Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Carol, we got our report card and it's not good.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Us fourth and eighth grade students are struggling with reading comprehension,
Speaker 2: with last year's nationwide testing showing the worst results in
Speaker 2: more than two decades.
Speaker 3: It kind of blows my mind because I know how
Speaker 3: much money is spent on education.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is the congressionally mandated assessment in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. The results were released yesterday by the National
Speaker 2: Assessment of Educational Progress na EP. Curious what sal Con
Speaker 2: has to say about this. He's the founder and CEO
Speaker 2: of con Academy. It's the nonprofit that provides free lessons
Speaker 2: in math and history, economics, computer programming, and more. He's
Speaker 2: back with us from Mountain View, California. So always good
Speaker 2: to chat with you. How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing well, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Did this reading score surprise you?
Speaker 4: Unfortunate? Unfortunately not. You know, we've and the Nate folks
Speaker 4: made this clear also in their report. I think we
Speaker 4: still have the effects of the pandemic nationwide, The scores nationally,
Speaker 4: both in math and reading, both in fourth and eighth grade,
Speaker 4: still haven't recovered from the twenty nineteen level. This is
Speaker 4: true in almost every state as well. And it's you know,
Speaker 4: we had big gaps then a lot of kids kind
Speaker 4: of fell off the rails then and haven't fully gotten
Speaker 4: back on. And then there's just a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: complexity in serving different groups of students and demographic mix etc.
Speaker 4: That probably has made it even harder. You know.
Speaker 3: What's worrying too is that I think some would say
Speaker 3: it's the pandemic, yes, but we've had problems with our
Speaker 3: education system right across the country for a while here,
Speaker 3: and it feels like the gaps are widening. I mean,
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, I am curious, sal because
Speaker 3: you've been in you know, this world for a long time.
Speaker 3: What's happening with American education?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately it's kind of a tale of two cities is
Speaker 4: the right metaphor here? And the NAPE scores validated that
Speaker 4: the higher performing students actually started to pull further and
Speaker 4: further ahead. And a lot of times when you look
Speaker 4: at some of these PISA rankings, when we compare ourselves
Speaker 4: to other countries, et cetera. If you were to separate
Speaker 4: some of the higher performing, wealthier schools and the suburbs,
Speaker 4: et cetera, they actually can compete with anyone in the world,
Speaker 4: actually do better than anyone in the world. But I
Speaker 4: think you have other large chunks of America where they're
Speaker 4: really really lagging. And these NAPE scores only only validated
Speaker 4: you had a third of eighth graders didn't even have
Speaker 4: basic reading comprehension. I just visited a school yesterday out
Speaker 4: here in northern California, and I met two English language
Speaker 4: learners who, you know, not only are they, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously can't speak English, but they haven't gone to school before,
Speaker 4: they haven't read before, or they can't read it all,
Speaker 4: even in their native language. So I think when you,
Speaker 4: I think those types of difficulties are some of what
Speaker 4: you're seeing here on top of on top of the pandemic.
Speaker 4: And unfortunately I don't I don't think just doing more
Speaker 4: of the same is actually the solution here. This is
Speaker 4: something that we've always talked about at Kin Academy, is
Speaker 4: how do we personalize education more? You know? And I
Speaker 4: saw that teacher that that same teacher that had these
Speaker 4: two students who couldn't read, who are fifth graders, also
Speaker 4: had some students who are ready for ninth grade math.
Speaker 4: So they had a huge spread in that same classroom,
Speaker 4: and you can't just do one thing for all of
Speaker 4: those thirty students. And that's where we think technology can
Speaker 4: help that teacher address the needs of each each individual student.
Speaker 3: You know, the President has has cited how the US
Speaker 3: lags behind other Western nations despite federal spending on students,
Speaker 3: and you know, he is looking to potentially dismantle the
Speaker 3: Department of Education. Do you think that would be helpful?
Speaker 4: You know, we'll need to see how it all evolves.
Speaker 4: A lot of folks have been asking me this, even
Speaker 4: in our own team. We work obviously with a lot
Speaker 4: of school districts. The Department of Education does a lot
Speaker 4: of things, but they aren't a major major funder of schools.
Speaker 4: Depending on what year you look at and what schools,
Speaker 4: anywhere between three and ten percent of funding in a
Speaker 4: given year comes from the federal Department of Education, and
Speaker 4: it tends to be tied to certain programs, so some
Speaker 4: of those might suffer. Some of those are there by law.
Speaker 4: One of our board members is a former Under Secretary
Speaker 4: of Education, and he was explaining to me yesterday a
Speaker 4: day before yesterday at our board meeting, that there are
Speaker 4: certain things in there that are just part of law
Speaker 4: that even if the Department of Education were dismantled, someone
Speaker 4: else would have to take it over the Department of
Speaker 4: the Treasury, Department or Health and Human Services, etc. So
Speaker 4: it's too early to tell exactly what the implications are,
Speaker 4: but most of education spending and policy actually does happen
Speaker 4: at the state and local level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is where you think about like state taxes, right,
Speaker 3: or city taxes and so on and so forth that
Speaker 3: really are the determining factor. How can AI help with
Speaker 3: all of this? This is something you guys are certainly
Speaker 3: in the middle of and improve the gaps that we
Speaker 3: see within education across the United States.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is something that we're definitely leaning into. And
Speaker 4: it's very easy to get enamored with technology, but I
Speaker 4: remind everyone this isn't about the technology. It's about the
Speaker 4: core problem you're trying to solve. And the problem we're
Speaker 4: trying to solve is the one we started talking about.
Speaker 4: Is you have a teacher in a classroom before the pandemic,
Speaker 4: Your average teacher had three grade levels in the same classroom.
Speaker 4: They're all fifth graders, but some are operating in a
Speaker 4: second or third grade level. Some of them are ready
Speaker 4: to operate at a sixth or seventh grade level. It's
Speaker 4: gotten worse since the pandemic, as we just talked about.
Speaker 4: So if you're a teacher, how do you address all
Speaker 4: of those needs? How do you make sure some of
Speaker 4: the kids aren't bored and all some of the kids
Speaker 4: aren't lost. And so the opportunity is, well, what if
Speaker 4: you could personalize? In world class education has always looked
Speaker 4: like one to one. I always point out Alexander the
Speaker 4: Great had Aristotle as his personal tutor. We couldn't afford
Speaker 4: to give every student that. But what kind academy has
Speaker 4: been trying to do over the last fifteen twenty years
Speaker 4: is well, maybe we could approximate elements of that with
Speaker 4: on demand video, with software and now generative AI. I
Speaker 4: write a lot about it in my book Brave New Words.
Speaker 4: We think generative AI. It's it's not going to do everything,
Speaker 4: it's not on a silver bullet, but over time it's
Speaker 4: going to get better and better at being able to
Speaker 4: provide even more personalized support, not just for students, but
Speaker 4: also also for teachers with things like lesson plans and
Speaker 4: grading papers and writing progress reports.
Speaker 2: Sally had you on back in May when Brave New
Speaker 2: Words came out how AI will revolutionize education and why
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. I spoke to someone yesterday who
Speaker 2: talked about the pace of development when it comes to
Speaker 2: AI is just unbelievable. Like he says, the world changes
Speaker 2: every few months as a result of this technology. How
Speaker 2: much has it changed since he wrote the book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was actually one of my fears when I
Speaker 4: was writing the book, write a book by AI will
Speaker 4: to be outdated of the day it comes out. Luckily,
Speaker 4: I still think it's pretty you know. I tried to
Speaker 4: make it pretty general, and even a year ago when
Speaker 4: when you know, I was finishing up the writing, it
Speaker 4: was pretty clear how fast this was moving, so I
Speaker 4: tried to make a little bit more evergreen. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's been mind blowingly fast. Not even every few months,
Speaker 4: I would say, sometimes on a daily basis. Things are
Speaker 4: things are evolving a lot of what I challenge the
Speaker 4: con Academy team is what can we uniquely do as
Speaker 4: a nonprofit that other people aren't going to have the
Speaker 4: horizon or the motivation to work on and what are
Speaker 4: we going to do that's really AI proof And we
Speaker 4: think a lot of it is how do we connect
Speaker 4: humans together? Maybe using AI, but how do we for
Speaker 4: more human connections? Maybe? How do how do people create
Speaker 4: proof that they know something credentially once again, how do
Speaker 4: you how do you make sure it's pedagogically sound as
Speaker 4: opposed to just you know, throwing an AI in front
Speaker 4: of people. But yes, it is definitely something my head
Speaker 4: haspens almost on a daily basis. But you know, everyone
Speaker 4: feels that way.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. Forgive me for doing this, but
Speaker 3: I guess because it's been front and center. You know,
Speaker 3: we're talking AI, and we've been watching what's been going
Speaker 3: on in the US government, and The Washington Post had
Speaker 3: said today reported representatives from Elon Musk's Dose service have
Speaker 3: fed sensitive data from across the Education Department into AI
Speaker 3: software to look into the agency's programs and spending. According
Speaker 3: to people familiar, AI being used to investigate where there's
Speaker 3: personal data possibly accessed. You are in this world? Is
Speaker 3: that something we should be concerned about, whether it's Department
Speaker 3: of Education or the Treasury department.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't I'm not an expert on
Speaker 4: exactly what has happened. But yes, anytime we're talking about data,
Speaker 4: data related to education in particular, you have to be
Speaker 4: super cautious about how it's being used, especially if it's
Speaker 4: potentially student data. This is something where as we take
Speaker 4: this very seriously as a nonprofit, and when we go
Speaker 4: work with school districts we point out like not every
Speaker 4: for profit company has the same incentives that we do.
Speaker 4: You have to be very cautious here on how you
Speaker 4: use it. Now if it's all on the up and up,
Speaker 4: and I don't know, I don't know what the fine
Speaker 4: print is on this data. You know, there could be
Speaker 4: uses of AI where you can use it to make
Speaker 4: sense of large amounts of information that otherwise, of you know,
Speaker 4: an individual human being would never be able to sift through.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know the details of how they're
Speaker 4: using it.
Speaker 6: No, that's fair.
Speaker 5: Hey.
Speaker 3: One other news thing that obviously we've been obsessed about
Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks Deep Seek, you know, and
Speaker 3: the prospect of AI maybe being less expensive to do
Speaker 3: and the models to be able to do. When I
Speaker 3: think about education, might that make it even more accessible
Speaker 3: for students around the globe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I thought it was great news from
Speaker 4: our point of view. The costs have already come down
Speaker 4: even before deep Seek by a factor of ten, and
Speaker 4: so I expected that to continue. And then deep Seek
Speaker 4: and some of their techniques I think is only going
Speaker 4: to accelerate it. But you know, I also point out
Speaker 4: there's an unending amount of things that we can use
Speaker 4: AI for. You know, basic chat bots are going to
Speaker 4: become close to free, very cheap. But now if the
Speaker 4: compute or if the if the applications use less compute
Speaker 4: and the compute gets cheaper, we're going to be able
Speaker 4: to do more real time, more audio, more visual things.
Speaker 4: And yes, in education in other places, I think that's
Speaker 4: that's only a win for the application developers.
Speaker 2: What's the balance of technology in the classroom. It's a
Speaker 2: discussion that we had with you last time, but it
Speaker 2: seems like it's only becoming more and more of a thing.
Speaker 2: How do you use technology as a tool but not
Speaker 2: as a distraction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we have a school out here in Northern
Speaker 4: California's where my kids go to school, con Lab School.
Speaker 4: And you know, if you were to visit the school.
Speaker 4: People say, oh, so sociocon Academy must be technology all
Speaker 4: the time. No, you'd actually see more human to human
Speaker 4: interaction than you would see I think at almost any
Speaker 4: other school. And I think it's all about I would
Speaker 4: say maybe depending on the age as you get older,
Speaker 4: middle school, high school, college, you could get up to
Speaker 4: thirty forty fifty percent leveraging technology. You're going to code,
Speaker 4: you're going to write a paper, you're going to edit video,
Speaker 4: you're going to do personalized practice on con academy to
Speaker 4: fill in your gaps. And then what that does is
Speaker 4: that liberates the class time so that you don't have
Speaker 4: to give the lectures anymore. You don't have a bunch
Speaker 4: of kids with their fingers on their lips just passively listening.
Speaker 4: You can have the kids work on harder problems. Can
Speaker 4: they could do simulations, they can do games, and that's
Speaker 4: what we try to do. And you know, I always
Speaker 4: point out even without technology, you can have very dehumanizing classrooms,
Speaker 4: but if you use technology, well you could have very
Speaker 4: humanizing classrooms.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: You just think about kind of where it could go,
Speaker 3: and especially the idea of personalization in terms of teaching
Speaker 3: could be really a cool thing, so com Thank you
Speaker 3: so much. I always appreciate the time you give us.
Speaker 3: He is founder and chief executive officer of con Academy,
Speaker 3: joining us from Mountain View, California. You know the other
Speaker 3: thing I think about with teaching and AI is I
Speaker 3: just think about if you're I was a pretty shy
Speaker 3: kid and hard to believe, but like might be afraid
Speaker 3: to like offer up an answer or something because you
Speaker 3: think it's silly. But maybe if you're working with an
Speaker 3: AI teacher or ta oh, like just think about what
Speaker 3: you can maybe get out of that.
Speaker 2: I think d Lingo said that they have these AI
Speaker 2: educators rather than live people because they find that people
Speaker 2: who are learning languages want to interact with that tech.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes complete sat on because you feel embarrassed
Speaker 3: about like your pronunciations or something. All right, everybody, we
Speaker 3: are continuing here on Bloomberg. This is Business.
Speaker 2: Week, Carol. The White House received more than seventy four
Speaker 2: hundred requests for credentials one day after saying it would
Speaker 2: open press briefings for content creators, influencers, and podcasters.
Speaker 1: A lot.
Speaker 2: Social media influencers are becoming a primary source of news
Speaker 2: for many Americans. Nearly forty percent of young adults under
Speaker 2: thirty rely on influencers to stay updated on current events
Speaker 2: and politics. This is according to the Pew Research Center.
Speaker 2: Opening its press conferences to non traditional news sources allows
Speaker 2: influencers to directly question administration officials.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really kind of interesting these development. Emily Ward
Speaker 3: and Jess Hunishen are the co founders of the influencer
Speaker 3: talent management and brand partnerships agencies called Shine Ventures. Emily
Speaker 3: joining us from Toronto, Jess joins us from La. Great
Speaker 3: to be talking with both of you again before we
Speaker 3: get going, though, Jess, I do want to reach out
Speaker 3: to you. You're in LA. We spent several weeks continue
Speaker 3: to cover the fires.
Speaker 4: How are you.
Speaker 3: I hope you were okay those around you, your community.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm just in West Hollywood, so no immediate
Speaker 5: damage here. But it certainly is true what they say
Speaker 5: that everyone knows someone who.
Speaker 6: Was very, very personally affected.
Speaker 5: So we have a lot of those people kind of
Speaker 5: just like in our Shine work network in my personal network.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it's been a tough start to the year here,
Speaker 5: that's for sure. But I think the best thing that
Speaker 5: can ever come out of this is you know, it
Speaker 5: shows how much community can can come together in a
Speaker 5: time of crisis.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it is nice to see all the
Speaker 3: rallying and you're so right about so much coming at
Speaker 3: everybody across the nation. We obviously have been following so
Speaker 3: much coming out of DC, and we kind of want
Speaker 3: to start there. Tim was mentioning about social media influencers
Speaker 3: becoming a primary source of news for so many Americans
Speaker 3: and how the White House press room and has opened
Speaker 3: it up to non traditional news sources. What does that
Speaker 3: mean from yoursfective, You guys understand the influencer community and economy,
Speaker 3: and let me start with you in terms of what
Speaker 3: that means coming from the White House and just you
Speaker 3: know how influential they are on maybe softer topics, but
Speaker 3: also more important topics as well.
Speaker 7: I think it's incredibly interesting and it reminds me of,
Speaker 7: you know, ten years ago when we started Shine Talent
Speaker 7: Group out of Canada, and at that time there was
Speaker 7: really a big shift within the media marketplace. A lot
Speaker 7: of lifestyle publications had shut down and pr agencies were
Speaker 7: looking for other sources to kind of get the news out,
Speaker 7: so they started to lean on bloggers, bloggers who weren't
Speaker 7: hired by my media houses, and everybody had to figure
Speaker 7: out this exchange of how these people be compensated for
Speaker 7: their time. But it reminds me of that moment because
Speaker 7: at that time bloggers started to be taken very seriously
Speaker 7: in terms of how they could be communicating to consumers,
Speaker 7: and where they used to be more of like a
Speaker 7: B list kind of invite to PR events, brand events,
Speaker 7: they started to become quite primary at that time. So
Speaker 7: it's very similar.
Speaker 2: Do you just advise your clients to stay away from politics,
Speaker 2: not way in on these issues, or do you tell
Speaker 2: them to be themselves?
Speaker 5: Definitely don't advise to stay away from it. I think
Speaker 5: it's really important for influences and brands alike to kind
Speaker 5: of show like, this is what my morals are, this
Speaker 5: is what I'm aligned with, this is potentially who I'm
Speaker 5: voting for.
Speaker 6: We saw a lot of that.
Speaker 5: Around the election, and we certainly certainly didn't ask our
Speaker 5: talent to shy away from it.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, I'm surprised Jess to hear
Speaker 2: that about brands, because it seems like we saw a
Speaker 2: lot of that back in twenty twenty and now they
Speaker 2: want to they want nothing to do with politics because
Speaker 2: of so much pushback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 5: There's been a bit of a mixed result on that.
Speaker 5: I've seen a lot of friends that I see online
Speaker 5: who have you know, kind of made their stances very
Speaker 5: well known and what they believe in and what they support,
Speaker 5: especially when it comes to maybe it's not party specific,
Speaker 5: but it is very strong on certain subject matter, which
Speaker 5: you know, climate change, reproductive rights, things like that that
Speaker 5: brands are like, this is where we stand and we're
Speaker 5: not going to shy away from that.
Speaker 3: One of the things we want to ask too is
Speaker 3: you guys have been you know, expanding and you acquired
Speaker 3: Spark Talent Group, and so you have some great a
Speaker 3: great vantage point in terms of what you are seeing
Speaker 3: in terms of the influencers and the growth of it.
Speaker 3: So let me maybe ask both of you, and just
Speaker 3: let me start with you. I mean, what is it
Speaker 3: that's going on? How much growth are you seeing and
Speaker 3: more and more people come into the influencer space, and
Speaker 3: how is it evolving? It's not new, right, It's now
Speaker 3: been around for a little while, but how is it
Speaker 3: evolving as kind of something that either you know works
Speaker 3: for a company or mission or so on.
Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, we're seeing just more and
Speaker 5: more brands lean heavily and kind of expand their marketing
Speaker 5: budget to have influencer marketing be a.
Speaker 6: Larger piece of the pie.
Speaker 5: We keep hearing that this is going to be a
Speaker 5: five million, sorry, five hundred billion dollar industry by I
Speaker 5: think it's the end of next year, which is which
Speaker 5: is wild. I feel like this industry kind of had
Speaker 5: a very grassroots movement about it, So it's it's very
Speaker 5: cool to see how much it's grown.
Speaker 3: Emily come on in on it too, in your perspective,
Speaker 3: as you guys have been in it, you know now
Speaker 3: for several years. You said, you started your firm ten
Speaker 3: years ago. You know how the how influencers as you know,
Speaker 3: a medium a mean, you know, is evolving and growing.
Speaker 7: Well, what I think it's standing truely for me right
Speaker 7: now is the fact that it doesn't seem to be
Speaker 7: platform specific, and that kind of brings you know, thenversation
Speaker 7: around the TikTok ban and what kind of impact that
Speaker 7: was going to be having, like on the industry as
Speaker 7: a whole, and where I think back, you know, ten
Speaker 7: years ago, five years ago, it was very reliant on
Speaker 7: certain platforms that existed, and I feel like now like
Speaker 7: the influencers, the creators themselves have diversified across like multiple platforms.
Speaker 7: We've seen the ones who have invested in this in
Speaker 7: terms of, you know, a career and it doesn't matter
Speaker 7: so much in terms of what platform it is that
Speaker 7: they have this they have this followership that would move
Speaker 7: along with them. So that's that's a really big change.
Speaker 3: So a ban of TikTok then, Emily wouldn't necessarily be,
Speaker 3: you know, the end for these influencers. They'll just move
Speaker 3: to a different platform.
Speaker 7: It certainly would would would cause impact. It's not to
Speaker 7: say that it wouldn't have any impact, but I think
Speaker 7: the truth is is that there would be another platform
Speaker 7: that ether pops up or content would go back to
Speaker 7: another primary platform. So in terms of advice that we
Speaker 7: gave our talent during this time was to make sure
Speaker 7: that they were diversifying their content amongst many platforms that
Speaker 7: they had both social platforms and owned platforms as well,
Speaker 7: like newsletters, their own websites that they could invest time
Speaker 7: and invest distribution in.
Speaker 6: And like we.
Speaker 7: Saw with the rise of Tiktokic over over covid. When
Speaker 7: a new platform comes out and it catches speed, the
Speaker 7: consumers you know, move there, the talent moved there, and
Speaker 7: then the brands move there as well.
Speaker 2: Just speaking of brands, are brands still getting an ROI
Speaker 2: on paying influencers?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, there's no question that they are. And
Speaker 5: I think the only the only proof point you need
Speaker 5: to look at that to look towards that is that
Speaker 5: they just keep coming back, right, they keep coming back
Speaker 5: to this as a marketing tactic. It's only we've only
Speaker 5: seen growth across the category. So yeah, and it's you
Speaker 5: we have the availability of just so much data now,
Speaker 5: which is I feel like sometimes a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 6: But it means that.
Speaker 5: For every single piece of content, we're able to see
Speaker 5: exactly how many link clicks, exactly how many purchases were
Speaker 5: potentially made there. So yeah, I think brands are absolutely
Speaker 5: seeing an ROI. And if they're not, you know, it's
Speaker 5: still like any marketing initiative, it is a trial and
Speaker 5: error and sometimes you know, maybe that's not the right talent,
Speaker 5: maybe the messaging wasn't perfectly aligned, and you need to
Speaker 5: kind of switch it up and keep trying different ideas.
Speaker 6: But yeah, we're.
Speaker 5: Definitely seeing brands return because they are getting such good
Speaker 5: ROI when.
Speaker 3: It comes to influencers, is there certain though, part of
Speaker 3: the pack that is growing more emily? You know, beauty
Speaker 3: is a big thing. We all see it certainly online.
Speaker 3: I feel like baking, cooking like that's a big one.
Speaker 3: Exercises a big one. But I am curious in terms
Speaker 3: of new folks coming that, like the talent group that
Speaker 3: you just acquired with their space. She'll tes tell us
Speaker 3: little bit about it.
Speaker 7: In terms of the roster that we just acquired from Spark,
Speaker 7: it was very much like in the lifestyle space, so
Speaker 7: you know we have a beauty creators lifestyle creators or
Speaker 7: as a baking creator like as well. In terms of
Speaker 7: concentration of where we're seeing more brand interests right now,
Speaker 7: there seems to be a bit of a spike coming
Speaker 7: from more like experts in experts in their field, so
Speaker 7: maybe like a registered dictionist or you know, somebody who
Speaker 7: has like credentials beyond just like their community as well,
Speaker 7: which is quite interesting.
Speaker 2: So as far as prices go, Jess, I'm there's this
Speaker 2: idea that you know, the influencer community, it's the barrier
Speaker 2: to entry is not huge. All you need is a
Speaker 2: smartphone and a following. And I'm not by any means
Speaker 2: saying that's an easy thing to do, but truly and
Speaker 2: truly anybody can do it.
Speaker 3: Tim Watson, Now, can he be an influencer?
Speaker 2: Well, no, you make a good point.
Speaker 4: Kids.
Speaker 2: I mean you look at survey after survey. I don't
Speaker 2: know it's still like this, but in previous years it's
Speaker 2: like kids, they just want to be influencers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, oh yeah, is it saturated.
Speaker 5: I don't think it ever will be saturated because audiences
Speaker 5: can be fickle, you know what I mean, Like they'll
Speaker 5: happily kind of blow with the wind to the next
Speaker 5: person that they find interesting. We see a lot of
Speaker 5: that on TikTok as we kind of just spoke about
Speaker 5: with different kind of demographics and different subsets of people
Speaker 5: having a rise there.
Speaker 6: I really love seeing.
Speaker 5: I think we're seeing a huge rise in like an
Speaker 5: older female demo who and especially as these are people
Speaker 5: who have grown up with like so much of their
Speaker 5: life has been online and now they're getting to different
Speaker 5: like life stages. Maybe they're hitting menopause where this was
Speaker 5: like not talked about before. People want to have these
Speaker 5: conversations on which I think is amazing. It takes these
Speaker 5: these subjects away from being scary and shameful and.
Speaker 6: And I think that that's really interesting. Well so I think.
Speaker 3: As sorry, no, I was gonna say, I just you know,
Speaker 3: was reading a story that Bloomberg Business Week did about
Speaker 3: life coaching, and like that has gone from kind of bigger,
Speaker 3: broader strokes to very specific things like should I not
Speaker 3: have kids? You know, how do I get my mojo back?
Speaker 3: You know, like all these very very niche things. Just
Speaker 3: real quickly, Emily and jess are Emily, let me throw
Speaker 3: this to you. Just got about twenty thirty seconds. I
Speaker 3: know everybody's gonna want it, like we're going to get
Speaker 3: off air, and like, did you ask them? So, how
Speaker 3: much does an average influencer actually make?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 3: Only got about thirty seconds.
Speaker 7: I know there's a range, but I know people know
Speaker 7: you know, what I can say is that there's some
Speaker 7: people who have made this their full time career. Yeah,
Speaker 7: and there's other people part time. So I think that
Speaker 7: can give you like a range, and then there's people
Speaker 7: who have you know, have reached like that. Start on
Speaker 7: with it. As well, who are quite like asked for I.
Speaker 2: Want dollar figures, Give me some numbers here.
Speaker 5: Come on, it's it's reasonable to say that you can
Speaker 5: make upwards of a million dollars doing this, Like that's
Speaker 5: not a crazy thing in this industry. So I'll leave
Speaker 5: you with that one.
Speaker 3: Okay, listen, it's like those YouTubers, you know, the sailing
Speaker 3: videos that always talk about those guys have lots of followers.
Speaker 2: You're one of those followers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am one of those followers.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: Emily Ward, thank you so much. And Jess Hunison, co
Speaker 3: founders of Shine Ventures, joining us