Creator Economy 2024 Outlook feat. Megan Lightcap, plus Taylor Swift is Off TikTok & Tech CEOs Grilled by Congress

Welcome to Creator Upload, your creator economy podcast. I'm Lauren Schnipper.

And I'm Joshua Cohen. Lauren.

Yes.

We got a guest today.

We do. We do. Megan Lightcap, investor at Slow Ventures, talking about what she's looking for, talking about the creator economy. Like, very, very great interview. Very excited for everybody to hear that. But first, Josh, I know you usually start us off, but I got, I just can't. I wanna talk about Mark Zuckerberg's hair at Congress. This week. I don't know if everybody saw the headlines. I don't know what they said, but his hair, he's finally growing it out. Like, it's not like this weird, almost buzzcut, but not buzz— like, it's like, I love curly hair. Like, I love it. So I just wanna say I'm here to support Zuck and his hair choices. Was there anything else they talked about?

I don't think so. Yeah, he's going away from the Caesar cut and now more towards just like embracing his genius.

It's been like a Caesar cut for those that don't know, in like the late '90s, George Clooney pioneered this like Caesar cut where you kind of like, it was like short, you pushed it forward. There's some gel. And he's been doing it ever since. And now it's like a little longer and I just feel really good about it. And I just like appreciate him showing up with his new hair.

George Clooney pioneered the Caesar cut, not Julius Caesar some 2,000 years ago.

Yeah. George Clooney brought it back. So that's all that matters. So yesterday, Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, and Yaccarino, CEO of TikTok, Discord, all testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on child exploitation online. And notably, just like a week or so ago, you know, Meta released this statement that they're going to now block like harmful content, like self-harming content when in front of like 13 or 15-year-olds or something like that. And they like announced it and obviously it was like leading up to this. And, you know, coming out of this, the big highlight, you know, was basically Josh Hawley, you know, just ripping into Zuckerberg and how just like would not let him get a word in. They had in the Senate chambers people who have children who say that things happened to them where they committed suicide, died as a result of social media. So, so like they were citing examples from like TikTok where some kids saw you know, was really upset about something and was looking for inspirational quotes and instead was served like content that promoted suicide. The kid kills himself. Like horrible stories. But what was really notable was that Josh Hawley, um, was just badgering Zuckerberg about these people.

Well, Senator, we're doing an industry-leading effort. We build AI tools. Your product is killing people. Will you personally commit to compensating the victims? You're a billionaire. Will you commit to compensating the victims? Will you set up a compensation fund with your money? These are, these are With your money. Senator, these are complicated—

Yes.

No, that's not a complicated question, though. That's a yes or no. Will you set up a victims' compensation fund with your money, the money you made on these families sitting behind you? Yes or no? Senator, I don't think that that's my job. Sounds like a no. Good tools. My job is to make sure that your job is to be responsible for what your company has done. You've made billions of dollars on the people sitting behind you here. You've done nothing to help them. You've done nothing to compensate them. You've done nothing to put it right. You could do so here today and you should.

So now you can hear him talking about, well, you compensate these people with your money, just like going after him. And at one point, Zuckerberg actually got up and turned around kind of off mic and said to these people, I'm sorry for everything you guys have been through. Uh, no one should go through the things your family have suffered. And that this is why Meta continues to invest, you know, industry-wide to protect children. Now they're industry leaders in protecting children. And that was something that Zuckerberg just kept saying. My problem with all of this is that like, I'm getting to the point where like, so many of these hearings have happened and like the TikTok hearings, they've been terrible. You know, when Vanessa Pappas was there, it was, she was, it, it was just like ridiculous. This is ridiculous. They're all culpable. TikTok, obviously I believe is governed by the Chinese, you know, government and hijacking our children. But then in addition to that, they're doing all the terrible things and surfacing content to our children. You know, Meta, sure. They're, they're doing, they claim that they've made 30 different tools and resources and features for parents. That they can monitor their kids and they, by default, every account under 16 is set to private. The bottom line is that like these companies cannot be held accountable because of 230, which 230 was something that happened in the '90s that basically said a law that was passed that said like, these platforms cannot be responsible for the content on them. The sort of analogy is like, if you are on a phone and you know, you say something terrible to somebody on a phone, I'm gonna kill you, whatever, you say something terrible, the phone company cannot be sued. Right? Just because that was the passageway with which the information was administered. Obviously, we're talking about a very different situation when this information is broadcast to the entire world. And there have been calls for reforms for years now. There is bipartisan support. And I am honestly at this point sick and tired of having to watch the drama and the theater of these Senate hearings where I am as a constituent, as a human being, as an American, as a concerned parent seeing this bipartisan seemingly like support to do something and they do fucking nothing. They do nothing. Like legislate, stop showing us, like I get it, you guys are pissed, so do something about it. There's something like 6 bills sitting in the Senate right now that are about like keeping kids safe and doing reforms for this and they're doing nothing. So the best thing to come out of yesterday is Zuckerberg's hair. I just banged something because I needed a little bit of effect. Josh, thoughts?

Yeah, it was a fantastic dramatic effect. Lauren, just a couple things more it's worth noting. Evan Spiegel also apologized to some of the families in the room.

Yeah.

He did not turn around to face them like Zuck did, but he did respond in questions asked him about children who have died from buying drugs on Snapchat.

Yeah.

It's a messaging platform. Some kids buy drugs through those messages.

I've seen some of those stories. It's awful. It's awful.

He said, I'm so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies. We work very hard to block all search terms related to drugs on our platform. To be clear though, those are messages and not content directed and served up to those children that could incite kind of self-harm, negative self-thoughts, suicide, and more. And Lauren, to your point, there was a Senate subcommittee hearing just 2 and a half years ago titled Protecting Kids Online: Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. And that was in October of 2021. Executives from those three companies— it was Jennifer Stout, who's the vice president of global public policy at Snapchat at the time, Michael Beckerman, who is vice president and head of public policy at TikTok, and YouTube's Leslie Miller, who is vice president of government affairs and public policy— were testifying in front of that committee about all of the different types of things that they're trying to do to protect kids from this type of content and other predatory content and more. And to your point, nothing's come out of this.

Nothing.

But it's not necessarily at the fault of all of these social platforms too. I'm not defending them.

You're kind of defending them.

But there are bills sitting in Congress that aren't being funded because of God knows why.

No, it's because, you know, we're sitting in an election year, like, and there's all these reasons, but last year was a different year. And it's like, you know, it, there's just, there's no excuse. It's just like, it's about priorities and it's about lobbyists. Right. So you've got lobbyists from each of these platforms that are basically influencing legislators and they're pushing these bills down to the bottom of the barrel. I mean, what about, there was a bit at one point, one of the senators was grilling, you know, Xiao Chu about TikTok and Chinese government. And it was like a repeat of last year when he testified. And last year I was fired up 'cause it was the first time I had really seen him testify. And I was like, "Oh yeah, they're getting him," or whatever. And it was like a little mini version of that. Still, his answers were terrible and completely like not at all convincing me in any way, shape, or form that China's not completely controlling this company. But like, I'm not impressed by like the fancy, like, you know, rhetoric of a senator. Do something about it then. If you're so convinced and you're like, oh yeah, I've got 'em, do something.

Yes.

One of my favorite moments too was Zuck was talking about how like the research kind of shows that like, you know, social platforms actually don't provide any harm to like, I mean, it was like ridiculous. And Josh Hawley was like, "You guys yourself did a study that said 37% of Instagram users between the ages of 13 and 15 have seen nudity in the last 7 days." Like all these terrible things. And we also, it was a whistleblower that like showed this study and then they showed the email that where they forward this information to Zuckerberg. I mean, it was just like, I mean, really, Zach, you're gonna, it's one thing to say like, "We're working on it, we're trying, we're doing things, we wish we could do better." But it's another thing to be like, there's no harm to kids. I mean, like, really, dude? Like, and I don't— he doesn't even believe it.

He definitely doesn't believe it. He was trying to say all those findings are misconstrued, which is crazy because they're coming out of his own PR.

I mean, half of them are. It's like bananas. Like, I was just like, I was like, all right, dude.

Like, come on.

I'm exhausted. I feel like everybody's exhausted and so sick of the government's complete inability to do anything about this. I just, I'm not— I'm over it. And I was actually really uncomfortable watching Josh Hawley grill Zuckerberg in a way that was just like— because it felt just— it was just theater. It was just for show. And I was just like, I'd be okay with this if, like, tomorrow you sign a bill, you know what I mean? Like, and it was into law then. But, like, now I'm just like, you're trying to get the likes on your stupid social posts on this. Like, that's basically what it felt like to me. Like, he was like, I'm gonna post this video on your platform and I'm gonna get likes.

Yes, Lauren, there are at least 6 bills waiting for action in the Senate, including one wide-ranging measure, the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA. And from the New York Times, that would require online services like social media networks, video game sites, and messaging apps to take, quote, reasonable measures, end quote, to prevent harm, including online bullying, harassment, sexual exploitation, anorexia, self-harm, and predatory marketing to minors who use their platforms. It would also require the services to turn on the highest privacy and safety settings by default for users under 18, and it would allow young people to limit or opt out of features like personalized news feeds, smartphone notifications, and auto-playing videos. That result in compulsive use of apps. Mark Zuckerberg also used part of his time to defend allowing teens to be on these kinds of platforms because they want to be creators and they're doing some amazing things, which they are. But these two things are not mutually exclusive. You can have teens on these apps that are creating these beautiful pieces of new age art and defining culture, but also engage in all these protections. So that these types of things don't happen.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's absolutely absurd.

And Lauren, one more thing that was missing from this was YouTube. I don't understand how YouTube gets out of this. It's the greatest thing their PR lobbyists have ever been able to pull is that they're not in these conversations.

It's really weird.

They're not absent from all of these conversations. They've testified before Senate and congressional hearings like this before, but, uh, from these big ones, they're nowhere around.

Yeah.

—crazy.

It's interesting. It is interesting. I think it just goes to show a lack of understanding of just social and just video and on the online ecosystem. Yes, I guess it's not technically a social network, but it's a video platform where a lot of bad shit exists and a lot of stuff can be surfaced to kids. So they have a separate kids app, as we all know, and ostensibly that is to tailor the experience, have much less targeted ads for kids and all this sort of stuff, and they're sort of celebrated for that. Whereas Instagram, when they suggested kind of doing the same thing for kids, they were seen as predatory. You're going after our kids. How dare you, like, try to target them.

Instagram though is like a messaging app too. There's no messaging within YouTube Kids.

Totally. But maybe the kids one wouldn't have messaging. I don't know what it looks like. You know what I mean? But the point is, is like, they were like, we're trying to make a separate experience that's like very tailored to just kids and will be much more, for lack of a better word, like sort of safe. And like everybody was like, no, don't do that. So they scrapped all the plans to do that. Whereas like YouTube was celebrated.

You understand why that would happen because if you have this picture in your head of what Instagram is, which is putting images and photos of yourself online, and then you have this one just for kids, that does seem a little suspect.

I mean, yes and no. I think that if you actually understand a little bit more about what, what it could be, I think that like, that's very myopic thinking. I actually think I, you know, I don't, I don't want to like call like, you know, you myopic, but you know, I think it's actually kind of a mistake, um, in my opinion. But anyway, we'll see, um, what doesn't happen as a result of this. One other stat that came out of this that I thought was really interesting, um, I forget the senator that was grilling TikTok. The CEO, he was talking about the FTC is currently suing like X, Facebook, and other platforms and like basically every platform except for TikTok. And he cited like a woman who's in Biden's cabinet who used to like work for the Chinese government or for ByteDance or something like that. And it's like, why is like the only platform not being sued by the FTC TikTok? And he was just like, I can't comment on it. I can't comment. You know, it's just, I, I mean, listen, I don't know what else they need or they want to know that like the platforms need to be held more accountable and TikTok needs to like either get outta this country or not be owned by China. And by the way, everybody up there agrees with this. Bipartisan. There's like no disagreeing. There's not one person up there that was like, you guys are doing a great job. Thanks for all the good work. Like, you know what I mean? But I'm sure behind closed doors they're saying this, but it's like, it's just gross and nothing's gonna happen and I'm over it. Let's move on. Speaking of TikTok, this is actually a huge crazy move. Uh, Universal Music Group plans to, um, pull all of their song catalog from TikTok, and they rep such artists as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande. It's effective, like, basically immediately. They've not reached a deal with the platform's parent company over royalties. TikTok says it's sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters. Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves us free promotional discovery vehicle for the talent. TikTok has been able to reach artist first-gen agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly Universal's self-serving actions are not in the best interest of artists, songwriters, and fans.

Oh, gimme a break, TikTok. So Lauren, Universal Music Group first made its open letter public on January 30th. It was to the artist and songwriter community, why we must call time out on TikTok. And at least a part of it reads a lot like what SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild were saying about the movie studios. Here's a quote: The terms of our relationship with TikTok are set by contract, which expires January 31st. In our contract renewal discussions, we have been pressing them on 3 critical issues: appropriate compensation for artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and then online safety for TikTok users. We've been working hard to address these and related issues with our other platform partners. They go on to say how Universal Music has played fair with other partners, but that, quote, "Ultimately, TikTok is trying to build a music-based business without paying fairly for the music." Yeah. They talk more about how TikTok is flooding the platform with AI, or at least has the potential to flood the platform with AI, or at least letting the platform be flooded with AI without putting protective measures in there. And it's just generally not artist or creator forward.

This is huge. Huge. UMG has like the biggest music catalog, like kind of in the world. It's, it's huge.

It's incredibly huge. I don't know if everyone knows this. I asked our editor Jason as kind of a litmus test of who are his favorite Universal Music Group artists when this news came out. I asked him not to Google it. Who knows if he did? Jason, you can be honest with us. And Jason said yes, he can name a few. Yeet, Drake, Playboi, Taylor Swift. Asked him if he thought many people could do that. He said absolutely not. So Jason's an anomaly, keeps track of which artists are with which label.

It also is worth noting that we've been working with Jason for years, and this is the one time that he messaged us and was like, "You must talk about this." He's chill. He's like, "You guys, whatever." He doesn't really, you know, he's like, "I love all the things you do." And he was like, he texted us like, "Whoa." So like, I'm just saying, this is a big deal.

But this is going to be known to everybody on TikTok because UMG has already started to pull down the music as an option for people to choose. And if that music is already associated with a TikTok video, it will be muted or users will be prompted to switch out the soundtrack there. Swifties, I mean, I think that's the big constituency here. Like, which way are they going to—

I know. I mean, I think people are going to— there's going to— they're going to freak out. But honestly, if I were Universal, I would own that freak out and be like, blame TikTok, right? Because they can play the whole, like, they're not paying artists. Like, we would do it, but they're not playing artists. So like, I would just— I would lean into that. I wouldn't shy away and I wouldn't back down.

Lauren, was that a Taylor Swift reference?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it was, but I feel like she's so like part of the lexicon. Like it might've been, I might've just completely recited a Taylor Swift reference. I might've just completely recited a Taylor Swift song.

I'll tell you who we don't have to think about what side of this they're on. They're just absolutely just, their hands hurt so much because of all the high-fiving. Yeah. Everybody at YouTube. Oh yeah. Yeah. Every single person at YouTube must be ecstatic about this. They had their earnings call yesterday, but didn't announce this during their earnings call. And so. The thought there is that they would release it to capitalize on this news about what's going on at TikTok, that they just crossed 100 million subscribers on YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. So YouTube Music, you just get the YouTube Music app. YouTube Premium, you get YouTube Music and no ads on YouTube and some other downloadable features and stuff like that. YouTube Premium for an individual is now $14 a month. For music alone, it's $11 a month, so they're netting a a ton of additional revenue on this. To be clear, the 100 million users does include trial accounts. Who knows what their churn rate is? But it's conspicuous timing that they're letting this number be known and leading with the music part of this too, a day after this news came out about TikTok. Lior Cohen was the first to share the announcement in his newsletter. He emphasized how we're harnessing technological innovation to drive unprecedented value for artists and for fans. And kind of famously or infamously, Lior Cohen has been super close with AI and the music industry and is at this unlikely triangle of YouTube, music, and AI. There was this event last year where Lior Cohen stood on stage with Robert Kyncl, who's the head of Warner Music Group, previously was the chief business officer over at YouTube. So obviously they're tight. but they were talking about all the future and all the potential that YouTube and AI have for the music industry as a collaborative partner. Put that in contrast to all the things Universal Music Group noted in its letter about that it was incredibly concerned about TikTok and the proliferation of AI on that platform. And I think if you're in the music industry, you see this trusted partner now in Lior Cohen, perhaps, and he's definitely trying to capitalize that on this type of news.

All right, let's get to our interview with Megan Lightcap, an investor at Slow Ventures.

Megan, so to have you here. Welcome to Creator Upload.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to be here. So just tell the audience, so we're all on the same page, really basic, what do you do? Where do you work?

So I work at Slow Ventures, um, which is a seed stage venture fund based out of San Francisco, New York, and Boston, where we back founders in the early stages of company building. What I focus on specifically at Slow is our creator investing where we're basically giving creators early growth capital to grow their communities, launch businesses, really, for lack of a better word, build the empire around their content and kind of their personal brand. And yeah, that's kind of my focus at Slof.

So investing in creators wasn't even the thing that existed, I don't know, 2, 3, 4, definitely not 5 years ago. No. But now it feels like there are new entrants into this market almost every week, every other week at least. Can you break down the current landscape in terms of who are, who are the players and kind of where do they operate in this creator investment ecosystem?

Yeah, it's been fascinating to watch kind of over the past couple years, really like a capital market form around creators. You know, I think as people start to realize, you know, in many ways creators are building not even small businesses, you know, in certain instances pretty big businesses. And so capital formation has kind of followed suit. So the way I think about the financing landscape is you have players that are almost debt-like and then players that are providing equity-like products. And then it depends kind of within that group what you're underwriting, if you're underwriting a specific asset of the creator or you're kind of underwriting them holistically. And so what I mean by that is take someone like Spotter or the different catalog financiers. They're looking at one very specific slice of work of the creator, which is their YouTube catalog. And so they're basically saying, okay, you're making X dollars from AdSense, and if you give us the monetization rights for Y number of months, we will give you, you know, some million dollars as, you know, cash upfront. And so to me, that's almost like a revenue-based financing product, kind of debt-like in nature, underwriting one very specific slice. And there's a lot of players that have kind of emerged in and around that model. And on the other side, you have equity, just people investing equity into the specific brands or companies that creators launch. So think Skims or Chamberlain Coffee doing, you know, a very discreet capital fundraise for that one specific business. So super narrow kind of underwriting asset and then equity in product. And so what we're doing is actually saying, what if we widen the scope of what we're underwriting? So it could include content and media, you know, the revenue that they're earning from YouTube. It could include businesses that they spin up. So underwriting more of their business and providing an equity product. So that's kind of how I view the investing or financing landscape. But you're, you're right in that, you know, there's been many players that have come to market. I think on the debt-like product, I think you see more players than on the equity side, just because it's, it's more programmatic, right? You can kind of you know how to price AdSense and, and how these, um, how catalogs will kind of pay out. So they're, they're easier to spin up. So I think that's naturally where kind of capital flowed to start, but we're seeing all sorts of different products in the market.

And so when you approach this, what's your specific investment thesis and strategy?

We like to partner with creators that are niche, kind of, they sit within a vertical or a category, um, almost as if they're kind of building a consumer business within, within that category. And we like to work with creators that are full-time, far enough along in their career where they have real traction and engagement, but are not yet as big as MrBeast or even, you know, those types of creators who are like a million bucks or $2 million won't make a difference. These are creators that are early in their journey that, you know, a little bit of seed capital can help bootstrap, you know, different initiatives across, again, content media, products, services, brands. So that's really the sweet spot for us, which is category-specific or niche-specific, and then far enough along where they have traction but not too far along where, you know, that amount of capital won't make a difference.

And then to the extent that you can reveal kind of what are your typical check sizes and then what does that get you?

Yeah, so generally we'll invest up to $2 million, so could be as small as half a million you know, could be up to, up to 2. And we like to have the dilution not go above 10% because we're investing into the creator's holding company. And this is really like their business that they're operating. And so we like to kind of maintain, you know, the structure where they have 90% ownership and we have 10, or really just a passive kind of passive partner. Obviously they're maintaining 100% creative control and direction, and there's no like board or votes or anything. This is really their, their baby.

You know, I feel like the investing in creators really started 2019. And I, you know, Josh and I've been working in this space a long time. And so I love this space so much. Obviously, I do a little bit of this work at JellySmack as well, investing in companies, buying companies and creators. So I guess my question is just pushing back a little bit is like 2021, there was a flood of money into this market, crazy valuations. A lot of it was sort of predicated on this like creator middle class. Every creator is an entrepreneur. I would argue every creator is not an entrepreneur. Yes, there's an argument to be made that like just setting up a channel and, like, doing that and, like, having a small business is sort of entrepreneurial. But when I mean that, I mean, like, an entrepreneur in the sense where, like, you're meant to diversify and hire a team. And I think we've seen that. So I guess, do you feel like there was a little bit of a false narrative? Like, I mean, I hope not. I hope there is still, like, a big opportunity for some of these creators. Like, I'm sure you've sort of felt a little bit of a reckoning. Like, what is really going on here? Like, how many opportunities are there really for the creators out there to build big businesses?

Yeah, no, it's a great point. And I kind of hate the narrative of like every creator is an entrepreneur because it sets a really bad like goalpost for like, it just, it's not the right way to frame the opportunity. I think for everyone, it's like such a blanket statement where there are creators that they have crazy engagement and they're doing super well on advertising revenue and you know, they have no interest in hiring people to go build a brand or whatever. And that's, that's amazing. Like they should just, That's great. But there are, albeit smaller number of them, there are people that the content is not necessarily the endgame. The endgame is actually building a business, launching products to their community, and they kind of see the platforms and community building as a means to— and it's like the input for some other output. Coming into this, I was not deep in you know, the creator world or kind of digital media world in general. I come from more of a traditional consumer background. And so I think people in the industry, they think creator, they automatically think YouTube. And I think we take a little bit broader of a definition of what a creator can be, right? There are people that are building, you know, really significant businesses on Instagram or off of Twitter, where again, it's, you know, the audience is kind of, it's not the end game, it's almost a means to an end. And so I think, you know, having a little bit of a wider aperture of what this definition of creator is allows you to kind of separate the, like, there's the business building creators and then there's kind of the art form creators or the brand deal creators, right? There's so many different types. And I think trying to shoehorn everyone into this one definition of like, you are now an entrepreneur, is a recipe for disaster.

So how are you finding those specific folks that are more like business minded, right? Like, 'cause I mean, that's a, you know, that's a specific thing. Like, you— yeah, how would you kind of know? I'm just like, just at a high level, I'm curious. It's a great question.

Funny enough, so many of our early conversations are around the businesses that they are building. So there's like this natural like filtering process where we're probably not having a conversation with them unless they are already underway building some business, um, or are super serious about it because they're, they're thinking about financing, right? They're thinking about startup building generally, um, or they already have a business and they're kind of like, how do I accelerate this? So The way they kind of find us is almost helpful in terms of filtering these folks. And then I think, you know, we are consistently trying to put our flag up and say like, this is our model, here's the types of people we want to work with, or, you know, our model is best suited for. And we'll get, you know, inbounds based on that to say, you know, X, Y, and Z is building, building this business and they're thinking about taking on capital. You know, you should talk to them.

No, I was going to say there's, there's, there's this sort of burgeoning market of like the creator COO, right? Like the need, like I feel like a lot of creators out there are not able to, they have maybe a vision for a business, maybe they are that creator entrepreneur that wants to build something that has an idea, but they don't really know how to do it. And I'm getting a lot of calls from like folks like MBAs that are coming from like, you know, have had 10-year, 20-year, whatever careers in sort of traditional media. And they're like, I see that like this is a need in the space. Like I'm curious if you're matching sometimes these creators with sort of operational partners. Do you feel that there is like this market out there for this? It's being identified by the, like, I don't know how else to describe it, the MBAs of the world that like this is needed. And I do think that it is needed. And some, especially some creators that have been doing it for a while and are just sort of like, I need help, like scaling this or something. I'm just curious about this sort of COO with creators, uh, sort of thoughts here.

And I think you and I have talked about this in the past. I think it's like, there's a huge opportunity. We don't match people today, but it is something that I think deserves more marketing and education around. I mean, I think the smart MBAs, if you will, are kind of identifying this opportunity. But to, to really bring the creator COO or GMs or whatever, more of these folks into these opportunities, they have to be able to basically look at an opportunity with a creator and comp it against their next best alternative, which could be, you know, a PM position at Ramp or, you know, some, some business position at Uber where there's cash and equity. Um, they kind of know what they're gonna be doing. And I, I think there has to be some infrastructure for them to compare that versus this creator position, kind of apples to apples. And so it's something we've been focused on in terms of the marketing and education component. And I mean, never say never. There could be a time in the future where we actually match our creators with these folks. But I think we're at the phase now where it's like rising tide, just like, let's just like get more people into the, into the ecosystem. But I do think there's like a really interesting opportunity here, especially as these creator businesses become more sophisticated and become more diversified. Like creators can't do it themselves. I mean, in the same way that a founder can't do it themselves.

Yeah, no, 100%.

So looking forward, what's your prediction for the future of this creator investment space? Just in 2024? Sure. Yes, 2024.

I had some conversations at the end of '23 and, you know, in the past couple of weeks with traditional bigger investors taking this space a lot more seriously, whether they're like super big institutions or private equity that have typically played more in the consumer space. You know, they're calling me saying, we're taking this space seriously, what do we need to know, how do we need to think about it? Which is like a really interesting sign of just like maturity of the industry generally. And I think that's because there's a, there's a couple bigger players in the space like LunarX and Spotter that are, you know, doing well and making noise and obviously raising, raising capital. So it's just an interesting data point to say, you know, are we at a point where this is like a real— like these are like the eventual acquirers of these businesses? Like how do they actually play in ecosystem long term? So I think we're going to see more of that. I think this year, just, just broader interest from unexpected bigger players. And then the other thing on kind of the demand side, and I don't really know what to make of this, but It seems that there's this trend happening where it feels like everyone's a creator or like it's kind of in vogue to like call yourself a creator, whether— and it's like you just hit record on a podcast or you launch a YouTube channel alongside your like B2B software company. And I think it's good and I think it's great that people are doing it, but I'm curious how it's all going to shake out. Eh, is it? It's a lot. Let's be real. Yeah, I don't know. It could be a moment in time.

I think that's especially a recent product of all the tech layoffs too. Yeah. People thought they had these big cushy jobs at these big cushy companies. Yeah. And then they all of a sudden don't, and they need to take control of their own destiny a little bit more instead of wondering about who's gonna move their mousetrap.

Yeah. But I feel like some of these folks are not even disgruntled, like former tech employ— they're, they're founders or they're, you know, a different type of profile. And my gut is they're just seeing what distribution can get you and kind of what doors that opens. It's a microphone.

I mean, you know, we've been doing this podcast for 4 years basically this month, which is crazy. We should probably do some sort of celebration. I don't know. Celebration. Transparently, Josh and I have made a commitment to, like, be more, you know, sort of promoting it more and this and that. And I will tell you that, like, our numbers are going up, like, like just— and obviously we've always been talking about it, this and that, but just being much more engaged and thoughtful on how we're talking about it and inspiring conversation. And so we're like, oh man, this is working.

Do you know what I mean?

Unfortunately, it does work. I mean, it's just more work, but it's great. But it's great.

Well, I had the same realization with— I, you know, started that newsletter last year and weirdly unintentionally committed to writing once a week. And it was the type of thing where when you're in someone's inbox every week, you get opportunities, like you're top of mind. And I woke up one day and I was like, distribution works. And I, you know, you can argue, are we reaching peak content? Like, you know, does it all just become noise at some point? And I think maybe, but I also think you're seeing just like hyperfragmentation of people into, into different interest groups of like, maybe they just love creator upload and like, that's their thing and that's great. So it's just a very interesting moment in time and I, I'm excited to see how it all plays out over the next 12 months.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining. We're excited too. Where can people find you?

What's your newsletter? It is called, uh, Slow Upload. Go to the Slow website and go to About Us, scroll down. You can subscribe that way. That's called friction, Megan.

We need to like reduce some of that friction.

No, I know. We're, we're working on it. We're working on it. Or you can find me on Twitter.

I think I'm @mm_lightcap. And that's slow.co for everyone wondering where to go to Slow Ventures. Slow.co.

And I should just warn everyone, there's a very funny photo on Slow.co right now that the partners thought was hilarious. So we don't take ourselves super seriously at Slow Ventures.

It's a great tease to end on. It's a great tease to end on.

Don't be weirded out by, by the website.

Oh God. All right. Well, thank you so much.

All right, guys. Thanks so much for having me. This has been great.

We could talk to you forever. Thanks, Megan. Take care.

Thank you so much, Megan. Go check her out and subscribe to her newsletter if you can find it.

The decision to not make videos where I'm like, "Today I'm going to make dakbokki. First add gochujang, then add water." I mean, that was very deliberate because I found that that sort of style was very chaotic and didn't really mesh well with the kind of moody, sort of introspective visuals that I was producing. And so I was like, well, I don't, I just don't wanna do that kind of video with paired with this kind of ambiance that I'm creating. And instead I decided to do what I had done in my Instagram where again, I was largely just still photographs instead of posting the recipes in the captions, I would just tell a story about my family.

You just heard the Korean vegan Joanne Molinaro who is the new creator on the rise brought to you by Gospel Stats. We're every week we're featuring a creator who is sort of bumping, and I'm kind of obsessed with her content. It's amazing. And I think I've become a Korean vegan, um, in watching it. Josh, uh, real quick, do you have anything to say about her?

She's fantastic. She's a former lawyer turned food creator who pairs what she calls, quote, moody introspective, unquote, culinary visuals with personal stories. And it's kind of like if you read any food blog or recipe nowadays, and this isn't a shot at the people who are creating these recipes, they have to do this because of Google and how ads work and the Google search algorithm. But there's a personal story above every single recipe.

But at the top it says jump to recipe, which I always do.

It's just a lovely feature.

Listening to the thing while watching them cook. Right.

So she was the first to kind of pair this together with video. Yeah. And it's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. So she started on Instagram. She found the video audience on YouTube and TikTok. She really started to see this surgence over the pandemic, and she released a New York Times bestselling James Beard Award-winning cookbook a few years ago. And right now, this is kind of like phase 2 of her career. So she has this online video component. She's getting views on all these different platforms every month, and now she's building out her podcast. She's finishing her second book. She's getting more instructional this year. She has a class on Skillshare that is showing people how to turn their hobby into a career. And she's going to have a lot more upcoming videos with like step-by-step cooking instructions and more. So check her out. If you don't know her, definitely take a look. If you already know her, she's going to be up to some cool new stuff this year.

Okay. And Josh, lastly, uploads, downloads this week.

What do you got? Lauren, like I said before, Alphabet had its earnings reports for the fourth quarter of 2023. It was a mixed bag, but the bright spot was YouTube. Its ad revenue in Q4 of last year reached $9.2 billion. Was up from $7.96 billion a year ago. That puts YouTube ad revenue at a 15% year-over-year increase. Alphabet's top-line revenue was $86.31 billion. It exceeded projections by about $1 billion, but some divisions of Google's business are lagging behind, including its search engine, posted quarterly revenue of $48 billion, which was just shy of Wall Street expectations. That's why the stock's down a little bit. Any downloads? Yes, Lauren, I think we're going to have the same download, just like Congressional Theater.

Congressional Theater download over here. Definitely. I thought that the whole hearing was just such a download on both levels. Nobody won. Nobody won because you know who the big loser is? Us. Parents, kids, losers over here. Everybody lost and nobody's doing their jobs. Total download. Upload, MrBeast. Let's end on a beast note because always makes everybody happy. Action figures coming at you 2024 Christmas. Let's do it. They're doing a partnership with Moose Toys. They've done products like Shopkins and Magic Mixies, and they are going to be partnering with Beast on a line of action figures due in the fall. This will be the most anticipated launch of the year. MrBeast is widely iconic and the biggest influencer on the planet. By combining his unique brand innovation and our Moose wow, we created a phenomenal line of products that will be highly sought for. That is Paul Solomon, the CEO of Moose Toys. We are incredibly honored he entrusted Moose as a partner and co-creator, and they should be because he has this, his pick of the litter, and I'm sure they've been developing this for a long time.

Moose is no slouch too. No. They're an incredible brand and they have this other product called Beast Lab, not to be confused with MrBeast. Yeah. It looks so cool.

Yeah. No, this is, this is huge, uh, coming at you. So let's end on a high note of MrBeast for Christmas. All right, Josh, I think we did it.

Lauren, I think that's it. I'll see you on YouTube Shorts commenting about Zuck's hair to, uh, Swift song? I wonder what product he uses. If not there, next week, Creator Upload. Today's show was produced by Lauren Schnipper, Joshua Cohen— hey, that's me— and Adam Connor. It's edited by Jason King, and original music is by London Bridge. Check him out on Instagram @londonbridgemusic. Make sure you subscribe to Creator Upload wherever you listen to podcasts. While you're there, give us a rating, leave us a comment, hit us up at info@creatorupload.com. We'd love hearing from you. It's my favorite thing to read the emails. If you like our show, please recommend it to a friend. If you love it, just recommend it to everybody. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.