GenZ Tech & VC Producer/Researcher Rachel Braun: Memorable Times Working with Jason Calacanis | Ep61

What are some of your other memorable moments working with Jason Calacanis at This Week in Startups?

Yeah, so Jason and Molly, Molly Wood was my other boss there, and she was just as involved as Jason was, like in the day-to-day process. But under both of them, you know, they have so many years. They might have, they might be like some of the people that have been within like the radio and podcasting space the longest that are still extremely active.

Hey, welcome back to Seed to Harvest, a podcast with founders, creators, and investors about their stories, frameworks, Frameworks and tactics. Really excited to have my friend Rachel Braun on today. Rachel, can you please introduce yourself to the audience?

Of course. So my name is Rachel Braun, like Paige said. Paige and I have known each other, it's almost been like a year now, which is insane. And I am a producer and researcher. And formerly I met Paige when I was a producer working at the Speak in Startups Yeah.

Okay. Well, I wanna, I wanna kick things off. What initially sparked your interest in media and tech as it stands today?

Yeah, of course. So initially in college, I had studied this major called IST, which is Information Systems and Technology, Information Sciences and Technology actually. And a lot of my friends in the program really wanted to be computer scientists and I was like, I love tech. Um, but I really don't know if I wanna go down the comp sci path. I don't know if I really wanna be a software engineer. So I think just having to dive in online, especially during those college years, and figure out what else there is in the tech community that isn't software engineering was a great introduction. Honestly, before that, even going into college, like Cyberchase was my favorite show when I was a kid.

So such a good show.

Yeah, it's like a foundation, right? It's like the foundation of my youth.

Did we graduate around the same time? When did you graduate from college?

I graduated from Penn State in 2020.

Okay, sweet. Same year. COVID grads. Did you guys, did you guys graduate on like Zoom or Facebook Live? What was your—

We did. Oh, we did Zoom and I think like one of the Jonas Brothers was on our Zoom though. Oh, so it was cool. Like Joe Jonas. Yeah. So we, we, it was over Zoom, but it could have been worse.

We were Facebook Live. We did not have one of the Jonas Brothers, but it was pretty cool. From what I remember. It was weird times. Okay, so let's, let's, let's talk about being extremely online. I think there's like a really interesting thing that happened, like specifically with like our grade and a couple years after where our like period of creating friends was really forced to be online due to the pandemic. So I'd love to hear more about like, what's your experience been? Being extremely online, active on Twitter in those circles. Any like fun stories that you wanna share?

Ooh. I mean, I'm sure there's like a ton of fun stories. I feel like now I, when honestly before the pandemic, I wasn't super on Twitter. I wasn't really on Twitter until 2021. So a year after college, I mean, I had an account, but I wasn't really tweeting actively as much. And then 2021, I started tweeting more and making those like online friends because I worked remote and I was living with my parents. In a suburb of Baltimore. And I was like, okay, there aren't as many people in tech right now living in Baltimore that at least I have access to. So where are they hiding basically? And that's kind of why I started going like to Twitter more and like interacting with people and being like, hey, like, what are you guys up to? Like, what do you do for work? Like, where are you located? Like, I really wanna meet friends in my industry. I worked at such a small company and being fully remote, I was really missing that human connection. But even before that, I was an Army brat growing up, like right before we Press record on this. I told you I went to like, for high school I had 4 schools in 4 years, like 3 high schools and a community college. So I feel like having online friendships was something that I was like relatively comfortable with, like moving around a lot. I feel like Facebook Messenger was like a, a lifeline a little bit.

I love that. I, I feel like it's like a very specific skill to build friendships online as well. I'm, I'm curious, like On that note, what was your first tweet that went like semi-viral? Do you remember it?

I think it was one about creating connections, and I think it had something to say. It was something to like the tune of, hold on, let's see. A lot of young people are really good at, oh, are you okay?

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna see if I could find it.

Oh, I think it's, I think it's something like young people are really good at creating connections, but not really good Uh, like cultivating friendships or something along those lines. And that was definitely something I was feeling at the time. I, it was probably around that 2021 like time period.

Yeah.

Where a lot of my, the peers that I have met online were professional and I was realizing like, oh, like things don't really go any deeper than like maybe like a shared article or something like that. Like I felt like connections could only go so far on the internet, which might be like kind of Not very like Gen Z of me to say, but I don't think I've even now have been able to make like a true 100% genuine friendship with somebody until I meet them in person.

That's super interesting. I feel like I made, like, actually I'm doing like a retreat this weekend with this group chat that I met over Twitter. We like jokingly call ourselves the Sim Squad, but it's like Gabby Goldberg, Gabina, and Shreya. And we all met through like various like Clubhouse or Twitter, and then we've just had an active group chat for the past 3 years and we've done this—

I love that.

Like retreat that we've done. But I feel like before that I hadn't really created any super crazy friendships. I mean, I feel like there's homies that I made. I used to play like a lot of Adventure Quest. I don't know if you ever played that, but that was pretty awesome. I was deep in that.

I used to do like RuneScape. Yeah. RuneScape was my game, you know? But even then, like it felt like Things could only go so deep. I guess I've made a lot of friends online, but it takes like me to meeting them. Like I've met them in person. Like I've brought those friends like IRL, like, yeah, who you previously had on the podcast, like yourself. Like we've met in person before and I just think like having that moves the dial from like a connection to like more so a friendship.

Okay. Let's talk about, okay. So I attended the All-In Summit. I got a ticket after I came to speak on This Week in Startups and that's where I met you. That's where I met Landon, who was on the podcast. In my first season, and we were joking that we were all at the kids' table cuz I think we were like a bunch of the people that were like under 25 there. What are some of your most memorable moments from that summit? And then I'll ask you like more broadly about working with Jason Calacanis as well.

That is a great question. I think first off, there was like so many people that helped launch the summit. That was super, really fun for me to meet people IRL, like I said before. Like I was on a completely remote team. So before even the summit happened, I would go down with a coworker named Amber who is just such a superstar. And we looked at a bunch of venues and stuff like that. And really just the experience of learning how an event to that scale really happens. And Jason always calls it, I believe he says like Aman level service, right? So there are a bunch of hotels and Aman is like a very, very fancy hotel for people that don't know, cuz I didn't know. And they do a bunch of stuff to like level up. So, yeah, I'm not sure if Iman did this, but an example he used is like one time he went into a hotel and like everybody already knew his name that was like part of the staff. And then when he went to his hotel room, like the pillowcases were monogrammed and like learning how to create an event that was just like the Iman level service. Like, how can we create this? Like level it up was an insane, was just insane. Like not a lot of people, especially young people, get to learn like.

Yeah.

Okay, this is, these are like some things that we have to have at this event for this many people in this kind of venue. Like it, it was awesome.

Yeah, it was super cool. I remember the first night was a Godfather-themed poker night and it was in this crazy Art Deco, kind of like a converted theater or something like that. It was like such a gorgeous—

Yeah, it was a converted bank. It was insane. Oh, my only problem though is I don't think there was enough bathrooms, but It was cool. It was cool.

I think— The things you remember as an event producer.

I know. I, I was like, I was just like, dang it. Like, I just, so the bank was awesome, but it was, and the venue was beautiful and like everybody just did such a good job. But if I could change anything, it would be, it echoed a lot.

Oh yeah.

And I think like gauging a room, being able to turn down music and stuff like that, especially at an event that's like so geared toward like networking and meeting others.

Yeah.

Would've been really helpful. And then also like just increasing the bathrooms, like Maybe that's a girl problem. Like the line's always long.

No, the bathroom ratio. Important. I remember they did like the bars at the like old teller station. So, which was really cool. You like go up, like you're going to the bank teller. Yeah, that was, that was really cool. It was so fun to meet you in person at that event. I think like, what are some of your other memorable moments working with Jason Calacanissette at This Week in Startups?

Yeah. So Jason and Molly, Molly Wood was my other boss there and she was just as involved as Jason was like in the day-to-day process. But under both of them, you know, they have so many years. They might have, they might be like some of the people that have been within like the radio and podcasting space the longest that are still extremely active. So just being able to learn under people that are so legacy within this niche of media was really cool. Before coming on to This Week in Startups, I had my own podcast. And I remember like I was talking to Jason being like, hey, what did you think of like my podcast? I don't even know if I mentioned it actually. I think he, he said he listened to it like before I joined the team.

Yeah.

And I think he said it was like a 7 outta 10 or something. And I remember being like, oh man, I'm getting a 10 outta 10. And somebody just told me on a previous episode that he ranked me like an 11 outta 10. Oh, it took like 3 years, 2 years, but we got there.

I love that. Well, I feel like it takes like a good amount of time to get more like comfortable with interviewing. Like, I don't know. So you ran a segment called Okay Boomer, which I adore. What did, what did you focus on with Okay Boomer? Can you share?

Yeah, so I mostly focused on, so actually Paige, this is a fun fact. I actually wanted you to come on Okay Boomer.

Yeah, I know.

I'm sorry. But Jason had a segment and I really, that I think it was on like first-time investors. Yeah, it was called Angels.

So like this investment cycle, it's like a merger management segment. Were you guys—

yeah, emerging. There it is. Emerging fund managers. And I was like, dang it. Like Paige would just— I could do both really freaking good. Yeah. I was like, she would just be so freaking good for this segment. So I, I had to like forfeit you for that, for that segment instead, which you absolutely killed it on. But Okay Boomer was interviewing people that were creatives and founders and investors similar to this whole podcast, but focusing on people that were young or early on in their career or people that have maybe founded companies that impact people that are really young in their career and kind of just hearing about their experiences and things that they found to be difficult and any advice they'd have like along the way.

Yeah. Oh yeah, it's so cool. I, I'm curious, like, okay, so I just recorded an episode about cold outreach and I feel like it's been received really well. Have you used cold outreach to get anywhere interesting in your career?

Totally everywhere. Like everything I do is like anytime there was somebody that we wanted to have on the show, it was like between me and sliding into their DMs or, you know, figuring out like which platform, like I could actually reach them on. I feel like I would, I would be very, very, uh, much in a different place in my career. Yeah. If it wasn't for cold outreach. The coolest story I have is, I always tell people this, so I probably sound like a broken record, but the founder of Houzz, which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore, but her name was Helena. Helena Price Hembrecht, and it was like my favorite non— like, I think it's low alcohol aperitifs.

Yeah, I have some bottles in Austin. It's amazing.

They're so cute.

Yeah.

They're so cute. If you want to make like a little— it was the pandemic, like mixie for me. Loved having them because they were low alcohol. I didn't get migraines after. Like, I'm not a crazy big drinker, so Haus was just awesome. And they make a really cool tote bag that has like pockets on the inside for bottles, which I loved. But I remember she was like blowing up over the pandemic, right? And I reached out to her and I was like, hey, can you come on like my podcast? And this was before I joined the Speak in Startups. And she like actually responded and I was like, oh my gosh, like this is insane. 'Cause at the time that was like the biggest person that's ever responded to me.

Yeah.

And she said, hey, listen, I'm actually so busy right now, but if you reach out to my assistant, like I would love to talk some other time, but just like this season of life is insane. And like a year later, I reached out to her assistant and I was like, hey, I'm actually like the producer on This Week in Startups. If I know she's crazy busy, but if she has any time, like this would be so, this would be so sick if she should, if she could like come on, like this would be awesome. And she was able to come on and it just how kind she was to me, I think like in the initial conversation made it like so exciting for me to reach out to her the second time. But when I reached out to her the first time, it was actually a challenge that I had where I reached out to one person every day for 100 days.

Mm-hmm.

I think I tracked it on Twitter somewhere. Wait, is that cool? But I did cold outreach for 100 days.

I didn't know you did that. Yeah, that's awesome. Are some of the people that you like reached out to—

it was good. Oh my gosh. I actually, so I reached out to Toby, which is the guy who hosts the Morning Brew podcast over there. He was one of the people. Kat Cole I reached out to and she came on my podcast.

She was on the—

before she even did Athletic Greens.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was like sick. I think it was like the same time cuz she was on my season 1 and then she like came out Right after, like the week after it ended or something.

She, I had her like, I remember my episode with her dropped a week after she announced that she was stepping down from her previous role as like president of the company that owned Cinnabon. Yeah. And I was like, yo, this is crazy.

What's happening next? I feel like her journey from like being the youngest VP at Hooters and doing their international expansion to Working at like Cinnabon and then like moving to like the, the parent company, which is Focus Brands. And then her move to Athletic Greens was so interesting because she had worked at these like legacy brands and then like fully switched over to like Athletic Greens, which I think of as like such a different consumer base. But she's just like such a talented operator and like. Brand marketer.

Yeah. So I think this powerhouse, she, yeah, if anybody like has a chance to check out her story, her, her formative years while she was in college and her experience like with Hooters. Insane.

Insane.

It's so cool to listen. She basically did everything at like one of the Hooters and she was really doing the most. She literally, she was, she's a beast. She's an absolute beast.

Dang.

Wait, I love— and married a Burning Man, which is really cool.

Yeah, she's so sick. Well, okay, wait, so I'm curious, like with your cold outreach, I love that as a challenge. Were you just like looking to make new connections or like what was your goal with the cold outreach or what would you ask people when you reached out to them?

So I was a fellow, I think at this time at Dynamo Venture Capital. At the time I was like, maybe I'll do VC. I applied to grad school and got into grad school and actually didn't go, but I didn't know right then what I was like gonna do after the fellowship, if I was gonna stay in investing, if I was going to join a startup, or if I was gonna go to grad school for computer science, like I knew that I didn't really wanna do it, but during the pandemic I kind of felt like nobody knew what was happening. So I was like, I just need to keep reaching out to people, see what, like, kind of feel out what the landscape is. And I also think it's really important, even if you are a part of a remote team, if you're a remote worker, to cultivate some sort of network because it's so much harder when you're not in an office. Like, I love working remote, don't get me wrong. But I have to work like 10 times harder and you have to do stuff like without being asked in order to kind of show that you are like somebody at this, in like, in this landscape. Like nobody, it's kind of like posting on social media. Nobody's gonna know your Twitter account exists if you don't tweet. And the same thing goes with networking, especially professionally in tech. You know, nobody's gonna know you're, you exist unless you kind of like put more effort into that. And living somewhere that wasn't necessarily a tech hub, I had to work like a million times. It felt like harder than my friends that already were in SF. A great example of this who absolutely kills it is Turner Novak. Like he doesn't live in a target tech city, but he's constantly, like constantly putting himself out there to meet other people, to like show like, hey, this is like Banana Capital. This is what I do. And I have like so much respect for that.

Yeah. Yeah. He's great. I met him, I think we were just getting started on Twitter around the same time. So it's been super cool to see like that cohort of kind of like solo GPs who got their start. Really on Twitter take off. It's been super cool.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I wanna ask you, speaking of Twitter, you have been sharing some tweets recently about your thoughts on like AI and music. There's been that viral Drake song that's been going around. You were commenting on Grimes talking about using, like being okay with using their likeness and creating AI music. Can you share a little bit on Your thoughts on what's going to happen there. I feel like, I don't know, I like wanted to manage rappers when I was younger. So I feel like I learned a lot about like music copyright. And I feel like a lot of the people that are talking about it online don't have as deep context for it. So I'd be curious to like hear what your take on it is.

Yeah. So something that's super interesting is I don't know too much about, um, copyright on, like, at all with music. But with like this AI landscape, it's getting so freaking interesting. So this is also according to The Verge, and I linked this article over on my Twitter if anybody's like interested in reading more about it. I believe they broke down like the, the issue where YouTube took down the AI-generated song that like featured The Weeknd, and that was because the label that manages The Weeknd and a bunch of other people I think it's called the Universal Music Group, UMG, owned the Metro Boomin tag. Like that actually started in the beginning of that song. So YouTube didn't take it down because like the label owned the song because the label didn't. They just took it down because the label owned that producer tag in the beginning. And so if that song gets reuploaded without the producer tag, it's going to create a lot of like a lot of talk, I think, like in the copyright world with considering like If you take somebody's voice and you upload it, does that give like the label the right to take it down if they weren't the ones to necessarily like own the song initially? And I also think what Grimes is doing is going to be so cool because I think there's like a really interesting path here for passive income where if you are somebody that is a musician who doesn't necessarily want to make that their full-time career, maybe This is just something that you're doing for fun. I think it would be really cool. Maybe you are a singer to like upload your voice, like a few songs of you singing and say, hey, you can use my voice in everything as long as I get like a certain percentage in the song. So there's a website, I'm blanking on what it's called, but like creators right now and musicians can go and like use different like vocals basically. And like short lyrics that people are singing and like use them in their songs. And I imagine a platform like that existing for people with their AI voices. And I'm sure something like this already exists, like Speaking It Out, but it's going to be interesting. And the question I have is, will we still value AI-generated music as much as we value not AI-generated music? So say there's a Taylor Swift song that comes out and it's AI-generated Taylor Swift, are we still going to value it as much? And if we don't, our generation, are we going to sound like— when I show my dad the music I'm listening to, he's like, there's no real instruments. Instruments in it. Like, right, right, right. Like, this isn't real music. Like, are we gonna sound like that?

Yeah.

Like, like, I don't know.

Yeah. It's interesting is like the generational shift is like, does the generation that comes after us, is that more accepting or less accepting of those changes that are happening? Because I feel like there's definitely that. I don't know. I don't know. I did get my parents into house music and I, I know they're listening right now, but I got them into like a lot of house music and I don't know, I think It's just a really interesting application, like AI in the creative spaces specifically is like that running dialogue of, does this impact people as much? Like, is this story enough? Is this art enough to be considered like with original content that's produced by an artist? I feel like one of the things that's cool about like original art is that it's imperfect. 'Cause I feel like, yeah, AI-generated creative things tend to be, well, I would say there's definitely some examples of things that aren't like that, but there's like less space for imperfections if you're looking at like a, a, you know, a large language model or something like that writing a song. Like sometimes I think the beauty can come from those imperfections. Okay, let's, let's talk about creator tools.

Totally.

So you've produced Podcasts, you've had your own podcast. What are the creator tools? What does your stack look like today?

Ooh, for podcasting or—

Yeah, let's hear it.

That is a great question. So it totally depends. It totally depends on who I'm producing for, cuz I think like everybody has like their own opinion on like what they like the best. So a bunch of people have Shure microphones, for example. I use like a Samsung Q2U cuz it's light and like I can like toss this thing off my desk and it was like $60. So I think like the best thing to consider kind of like when you wanna start a podcast or when you are podcasting is like, yeah, you can have like the entire setup of somebody else, but like what really works for you in your space? Like there was times, and you can even like see this in episodes where if Jason's traveling or if Molly was traveling. We would actually have them wear like these headsets that are kind of—

Yeah, you guys sent me one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With like, like a mic on, like on the headset, right? Like how somebody would at a call center. Because at the time, like that was the thing that worked the best in that moment. But I hate how much people think there's like this barrier to entry with a lot of creative mediums and a lot of creative outlets because 9 times out of 10, especially within podcasting, I know. There's a way to make it work. Yeah. Whatever your budget is, whatever your situation is, your living situation may be, like there's a way to, a way to figure it out.

Yeah. I love, I honestly love the ones, well, I feel like, uh, the Gimlet Media Startup Podcast is like the OG. I think Adam Faze, who produced a bunch of like really interesting original podcasts, and now is at Bad Realities, he showed me it and I was like, oh, this like blew my expectation away of like what a podcast could actually be. 'Cause it's like. He's telling a story and then it cuts into voice memos and you can, you know, he's like on the street pitching a VC. And I feel like that was so cool. So I do think that like, if you understand the context and you're not expecting perfection in like a perfectly quiet room or whatever, you can come out with some like really interesting creative stuff.

And it's also crazy cuz in the world of podcasting right now, like we are really like, we're such newbies in this space. And right now, most podcasts that like I see people putting out aren't just audio, they're video as well. And there's like other components of it. And where are we going to drive— draw this line between maybe having like a talk show or a YouTube channel versus like a podcast?

Oh yeah.

Podcasting is really blurring this line right now. And I, my favorite content to consume ever is like video essays. So it's like videos online talking about stuff that's like I don't know. There's, there's a great person that I like. Her name is Tiffany Ferg and she has something called Internet Analysis and video essays on like things like van life and is it like great or is this something that is actually just a miserable thing that people are putting up on the internet trying to glorify? And it's really interesting to hear other people's perspectives and I can listen to them and, you know, like go, I love it.

Having a social commentary one. I like Mona Lee on YouTube does some really interesting ones on like, yes.

Oh my gosh.

Core, core. She's talking about the '90s, Y2K. Yes. Hyper feminine heroin chic. Yeah. She does some really interesting stuff. I like how she like dives, or she did a really cool one on cottagecore, but she basically like breaks down the historical elements of trends and then like their applications today. And her videos are like really well edited. She also has really great thumbnails.

Yeah, she does. And it's like, what's the difference between that? Because, and a podcast, and I think what's crazy is that obviously takes a lot more effort than something that I'd be doing for podcasting. But if you just strip her audio, um, one of the reasons why I think she's like a great creator is if you strip her audio down and you're just listening, you can tell exactly what's happening in the video. Like you're not so reliant on the video portion of her content. And I think that is incredibly important for most creators.

It's like standalone audio.

Even on TikTok.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like you can't just focus on one of those factors. Like you really have to have something that is capturing all these senses because people's attention spans are so short. Like what, you gotta make sure they're engaged somehow.

I was laughing. I was, I was thinking about something my brother said. So we were doing this, like, so one of my brothers edits the podcast and the other one, Owen, was the one who illustrated my book. And we were talking about it and we were like, all right, Owen, like what do you wanna see in the podcast? And we do like YouTube Shorts, so we do like 8 videos weekly. It drives like 80% of our views on YouTube and probably like 50% of our new subscribers come from there. And he was like, oh yeah, you should try making like podcast videos plus ASMR, like slime videos. Because he said there's this trend on TikTok of people like having something that's very like—

Talking over.

Yeah, audio. Well, just like literally 2 videos. So it's like one is the podcast and then one is like Someone playing Subway Surfer or like an ASMR, like cutting Play-Doh. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's crazy. But he was like, yeah, it makes sense because like if you get bored watching the person, you can just watch the ASMR video and you can like listen to it. And like, but you're not like overstimulated. And I was like, oh my God, that's crazy. It's getting very meta out there, but I feel like it'll be interesting to try.

It is. But if you, and if you step back to like 6 months ago, We kind of see that with like get ready with me tutorial.

Yeah.

With Alex Earle, who's like a really popular YouTuber. So yeah, you're watching her do her makeup so you can, yeah, have the audio off and this is something that you're extremely interested in, but at the same time, like you really wanna be engaged with what she's saying.

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's, it's almost like I watch videos and, oh, I think a good example of this like is Hitomi. I've been following her for like years now on YouTube, which is crazy. But she'll do like a getting ready video and she'll just like do something really surprising. Like she had this, oh my God, it was so insane. My brothers and I were talking about it. It's like confusion is really key to standing out online. And she brought in literally a vase. Like it was like, you know, 2 hand widths apart. She's like, I got this vintage carafe on Etsy and it's just really been helping me hit. My water intake. And like, there was so much, so many other things going on. This video is not about the carafe at all, but all the comments were like, she's drinking out of a vase. Like, this is insane. Like, is she doing this on purpose? Like, what's going on? Like, the element of confusion is so interesting. I, I'm curious to hear what you have to say about that, cuz you've like also worked on like more highly produced podcasts where I feel like the goal is like Really high quality, not necessarily like tips and tricks to go viral in that way. So I'm curious like where you land on that personally.

Yeah, I like personally, I'm not a fan of like a million growth tactics.

Yeah.

Because I think sometimes, and not that I don't like growth tactics to grow podcasts, cuz I think they're important, but I think sometimes when people focus on them way too much, it does diminish their, uh, like want. to create the best quality they possibly can. So if you're so focused on going viral, are you going to be saying or doing something within that content that doesn't necessarily reflect you or doesn't have to be in the video? And kind of being able to have like, okay, how can I convey the message I want to while still being able to grow is something that is like extremely important to balance. And like a good example that's not even in the podcasting space would be like, it's called the Reduced Shakespeare Company, I think.

Whoa. Cool.

And it's this It's this, a comedy group where they, I think they actually do like Shakespeare comedy, like Hamlet and things like that. I believe.

Is it that guy, Box Quest Lover? Or different? Have you seen his TikToks?

That is the— I love him. I completely love him. And I think like, that is also really, that's a good example too. Like, how can I get my message across? While like incorporating something else, like in the Radio Shakespeare Company or Octopus Lover. Like Jake, I don't forget his last name, but Octopus Lover, his first name is Jake.

He's so funny.

And apparently he was at Sophia Richie's birthday.

Yeah, I know. I was gonna say he was like making TikToks with Sophia Richie. I feel like I saw one TikTok about her, had never really like heard about her before, and then it was like my whole For You page. I was like, dang.

Same. And she's killing it.

She is killing it.

I'm like, okay girl, pop off. Tell me, tell me everything. But like, yeah, they're, they're great at creating content that, you know, gets to the point of a story and like really relays like the point they're trying to get across, but at the same time is using comedy to kind of like boost that, like, effort of voice. Yeah.

Comedy. I feel like comedy's big, like making people laugh. Huge. Do you have a, do you have a go-to dad joke?

No, literally none. And my dad messages us every single day in our family group chat. Like every single day without fail. Like, I'll read you today's. That's like how we start our morning. My parents message us at between 6 and 6:30. Then my dad sends a dad joke. Like we, like, can you please read me? And I think today's was like, I'll bring it up right now. That's so funny. Oh, he said, I hear money talks, mine just waves goodbye, was today's dad joke. I thought that was pretty good. We said under it, so he had out of the, I think 6 people in the group chat, he only got 2 ha-has. Oh no. So.

Wasn't, wasn't a great one today. That is tough.

Was it? Well, sometimes he gets boos, so, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. That's still a pretty good response. Like it could, it definitely could be negative. It's not.

No, he and my brothers are so strict, like are so mean to him about it. Like they're, that's not even good.

Up your bar.

No, seriously. It's like so bad. I'm like looking through all of our texts right now and they're just like, I just looked up in our search joke in our family, like chat, and it's insane. Like just like scrolling through.

But wait, that's so funny.

It's one of those things and I'm so thankful to have like parents that text me.

Oh, I love that. I, okay, wait, I have a question as we wrap up. Do you have any questions for me? I just felt, of course I do.

Yeah.

Hit me. So, okay.

In a previous episode that I was listening to, okay, you said one of your favorite questions was. What, like to ask other people is like, what books are they reading right now? 'Cause it really provides like a look into that person's life. Yeah. In full transparency, I just read a book club book. I've read Shoe Dog for the first time.

I don't know how I saw this one without reading it.

I saw this one.

So don't worry.

Yeah, I, I don't know why it took me so long. I'm like, I feel like everyone, this isn't also a book club with tech people. This is like my friend from high school. Like nobody's a founder in it. And they were like, have you read this? This seems like something you would like. I'm like, I. I haven't, but what have you been reading? Because you read more than anyone.

Yeah, I've been reading like a lot recently. I recently read Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which like emotionally destroyed me.

I think I can't do it.

So it's this wonderful story about these 2 kids who meet in a hospital when they're young and their paths intertwining throughout life, and they Co-found like a video game together. It goes really well and it goes through this, like, I don't know if there's any other way to describe it, but like kind of this like DNA helix form of like some of them having success and some of them not. And like them having like challenges and triumphs in their like personal and professional lives. And it was such a beautiful story of like the intimacy of platonic friendship and the ending. A merc to me. I had to go like sit in a, in a dark room for a while after that and just sit with my feelings. But I, I loved it. And I think like I invest pretty heavily in gaming and like gaming infrastructure. And it was really cool to like see how, like, because they wanted a higher level of creative, it pushed the level of like gaming infrastructure that they could build. And then like vice versa, like once they had that level of gaming infrastructure, like all these incredible games started coming out. What else have I been reading? I went to the free pile at the farmer's market and I got a bunch of really old tattered books. I think I'm reading one. I don't know. I think it was on my desk. It's like The Magic of Thinking Big, and it's like a '90s like self-help book, but it's like, I love the OG ones because every self-help book, like the things in there have been said before. So I feel like sometimes when you go back to the ones that are written—

Yeah.

I think like pre-technology specifically, I feel like the ones nowadays that reference a lot of like digital identity and stuff like that. And sometimes I'm like, okay, like I think about this too much, so I wanna get back to like who I am in person, you know, like kind of need to touch grass a bit.

Yeah.

Um, so I've been reading that. I think it's The Magic of Thinking Big. So I've really been enjoying those too. I love that. Yeah.

I love like books written by therapists.

Yeah.

Like The Defining Decade, or maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Those are 2 books both written by therapists and obviously Like there's things in there that I'm not like 100% agreeative to.

Yeah.

But like, it is so nice hearing somebody whose basically entire profession is to be like, okay, this is who you are as like a person. Like really nailing that into your head. This, like they, they don't talk about like who you are as your online self feels like a very good experience to have. And also if you like to cry to books, have you read Crying in H Mart?

Oh my God. So gorgeous. I really liked it. I didn't realize that the author was Also like the lead singer or basically like Japanese Breakfast. Yeah, Japanese Breakfast. I was like halfway through the book and then she just mentioned Japanese Breakfast and I was like, a what? Like I listen to Japanese Breakfast and no one told me about this, but it was like a side project that she created to deal with the grief that she was going through with her mother's illness. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. I feel like I have so much context for this band and this music. So, which was sick. Ooh, Daisy Jones and the Six. That's my favorite book that I've read recently.

Oh my gosh.

I'm in my Stevie Nicks era, I have to say.

Dude, it is so— so have you read— that is probably one of my favorite authors, you know what I mean?

Taylor Jenkins Reid is amazing. She goes so deep.

Seven—

Yeah, Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising. She's read— she's written some of my favorite books. I think that Her portrayal of specifically a woman experiencing levels of like fame and success and some of like the downsides of that, whether that's like maintaining like friendships or relationships in the public eye. I think it's something that increasingly more people are thinking about, even in like niche ways as people build like online followings. There's this really like weird perception thing that happens where you can have some parasocial relationships, or you don't know if they're parasocial. You're like, It just can complicate things. So I feel like she writes really well about that.

Mm-hmm.

And that's hitting because a lot of people are like, I think a lot more people are becoming known than were in the past. Like there used to just be like a tier of celebrities. Oh gosh. Yeah. But now there's like, you know, a bunch of people with a—

Brooke Shields talks about that.

Yeah.

Super interesting in her book. And have you read Brooke Shields' book though? No. So Brooke Shields literally talks about this. She's like, yeah, there used to be like only a few people that were famous. Yeah. It's like, And they're mega, mega, mega stars. Everybody would know who they are, right? But now, like, ask your dad who Madison Beer is. There's like, I, I don't even know if anybody on this podcast would know who Madison Beer is. I, I barely know who Madison Beer is.

I barely do either.

She's like multi-millions of followers every, I don't even know what she's famous for. She could, a model, singer, I don't know. She's just an internet person, but she has like millions of followers, right? Yeah. And it is crazy.

It is crazy.

You know? Yeah. But if you listen to Davy Jones and the Six as an audiobook, a different person is reading off each person's voice. So I read it as a regular book, like initially, and then my mom told me, she was like, re, re-listen. Yeah.

It's such a cool format. The, like, the docuseries is the, the Amazon one. You are gonna die. It's so good. The costumes are amazing. Elvis Presley's granddaughter plays Daisy Jones. She looks exactly Like I would imagine Daisy Jones and Sam Claflin plays, what's his name? Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting. Anyways, plays the guy. It's good stuff. Okay. Well, I'm excited to read more books. I wanna read Brooke Shields' book. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you on the internet?

Yes. So first off, thank you so much for having me on. This was super cool. People can find me at _RachelBraun on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, wherever. And if you wanna email me, I'm rachel@braunandbrains.com, but Braun is spelled like my last name, so B-R-A-U-N. Recently found out that was like a survivor thing, like Braun and Brains. So SEO is not good. However, I thought it was a pretty cool—

Still persist.

Yeah, but we're working on it. Like one day, one day it'll be, I'll be bigger than Survivor.

I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on, and I hope everyone listening enjoyed this one. Special thank you to producer Riley Jennings and podcast editor Tate Doherty for your help on this episode. If you're listening and you'd like to connect with me, follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn, Paige Finn with 3 N's. Thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it. You can look out for new episodes every Monday at 5 PM PST. And if you'd like to learn more about those strategies and tactics of seasoned institutional investors and rising venture stars, check out our YouTube channel at Seed to Harvest. Also, my TikTok channel is Seed to Harvest, where I post a lot of behind the scenes. Um, and if you like this episode, please rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts, if that's on Apple or Spotify. Anyways, thank you so much for listening. I hope you have an awesome rest of your day.