Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad streets in New York City, you're Inside the ICE House, our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision and global business. The dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs and harness the engine of capitalism. Right here, right now at the NYSE and at ISIS12 exchanges and six clearing houses around the world. And now welcome, Inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Josh King of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh king:
I recently sat down on an airplane returning from business trip, just me and my Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones. As I settled into my seat for my three hour flight back to JFK, I cued up my favorite podcast. I added one or two new shows that if interesting would break into my ever-growing rotation of subscriptions. My listening was soon interrupted by the captain's announcement you know, the one where he or she says, "We've reached cruising altitude, so feel free to move about the cabin. Also, we know you have a choice in airlines, so when you fly on behalf of the airline, I want to thank you for flying with us." The truth is, I could only choose maybe one or two of the 10 major passenger airlines whose flights matched my schedule. So the real choice came not when I purchased my ticket, but while I was waiting to take off.
Josh king:
Take out your smartphone now, and look at the podcast app, instant free access to any of the 660,000 active podcasts that offer over 28 million episodes on any topic that think I might be interested in. Seriously, a search of any person or topic yields tons of choice though, maybe a wide spectrum of quality. It's a far cry from 2011 when I uploaded the first episode of my own podcast called Polioptics. We had a show on SiriusXM that ran every Saturday and Sunday, but the best feedback came not from broadcasting over a satellite or through the radio, but rather from those who found it on a pod. There's a growing audience of over 144 million people in the United States listening to an average of seven podcasts a week. If you're hearing my voice now, you're one of them.
Josh king:
And 2019 is shaping up as a tipping point year for the medium's growth. Anyone who has listened to Alex Bloomberg's StartUp had to be stunned when Spotify, that's NYSE ticker symbol SPOT, spent a combined through $340 million to buy Gimlet Media and Anchor. And when my longtime friend, Jacob Weisberg, bolted Panoply and Slate for his own StartUp with Malcolm Gladwell of Revisionist History Fame to launch Pushkin Industries. Well, you could hear the gears of the subscription model starting to turn toward the podcast, Boom. A favorite of Inside the ICE House and one of the more popular shows to hit the podcast feeds in recent memory is Masters of Scale, hosted by Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and partner at the venture firm, Greylock Partners.
Josh king:
Our guests today pitched Reid by stating that his podcast would be able to take advantage of his own advice and together they could scale his blitzscaling philosophy. Joining us Inside the ICE House are the executive producers behind Masters of Scale, WaitWhat co-founders June Cohen and Deron Triff, who will share how they crack the code of creating unique content and are breaking the podcast mold. What does it take to produce a podcast that stands out in a crowd? What is a content incubator? And most importantly, if you're listening to this podcast right now it means you're a fan of the medium, where is this industry headed? We'll find out right after this.
Speaker 3:
Spirit Airlines is a ultra low cost carrier in the United States that is intended to democratize travel, provide low fares and high quality service for the people in the Continental 48 and Latin America. We offer a very, very low fare and in exchange for that, you get an On-Time Performance that can't be beat. You know, growth has really catapulted us to this point and we're extremely proud to be a partner with NYSE. Spirit Airlines listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Josh king:
Our guests today are WaitWhat CEO, June Cohen and chief business officer Deron Triff, the duo were longtime executives at TED before co-founding WaitWhat in January 2017. June left hotwire.com to head up media at TED as its fifth employee. She launched TED Talks on the internet, co-founded TEDWomen and led the media team to 17 Webbies, 8 iTunes Best Podcast of the Year awards and a Peabody. Deron was responsible for TED's partnership growth leading to the TED Radio Hour on NPR, TED shows on Netflix, TEDWeekends on the Huffington Post and TED in cinemas. Just to name a few. He joined TED from PBS where he launched the Kids Network, Sprout as vice president of Digital Ventures. Welcome to the library June and Deron.
Deron Triff:
Thank you.
June Cohen:
Thank you.
Josh king:
You may us get this question over and over again. Are we at peak podcast? Is this tulip mania all over again?
Deron Triff:
Not even close. It's so interesting when you described 660,000 podcasts, there's a lot of content out there and there's a lot of range of quality. And I think what June and I are most excited about is as the technology evolves, where do the production values go? And how can you create content that is of the quality of what Netflix is to video. And that's one of the pieces, both in terms of creating formats that have never been part of the podcast community and creating sound that is very cinematic and of the quality that you would expect in films.
Josh king:
I remember having a burger with a guy with an idea, but maybe not enough cash in his wallet to actually buy a burger. I picked up the check, his name was Alex Bloomberg. Does his story give you Monday motivation every week?
June Cohen:
Well, Alex was a point of inspiration for us, for sure. You know, we were definitely watching his work as sort of colleagues in the field when we were at TED. Deron pitched us, probably eight years ago now, the idea of the TED Radio Hour. And so we went through that creative process together of taking TED Talks and turning them along with NPR into a great radio show, which was also a great podcast. And we were watching really closely what was happening in podcast. So we were listening to Alex from his first episode. And it was that combination of both Alex's work on StartUp and the podcast Serial, that were those points for us. That said like, there's something really important happening, that there's a renaissance happening in podcasting. And going back to your point earlier when you asked if it's peak podcasting, no, we think we're at the beginning still. We're both at the infancy of the industry and really still in a renaissance that there's just, there is a flourishing of creative work starting to happen in podcasts. And that's what, one of the things that really drives us.
Josh king:
If this is just the beginning, then what was that time when TED Radio Hour was being launched when Alex was doing his first episodes of StartUp and Serial burst upon the scene, I mean, what introduced you to the podcast as a format even before that and what attracted to you as a Marquis storytelling platform?
Deron Triff:
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting when you look at sort of the early predecessors of what we're seeing today, This American Life and Radiolab, really interesting content that appeals to people who are naturally curious about the world and interested. And so that was what was appealing to TED is that the podcast listenership is a sophisticated listenership that's hungry for ideas. What made StartUp so interesting is it was a great story like following Alex's story as he tried to put together this business, which he turned into the podcast of putting together the business, both made it really interesting, but of course all wrapped in a story that was very much what TED was like. And so we thought it was a perfect match to bring into podcasting. And those were days where it was a lot easier to be downloaded millions of times a month. You have to really fight for those downloads today.
Josh king:
Going back into your childhoods, what was the first thing that sort of made your ears sparkle with things that you were listening to?
Deron Triff:
I think that the turning point for me was I interned at a NPR station in Atlanta when I was 15 years old. And the producer, his name was Mike Bucky. And in those days, you were splicing tape. And he took me into this little studio, it probably was a space of like eight feet by eight feet and he was a chain smoker, so he lit up in the studio. So there was 15 year old Deron with Mike Bucky, he's smoking like crazy, the whole room-
Josh king:
Big cloud in the ceiling.
Deron Triff:
... is filled up with smoke. I remember cutting that audio together and hearing what professional audio sounded like. And I remember saying to him, because the intern had an opportunity to create a short story that would go out, they of course fed it out at like 4:00 in the morning. And I was like, "How many people are going to listen to my story?" And he was like, "5,000." I was like, "5,000 people." And that's, for me, that was where the light bulb went off. Producing great storytelling and audio that could have an impact.
Josh king:
June.
June Cohen:
I'll give you a... just a quick note from a different point in my life, which is that when I moved to California for college, is when I fell in love with radio because you just listened to a lot of radio when you're in your car a lot, what you tend to be when you're in California. And actually, the show that really grabbed me first was perhaps not what you would expect. It was Car Talk and Car Talk is this like perfect example, still of what works in audio, which is that, it's two guys literally own a car shop talking about cars and taking questions, but their personality, their expertise, their kind of rapport with each other is what just drew you in.
June Cohen:
And it wasn't fancy, but it was just a great, great personalities and great conversation, which is still at the core we think of what makes great audio. Now we always look to add a lot on top of that. We're always interested in inventing on top of the conversation on top of the ideas, but at its core, you have to have a host and you have to have people who an audience wants to listen to.
Josh king:
So you grew up in California?
June Cohen:
I actually grew up in New York and moved out to California.
Josh king:
Deron, where was... Was Atlanta home for you?
Deron Triff:
It was, yes.
Josh king:
I hinted at this in the intro. If your industry's going to sustain itself, getting folks to open their Apple Pay Wallets probably has to be part of the mix. As recently as 2017, the total revenue for the entire podcast industry was $26 million less than Spotify's investment in creative entrepreneurs like Alex, Matthew Leber, Michael McDonough, and Neal Zuckerman, big stars and paid subscriptions as the New York times built it out of headline last month, Luminary aims to be the Netflix of podcasts. Where in your view does free end and paid begin.
Deron Triff:
Yeah, well, I think Luminary launches in a couple weeks now, it'll be really interested. I think that currently our perspective is that we want our content as widely available as possible. And when you work with someone like Reid, who has such important ideas to share, I think we think a lot about the democratization of media and the ability to reach as many people as possible. And so at this time, it'll be very interesting to sort of see whether the quality coming out of Luminary is that much better than the best podcasts that are freely available. And I think that's really the question. I have some doubts about it. You know, Audible made a run at a premium subscription business and didn't quite work out. And so I think it's... We'll see.
Josh king:
Not only are you giving a platform to people like Reid and we're going to get a lot into Masters of Scale and a bit, but you're helping journalists find, as you said, move from platform to platform and podcasters are drawn to podcasters like Moth to Flame, I heard Peter Kafka talked to a group of them the other day, including the journalist Bethany McLean, who'll be launching one for Pushkin later this year. I've been hearing it more and more on Brian Koppelman's podcast, for example, great journalists migrating to audio for fear that the print profession is dying. Do you think platforms like yours are their last resort?
June Cohen:
Oh, I don't think we're anywhere near the last resort, in that humans are natural born storytellers. We love to tell stories. We love to hear stories and we are going to keep opening up more and more platforms for our stories and ideas to be shared. But I actually think it's really important in media to not get locked into a single platform, either as a creator or as a consumer of media. And that's actually one of the things that has really drawn us and drives us in our work is thinking not just narrowly about a single medium, whether it's video or whether it's podcasting or whether it's print or text based media, but thinking across them really broadly, and actually in launching our company WaitWhat, we had focused from the beginning, not on actually being a podcast company, but rather being a media invention company. That we think about creating content across any different platform and then migrating it from one platform to another.
June Cohen:
And one of the reasons that we really chose podcasting first is because of what's happening in podcast right now, and has been happening for the last several years, which is that there is a renaissance happening. And one of the reasons behind that, by the way, that we hadn't mentioned yet, is that for many years, audio storytelling was 100% the realm of NPR. NPR or PRI was all public radio base and which is fantastic. Like we have like a national treasure in our public radio in America. But what Alex did was he made an entrepreneurial in the same way that when Elon Musk launched SpaceX, he took that to the space program and turned it into an entrepreneurial effort, Alex and others when they started Gimlet, and those of us who have followed, are taking audio story and making it an entrepreneurial effort. And that's a big part of what's allowing it to flourish now, it's why you're seeing this outpouring of new creativity.
Josh king:
I mean, Gimlet, Luminary, Pushkin and WaitWhat, all these inventive names, how did WaitWhat hit you like a ton of bricks? This is what we've got to call it. Because I know, listening to Alex's first season, the idea of calling it Gimlet was a major issue between him and Matthew.
Deron Triff:
When we started the company, we're a very workshopy culture. And so everything we do, we have these very interesting workshop formats where we tease out ideas. And we have a workshop, it was actually June's apartment, with colleagues to name WaitWhat. WaitWhat never made it to the board. There was all kinds of names. WaitWhat was never on the board but the idea was that we wanted something to make you say, "Wait, what?" Something that would make you stop and rethink something you thought you understood. And so we kept saying, that's the kind of quality we wanted in the name. And then a week later, I said to June, we should just name it WaitWhat.
June Cohen:
And it really stuck because it's done two really useful things for us. One is that it gives us a way to verbalize what we're looking for in content. So every episode of Masters of Scale that we put out, every episode of Should This Exist? we put out, we're listening for what we call the wait, what moments. Are there enough prize moments in this episode that will break people out of whatever they're doing and get them to lean in and say, "Wait, what did they say? Wait, what's po... Is that possible? Wait, where did they take that conversation?" Like, we're always looking for those wait, what moments.
Josh king:
What's the usual length of a Masters of Scale episode?
June Cohen:
We actually typically aim for around 30 minutes. They sometimes go a little bit longer when we just can't bear to make enough cuts. The reason for that, it interestingly, that roughly corresponds with the broadcast hour but it also corresponds with people's lives. So, commutes tend to be in 30 minute increments. And so we aim for that 30 minute as our sweet spot.
Josh king:
How much content do you gather for a 30 minute episode that brings you into the editing suite to boil it down to that?
June Cohen:
For Masters of Scale, we're usually working with a 90 minute full length interview with the anchor guest, as well as typically around 45 minutes of additional interviews that we're editing down. Then you'd add in, on top of that, the Reid's analysis and his hosting lines, which probably brings in another 10 to 15 minutes. So there's quite a lot that we're compacting down on our goal in Masters of Scale as well as Should This Exist? is to really compact the learning so that it sticks with people. So not just to cut it down to that amount of time, but to really distill the ideas and the learning so that it lands with people as they're out listening. I think very often interviews kind of wash over people in a pleasant way, but in a way that doesn't stay with them. And we are really aiming to create those wait, what moments that will make you lean in and help things to stick with you.
Josh king:
And then you also publish the full length interviews as a separate pod. Is that right? Do I remember your feed correctly?
Deron Triff:
Soon, we're planning to release Masters of Scale uncut, in a couple of weeks. And you know, it's really interesting, our audience has really told us that they're really interested in the original conversations between Reid and his guests. And I think it's both because they're just interested in subject matter and so forth. But there also is this recognition that the guests on Masters of Scale look to Reid very much as a mentor and you know, he's sometimes referred to as the OS of Silicon Valley and they open up to him in a way that they wouldn't open up to traditional journalists in that way. And so there's an intimacy in these long form conversations that we're excited about.
Josh king:
So print thrived while there were enough auto-dealerships to fill their advertising inventory and enough rental apartments and escort services to fill the classified sections. The advertisers that we hear today on our podcast, ZipRecruiter, Mack Weldon and of course MeUndies, what happens if their private equity funding runs out before they get a chance to go public here in the New York Stock Exchange to keep these performance advise humming?
Deron Triff:
Thankfully, we do not pursue that category of advertiser. It's really interesting. We, as June described, we think of ourselves as the media mention company. We invented an ad format for Masters of Scale that we've since taken over to Should This Exist? and we call it the three-act ad. And the idea is that, inside of companies is a great treasure trove of wisdom and insights. And if there are ways to bring those out, what actually the company has discovered that has made internally the company say, "Wait, what? How do you take that and turn it into a story and open that up to our listenership?"
Deron Triff:
And in doing so, we've had listeners, you'll see tons of tweets about listeners rewinding the ads, like who rewinds an ad? And for our sponsors, when you look at, Apple now provides the drop-off rates, you can see minute by minute. It there's almost no drop off because our ads are at the produced and created at the same level as the show with the same level of importance. And so that's really been very effective. And so we are not in the game of transactional 15% discount on Blue Apron. We are in the game of telling really interesting stories from companies and having our community actually get actively involved in those companies.
Josh king:
How did your first advertiser buy into that concept and the idea that they were going to produce an advertisement over three-acts?
Deron Triff:
They actually didn't know it because our first advertiser was ZipRecruiter, which was sold by our partner Midroll. And so they bought into this thing, and then we described what we were doing and they didn't fully understand it until it went out into the world and they loved it. So it was the founder of ZipRecruiter, who we teased out really interesting ideas around, for example, hiring neglect and that all companies suffer from this very contagious illness called hiring neglect and in our community, totally identified with it. And there was quite an outpouring back to ZipRecruiter that they had not seen. So they didn't know going in.
June Cohen:
The point with the ads that we create is that they tease out these ideas and insights as Deron was saying that are inside of companies. So it's very much what you already know on this podcast. There are a lot of interesting ideas inside of companies. And so with the CEO of ZipRecruiter, it was the idea of hiring neglect. It was the insight that they had that, depending on what words you use in a job description, you will get more male or female applicants. It was the idea that the fact that an applicant was fired from their last job might actually be an asset. Like each of those are wait, what moments, they're things that make you stop and rethink what you thought you knew. And it was super effective for ZipRecruiter. And actually all of the brands that we've worked with.
Josh king:
While you are co-executive producer of Masters of Scale, as one of your many roles at WaitWhat, you also recently hosted the two part episode where Reid took a spin in the guest chair. What's your favorite seat in this recording room guest host or producer?
June Cohen:
Honestly, producer. I really enjoy speaking. I enjoy being a guest. I prefer being the host largely because a lot of my own joy comes out of throwing a spotlight on other people and bringing out their potential. I think that is really the role that both Deron and I love so much of what we're building at WaitWhat is finding people, whether it's hosts or guests with extraordinary ideas and potential and throwing a spotlight on them in a way that people can take in. So I'd say that producer overall is my favorite role.
Josh king:
Competition is fierce for podcasts looking to find their audience, scale their operations and demonstrate that they can stand out among a sea of content. So your flagship show, Masters of Scale, how did it find its audience, Deron?
Deron Triff:
Yeah. And it's interesting. It isn't any one thing, but there's a set of things that we believe deeply on to give a new podcast a chance to break out. And of course it helps that you have this terrific host who has so much, such a wealth of ideas, but it's also about creating a format that doesn't exist. And very much as a media invention company, when you're competing against NPR or TED or others, those organizations can do. At WaitWhat, we rate everything 1 out of 10. We rate every episode, 1 out of 10 and we rate every segment 1 out of 10. And you know, the well-established companies can put out sixes and sevens and do quite well but for a new company, you have to put out tens consistently.
Deron Triff:
And in order to do that, we came up with a format for Masters of Scale. With these really cinematic cold opens, unexpected cold opens, all the music is originally composed. It takes us six to seven weeks to produce an episode of Masters of Scale. And so there is, the way that comedy works, the way Reid talks directly to the listeners with analysis, there's a set of inventions in the format that we think has enabled it to break out. And then there's a whole set of tactics and particularly now, and particularly on Apple, there's a whole set of tactics that you have to really look at in a sophisticated way and when to pull those levers to try to chart. And by, if you can figure out how to chart, that gives you a chance to sort of have a lasting audience and a growing audience.
Josh king:
Take me into that pitch room with Reid, how did you sell him on the concept and how patient has he been as a performer and a host?
June Cohen:
Totally. Well, Reid has been just a delight to a work with start to finish. Well, we're not at the finish line yet. Start to now. You know, the idea that we pitched him on was, it was based on a couple of notions and one of the things that we always say is that we never pitch people things that we want them to do, we pitch them things that we believe they already want to do. And that's why Reid of course said yes to this. We pitched him an idea to take the ideas he was already developing on scale and to reach more people with them. Reid is very much a natural teacher, he wanted to be a philosophy professor, any chance he has to play the role of public intellectual or mentor, he leans into it with all of his might.
June Cohen:
And so we pitched him on the idea of doing a podcast, the notion of, at the time was that, podcasting was a growing medium, there was a widening audience and that there was a great audience he could reach. Now, what he'll he would tell you is that he had no idea what we actually had in mind in terms of the producing. We explained it to him a few times, but I think it was one of these things that you had to hear to kind of come completely get the full package of what we were pulling together with each Masters of Scale episode, and he has loved it. And he has been a delight to work with. One of the things that was interesting is watching him transform into a podcast host. So if you go back and listen to those first few episodes-
Josh king:
Do you bring your idea to him or does he come into a studio or you do multiple episodes with him at once?
June Cohen:
Oh, it's a great inside question. One of our secrets to working with people like Reid and all of the guests we've had on Masters of Scale is we go to them. So we have an engineer, go to him, we record in his office when he interviewed Reed Hastings on Netflix, he went to the Netflix office, for Mark Zuckerberg, he went to the Facebook office. And so we try to get entrepreneurs and executives in the place that is easiest to grab an hour or 90 minutes with them. But it's a really fun thing to do is go back and listen to those first two episodes of Masters of Scale before Reid had quite gotten his podcast voice. And then you hear by around episode four or five, his like infinite learning capacity kicked in and now he has a whole technique to his podcast narration.
Josh king:
I mean, he was not a unknown figure before he started, but he must give you incredible insight into the feedback that he gets from his community and how it has sort of opened up new doors for him or made him seem more approachable or brought new opportunities to Greylock Partners.
June Cohen:
I think some of the broader things I would let him speak to, but we do hear that from him all the time and from our audience, that by having this regularly occurring podcast, the breadth of the audience that he is able to reach and mentor with this podcast is immense. And really the goal in it for all of us was to take his ideas and to help democratize them. As Deron said earlier, this kind of the democratization of entrepreneurship through the show is something that really drives him and us as well.
Josh king:
And that's one of the things I get from Brian Koppelman listening to him, he used to be, for me, just a guy who wrote scripts to movies and started billions. But now you listen to enough episodes of The Moment, he becomes a great mentor to people sort of striving for more creativity.
June Cohen:
Totally. And we hear from people in our audience all the time, we got an email from, last week, an email from a guy who lives Angola and he launched a ride sharing startup. They won startup of the year in Angola, and he wrote this long letter in to Reid, thanking him for giving him the courage, like the tools and the courage to take the leap into entrepreneurship. And that's why we do what we do, is letters like that.
Josh king:
So that's Reid, but when you're developing a new podcast, you start by identifying a storyteller you want to work with and then build a podcast around them. Or do you find the right host after developing the idea that you want to pursue?
Deron Triff:
Well, our second podcast Should This Exist?, it's interesting. I think that we look at a lot of signals coming at us at the same time from different places. And with this one, we were, June and I were at MIT Media Lab meeting with Joi Ito. And he was... We were talking about sort of the idea, so many interesting things are coming out of tech labs and incubation spaces, all this radical technology that we have no idea what it would do and Joi said, "The last thing we want to do is like a tech cast where you're just reporting stories that are coming out of the lab. What's really interesting is looking at the implications of what this technology is doing to us or for us."
Deron Triff:
And that conversation within the next two weeks, there were three or four other conversations completely unrelated that were all looking at this question of, what is technology and its impact on humanity? And that was how that was born into it happened to be that Caterina Fake the founder of Flickr and really very much part of a godmother of the internet. Reached out to us, wanting to host a show along these lines. And so we were like, "Well, we have to create this show." And we did. And we're launching the fifth episode on Thursday.
Josh king:
Going back to before Should This Exist?, before Masters of Scale, before you started WaitWhat, there was TED, Technology Entertainment Design and that simple idea has given birth to a planet full of content. Reflect on what TED has done for our collective wisdom.
June Cohen:
Gosh, that is a great question. The way Deron and I intersected at TED, I joined TED as employee number five when TED was just a conference. The quick version of it is I launched TED Talks online and grew that to around 100,000,000 views around the world. And Deron joined five years later, we were sort of... He was the scale up side of TED Media, and I was the startup side of TED Media. And so I had grown TED Talks to around 100,000,000 views and Deron came in and grew it to around 100,000,000 views a month.
June Cohen:
So much of our time at TED was spent thinking about how do you take these great ideas and spread them around the world? And I think that TED has done... TED and specifically the spread of TED Talks and all of their forms around the world have done a few things. I think that it has reignited in us an understanding of... a very broadly, an understanding of an appreciation, the importance of oral storytelling and the ability to share your ideas in a public way, which now seems obvious, but it really was a completely forgotten art at the time that TED Talks launch online. People didn't talk about public speaking or about the sharing of ideas in a sort of an oral form. I don't remember people ever talking about-
Josh king:
And it sort of narrowed to stand-up comedy in some ways about people's ability to stand up on a stage with one spotlight on them and go through things that would make us laugh, but also make us think.
June Cohen:
That's right. When we were launching TED Talks, when I was pitching the idea both internally, I was the one who pitched the idea of putting TED Talks online and took it out to first TV stations and then others. There was... Literally, I cannot think of a person who thought it was a good idea. Like it just seemed like a very bad, very small idea. The idea that anyone would want to watch taped lectures was absurd because first of all, nobody likes lectures. And second of all, nobody will watch anything taped that's then on video. And thirdly, no one watch anything online that's longer than three minutes. All of which are of course, false. And so one of the things that we really tried to do with it was take these incredible thinkers and doers, professors, authors, architects, builders and celebrate them and turn them into rock stars.
June Cohen:
And when we first started talking that way, no one understood what we were talking about. Like we would even say to the filmmakers or the videographers at the conference, we want you to shoot it like a concert. We want you to turn that professor into a rock star. And we would just get a lot of eyes rolled at us. But now TED Talks really has created its own form, it's its own genre. That sort of mindset is really what we're bringing to everything at WaitWhat as well of sort of, how do we create a new genre? How do we create new genres that light people up in that way? That give them a new way of thinking about ideas, a new way of sharing ideas?
Josh king:
Deron, June gives you a lot of credit for scaling it as large as it was. How did that happen?
Deron Triff:
Well, at TED, I walked in at the right time. I mean, there was... TED had this incredible library and it was largely living on ted.com and on YouTube. And so it was a, I looked at it as a blank slate. I think what was really most interesting to me was not just setting up distribution channels for the talks, but looking at the talks as something that could be reimagined in the different forms, looking at the transcripts, looking at the audio.
Deron Triff:
And so when you listen to TED Radio Hour and you hear those talks sound designed, they come to life in an entirely different way than on the stage. And when you grouped two or three of them together around a theme, and you start to get that kind of circle of pinpoint counterpoint, you understand them differently. And that's very much the way we think about WaitWhat. Masters of Scale is actually not a podcast. Masters of Scale started as a podcast. And ultimately the success of it is that what it becomes, could become much greater than that first format. And we think it's super interesting to start in that format, but it's not the end of that property.
Josh king:
Who or what did you both turn to as a roadmap for what you wanted to build at WaitWhat? Were there people that came across your radar through your TED experience and helped you figure how to go from where that was to what you would eventually become at WaitWhat?
June Cohen:
Let me start with a thought that kind of sits next to this idea that you're... or the question that you're asking. Which is that in everything that we create at WaitWhat, we tend to think about media really differently from other people in media. And so everything that we create, we don't think about, for example, the demographics of who we're trying to reach. We don't think about it in those terms. What we think about instead is how we want people to feel. So in everything that we create, we want people to feel contagious emotions. We want everything to evoke the contagious emotions of curiosity, wonder, aww, mastery, both because those are emotions that light you up and help you reach your potential. It's the world we want to live in.
June Cohen:
But also because those emotions have a kind of a secret strategy to them, those contagious emotions make you want to share. When you have that sense of curiosity, wonder, aww, mastery, you want to share with other people. And that's been scientifically shown in many different studies. And so that's one of the key things that we really focus on in everything we create. And coming back to your question of who inspires us, we think a lot about who evokes that emotions in us, who makes us feel a sense of curiosity, wonder, aww, mastery, and how do we work with them? How do we bring them on as a host, as a storyteller, as a guest. Some people have that gift of lighting up other people and that tends to be who we focus on when we think about creating something new.
Josh king:
You also produced an anonymous podcast in Sincerely, X. This brought to light the ideas and stories of people who had a chance to stay secret, which is sort of different than the people who would light up a room with their own personality. What did the genesis of creating the series, and what did it teach you about being able to only profile content, but not the creators itself?
Deron Triff:
So it's actually a pretty funny story because Sincerely, X was, I pitched that to Chris after TED Radio Hour. And the thinking was, what... because I loved audio, and the thinking was what could we do in audio that he couldn't say no to? And the only idea was, well, anonymity, because you couldn't see who the speaker was. So that is actually where the idea came from. What could we do in audio that can only be done in audio. But then it evolved, as we started to think about it, it really evolved into creating a platform for people that would otherwise never be on the TED stage because they had an interesting story to tell, but they didn't want other people to know for different reasons.
Deron Triff:
And that interesting story of course, was rooted in an important idea. And it was really interesting because when we did an open call for Sincerely, X, that really did democratize TED. When you look at the kinds of people that applied, they were in... coming from all kinds of challenging situations and circumstances, they weren't accomplished academics or artists or they were people that had an experience that transformed them and in that experience was a really important idea. And this was the only platform that they could share it safely. And that's why that show sounds so different. We're really proud of it.
Josh king:
So on the other end of the spectrum, there is Masters of Scale and it features the A-list lineup of guests. And of course, as a podcast explorer, I can't help but also sampling the new offerings from Will Ferrell in his anchorman personality or Conan O'Brien with Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend where he takes off this sort of late night blitz of a host and tries to get real with some of the guests. So compared to Sincerely, X, our audience is gravitating toward star power or they interested in learning about up-and-comers and having ideas without necessarily big names attached.
June Cohen:
I think there's always room for both. You know, one of the things we often found, for example, when we were running a TED conference, is that when you have the big names, the big names might be what initially draw people in, but it was the unknown speakers that would captivate them, that would turn out to be their favorites. And we think in everything that we create, we aim for both. We aim for people who have some built in base and a name value and attracts to them. So there's Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman and we've had guests like Mark Zuckerberg and Reed Hastings and so on.
June Cohen:
What really works in audio is authenticity. And there is something really unique, not just in audio, but in podcasting where the person you're listening to is literally in your ear. It is so intimate that really what works best is authenticity and intimacy and human stories. And if you can manage that, whether it is with someone you have never heard of like one of our guests on Sincerely, X that no one had ever heard of, but had an idea they wanted to share without even using their own name to one of the best known celebrities or entrepreneurs around, it always comes down to authenticity.
Josh king:
You mentioned the intimacy in the ear, June. And I wonder if sort of the match of technology has also helped podcasting along. It's a much better experience, totally mobile walking around anywhere, taking your dog for a walk, doing housework, but having great fidelity in your ear. Technology helping you a lot?
Deron Triff:
It's really important. And it's particularly important for us where music plays a really important role in what we're creating. Most podcasts and particularly early day podcasts, were talk, spoken word only. And when you're composing original music, you think of music as actually a central character in the storytelling. We'll be announcing shortly a podcast that probably couldn't happen without the ability to do by an oral audio and to create a sound experience and a musical experience that creates a somatic response in the person. And so that's an example where we're actually leaning into the technology that two years ago we couldn't have created this podcast.
Josh king:
Why is a format often compared to talk radio so popular among this tech savvy generation that is following Reid Hoffman?
June Cohen:
I think the answer just all points to like this moment in time and what's changed. So one of the things that has changed and we're still seeing the impact of it, I mean we're 10 years into the smartphone, but that impact still has these rolling effects on us. So our ability to carry content with us to have it on demand, the introduction now of smart cars, where you can easily bring podcasts into your driving experience, if that's how you commute. The technology has brought us to this point. I think that building on that is this moment where there is so much entrepreneurial energy combining with the creative energy of storytellers in the space. But again, I really do think we're only at the beginning. There is so much headroom in terms of what could be done on the technologies, the platform and the content. We really are just at the beginning of podcasting.
Josh king:
Only at the beginning of podcasting. After the break, Deron and June will explain the genesis of WaitWhat and how it is a first of its kind content incubator. That's right, after this.
Speaker 6:
Our mission is to bring the world together through live experiences. We're focused on building a technology enablement platform for event creators, lower the friction and cost of creating an event and increase the rate of success for event creators all over the world. We're a global inclusive company in 11 different countries. This really marks a new chapter for Eventbrite, and it feels like the starting line Eventbrite, now listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Josh king:
Welcome back before the break, WaitWhat co-founders June Cohen and Deron Triff were discussing All Things Podcast from why the format is effective to how it will best be monetized. On why the format is effective, people are interacting with their podcasts in so many different ways. Tell me some of the stories that people tell you about how the ability to absorb content, good content, whether it's yours or anyone else's sort of gives them so much more flexibility in their lives.
Deron Triff:
Yeah, it's interesting. I think that one of the things that draws us to the medium and to the format is when you sort of this a little bit adjacent to what you asked. But when you look at the... One of the stats that's important is Listen-Through Rate. How long are people actually listening to your content? And now on Apple, you can see when people drop off. And our shows, Masters of Scale has an 85% Listen-Through Rate for a 40 minute episode. Like you don't see those numbers on YouTube. And-
Josh king:
Does that allow for stops and starts if they want to only do half of it now and finish the podcast later?
Deron Triff:
It does. It does. It's recognizing that IP address. And it's looking at their totality of their Listen-Through Rate. But I think that what's so interesting is that there's a podcasting habit that's very much into commute and builds into working out and other kinds of things where you don't need to use your eyes particularly, and that's created this opportunity to create really impactful, really meaningful content that people are paying attention to. They're deeply listening to it because of this sort of lifestyle habit. And in fact, it led us... We struck up a partnership with Harvard to adapt their famous business cases into an audio driven business case, which we call The Pod Case. And the entire reason for doing that is because they're student, their listening habits are to learn through podcasts and so adapting to that impacts the learning experience.
Josh king:
We mentioned the influx of capital in the industry, certainly Spotify's acquisition of Gimlet is sort of the biggest headline of the last couple months, but how will that change the entrepreneurial aspect of the way this industry has grown up so far, the large money, is that going to bring better or different types of producers and storytelling into the industry and anything to be mindful or worried about as more money comes in?
Deron Triff:
We're already feeling the effects of Spotify's acquisition of Gimlet. We were closing our series A Round. It was in two different tranches and the second piece of that was closed right after the Gimlet announcement and it happened within a week. And so it really, I think that capital flowing into really great content creators and podcasting is going to increase the quality of the content dramatically. And I think that, when Spotify as they build up their podcasting offering and as Pandora does the same, and of course there's also Himalaya and some really interesting opportunities to take podcast in the United States and grow them abroad, particularly in China. I think you're really going to see a greater differentiation between the premium content, the super differentiated premium content and then there's everything else. And I think that's been made possible because it's now a serious industry.
Josh king:
Monetizing podcasts has increasingly become a topic of contention with factions forming around a few different models. We've talked about some of them WaitWhat podcasts are free to subscribe. Did you explore a paywall model? And do you think that the industry is moving in that direction?
Deron Triff:
You know, we've been approached by the different companies that are offering content behind a paywall. We, at this time, have decided not to participate for the reasons that we shared earlier to make... It's very similar to our ethos at TED, it is to... is the best way to have an impact and the best way ultimately to scale and have enduring value is to be as accessible as possible. And so that's a decision we've made. I think there's a market there for paid content. Clearly Netflix, there's a market for paid content, but I think June and I both believe that it's both, it's not and or.
Josh king:
When will brand advertising come into the picture? My ears hearing the jingle, have a Coke and a smile or something like that. Will I listen to a break between haves of your next podcast?
June Cohen:
It's already beginning. So I think in the next, we'd probably say, in the next two years, it's going to be much more widespread for brands to be advertising in audio with an eye toward brand building, as opposed to just driving immediate sales. Because audio and radio had lived almost entirely within the realm of public radio. There actually was a sort of an underdevelopment of brand advertising until now. So what we find is that when we talk to the partners we bring in, part of the value we're bringing to them is not just the end product of these three-act ads, but also the insights we've learned along the way about what works in audio, why people respond to our particular ads in a particular way. I think it is real exciting what's beginning to happen in brand advertising. And it's really an extension of what's happening in audio storytelling overall.
Josh king:
The way the podcast industry is growing up offers the ability to sort of short circuit, a lot of legacy industries that are burdened by their past. I mean, June, Masters of Scale was launched as the first podcast to promise an equal 50/50 gender breakdown. And you've sought out to both have a diverse staff and also diverse investors. What advantages does this give WaitWhat?
June Cohen:
We think it actually gives us really pretty extraordinary disruptive powers in the industry for all kinds of different ways. As you said, we are committed to roughly 50/50 gender balance. I say roughly 50/50 gender balance to acknowledge the fact that there are many people who are gender fluid and so you can't have an exact 50/50 breakdown. But we don't shy away from the idea of a rough quota there for many different reasons. And we aim for this 50/50 balance in our team, among our investors, ultimately on our board and also in the media properties that we create. And there's a number of different advantages that it brings and part of that comes from the natural balance of perspectives.
June Cohen:
So we believe generally that organizations are strongest when they have a diversity of perspectives coming in, and that's not just on the gender front, it's in terms of ethnicity, it's in terms of cognitive styles, the way people learn, backgrounds, languages spoken, the more insight you can get from your team and the people surrounding you, the better you can serve your audience. And there are many, many examples of times when we'll find that there's a split of opinion on our team that is unexpectedly along gender lines. Things that you would not think were gendered turn out to be gendered. And that could range from things like how you prefer to have a conversation to how a particular logo looks to how you respond to a piece of music. And it's often not in the stereotypical ways you would think, it's ways that are much more nuanced. And the more voices you have around the table, the better you're able to identify what's going to speak to a broad audience and to which segments.
Josh king:
How many people are at WaitWhat right now?
June Cohen:
We're still tiny. We're 12.
Josh king:
Where are you getting most of your team from? Where are you drawing them from?
June Cohen:
I mean, we do open searches for every position that we have, and the truth is, most of the people we're hiring do not come from an audio background. Most of them have really deep skills in other areas within storytelling and a deep sense of like curiosity and are sort of attracted to the new. Everyone we bring to the team is sort of a natural born inventor. And so they have that quality to them of a love of kind of discovering new things. And so that makes the switch into audio, a seamless one, but it also, it allows us to create, we think podcasts that don't sound like everybody else's podcast, because most people on our team are sort of bringing a beginner's mind to what they're doing.
Josh king:
Do you mostly find yourself together in the same place, concentrated in one workspace to look across the table at each other, whiteboard ideas, collaborate in person, or are you able to do this virtually in and different spots?
Deron Triff:
So our office is here in New York, but we actually spent half the week outside of New York, several of our team members, for example, the writer of Masters of Scale is based on the West Coast. We lean heavily on video conference, we're a very video conference culture, a lot of that we picked up at TED and we use Slack and I think the tools today really allow you to stay connected throughout the day. And that also allows us to tap into talent that doesn't live in New York, doesn't want to live in New York. We have a very progressive perspective about that.
Josh king:
Masters of scale, Deron, has been described as the prototype for the company's content incubator. What is the business model that you want to launch?
Deron Triff:
We think a lot about, we use the term horizontal scaling at WaitWhat. And what we mean by that is that if you create an really excellent body of content, that is evergreen, and when we say evergreen, evergreen in the sense that when we create every episode of Masters of Scale, tied around an ideas, not tied around a moment in time. And so it endures over time. And once you create that body of content, you're able to reimagine that into different products and experiences.
Deron Triff:
And we're in the process right now of taking Masters of Scale and turning it into several different educational products, the Harvard Pod Case being one, but several other ones, we are imagining publishing opportunities around that content because the transcripts are so rich. We are about to embark on a live event experience for Masters of Scale that will be as innovative as the podcast itself and enable us to get much closer to our community. And as we kind of look ahead to some of the newer podcasts in this one coming up in June, there are opportunities for us to be in really interesting places like planetariums and museums and in the airport lounges, and really interesting ways of distributing that are outside the podcast app world.
Josh king:
When I met you guys on the floor of The Exchange a few weeks ago, we immediately made a connection between Harvard business publishing, Josh Macht, and what you were doing with the Pod Cases. I don't think we've talked about it on the show yet, but explain what a Pod Case is.
Deron Triff:
So Harvard since 1925 I believe, used the case method of teaching to create business cases, which essentially are this stories of companies working their way through a complex challenge. And the business cases are made available, sold into universities and they've really become sort of the preeminent tool for teaching business students. But they are very long and the format is arduous and they're dense and requires a lot of reading and so forth. And so what we've done with Harvard is we've leaned into this particular pedagogy, the case method of teaching, but basically reworked an episode of Masters of Scale to map to that business case format. And the students are able to both read and listen and both before class, but also during class and then have the same kind of conversation around it. And so it's really been a breakout opportunity for Harvard in terms of creating a business case format that matches the media habits of their students.
Josh king:
What's the number one metric that you guys use to determine if an original series is a success and how long do you let new content vehicles sort of find their audience before you say, "Let's go back into the editing room and make some changes to try and make this model pop a little bit more."
June Cohen:
The first one is simply reach. How many people are we reaching with it, whether it's downloads, whether it's listens, whether it's views. We think there's a real importance to sticking to objective and quantitative goals with something. How many people are you actually reaching? And that's important to us because we want to create great culture changing media that really scales to a very wide audience. So numbers is one. But the second one is passion in the audience. So we really look for, in social posts and emails that we hear and any feedback from our audience, are we hearing superlative language? Are we hearing people say it's their favorite, that they're in love with it, that they're obsessed with it. Are we hearing that people are grateful, that they're so happy to have this podcast or this media format? So those are two things we look for, both the numbers but also just the quality and the depth of the audience response.
Josh king:
As we wrap up, what are the podcasts outside of the WaitWhat family that are on both of your must listen to podcast feeds right now?
June Cohen:
I'll give you two with great love. One is just The Daily from The New York Times. I love the show and also just love the way the New York Times has embraced the new medium. And I believe when the New York Times wins, we all win. Not everybody feels that way, but I do. I love seeing what they're doing in new media. And then the second one is a little more obscure. I love the show Heavyweight from Gimlet. And it's just one of these shows that captures like a really authentic intimate storytelling and great host, really surprising storylines, not a famous person on it, just great surprising storytelling.
Deron Triff:
I would say too many to list.
Josh king:
So you mentioned that you've finished your series of A Round recently as the Spotify Gimlet deal was being announced. Why is WaitWhat set up to thrive in the current podcast environment? What do you still need to get into place over the next few months and years to position and condition your company into thrive?
Deron Triff:
We are betting on premium being a premium differentiated house of brands, so to speak. And it plays into our strengths and it plays into the kind of world that we want to live in. And so from our view, what we want to do is create content that for which there are no precursors to the format of the content we're creating and to work very strategically with partners to introduce that content into the world. You'll notice that whenever we launch a new property, we don't do it alone. We have a culture of collaboration, and we're always looking for the right kind of organizations that can build around our content and introduce it into the world. So Should This Exist? is not just a podcast, but there's a whole editorial program and through our partnership with Cords that amplifies each episode and those kinds of things we think ultimately will enable us to succeed in terms of what we need. We have 12 positions open. We need people, really good people that have a real capability to invent.
Josh king:
So the producers of Masters of Scale, Should This Exist? June and Deron, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.
June Cohen:
Thank you for having us.
Deron Triff:
Thank you so much.
Josh king:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guests were WaitWhat's co-founders June Cohen and Deron Triff. If you like what you heard, please rate us on iTunes so other folks know where to find us. And if you've got a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, email us at [email protected] or tweet at us @Icehouse podcast. Our show is produced by Pete Asch and Theresa DeLuca with production assistance from Ken Abel. I'm Josh king, your host signing off from the library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening, talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:
Information contained in this podcast was obtained and pack from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties express or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor approve or endorse any of the content here. All of which is presented solely for informational educational purposes, nothing here in constitutes and offered to sale. A solicitation of an offered to buy any security or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the preceding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.
