on what planet? This is a— this is a—

You're like, I'm taking notes.

This is a sacred event that requires all my undivided attention, and I'm not going to be listening to people chit-chat and Mystery Science Theater this while I'm trying to take it all in. Well, uh, this is—

this has been 10 minutes of Traders talk. And if you want more, I mean, look, I could talk about it all day. Let's do a separate YouTube-only series. That's the workplace dynamics of traders. Uh, foresight.

Can we pitch this? I mean, let's—

I'm the one you pitch it to. So, well, I'd have to go to— someone would have to approve it besides me.

I can just feel like the listener count, like, plummeting as you and I just go further into the descent of traders, uh, talk.

Yeah, it's gonna alienate the entire Fast Company audience, but we gotta move on. We gotta move on.

Yes. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on?

I'll make mine quick.

Have fun editing that, by the way.

I'll make mine quick. Someone needs to check in on Matthew Morrison of Glee fame.

You're the only person who has this man on his radar still.

Oh, I've been such a deep dive on this right now.

That's so funny.

So Matthew Morrison, for our fans who obviously don't know who this is—

Isn't he Mr. Schue?

Mr. Schue on Glee, people.

And the only reason I know this is because I think you've brought him up to me once.

I probably have. He's a fascinating, incredibly cringey Broadway actor turned TV star. Now he's currently touring a solo show called Rhythms and Revelations. It's like a solo cabaret show, and there's a pocket of TikTok that is posting clips from it, and it is a cry for help. Apparently, there's a part in the show where he talks about 9/11, Sings Send in the Clowns.

What?

And then does an interpretive dance.

I mean, I kind of want to watch it immediately.

That's so true. Go on TikTok and look up some of the clips of it. It's wild. But apparently people are, like, like, hate-watching it in the audience, which is a particularly— I mean, don't do this, everybody, because it is kind of cruel.

Well, didn't he get fired? He got fired for—

He got fired for So You Think You Can Dance for, like, sending flirty texts to one of the dancers or something like that. Allegedly. Which doesn't— I don't know, weird. Whatever. He's a weird guy. So it's all, it's all very cringy. And I, I— so anyways, don't go to his show and laugh openly in his face. I think that's a little bit cruel, but that's what people are doing right now. Um, so anyways, I'm calling for a wellness check for Matthew Morrison because this is rough. Yaz, what are you keeping tabs on?

I think anybody who agrees to an interview with Isaac Chodner has a death wish. I wish. But Karine Jean-Pierre, the former White House spokesperson, gave one yesterday that was so crazy. Like, usually I can get through these, like, because I find them fascinating, which— and I did for this one, but I also was just like, it was like watching a train crash in slow motion. And I can't remember the last time I felt this way where I was just like, oh my God.

God, yeah. I can't remember a profile quite this rough.

It just keeps getting worse.

Wait, what's the TL;DR?

Well, it's more because, like, she doesn't make any sense.

No, it's basically, like, why she's no longer a Democrat, essentially because people were mean to Biden. I don't know. Like, it doesn't make any sense.

And Kamala Harris?

Yeah, it does not make any sense. It's truly incoherent.

People did not respect them enough? It's— it's like, it's so— it's so strange.

Yeah.

And it's— I guess was, like, really surprising to me because it was with a spokesperson. You know?

Yeah.

Like, you're a— like, you should— you should know how to give a non-answer.

Wait, I'm just reading the headlines. New Yorker writer tangles with Jean-Pierre. Quote, I'm not sure what you're saying. That—

that's about— that's the TL;DR.

It's actually a lot of the interview.

Other headlines: Absolute train Yeah, I'm not exaggerating this.

I was, like, really—

It's shocking.

Yeah. Pretty shocked by it.

Yeah.

I mean, he's amazing. He's an amazing interviewer. I'd never want to have a conversation with him in my life.

Oof, no. You know you're not in a good—

On or off the record just doesn't seem right. I'm not consistent, and I know it. But that interview was crazy, and I can't recommend it enough. It's nice to see, like, a big magazine piece that's not about something really bad.

Yeah.

It's nice to see that.

Yeah.

Blow up, if that makes sense.

If you were interviewed by him, within how many questions would you start talking about psyops?

One. I'd be like, I think you're part of a vast conspiracy theory to make me look stupid.

And he'd be like, what? So hold on. Yeah, is this— is this a real conspiracy theory that you have?

Sometimes.

And on that note—

It's a recurring bit on the show.

It's a recurring bit on the show. It's known.

And most of the psyops that we talk about are very dumb.

Like, Lea Michele can't read. Oh, yeah. That's— I mean, there—

Dude, Matthew Morrison psyops.

Matthew Morrison psyops. Yeah. Used to date Lea Michele. It all makes sense now. We're gonna get some red string. We're gonna connect these dots.

I actually watched that whole Discovery documentary that was like the Curse of Glee about how terrible things happened to, like, every cast member.

Except Jane Lynch. Things seem to be going great for Jane Lynch.

She's doing great.

But I guess this is Matthew Morrison's curse. It was just unaddressed in the documentary. Yeah, that's true.

I'm gonna write the think piece, Matthew Morrison's Rhythms and Revelations is why the Democrats are gonna lose in 2026. It's the butterfly effect.

Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show.

No, it was so much fun to chat with you guys. Would love to come back soon.

Our show is produced by Sam Gebauer, Hawa Attori, and Blake Odom. Editing by Matt Toder. Mix and sound design by Tad Wadhams and Nicholas Torres. And our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we will see you next week.

Bye.