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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Shelley Banville, the TikTok expert. She

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Speaker 1: is the New York World chief at Bloomberg and also

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Speaker 1: host of the Foundering podcast Shelly. Good to have you here.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. Okay, how long you've

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Speaker 1: been following TikTok? So, I've been following TikTok about three

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Speaker 1: or four years now. Then what inspired you to start? So?

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Speaker 1: I was living in Hong Kong at the time and

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Speaker 1: covering tech, and I had flown back over to the

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Speaker 1: US and my US tech editor said to me, what's

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Speaker 1: the biggest story that everybody is missing in Asia? And

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Speaker 1: I said, the rise of TikTok, hands down. We need

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Speaker 1: to be writing more about TikTok and its parent company

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Speaker 1: by Dance. Okay, So, at the time, it was still

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Speaker 1: musically in America. It hadn't been purchased yet. It had

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Speaker 1: been it had already been purchased yet Let's just assume,

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people need to be brought

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Speaker 1: up to speed here. So when was musically purchased by TikTok?

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Speaker 1: So it was purchased in the end of seen, but

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Speaker 1: it didn't actually switch over to TikTok in the US

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Speaker 1: until Um, okay, so you say this to your editor

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Speaker 1: in New York, what's the next step. So the next

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Speaker 1: step is, you know, we start digging into this company.

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Speaker 1: Byte Dance, I mean musically had been a big hit.

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Speaker 1: This was right after bite Dance had acquired Musically. They

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Speaker 1: had spent a billion dollars basically trying to buy this app.

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Speaker 1: Uh that most people thought of was just this like

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Speaker 1: nothing karaoke kids app. And when suddenly they spent a

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Speaker 1: billion dollars on it, people started saying, Okay, maybe there's

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Speaker 1: something to this that we should be paying attention to. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you start digging into bitte dance, what do you find? Um?

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Speaker 1: So we I this. I started working on this business week,

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Speaker 1: um newspaper, new news magazine story to kind of tell

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Speaker 1: the story of this company, like who are they? And

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Speaker 1: so what I started realizing was that even though a

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Speaker 1: lot of people in China knew what Bye Dance was,

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Speaker 1: people in the US didn't really realize it was this

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Speaker 1: kind of sleeping giant that was starting to buy up

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of US tech startups. Um, they didn't

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Speaker 1: quite understand what they were doing. And meanwhile, this company

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Speaker 1: was getting just bigger and bigger and bigger in China,

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Speaker 1: getting amassing more money and then using it to buy

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Speaker 1: up companies UM in in the US. Okay, uh, we're

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Speaker 1: pretty ethnocentric in the US. What is the landscape of

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Speaker 1: these internet companies in China? You know, we hear about

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Speaker 1: we Chat, we hear about byte Dance. You know how

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Speaker 1: many of these companies are there, and what's the barrier

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Speaker 1: to entry? It is ruthless. I mean you think about

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Speaker 1: business being tough here in the U S and China,

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Speaker 1: it is just like people are going at each other

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Speaker 1: left and right. There is no kind of decorum. They're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'll I'll be in this, you know, area of the internet,

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Speaker 1: and you be in that area of the internet. You know,

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Speaker 1: like we kind of had we used to have UM

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Speaker 1: in the US with like Google and Amazon and Apple

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Speaker 1: kind of staking their their their ways. And in China

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Speaker 1: it's all like super apps, right, So like all these

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Speaker 1: companies like UM, the biggest ones like ten Cent, Byte Dance,

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Speaker 1: Ali Baba, they're into everything UM. They're into literally you

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Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, you can buy your breakfast

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Speaker 1: on it. You buy your Starbucks on it, you chat

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Speaker 1: with your friends, you buy airplane tickets, it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: you know, everything on these kind of super apps. So

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Speaker 1: at the time, it was really these two big companies

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Speaker 1: Ali Baba in ten Cent, and all of a sudden

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Speaker 1: came along this third company, Byte Dance UM, which is

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Speaker 1: the owner of TikTok Uh. First starting with um Jokes,

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Speaker 1: an app about jokes, then getting into news. Suddenly they

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Speaker 1: were the biggest newsreader in the entire world, meaning like

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Speaker 1: nobody got their news any place else except for this

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Speaker 1: one app UM. Then they went into short video. Now

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Speaker 1: they're in e commerce and payments, you name it, education, um,

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Speaker 1: you name it, They're they're in it now. Okay. You

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Speaker 1: know Nixon opened up China back in the seventies, and

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Speaker 1: then we had the former guy, as they say, who

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Speaker 1: has had a trade war with China. And it's like

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Speaker 1: a lot of citizens have not traveled at all, you know,

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Speaker 1: us citizens, never mind going to China. So my question is,

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Speaker 1: since you were there, and I assume you also went

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Speaker 1: to mainland China, correct, Yeah, for the average person, what

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Speaker 1: is life like? On one hand, we hear about these

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Speaker 1: people working you know, six days a week, all day

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Speaker 1: and factories that we think are sweatshops. On another level,

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Speaker 1: we see people buying tesla's. I mean, what is the

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Speaker 1: socioeconomic status there? It is so big that it is

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Speaker 1: really hard to make one monolithic case. Or you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're in um, if you're in Shanghai or Beijing,

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Speaker 1: you know, working in an office tower, you kind of

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Speaker 1: feel like anywhere else New York or London or something

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Speaker 1: like that. If you're in the countryside, it feels very different.

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Speaker 1: But one very big unifying factor is an app like

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Speaker 1: TikTok which um in China is called doying and um.

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Speaker 1: Whether you're rich, you're poor, you're young, you're old, you're

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Speaker 1: using using the Chinese version of TikTok to um to

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Speaker 1: make videos, to pass the time to you know, have

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Speaker 1: a laugh with your friends. UM. It certainly is something

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Speaker 1: that like cut across all different um you know sphere,

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Speaker 1: socioeconomic um you know, you name it. Okay, So if

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Speaker 1: you're one of those people living in the city, we

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Speaker 1: you know, these apps are multifarious, much more than in

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Speaker 1: the United States, would you say that they are actually

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Speaker 1: technically more advanced than we are. Dependent on the Internet

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Speaker 1: more less the same. So I think that people in

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Speaker 1: China are just more on the Internet. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: think about how the phone with the phone is kind

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Speaker 1: of an extension of our arms. You know, we kind

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Speaker 1: of joke about that. But you know a lot of

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Speaker 1: people still buy things on buy things in stores, go

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Speaker 1: grocery shopping in stores. In the big cities and China,

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Speaker 1: it's like unheard of to go into a store to

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Speaker 1: buy your groceries or to buy clothes, or to buy anything.

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Speaker 1: Really everything is e commerce, and um, so much more

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Speaker 1: of your life is on the is on the internet. Um.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the advancement, I think at the time

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Speaker 1: that Bye Dance and TikTok we're starting out, the artificial

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Speaker 1: intelligence for those particular apps were probably more advanced than

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Speaker 1: what we're seeing now. But they also took a different

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Speaker 1: tax to social media. So like the facebooks and twitters

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Speaker 1: and youtubes of the world, where you know, the facebooks

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Speaker 1: and twitters and snapchats of the world, we're basically created

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Speaker 1: around of friends. Like this idea of Okay, I care

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Speaker 1: about this thing because my friend cares about this thing,

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Speaker 1: so I'm going to show you that thing. But Bye Dance, Um,

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Speaker 1: because of the influence of UM of the Chinese government

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Speaker 1: really like they don't want you to have those kinds

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Speaker 1: of social media networks. They don't want you to build

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Speaker 1: these networks of communities and things like that because they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to, you know, gabelle against the government

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Speaker 1: or have a place to talk about it. So it

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Speaker 1: was mostly built around yourself, the individual. What can I

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Speaker 1: show to you that will keep you addicted on this

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Speaker 1: app based on what you like, and then that change

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Speaker 1: as you change, it changes UM. So you're seeing something

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Speaker 1: different than your friend is saying, than your mom is saying,

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Speaker 1: than your dad is saying, UM, because that appisode personalized

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Speaker 1: to you. So we've seen a lot of that with YouTube,

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Speaker 1: but this almost takes it to like a complete, you know,

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Speaker 1: other level. They're just a couple of back China questions

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Speaker 1: before we go. Now we read about being able to

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Speaker 1: pay things, pay for things with your phone. Is it

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Speaker 1: very technically advanced like that in the cities? Yeah, everything

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Speaker 1: you can't UM. I remember one of the first takeaways

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Speaker 1: when I UM traveled. I would spend about a week

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Speaker 1: of every month in Shanghai or Beijing or shen Jen,

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Speaker 1: and you can't UM can't use cash anywhere. Nobody takes cash.

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Speaker 1: You try to give a taxi driver a bill and

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Speaker 1: they look at you like you have two heads, like

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Speaker 1: why are you handing me the sturty piece of cash?

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Speaker 1: Like pay with your phone. That's how I'm going to

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Speaker 1: take payment. That begs the question, what is the crime

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Speaker 1: like in the big cities? Um, Penny crime is fairly low.

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Speaker 1: I mean they are very Um, it kind of depends

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Speaker 1: where where you are. Um. The real big crime is

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Speaker 1: like you know, white collar crime and things like that

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Speaker 1: that can definitely still happen, corruption and things like that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So it's a vast country territorially and as you said, economically,

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Speaker 1: to what degree to people lie on wireless? Is their

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Speaker 1: primary interconnect net connection? What I mean by that is

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Speaker 1: that is their only Internet connection? Or is the country

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Speaker 1: pretty wired out hard wire? So in the big cities, um,

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Speaker 1: it's all wireless. Like there are lots of people kids

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Speaker 1: that you talked to, who have never had a desktop computer.

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Speaker 1: They don't really understand what that is. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: all about this mobile phone in your hand and in

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Speaker 1: your pocket because it became so cheap, um that everybody

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Speaker 1: basically has a mobile phone and then even in the

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Speaker 1: even in the countryside and things like that, like everybody

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Speaker 1: has a phone and is coverage pretty much universal? Or

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Speaker 1: can you go somewhere we have a dead spot? Definitely,

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Speaker 1: can go somewhere where you have a dead spot. But

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Speaker 1: you know, I remember hiking in the mountains, um outside

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Speaker 1: this town outside the city called guillen Um and these

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Speaker 1: you know, you're in these rice patties and you see

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Speaker 1: these farmers literally getting rice. But you have this perfect

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Speaker 1: cell signal and you can post on it, you know,

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Speaker 1: on online and things like that. Okay, just to go

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Speaker 1: deeper into a point you made, if you know, in

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Speaker 1: certainly I don't like get too far ahead. But we

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Speaker 1: talk about the algorithms in sharing. Let's just use the

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Speaker 1: YouTube as a model. So let's assume I create a video.

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Speaker 1: To what degree can that go viral in China and

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Speaker 1: to what degree can I garner fame as a result. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So the algorithms around TikTok enjoying in China are still

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Speaker 1: a black box as they are in other you know,

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Speaker 1: with other places. Um. But some of the differences is

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Speaker 1: that I can just get such a bigger audience because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't rely what you're seeing in the videos that

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Speaker 1: you're seeing doesn't rely on how many friends or connections

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Speaker 1: or likes that you have. You see videos based on

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Speaker 1: anyone and it could be anyone from around the world.

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Speaker 1: So you have not only like global atmosphere, but it's

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Speaker 1: also tied to your friends. And because so much of

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Speaker 1: it is tied to music, UM, language isn't as much

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Speaker 1: of a barrier. So if you think about when you

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Speaker 1: post on Twitter, someone you know, UM, you know, someone

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Speaker 1: in Africa or someone in the Middle East might not

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Speaker 1: necessarily want to read about your English your English post

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Speaker 1: and things like that. But when you when you think

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Speaker 1: about a music video, it's it's universal. So you can

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Speaker 1: gain fame. You just can't connect with other people and

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Speaker 1: create a social network. I mean, you can definitely still

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Speaker 1: connect there is you know, you can add connections and

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Speaker 1: things like that, but that's not necessarily why you're being

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Speaker 1: You're you're being showed the videos that you're saying. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So a company like byte Dance, what where does it

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Speaker 1: get its financing? So with byte Dance, what they were

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Speaker 1: really smart about was very early on they got a

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Speaker 1: lot of Western venture capital money. UM. They used money

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Speaker 1: from UM all sorts of big venture capital firms in

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Speaker 1: the in the West, like Sequoia General Atlantic. They also

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Speaker 1: got money from soft Bank um in in Japan. Uh

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Speaker 1: also got Chinese money as well. But they have a

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Speaker 1: really big global base of investors and they raised a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, making them the most valuable private UM

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Speaker 1: tech company right now. They're more valuable than Ali Baba

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Speaker 1: inten sin. Well, those are public ali baba intense about

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Speaker 1: a private company. Just to get into the law, don't

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Speaker 1: they have laws in China that Western people can only

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Speaker 1: own a certain percentage of the company. So with a

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Speaker 1: with a private venture capital firm, UM, there's not really

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Speaker 1: necessarily the same kind of laws around those things. UM.

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Speaker 1: Now right now they're talking about, you know, doing an

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Speaker 1: I p o UM, maybe going public, taking parts of

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Speaker 1: their company public, and are there are you know, more

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Speaker 1: ditrect laws around that. Who's the driving force of Byte Dance,

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Speaker 1: The CEO of Bye Dances, this guy named John Imming.

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Speaker 1: He grew up in a part of China that um,

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Speaker 1: you know, really opened up to the world of business

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Speaker 1: much earlier than the rest of China, and his parents

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Speaker 1: were both civil servants, UM. But he got into tech.

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Speaker 1: He was a big self described tech nerd. During college,

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Speaker 1: he helped fix computers and um, that's kind of he

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Speaker 1: tells the story of how he met his wife by

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Speaker 1: offering to fix fix our computer, and um. He worked

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Speaker 1: at a number of startups over the years and then

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Speaker 1: decided he was going to start his own and um

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Speaker 1: that's what turned into Bite Dance. And how old a

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Speaker 1: guy is he today? He's in his late thirties, um,

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Speaker 1: and he's you know, at the time, I think he

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Speaker 1: was thirty two when he started his his company. UM,

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Speaker 1: so he definitely was not the like eighteen year old,

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Speaker 1: you know, Mark Zuckerberg in a door room story. He

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Speaker 1: had been around the block. He had worked at a

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Speaker 1: number of successful tech companies and um, he even worked

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Speaker 1: at Microsoft for a brief amount of time. So when

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Speaker 1: the company started, Bye Dance started, When by Dan started in, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what was their ages? What was their purview? Starting in

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Speaker 1: what did they start with? By Dan started with a

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Speaker 1: jokes app called Neandwans And basically what that is is

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Speaker 1: it was very simple. They showed you these jokes or

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Speaker 1: memes and if you liked it, you'd give it a

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Speaker 1: thumbs up, and if you didn't like it, you'd give

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Speaker 1: it a thumbs down, and over time, the more it

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Speaker 1: got to know you, how long you kind of hovered

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Speaker 1: on that joke, which ones you liked, which ones you

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Speaker 1: did in it kind of got to know really like

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Speaker 1: your sense of humor. And they were able to kind

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Speaker 1: of learn that was kind of like their learning app

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Speaker 1: of how they did that. Um. But where they really

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Speaker 1: made their mark was a company called Totia, which is

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Speaker 1: a newsreader and they used the same exact thing that

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Speaker 1: they learned about with the jokes app to Taylor news

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Speaker 1: to you. So if you think about the newspapers in

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Speaker 1: the US, you know, you've got real people editors who

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Speaker 1: are choosing what they think is important based on news judgment,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's this kind of um, you know,

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Speaker 1: meat and potatoes approach where they're giving you things you

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Speaker 1: want to know but also the things you need to know.

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Speaker 1: Tokyo the newsreader app was never never had human editors

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Speaker 1: in the early days. It was all based on, you know,

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Speaker 1: what people were reading and what they liked and getting

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Speaker 1: to know their personalities, and they would learn kind of

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Speaker 1: what you liked and offer you up that kind of news,

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Speaker 1: which was so unique in China because most of the

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Speaker 1: news that you get in China is government owned UM publications. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So when did they view veer into the music sphere. So,

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Speaker 1: the first kind of entrance into music UM in the

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Speaker 1: US was with this company called lipogram Um, which I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you ever remembered, but it was this

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Speaker 1: is a bike dance company. No, it was a company

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Speaker 1: that they bought in the US. Okay, No, but okay,

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Speaker 1: so they had no presence in music until they bought Flipogram.

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Speaker 1: Well they had they had launched the TikTok version dotying

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Speaker 1: in in China before they launched it globally, and so

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Speaker 1: that is that would be their first foray into music UM. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So in China. So what year was at uh they

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Speaker 1: launched doing? I think in twenty seventeen. Okay, were other

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Speaker 1: people in that space in China? Who was the big

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Speaker 1: cahuna in that space? Yeah? So similar a similar company

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Speaker 1: called Kaisha. It was startup that was UM owned by

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Speaker 1: or not owned by but backed by ten Cent, which

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Speaker 1: is you know a big music UM plays very big

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Speaker 1: in music UM. But they weren't really no for music,

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Speaker 1: right it was it was it was a lot of video.

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Speaker 1: It was not as much as music. Okay, so why

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Speaker 1: does bite dance by Flipogram? So early on they realized

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Speaker 1: they were kind of just stealing the music for these things.

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Speaker 1: They were ripping off these UM fifteen second iTunes previews

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Speaker 1: off the Internet, and just because they were so short

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Speaker 1: and because they were such a small company, nobody was

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Speaker 1: really paying attention to what they were doing. And at

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Speaker 1: a certain point their Western backers Sequoia g A others

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Speaker 1: said to them, you know, if you're going to grow bigger,

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Speaker 1: you're going to have to do this legally. And music,

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Speaker 1: as you know, has had a long battle of legal

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Speaker 1: rights and I P and things like that. So what

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Speaker 1: Flipogram had was a lot of these contracts with music companies.

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Speaker 1: They had already negotiated a bunch of contracts with different

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Speaker 1: UM labels and that was one of the are just

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Speaker 1: reasons why they bought it, and just um a reminder

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Speaker 1: because it was a small app at the time, flipp

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Speaker 1: Agram was this kind of slide show app. It would

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Speaker 1: kind of allow let you make these slide shows really

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Speaker 1: really quickly and allow you to then share them over

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Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook or things like that with music put

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Speaker 1: to it. And so flipp Arogram had done it the

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Speaker 1: right way. They had you know, negotiated with with all

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Speaker 1: these records labels and whatnot, and By Dance just bought

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Speaker 1: them and then inherited shut down the app and inherited

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Speaker 1: all the music label um agreements. So why did dance

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Speaker 1: by musically? So at the time, they were wanted to

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Speaker 1: become a global company, and so they were saying, okay,

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Speaker 1: well we want to launch TikTok globally, which they did.

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Speaker 1: It didn't really take off in the US at the time,

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Speaker 1: and musically they saw was just um, you know, growing

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Speaker 1: like Gangbusters top of the Apple Music charts, and they

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Speaker 1: knew that there was a lot of interest in it

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Speaker 1: from you know, Facebook considered buying them, other companies had

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Speaker 1: discussions with them, and then they found out that Kaisha,

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Speaker 1: their Chinese competitor, was also in talks to buy musically,

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Speaker 1: and that really got them going because they were like, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let my biggest competitor in and buy

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Speaker 1: this and get these in roads and all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden get you know, a hundred million, two hundred million

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Speaker 1: US users just like that, And so they decided, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna buy Musically we're gonna also inherit those those

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Speaker 1: contracts with music labels which they had started to get

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Speaker 1: at the time and automatically get you know, a user

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Speaker 1: base of a hundred two hundred million people depending on

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Speaker 1: how you count it in the US, which they didn't

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Speaker 1: have before. Okay, so they had TikTok before they bought Musically.

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Speaker 1: Were they essentially equivalent platforms in the way they operated?

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Speaker 1: It was a little different because Musically was really focused

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Speaker 1: on karaoke and lip syncing and um, you know, dancing

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Speaker 1: and singing. TikTok was a big that was a big

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Speaker 1: portion of it, but not all of it. They also

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Speaker 1: wanted to build it out to all sorts of things

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Speaker 1: like comedy and pranks and um, you know, cooking. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's you know, hacks, life hacks, all sorts of different

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Speaker 1: ways you could do it. So that would be the

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Speaker 1: one big difference between the two. Okay, so when did

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Speaker 1: Musically launch When did they start? So Musically started around

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Speaker 1: um um they didn't really um, they didn't. What people

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Speaker 1: didn't really know was that Musically was also a Chinese company.

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Speaker 1: People seem to kind of forget that that that it

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Speaker 1: was started in um by two guys that were had

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Speaker 1: half the half the operation in Shanghai. They had a

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Speaker 1: number of people in l a UM and they started

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Speaker 1: because they wanted to be an education app at first,

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Speaker 1: and then realized, okay, kids don't want to learn online,

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Speaker 1: they want to they want to have fun, and so

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Speaker 1: they totally pivoted and in thirty days built a completely

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Speaker 1: new app all around singing and dancing and things like that,

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Speaker 1: and quickly realized that you know, people in China, we're

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Speaker 1: not jumping onto this, but people in the US were

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Speaker 1: loving it. And so these like small towns and you know,

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Speaker 1: Texas for example, was one really early place where like

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Speaker 1: this high school in Texas was loving Musically and m

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Speaker 1: and they started realizing like, wow, we have a knack.

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Speaker 1: We've hit it with American kids UM, and they just

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Speaker 1: kept focusing more and more on the US and getting

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Speaker 1: bigger here. So tell us about the founder of Musically

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Speaker 1: and when he started. Yeah, so Alex j is the

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Speaker 1: way to hear people talk about Alex Jew to me

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Speaker 1: is one of the more interesting things of this Podcas asked,

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Speaker 1: because people describe him as, you know, like a poet

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Speaker 1: or a dreamer or you know, just this kind of

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Speaker 1: totally the opposite of what you think about and like

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Speaker 1: a Silicon Valley tech you know, bro culture type of thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, he had this vision of connecting people around

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Speaker 1: the world with music and really cultivating the users. So

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Speaker 1: you know, at the time, it's funny to think back

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Speaker 1: on it, you know, but you know, a decade ago, Twitter, Facebook, others,

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Speaker 1: they all saw themselves as a tech platform. But but

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Speaker 1: musically they were like, no, we we really want to

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Speaker 1: focus on these create these creators, these stars. You know,

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Speaker 1: they were building that from the beginning. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: we hear these stories about him, about Alex talking about, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, taking out these these creators to dinner, calling

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Speaker 1: their parents at home, um, you know, just making fake accounts. Um.

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Speaker 1: In the in the uh found during podcast, we we

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Speaker 1: hear him talking about how he would make these fake

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Speaker 1: accounts just to like interact with some of these kids

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Speaker 1: who were like eight nine years old. And here you

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Speaker 1: have this thirty six year old Chinese guy basically like

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Speaker 1: chatting with eight year old kids to like really get

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Speaker 1: into their minds and kind of like figure out, you know,

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Speaker 1: like what do they want, what do they like? That

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. Okay, and ultimately they merged the two.

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Speaker 1: Uh you say in the podcast that TikTok I mean

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Speaker 1: that Musically's algorithm was superior to TikTok's. Is that true? Um,

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00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 1: the other way around. So TikTok, what TikTok infused into

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00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: musically was the algorithm. So music, well, musically was great

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Speaker 1: at that was um this whole idea of really getting

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Speaker 1: the zeitgeist of what kids want and what's popular and

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Speaker 1: kind of getting them to download the app. And Um,

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Speaker 1: what TikTok brought with them was this algorithm that would

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Speaker 1: get them addicted, that would get them, you know, get

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Speaker 1: them really obsessive with the app and checking it and

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Speaker 1: on it for hours and hours because it started to

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Speaker 1: really get to know who you were, what you liked,

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Speaker 1: and continue to offer that up and kinda get you

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Speaker 1: hooked onto this app. Okay, let's jump all the way

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Speaker 1: forward to today. What do we know? Unlike yourself, most

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Speaker 1: of the media is run by older people who don't

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Speaker 1: understand this, who are doing their jobs, not spending hours

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Speaker 1: on the Internet and the nooks and crannies, and they

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Speaker 1: tend to miss what is really going on. To use

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Speaker 1: some cliches, Facebook is for old people. Okay, Instagram, certainly

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Speaker 1: young people went there, they had private accounts. Snapchat has

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Speaker 1: not really grown out of the younger demo, and there

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Speaker 1: are these battles between Now we even have clubhouse in

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Speaker 1: this Where does TikTok sit in the landscape? So I

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Speaker 1: think before the pandemic, the landscape that TikTok fit into

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Speaker 1: was really this younger gen Z demographic. You know, these

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Speaker 1: kids were too young. You know, they don't get Facebook,

427
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: they have Instagram, but it was like too much for them.

428
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: They wanted a place where they could kind of be

429
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: more themselves. Gen Z is a lot more. You know.

430
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: You you talk to any fifteen year old and you

431
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: hear the word authentic in like the first ten minutes

432
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 1: of them talking, and you're like, what the heck does

433
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: that mean? You know, and um, this at least it

434
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,199
Speaker 1: was this idea that they could be themselves and have

435
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 1: fun on this app without having this picture perfect, manicured

436
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: Instagram post um. So I think that's where they fit in.

437
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,719
Speaker 1: But during the pandemic, you know, everybody was shutting their

438
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 1: homes with literally nothing to do, and people said, Okay,

439
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: well download this thing TikTok that everyone keeps talking about

440
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: and um, then you started really seeing the proliferation of

441
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: like moms on TikTok or cooking on TikTok, you know,

442
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: things that more are adults, um you know, wanted to

443
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: take part in. And so once they have you, I

444
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: mean the hardest thing that the hardest battle for TikTok

445
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: is getting you to download it. Once they have you,

446
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: they can figure you out in a number of days

447
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 1: and start to show you videos that that you want

448
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 1: to see. UM. So the more adults that were on there,

449
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: the more kind of grown up content there is. And

450
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:27,239
Speaker 1: the difference between Facebook and TikTok is when Facebook, when

451
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 1: all the old people showed up on Facebook, the young

452
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: people left because they didn't want their parents to see

453
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: them or they didn't want to see their parents. But

454
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: with TikTok, you never see your parents because they don't

455
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: show you those videos and vice versa. And that's why

456
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: it's hard for adults to keep track of what their

457
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: kids are doing because they never see what their kids see. Okay, Certainly,

458
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: at this point in time, UH, most Americans are aware

459
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: of the power of Zuckerberg and Facebook and What'sapp and

460
00:26:55,080 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: uh Instagram, But historically, like with the Microsoft lawsuit twenty

461
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: years ago. The government and the public at large are behind.

462
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 1: Can TikTok you surp the power of Facebook or do

463
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: they have to exist side by side. I don't think

464
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: they can necessarily usurp all of the power of Facebook, um,

465
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: but they can certainly give Facebook a run for its money.

466
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: And that's what you're seeing. I mean, reporting for Foundering Um.

467
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: For the podcast, we just kept running into Zuckerberg over

468
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: and over and over again. You'd you'd realize that, like

469
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: you know, UM, Facebook cared about TikTok. They were paying

470
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: attention about TikTok. They they they're worried about TikTok. They

471
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: tried to imitate TikTok and have not really successfully done that,

472
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: And so I think it is definitely giving them a

473
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 1: run for their money. And from an advertising perspective, which

474
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: is really important to Facebook's future growth, all the advertisers

475
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: are um on TikTok now and a lot of money

476
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,120
Speaker 1: is going there, and so right now I think they

477
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: can kind of exist coexist UM. But at a certain point,

478
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: as TikTok gets bigger and more sophisticated, some of that

479
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: money is going to just flat go away from Facebook.

480
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: And over to TikTok. Okay, let's assume someone's a complete movie.

481
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: You download the app. What happens next? So you download

482
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: the app and all of a sudden, your full screen

483
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: is taken up by a video. It's probably the first

484
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: video you see is going to be somebody dancing and singing,

485
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: and probably your first reaction is like, Okay, this isn't

486
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: really for me. And then you're gonna scroll up um

487
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: on the on the screen, UM, as if you were

488
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: scrolling through Instagram, and you're gonna see another video, probably

489
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: not for you. And then you'll see that third video

490
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, that's interesting, and you're gonna linger

491
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: on that video for a few minutes and then like boom,

492
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: that's the first data point that that company knows. Okay,

493
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: you don't like those two videos. You like this video

494
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: because you've lingered on it for more than a half second. UM,

495
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: they'll know where you're, where you might be touching it

496
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:07,479
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll um. They'll be able to also analyze all

497
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: of your data points that come with it. Where do

498
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: you live, what location are you at, who are you

499
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: friends with, what age are you, what's your demographic? They'll

500
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: match all of that information about you behind the scenes too,

501
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: the types of videos that you like, and in about

502
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: a week, you're going to be seeing all the videos

503
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: that you really want to see, and then in about

504
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: two or three weeks, you'll probably be spending an hour

505
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: or two on the app like if if you really

506
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: end up liking it um at a time because it

507
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: because it just gets to know you. Okay, once again,

508
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: for those who think they don't need it, what kind

509
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: of content might you see on TikTok? So you'll see

510
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: whatever you're like psyche wants to see, which sounds a

511
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: little bit crazy, but you it's like, it's the things

512
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: you don't even necessarily know you like that you that

513
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: you might end up saying. So let's say you're really

514
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: into cooking. I have an editor who loves cooking and

515
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: he is just obsessed with it and he's starting to

516
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: see a lot of it. UM Around the elections, I

517
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of digging into what kids and

518
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: others were seeing around UM the US elections, what kind

519
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: of Trump content, Biden content that there was out there.

520
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: So you can kind of train the app UM if

521
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: you're looking for something in particular, people talking about politics,

522
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: UM there's a lot of dancing, there's a ton of music. UM,

523
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: there's a ton of um of different you know communities.

524
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: For a time, there was a military TikTok. There's fitness TikTok,

525
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: there's eating TikTok. There's kind of any any little corner

526
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: of the Internet that you want to find, you can

527
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: find it on TikTok Okay would I literally join that

528
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: or the algorithm would just get me to see videos

529
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: of that? So you can search. There is a tab

530
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: on their UM a discover section. Uh. You know that's

531
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: kind of like the discover section on Instagram, UM, where

532
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: if you want to search for some of those things

533
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: you can and there are you know, they do push

534
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: content out to you, UM, so you'll see some of

535
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:22,239
Speaker 1: that content UM if you want to UM. But a

536
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: lot of the kids you talked to, they're like, do

537
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: you ever look at that discover section? And they're like, no,

538
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: I just kind of see what's shown to me, which

539
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: is called the four you for you page. UM. But

540
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: there is there is a discover section you can search

541
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: if you're looking for something in particular, UM, But most

542
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: people just kind of look through whatever whatever pops up

543
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: for them. What percentage of the videos or music most videos.

544
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: I don't have a I don't have a number off

545
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: the top of my head, but I would say, like,

546
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: even if it's a cooking video, you'll put it to music, um,

547
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: and they'll use like text on the on the video

548
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: to to kind of show you what you're like a

549
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: ten step video of how to make guacamole. They'll be

550
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,719
Speaker 1: like a track. Um. And there's a whole library, like

551
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: it's called the sound library. You can save clips that

552
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: you like, um. And you know, for the for the

553
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: Foundering podcast, we weren't really deep into this whole idea

554
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: of the sounds library. Because what TikTok can do is

555
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: they can see, okay, who's saving this song or this

556
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: clip of this song, and they can see kind of

557
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: the velocity of that, and so they'll be able to

558
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: tell you what song is about to go viral, you know,

559
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: a week from now, because they can tell who's saving

560
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: the song to make these videos with it later. Okay,

561
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: Why would someone be on TikTok as opposed to watching

562
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: reels or something else on a different platform. What is

563
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: what is the raw addiction that makes TikTok superior? Well

564
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: reels came later, so I think it's still kind of

565
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: dealing with some of that meat, you know, copycat stuff. Um,

566
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: you know, before there was reels, there wasn't really a

567
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: place to go it is. I mean, real is basically

568
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: copied TikTok. It's pretty pretty similar. Um. The differences is

569
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: that what TikTok is able to do is give you

570
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: a whole host of different video editing tools that make

571
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: your videos look really cool but are really easy to make.

572
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: So things that you might have been able to do,

573
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, five years ago, only with like a very

574
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: sophisticated video editing tools or software, you know, you can

575
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: just do right there in the things like you know,

576
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: the filters and the different effects like you can make

577
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: you look like a mirror effect or you know, things

578
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: like that, um that you know people have fun with. Okay,

579
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: let's assume I'm passive and I decided to become active.

580
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: One of the steps in creating and posting a video,

581
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: so you basically really hit this plus button and you

582
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,479
Speaker 1: shoot a video. And you you could make a basic

583
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: one where you're just literally, you know, shooting a video

584
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 1: of you know, yourself talking about the weather or whatnot. Um,

585
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: but what most people do is I'll usually choose a

586
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: sound to go along with it, which is like a

587
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 1: fifteen third clip of a song. Um, they might make

588
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: a dance up to um to that song, like very

589
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: tailored to that song. UM. They might go on and

590
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: see other trends like and copy those trends, but like

591
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: put their own spin on it. So if there's a

592
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: dance trend going on, or a prank or a joke

593
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: um or something like that, they would do that with

594
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: their own spin. UM. For example, there was a trend

595
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: awhile back that was popular about these gummy bears singing

596
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,919
Speaker 1: to the Adele song, and so people would like take

597
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: out all these gummy bears and put the song and

598
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 1: make it shoot the video as if like the gummy

599
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: bear as for singing the adel song. And then people

600
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: would just like do that in all sorts of different ways. Um.

601
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: When you follow a trick like that or a trend

602
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,839
Speaker 1: like that, UM, they tend to get picked up a

603
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: lot uh and and get more popular and more viral

604
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: because the company is usually putting some of that marketing

605
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: muscle behind behind those trends. Okay, does everybody make the

606
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: video right in the app or to some people with

607
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: better tools make it on the computer and then uploaded

608
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: to the app. Some people do that. UM, I think

609
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: that's a lot more on the like on YouTube, people

610
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: will do that. UM. On TikTok, a lot of people

611
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: do end up doing it within the app. But they

612
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: might spend hours on a video even just to create

613
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,439
Speaker 1: like a thirty second video. They might spend hours trying

614
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: to create something and then finally get it right or

615
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: edit or stitch it together the exact way that they

616
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: want to do it. Um. And so you know, as

617
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: a kid, you're kind of going through this and you're like, oh,

618
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: that's so cool. You know it's thirty seconds long. How

619
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: long could it take to make? But like some of

620
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: these really professional creators will spend you know, two three

621
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: four hours on just one video. It is there any

622
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: time limit? So when they first started, there used to

623
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 1: be like a fifteen second time limit, and now um,

624
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: they brought in that out. You can do a minute

625
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: for some some big creators they give um, they give

626
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: more like time limits too. But the idea is like

627
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: bite bite size bits of content, So you really want

628
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 1: to do something short. Most most videos are thirty seconds long,

629
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,919
Speaker 1: So let's assume I make a video, how's anybody gonna

630
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: see it? So UM, you can put a whole bunch

631
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: of fat hashtags on it if you want people to

632
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: be able to search it UM, and if you are

633
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: a popular creator, you will have followers the same way

634
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,959
Speaker 1: you would be anywhere else. But otherwise it's UM. It's

635
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: this kind of black box of the algorithm. They're showing

636
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: it to to people that you know they think are

637
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: gonna want to see it. And so your hope is,

638
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: if you're trying to get popular UM, is that you

639
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: know it it gets UM, it gets pushed out to

640
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:19,879
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people, but you really don't know

641
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 1: how how it happens. UM. For some of the creators

642
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: that are starting out and they want to really make

643
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: a career out of it, they'll jump on the trends

644
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: that are already happening, like that gummy bear thing I

645
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,839
Speaker 1: told you about, because that way they know that they're

646
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 1: going to get views. And the more that they kind

647
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: of do that, the more views that they think they're

648
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,240
Speaker 1: going to get. And then once you have a popular video,

649
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: the chances are that your next video becomes popular increases. Okay,

650
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: let's assume I make a shitty video, Is it possible

651
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: that nobody sees it? Yeah? Okay, what if I want

652
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 1: to juice it? Can I tell all my friends, Hey,

653
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: go watch my video. Try to move it up the algorithm.

654
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: You can, Um, you can do that. It just um

655
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 1: there's not like a retweet button the same way there

656
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: is on Twitter, So it would have to be it

657
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: would have to be like you reaching out to your

658
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: your friends being like, Okay, go to my TikTok account

659
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: and click on that video. Um. It's a lot harder

660
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 1: to share that way, and it puts a lot more

661
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: of their kind of responsibility into the company's hands to

662
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: know like what's going to go, what's gonna go viral,

663
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: and what's not. Okay, Well, in all these other platforms,

664
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: these music platforms, there are all these people trying to

665
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: manipulate them. Okay, can you manipulate TikTok? Can you manipulate TikTok?

666
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can. I mean people try it all

667
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,360
Speaker 1: the time. They are all these groups of creator TikTok

668
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: creators that they have like their side groups, their side chats, um,

669
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: where they have like these texts being like oh, you know,

670
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: like this trend is try ending you we should jump

671
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: on it now. Um. They the company also sends out

672
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: you know, emails to the top creators or even you know,

673
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,399
Speaker 1: not even the top creators, like thousands of popular creators

674
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, these things are trending, you should jump

675
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: on these trends. Um. So it's all kind of directed

676
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: by the company, And if you follow the way that,

677
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: if you kind of follow what the company wants you

678
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: to do, the more, um, the more views that you get,

679
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 1: kind of as like a regular user type of thing.

680
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: I mean, some kids, they they they treat it just

681
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: like they do with Facebook right there, like a twelve

682
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: year old, fifteen year old, and they just want to

683
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: make videos for their friends and themselves to see it.

684
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's a lot of people who

685
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: just do that as well. Do we know how many

686
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 1: people are active as opposed to passive? So the numbers

687
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: haven't been that great, um in the US in the

688
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: sense of um like clarity, because they are a private company,

689
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: so we don't actually know. We we mostly know downloads

690
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: and so we know it's been downloaded about two billion

691
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: times globally, um, but about two million or so in

692
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: the US. Okay, let's assume I'm at home, I'm a

693
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,359
Speaker 1: total nobody. I make a video to a song that's

694
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,720
Speaker 1: become come out within the last twelve months, and people

695
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: love my video. What's going to happen next? Yes, So

696
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: if people are spending time on it, if they're watching it,

697
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: if they're watching it over and over again, um, it

698
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: might be picked up in what's called the four you page,

699
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,919
Speaker 1: which is the page that you see when you open

700
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: up the app in lots of people's fore you pages,

701
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: and so you know it's in TikTok's best interest to

702
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: get people. TikTok has two goals. One is to have

703
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,399
Speaker 1: people spend as much time on the on the app

704
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: as possible, and to once they have people spending as

705
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: much time on the app as popular as possible, to

706
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: um sell advertising against that. Um So, the more time

707
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,919
Speaker 1: you spend on the app, the better. So the more

708
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: TikTok can show you things that will keep you on

709
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: the app, the better. So if you have a video

710
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 1: that tends to be like that people like, they're gonna

711
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 1: want to push it out to as many people as possible.

712
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of where you see these viral

713
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,240
Speaker 1: these viral posts going out. So, for example, I spoke

714
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 1: to one of these creators, UM, a dancer in in Houston, Texas, UM,

715
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 1: and she made this video to the Megan the Stallion

716
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: UM dance and UM Savage. And this actually wasn't a

717
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: paid promotion. She just made it and she loved it

718
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: and she will she you know, had UM a lot

719
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: of followers, but she wasn't like a famous star or

720
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: anything like that. But it was a fun dance. People

721
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: loved Savage, but loved the song. It was super catchy.

722
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: And then you know, people started making dance and then

723
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: some of the really popular creators started making the dance

724
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: and once that happened, it just took off. And so

725
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: then it became in TikTok's best interest to promote that

726
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: dance because what it was doing was promoting engagement, and

727
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: it was promoting engagement with a song that they had

728
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: happened to have, you know, a partnership with that they had,

729
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: you know, spent marketing dollars with the app to help

730
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: promote and so you know, TikTok is scouring those things.

731
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: They're looking for things that are taking off UM and

732
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: they can spot it early on the rate of velocity

733
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 1: of something taking off and then just blow it up

734
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: in a way that um, you know, Twitter and and

735
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: um Facebook just don't tend to do. Okay, first, you

736
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,399
Speaker 1: talked about followers. I can actually follow a creator, you can,

737
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: and then I will see all their new work. Yes,

738
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: I mean you can go actually to their page if

739
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: you want to just see their work, and then if

740
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: you follow them, their stuff will come up in your

741
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:03,720
Speaker 1: in your feed. But it's not relegated to just your followers. Okay,

742
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: so let's assume I'm that woman in Houston. Let's just assume,

743
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 1: for the sake of discussion, million people watch my clip

744
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I literally that's monetized, and I get a

745
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: check what happens on TikTok. Right, So, right now, they

746
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: don't have that ability. I wouldn't put it past them

747
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: for it to happen in the future. It sounds like

748
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: it's something that's on the horizon and could probably happen

749
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: very quickly. But um, what does happen is that you

750
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: get deals. You get deals with advertisers, you get deals

751
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: with record labels, um, you get featured in all sorts

752
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: of um you know, different kind of spotlights, and TikTok

753
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: has kind of created this business where they're they're connecting,

754
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: they're connecting creators to these brands. And so the brands,

755
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:57,959
Speaker 1: you know, they want some creator to make it seem

756
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: like they're authentically loving. They're like microwave oven pasta. This

757
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,760
Speaker 1: is a real story. Uh. So they like find five

758
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: creators to like make a dance around microwaving their their

759
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: pasta and um and it works, you know because people

760
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: see it and they're like, oh, that's cool. Or this

761
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 1: energy drink is like, uh, energy drinks have been all

762
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: over TikTok and you don't realize it's an ad. It's

763
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: just like some person you like, because you know, constantly

764
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 1: drinking this energy drink in their um in their videos.

765
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: But they're getting paid for it. Um. So it's not

766
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: directly monitorizable right now the way it is with YouTube. Um.

767
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: But these people are making are they're making money. I

768
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: mean they're making you know sometimes you know, millions of

769
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Okay, So you talked earlier about authenticity.

770
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: If these people are aligning themselves with brands, doesn't that

771
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: undercut authenticity? Yeah? So this is what m my biggest

772
00:44:55,040 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: takeaway from this whole foundering uh podcast is that TikTok

773
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: accomplished is a remarkable marketing feat making everybody think that

774
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: this is this fun, authentic, totally spontaneous place to be,

775
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 1: and then behind the scenes making it as inauthentic as

776
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,959
Speaker 1: as possible. And so the bigger they get, the less

777
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: and less and less and less everything really is authentic.

778
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: The popularity, the trends, all of that. Um. The more

779
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: you dig into it, the more you ask questions, the

780
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: more you realize so much of it is staged and

781
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: so much of it comes from you know, TikTok's headquarters

782
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: UM in Los Angeles and UM and in China. Okay, So,

783
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: but the lack of authenticity is not causing people to disconnect,

784
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: not yet. You know, you do talk to you do

785
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 1: talk to people who are saying, oh, well, you know,

786
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 1: like I'm not into it anymore. You know, some of

787
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: the some of the older teams I spoke to were saying,

788
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: you know, it's just not really for me anymore. So

789
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: you're seeing some that UM. But right now, I mean,

790
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: their growth is they're the most popular app last year,

791
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: you know, like the growth has not subsided. Okay, is

792
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: there a place on the app I can go to

793
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: see the top ten or so, so that there is

794
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: a sense of community amongst TikTok participants. So you can

795
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: go to this tab called discover um, but it's not

796
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,879
Speaker 1: necessarily what's I mean? They say it's all about it's

797
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: all trending, but it's not really based on what's the

798
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: most popular. It's based on what the company wants you

799
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: to see or what advertisements advertising deals that they have,

800
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 1: So it's not really there's no way to tell like today,

801
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: if I open the app, there's no way I could

802
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: personally tell what's the most popular video on TikTok today.

803
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: There's just no way you would be able to do that. Okay.

804
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: Trump had a speech approximately a year ago in Oklahoma,

805
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: and uh TikTok ers gathered together to try to get

806
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: tickets such to the point it looked like the event

807
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: was sold out when it was not. How did they

808
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: do that? So what they started doing was putting on UM,

809
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: you know, one of these one of the really popular

810
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,919
Speaker 1: TikTok's UH stars UM you know had this had these ideas,

811
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: you know, Trump is putting out this rally, let's all

812
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: buy tickets and not show up. And then they started

813
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:32,760
Speaker 1: organizing through TikTok, but also off of TikTok on Twitter,

814
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: through chat groups, um, all sorts of different places around

815
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: the Internet, saying like, everybody go do this, sending emails

816
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: to their friends, you know, a word of mouth. You know,

817
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: it became not just a TikTok thing. Um. But you

818
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: know people were really you know, activating all over the place. UM.

819
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: But a bunch of really popular TikTok stars jumped on this.

820
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: They made all sorts of funny videos about how to

821
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: do it and what to do, and and they did

822
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 1: it and you know, kind of joking at Trump's expense. Um.

823
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: And so it just started showing up to more and

824
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: more people because the more people were engaging with it,

825
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: the more the algorithm pushed it out to people. UM.

826
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 1: So you know, some of it is some of it

827
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: it's definitely still um, spontaneous. You know, it's not like

828
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: TikTok as far as we know, you know, did that

829
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: on purpose. But when something starts to gain traction, what

830
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: TikTok can do then, and what TikTok's algorithm is set

831
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: to do is to just really push it and pull

832
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 1: those levers and make it even bigger than it already

833
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: is okay, Let's assume like this girl in Houston, I

834
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:51,399
Speaker 1: make a video and it starts to become successful at

835
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: what time? And will I at all here from the

836
00:48:54,200 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 1: brass at TikTok? So pretty early on, it's not scientific. Um.

837
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: You know, there there's been stories that we've heard from UM.

838
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 1: This rapper for example, that we talked to in the

839
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: podcast flow Millie. UM. You know, she was this uh

840
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: teenager from Mobile, Alabama. Nobody really heard about her. She

841
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: was just making tracks on her own, posting them up

842
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 1: on SoundCloud, you know, on the internet. UM, and then

843
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 1: someone started using it on TikTok and it blew up.

844
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: And she didn't even have a TikTok account, but because

845
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: it was so popular, TikTok's head of music Partnerships called

846
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: her up, flew her out to l A, had her

847
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 1: in the office, set up a TikTok account for her,

848
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: you know, really encouraged her to get on the app

849
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 1: and UM and she did, and she did a really

850
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: good you know, she really amassed a lot of followers

851
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: and she signed up with a record label and you know,

852
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: now she was UM nominated for b ET Best New

853
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: Artists and you know, UM and It's funny because in

854
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: the podcast flow Millie says, you know, I didn't set

855
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: out to be a TikTok star, but it just happened,

856
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: and I'm going to take advantage of it. Um. And

857
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: that's what TikTok bets on, right that if everyone along

858
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: the food chain makes money, everybody's happy. Right. So if

859
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: the record label makes money, if the artist makes money,

860
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: if TikTok makes money and advertising makes money, everybody's happy.

861
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: Let's assume I don't want to be a musician for

862
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I create great dances, great clips. At what

863
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: point will I hear from TikTok to the dances have

864
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: been interesting talking to some of these professional dancers on

865
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 1: TikTok I was really fascinated by because I'm what they

866
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: end up doing is the record labels have figured this out.

867
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: This started, Um, this started kind of organically where the

868
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: record labels We're seeing these dancers, you know, make up

869
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: dances to their music and um, and they would help

870
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: help GoF on TikTok because once you had something to

871
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: do with the music, you know, some sort of interaction,

872
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: it became like a stickier song and um, and then

873
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: the record labels caught on and they were like, oh, shoot,

874
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: well we can actually just like pay these creators to

875
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:14,840
Speaker 1: do it. We don't have to wait for someone to

876
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: create like a good dance. And so a lot of

877
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: them started paying these creators to create these dances, and

878
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,359
Speaker 1: then TikTok would catch on to that and they would

879
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: you know, promote, They would do some deal with the

880
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: record label company and then push those push those videos

881
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: out to more people and so um and so a

882
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: lot of these people who make up dances on um

883
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: on TikTok started becoming popular creators in themselves because they

884
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: would get more followers and be pushed out, you know,

885
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 1: across the across the app and and become famous in

886
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: their own right. Okay, let's stop and start with the

887
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: music business. To what degree are the music labels and

888
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: individuals interacting with tick talk or individual TikTok ers to

889
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: try to boost their music. So every music label now

890
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 1: has a group of people who are glued to TikTok.

891
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: Who are you know, whose life is to learn TikTok,

892
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 1: to know TikTok, to talk to them. Um TikTok is

893
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: starting to do more and more live music um, which

894
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: they started during the pandemic, um or a little bit before,

895
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 1: but really picked up during the pandemic. And um you

896
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: know that I foresee being an even bigger thing. Um

897
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: And TikTok not only helps these labels, but also helps

898
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: connect them with the creators who you know kind of

899
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:42,240
Speaker 1: make the dances and things like that to help promote

900
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: the songs as well. Okay, the way business works, and

901
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: it's not only the music business. If I am a

902
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,799
Speaker 1: large corporation and there are three of them in the

903
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: music business today, a I put out a steady stream

904
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:59,319
Speaker 1: of product, be that influences my relationship with in this

905
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 1: case tick talk and see, there can be a exchange

906
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: of money. What's the landscape in this area? So on

907
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: what I will put aside? You know they are there

908
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: are deals with the record companies, um, you know, to

909
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 1: use their music library and all of that. And that's

910
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 1: a completely kind of different, um different business trans You know,

911
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: if you use it, you get paid. But we're talking

912
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:28,040
Speaker 1: about starting the fire or promotion right exactly. So UM,

913
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 1: a lot of these artists, you know, TikTok doesn't necessarily

914
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: pay these artists to be on TikTok. Um. What they'll

915
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: do is they'll connect. Let's stop. Let's stop for a second.

916
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 1: Let's not even get that far. Let's assume I am

917
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: at one of the three major labels. I have a

918
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: song by an artist who is not even on TikTok,

919
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: but I believe that if TikTok has made videos, it

920
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: would start the fire on this song. Hey, what do

921
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 1: I do? First? Do I contact individual TikTok ers? Do

922
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 1: I contact TikTok the company? And do I pay TikTok

923
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: any money? Is there any way I can make money

924
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:12,279
Speaker 1: other than the usage? And see, since I'm such a

925
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: big company, do I edge out the smaller players? Got it? So?

926
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 1: I think, Um, you'd probably take a two pronged approach. First,

927
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:22,759
Speaker 1: you would deal with the company, and you deal with

928
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: them their music and the music marketing company you could pay,

929
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,359
Speaker 1: you know, add dollars to um. You know, get that

930
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:32,799
Speaker 1: sound up in the sound library. You know you can

931
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 1: you can take out like what's kind of the equivalent

932
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: of banner ads basically, but for for an individual sound

933
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:42,360
Speaker 1: that pops up and says, hey, consider using this sound

934
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 1: with your video. Um, so you could literally transactionally pay

935
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: TikTok o. There, let's stout there for talking. You have

936
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: any idea what that might cost and how many people

937
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:53,840
Speaker 1: do it? Would I go on that page now and

938
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:56,839
Speaker 1: see tend people offering to you that you say, use

939
00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: my music one none. Um, I don't know how much

940
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 1: it costs at this point. UM. I do know that

941
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 1: it can be substantial. UM, but I don't know how

942
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: much it costs. UM in terms of the sounds that

943
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 1: show up, you know, I will check right now while

944
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 1: we talk and see how many that they're offering. Okay,

945
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 1: So in terms of like what I'm seeing when I'm

946
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: about to make a video and to make a sound,

947
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,359
Speaker 1: so you so you pull it up and there is

948
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: a kind of a banner ad at the top, and

949
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: those are kind of sponsored sounds. So you know right now, UM,

950
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: I'm seeing like guest playlists. I'm seeing um different um,

951
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: different artists that are being you know, showcased. UM. There's

952
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,879
Speaker 1: uh kind of a list of different playlists that TikTok makes.

953
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 1: They get like famous people to make playlists. There's like

954
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 1: trending feature sounds. You know. UM, there's dozens of UM

955
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: sounds up here are being suggested to you, UM from

956
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: from um from TikTok to be able to to use

957
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 1: and then um, you know, there's depending on like what.

958
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: Let's say you want to make a country, so you're

959
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: looking for country songs. So then you pick country and

960
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: up pops you know, hundreds of different sounds that you

961
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,399
Speaker 1: can kind of go through, and people who are into this,

962
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: they'll spend hours looking through these sounds and listening to

963
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:27,280
Speaker 1: them and stuff like that. But if you're a casual

964
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,319
Speaker 1: TikTok user, you want to put a sound on your

965
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:32,839
Speaker 1: video real quick, You're going to click on the first

966
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 1: thing that you see. And often that spot, you know,

967
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 1: is paid for by them. You know, I would say

968
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 1: a hundred percent of the time that spot is paid

969
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:43,360
Speaker 1: for by a by a record label. Okay, let's assume

970
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: I'm on the very first page. Do I have to

971
00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: go to the next level to get a list or

972
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 1: do I see the ads in the players? And also,

973
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: don't give me like ten songs. These are the trending songs. Yeah,

974
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,360
Speaker 1: so there's a little thing that says like recommended and

975
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: it's kind of some of the trending songs out there. Um,

976
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: but when we say trending, it's like trending for you.

977
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 1: So what they it's trending but they think that you're

978
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: gonna like So it's kind of like it's not like

979
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 1: a Billboard Top one type of thing. It's like a

980
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 1: mix between what's popular but also what they think you're

981
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: going to want based on the previous videos that you've

982
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 1: made before. Can I pay to be in that trending list? Yeah?

983
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: You can, yes, as far as I understand. Yeah. Okay,

984
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 1: So let's assume I'm a big deep pocket. I come

985
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 1: with an act, I go to the people and I say, hey, listen,

986
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:38,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jam this. Say okay, by a band a

987
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: rod pay to be on the list. Then what so

988
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: TikTok will push back. So during that podcast, during the

989
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 1: Foundering podcast, we talk about um this experience with Megan

990
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:55,959
Speaker 1: the Stallion where Megan's label said, you know, we want

991
00:57:56,280 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: Captain Hook to be, you know, our focus track, and

992
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 1: the TikTok's had a music partnerships told me that what

993
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: she said back to them was no, no, you might

994
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: think that it's Captain Hook, but we want to see

995
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: what the users think first, and so what she said was, Okay,

996
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: don't just put all your money behind Captain Hook. Put

997
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:19,080
Speaker 1: out five songs on the app, and then let's let

998
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:21,560
Speaker 1: it simmer and see what people make. And then they

999
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: kind of dipped into the sound the private sound libraries

1000
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: of everybody, UM, of all their users, and they started

1001
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: saying that actually, no, out of those five songs, like,

1002
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:34,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't Captain Hook that got the early traction, it

1003
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 1: was Savage that people were into. And so they saw

1004
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,919
Speaker 1: that and they said, okay, this is an indicator that

1005
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: you know, people are savage is really better suited to

1006
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 1: TikTok because of the music the way that the way

1007
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 1: it is UM and because of this dance that was

1008
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:53,919
Speaker 1: also trending UM. And so it was then that they waited, uh,

1009
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:56,400
Speaker 1: you know a number of days that then they put

1010
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: up the banner ad and then they put up they started,

1011
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 1: you know, using all that money to UM for the promotion.

1012
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 1: And so it's not just record labels saying, hey, TikTok,

1013
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: here's money, let me tell you what to do. It's

1014
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:13,400
Speaker 1: oftentimes TikTok saying, hey, record label, let me tell you

1015
00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 1: what to do based on what I'm saying, And what's

1016
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 1: going to be the most popular because it can't. It's

1017
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: not going to take off if if it's not if

1018
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: if people don't want to play with it, you know,

1019
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: the same way you know on radio, you're you're stuck, right,

1020
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 1: you can't go anywhere. You're in your car, you're listening

1021
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: to radio. The song is on. You hear it ten times,

1022
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, maybe after the tenth eleven time you hear

1023
00:59:36,040 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 1: it it becomes popular. You don't have a choice. Yeah,

1024
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 1: you can change the station, but your choices are limited, right,

1025
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: And TikTok is like, okay, well, we want to see

1026
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: what people are already doing and then just like you know,

1027
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:54,919
Speaker 1: put that on steroids versus telling them exactly what to do. Okay,

1028
00:59:54,960 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: But you say, when they seeded five songs, if I

1029
00:59:58,640 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: heard you correctly, they within a matter of days what

1030
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 1: the successful song is. I mean, they know it a

1031
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: matter of hour. They could see it immediately probably, but

1032
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: what they did was they did wait a number of

1033
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 1: days to see Because what this sounds folder is is

1034
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: someone saving a sound to make a video in the future.

1035
01:00:17,880 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 1: That could be tomorrow, that could be a week from now.

1036
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 1: They don't know that, um, But what they do know

1037
01:00:22,920 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: is someone cared enough about this song or liked it

1038
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 1: enough to be like, hey, I like that, I'm gonna

1039
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: save that and so It's such a powerful indicator that

1040
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: it's like you can't even describe it because it's like

1041
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: literally the way people think. You know, people are thinking, Okay,

1042
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:38,640
Speaker 1: I like this song, so I'm going to save it

1043
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:42,240
Speaker 1: um and so TikTok can see that. In a way

1044
01:00:42,240 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: the record labels can't see that, and so then they know, Okay,

1045
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 1: this is probably going to be popular because in a

1046
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: matter of day it's a leading indicator. In a matter

1047
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 1: of days, there's gonna be a ton of videos using

1048
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 1: this song, and then that's going to become viral. Okay,

1049
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: let's assume I'm a deep pocket, I have a million dollars,

1050
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 1: I have an act, lives in next door to me.

1051
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: Can I get access to the music department at TikTok? Well?

1052
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: I think a lot of this is relationships. So all

1053
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:14,040
Speaker 1: the big record labels have these relationships with TikTok, and

1054
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,320
Speaker 1: so you know, chances are if you are one of

1055
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:19,880
Speaker 1: the big record labels, you already have that relationship with

1056
01:01:19,920 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 1: TikTok and you're in constant contact with them. So what

1057
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: are the odds if I'm an independent are there? Do

1058
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: I have any chance at all? Oh? I see what

1059
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 1: you're saying, um, I think you have a chance. I

1060
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: think it's in TikTok's best interest to build out these music, um,

1061
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:43,840
Speaker 1: these music capabilities, particularly in different niches. So you know,

1062
01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:47,480
Speaker 1: they've got the popular songs cover, they've got your billboard on.

1063
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 1: What they're focusing even more now on, is you know,

1064
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 1: what country music are we building out? What Latino music

1065
01:01:54,560 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 1: are we building out? Like what you know, these kind

1066
01:01:57,240 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: of very specific kinds of music, because remember, what you

1067
01:02:02,840 --> 01:02:05,440
Speaker 1: see is different from what everybody else sees on TikTok,

1068
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:09,160
Speaker 1: So they have to build out something really good for

1069
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 1: each very particular group of people. And so it's not

1070
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:16,440
Speaker 1: enough to just have one thing that's popular for everyone.

1071
01:02:16,480 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 1: They also need to build out all these other things.

1072
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 1: So if you're an independent label that's maybe a little

1073
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: bit off the beaten path or has a niche or

1074
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: something like that, then I think you have an even

1075
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:29,120
Speaker 1: better chance at succeeding because they are actually looking for

1076
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:35,400
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Okay, the very first relationship do

1077
01:02:35,520 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: I have to pay TikTok to talk to them? That

1078
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:44,200
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to. I mean, I really don't,

1079
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: because I think that TikTok would say, you know, they're

1080
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 1: constantly scouring for new and interesting and cool things. But

1081
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: if you're an executive at TikTok, I've got to imagine

1082
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 1: that you're busy and there's only so many meetings that

1083
01:02:57,040 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: you can take each day. Um. You know. The way

1084
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: around that, and you kind of alluded to this is Okay,

1085
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 1: let me find a popular creator, pay them fifty dollars

1086
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: to make a dance with my music. Um, that can

1087
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: maybe have like a quicker, bigger bang for your buck.

1088
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:17,840
Speaker 1: And if that song and that video does really well,

1089
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 1: then TikTok will notice. You do we have any idea

1090
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: how many views of a video one of those big

1091
01:03:24,680 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 1: creators gets. Oh, can be you know, tens of millions.

1092
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:31,760
Speaker 1: I mean, Charlie Demilio is one of the most popular

1093
01:03:31,800 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 1: people on TikTok, and she has over a hundred million followers.

1094
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: So just let's assume every one of her followers sees it.

1095
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:42,520
Speaker 1: That's just a hundred million, and that's not even the

1096
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:46,440
Speaker 1: people that don't follow her, you know. So Um, And

1097
01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:49,000
Speaker 1: then the thing about TikTok is that, like, once it

1098
01:03:49,080 --> 01:03:52,280
Speaker 1: gets really popular on TikTok, it's spills into everyday life,

1099
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: and so you're starting to see those things in UM,

1100
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: there's a ripple effect into Twitter, Facebook. You know, you'll

1101
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:01,439
Speaker 1: see it on the g ME Fallon show, You'll see

1102
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: it um you know on your local news station. You know,

1103
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:08,959
Speaker 1: it starts to become like a larger than life type

1104
01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: of situation. Okay, let's assume I do want to pay

1105
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 1: one of these creators. You're throwing out the figure of

1106
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:18,720
Speaker 1: fift K. Is that what it costs? It depends. I mean,

1107
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 1: I've spoken to some creators who got paid five thousand.

1108
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: I've spoken to some creators who have gotten paid a

1109
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. UM. You know, there's there. There have been

1110
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:31,880
Speaker 1: instances where someone's gotten paid a million dollars for one

1111
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:37,400
Speaker 1: post um. So it just really depends the level of

1112
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:40,919
Speaker 1: of creator that you're going after. Let's assume I do that.

1113
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:43,480
Speaker 1: When you're saying let's just use a hundred K for

1114
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 1: an example, is it a hundred K for one video

1115
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,160
Speaker 1: or do I have to have a campaign make multiple videos?

1116
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:53,600
Speaker 1: It just depends how you structure it. So some of

1117
01:04:53,600 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: these people could could do a hundred K for one

1118
01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: very unique video. Most of them will do. Most of

1119
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:02,360
Speaker 1: them will do like three or four because the first

1120
01:05:02,400 --> 01:05:05,920
Speaker 1: one might not be better might not take off. They

1121
01:05:05,960 --> 01:05:08,360
Speaker 1: might like test three or four of them and see

1122
01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:12,640
Speaker 1: which one. Um. The woman who created the Savage dance,

1123
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:15,800
Speaker 1: which she was not paid for, um, but she has

1124
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: this is a woman who does get paid for her dances,

1125
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 1: but the Savage one, in particular, she did not get

1126
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: paid for. She made about five different dances to savage

1127
01:05:25,000 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: until one of them took off. Um. And so you're

1128
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:30,400
Speaker 1: kind of playing with it to see, you know what

1129
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: what hits. So if I have a successful track, I

1130
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: can only watch the video. I cannot listen to the

1131
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 1: complete song unless I go to another platform. Correct. Correct, Okay,

1132
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:49,600
Speaker 1: Let's say I am nobody from nowhere and I realized

1133
01:05:49,640 --> 01:05:53,320
Speaker 1: it's a fast moving landscape. But the classic example here

1134
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: is little Nazax with Old Town Road. Can you explain

1135
01:05:57,720 --> 01:06:04,360
Speaker 1: how something like that becomes successful? Yeah, So Wills X

1136
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 1: is kind of like this, um, like the early story

1137
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: that kind of woke the record industry up to all this. UM.

1138
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: You know he was, um, he he spent I think

1139
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,720
Speaker 1: it was like twenty or nineteen weeks at the top

1140
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:30,240
Speaker 1: of the billboard, uh chart. I think like it was.

1141
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:32,440
Speaker 1: I love this story because he kind of like it

1142
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 1: kind of came out of nowhere. Um, but you know

1143
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:40,280
Speaker 1: what it what it opened people up to the possibility was,

1144
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:42,200
Speaker 1: is like what he could do with it? And so

1145
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 1: then they realized, Okay, well you could like actually, you know,

1146
01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 1: pay someone. Uh you know, he could actually like pay

1147
01:06:48,640 --> 01:06:51,520
Speaker 1: someone for it to do to do what he kind

1148
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:58,480
Speaker 1: of started to do, um naturally you know, but he

1149
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:03,400
Speaker 1: you know, he like promoted himself. He created memes to

1150
01:07:03,560 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: promote old Town Road. Um. You know, he he like

1151
01:07:08,760 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: would go on Twitter to talk about it. He made

1152
01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 1: um these different challenges. You know, he he really gamed it.

1153
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: He really tried hard, um, you know, to do that.

1154
01:07:18,720 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 1: And so what the record companies realized was like, oh,

1155
01:07:22,000 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 1: I could just do that. I could build like a

1156
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 1: whole I could build a whole campaign around you know,

1157
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:30,919
Speaker 1: doing kind of like what he did and building off

1158
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:34,520
Speaker 1: of his his creativity. There. Okay, we live in a

1159
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 1: tower of Babel society. Let's assume I create a smash

1160
01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:43,640
Speaker 1: in my bedroom and I don't gamify it. I don't

1161
01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:47,479
Speaker 1: basically say, you know, compete here. I don't blast people

1162
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: watch my video. Is there any chance my video can

1163
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 1: make it? Yeah, there's definitely still serendipity that happens on TikTok.

1164
01:07:57,720 --> 01:07:59,800
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think you can say everything is.

1165
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely still you know, fun stuff that happens,

1166
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:07,200
Speaker 1: and it's different and unique and it's fun, and you know,

1167
01:08:07,280 --> 01:08:11,600
Speaker 1: people jump to it and it suddenly gets um popular.

1168
01:08:11,720 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 1: The thing about the TikTok algorithm is that it can

1169
01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 1: it can recognize that very quickly early on, and so

1170
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:24,280
Speaker 1: what that does is it rewards it rewards that engagement,

1171
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:27,880
Speaker 1: and so there's definitely if you're a songwriter, you know,

1172
01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:30,640
Speaker 1: I think that hope is is definitely out there. It

1173
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:32,760
Speaker 1: just gets harder the bigger it gets, and the more

1174
01:08:33,680 --> 01:08:37,600
Speaker 1: the more money that gets involved, the harder it gets. Okay,

1175
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:40,360
Speaker 1: So if I'm in a good little Nazics a couple

1176
01:08:40,400 --> 01:08:42,960
Speaker 1: of years ago, but I am an artist and I'm

1177
01:08:42,960 --> 01:08:45,559
Speaker 1: starting to get traction, I kind of asked this, but

1178
01:08:46,080 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: let's you know, at what point will I hear from

1179
01:08:49,320 --> 01:08:51,840
Speaker 1: the somebody at TikTok saying hey, you know, we want

1180
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: to be involved with you pretty early on? I mean,

1181
01:08:54,880 --> 01:08:58,519
Speaker 1: they have relationships with with so many people and this

1182
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:01,360
Speaker 1: is their job. I mean, music is so important to

1183
01:09:01,400 --> 01:09:04,599
Speaker 1: TikTok because it keeps people on the platforms. It keeps

1184
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 1: people coming to the platforms, it keeps them new and

1185
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:11,439
Speaker 1: interesting and different, and so it's in TikTok's best interest

1186
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 1: to you know, continuously bring new and different and interesting

1187
01:09:15,320 --> 01:09:18,439
Speaker 1: people onto the app. And so there are you know,

1188
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: the woman we interview in our podcast UM Isabel can

1189
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 1: terrisa news. Her whole job head of Music Partnerships is

1190
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:30,280
Speaker 1: to constantly be out there meeting with people, talking to them.

1191
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:34,519
Speaker 1: And yes, she has these relationships with these big record labels,

1192
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:37,599
Speaker 1: but she's also reaching out, you know, to the flow

1193
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:40,040
Speaker 1: millions of the world who didn't have those you know,

1194
01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:45,120
Speaker 1: record label UM contacts yet and because she wants they

1195
01:09:45,160 --> 01:09:47,639
Speaker 1: want to know these people first. It's it's in their

1196
01:09:47,640 --> 01:09:51,040
Speaker 1: best interest to UM, you know, find them first. And

1197
01:09:51,080 --> 01:09:53,439
Speaker 1: I think she told me that in the last year

1198
01:09:53,479 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 1: they had UM, they had partnered up with musicians, I

1199
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:01,720
Speaker 1: think like fifty musician before they had gotten signed by

1200
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,599
Speaker 1: record labels. Do you have any idea how many people

1201
01:10:04,640 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 1: are working in that department? I don't. I mean in

1202
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 1: the US, it's not that big of a company, like

1203
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:13,120
Speaker 1: it's you know, a thousand people or so. It's not

1204
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:18,599
Speaker 1: this huge, massive behemoth. I mean in China. Um, you know,

1205
01:10:18,720 --> 01:10:21,599
Speaker 1: I think they're up to like sixty seventy people at

1206
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:24,360
Speaker 1: byte Dance and so, um, you know. But it's but

1207
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:27,880
Speaker 1: here in the U s it's it's not that many people. Okay.

1208
01:10:27,880 --> 01:10:33,000
Speaker 1: How many countries is uh? TikTok in like every country?

1209
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:36,679
Speaker 1: Like a hundred markets or something like that. Okay, Now

1210
01:10:36,720 --> 01:10:39,840
Speaker 1: this is something we've gotten from the internet. You know,

1211
01:10:39,880 --> 01:10:41,720
Speaker 1: it's a big world out there. So if I have

1212
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:45,800
Speaker 1: success in America, okay to me, even if the song

1213
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 1: is in English, what are the chances will be pushed

1214
01:10:49,000 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 1: in foreign countries? Hi? So all of these all of

1215
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,400
Speaker 1: these videos are pushed around their global I mean, there's

1216
01:10:57,400 --> 01:10:59,960
Speaker 1: a separation between China and the rest of the world.

1217
01:11:00,160 --> 01:11:03,280
Speaker 1: So I would, um, you know, caution that what you're

1218
01:11:03,760 --> 01:11:05,880
Speaker 1: saying in China is not what you're seeing in the

1219
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 1: rest of the world. But China excluded. Um, it's all over,

1220
01:11:10,200 --> 01:11:15,040
Speaker 1: it's global, Okay. You also said that TikTok will reach

1221
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:19,679
Speaker 1: out to creators, talk to their parents, pay them, give

1222
01:11:19,720 --> 01:11:23,080
Speaker 1: them hints. Can you amplify that or see if I

1223
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:27,040
Speaker 1: even have it correct? Yeah, So we talked to a

1224
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:29,840
Speaker 1: number of creators that were assigned these kind of like

1225
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:34,720
Speaker 1: individual agents the TikTok um you know, managers, and these

1226
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:37,880
Speaker 1: people can do all sorts of things from hey, my

1227
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 1: video was blocked, can you figure out how you know,

1228
01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:43,400
Speaker 1: tech support issues? Um? Can you figure out why why

1229
01:11:43,439 --> 01:11:46,840
Speaker 1: that happened? Or why I'm offline and why can't get

1230
01:11:46,880 --> 01:11:49,960
Speaker 1: on something like that? Um. They also send out these

1231
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,599
Speaker 1: emails that are saying like, Okay, this trend is trending.

1232
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:56,840
Speaker 1: We just introduced this feature. Everybody use that. If you

1233
01:11:56,960 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 1: use that, it's gonna trend and your video is going

1234
01:11:59,960 --> 01:12:04,120
Speaker 1: to get more people. UM. Same with hashtag hashtags. And

1235
01:12:04,160 --> 01:12:07,759
Speaker 1: then um, what they call challenges, which is this idea

1236
01:12:07,840 --> 01:12:11,320
Speaker 1: of like um, you know there's like a dance challenge

1237
01:12:11,400 --> 01:12:14,719
Speaker 1: or like you know remember the like water um most

1238
01:12:14,720 --> 01:12:16,800
Speaker 1: of like the water bucket challenge a million years ago,

1239
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:19,400
Speaker 1: Like that's something that would have been on on TikTok

1240
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:23,400
Speaker 1: you know, like um this challenge. And so what creators

1241
01:12:23,400 --> 01:12:26,799
Speaker 1: realized was if they listen to the managers, if they

1242
01:12:26,840 --> 01:12:29,200
Speaker 1: if they watch what's happening in these emails and they

1243
01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:32,439
Speaker 1: do what they're they're asked to do, that their stuff

1244
01:12:32,479 --> 01:12:36,800
Speaker 1: does get more viewership. You know, because TikTok we'll sign

1245
01:12:36,920 --> 01:12:39,439
Speaker 1: some sort of a lot of these challenges are sponsored

1246
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:42,960
Speaker 1: by brands that are um. You know, brands are paying

1247
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 1: TikTok for this, and they're being guaranteed a certain number

1248
01:12:45,920 --> 01:12:49,439
Speaker 1: of views. So then TikTok will go and push those

1249
01:12:49,560 --> 01:12:52,599
Speaker 1: videos out to more people, and the creators that follow

1250
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:56,080
Speaker 1: those challenges will get their videos seen by more people,

1251
01:12:56,439 --> 01:12:59,240
Speaker 1: they'll up their follower accounts, they'll get more money in

1252
01:12:59,280 --> 01:13:01,680
Speaker 1: the end, and it's all kind of a um a

1253
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: flywheale from there. Okay, are there any individual ads? Were

1254
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: all ads are embedded in the videos. There are also

1255
01:13:10,520 --> 01:13:14,840
Speaker 1: now like you'll be scrolling and it's like a takeover. UM.

1256
01:13:14,880 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: So yeah, those are ads that are that are there

1257
01:13:17,439 --> 01:13:22,160
Speaker 1: already and um and they're coming more and more. And

1258
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:25,320
Speaker 1: the other interesting thing that they're testing out is now

1259
01:13:25,360 --> 01:13:29,599
Speaker 1: e commerce where you can literally buy something within somebody's video,

1260
01:13:29,680 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 1: Like you click on that link to buy that item

1261
01:13:32,479 --> 01:13:37,200
Speaker 1: that that creator is UM is talking about at the moment. Okay,

1262
01:13:37,240 --> 01:13:40,400
Speaker 1: if they send one of these emails, like manager emails,

1263
01:13:40,479 --> 01:13:43,160
Speaker 1: how many people are getting them? You know that I

1264
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:45,600
Speaker 1: haven't been able to get down to the bottom of

1265
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:50,120
Speaker 1: but I have spoken to dozens of creators and every

1266
01:13:50,120 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 1: single person I've every creator I've spoken to is getting

1267
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:56,680
Speaker 1: these emails. So I don't know what the threshold is,

1268
01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:59,200
Speaker 1: you know, I if I were to guess, I would

1269
01:13:59,200 --> 01:14:03,960
Speaker 1: say something like fifty followers or something like that. Um,

1270
01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:07,639
Speaker 1: but every creator that I've spoken to with more than

1271
01:14:07,720 --> 01:14:11,160
Speaker 1: fifty hundred thousand people are getting have been getting these emails.

1272
01:14:11,439 --> 01:14:13,360
Speaker 1: Let's assume I'm on the list. How often will I

1273
01:14:13,360 --> 01:14:17,400
Speaker 1: get an email? It was like once a week or so.

1274
01:14:17,880 --> 01:14:21,120
Speaker 1: Um for a number of times I got on the

1275
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:24,080
Speaker 1: email list somehow, and UM, I was getting them once

1276
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: a week or so. I think it's less frequent now. Okay,

1277
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:35,120
Speaker 1: So does TikTok today or did they ever literally paid

1278
01:14:35,160 --> 01:14:41,400
Speaker 1: direct cash to creators In UM China, they paid direct

1279
01:14:41,479 --> 01:14:43,800
Speaker 1: cash to creators and that was and they also paid

1280
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:47,720
Speaker 1: people to come on UM and you know from from

1281
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:51,280
Speaker 1: other platforms. When TikTok launched in the US, the US,

1282
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:55,479
Speaker 1: the global version, the X China TikTok Um, they also

1283
01:14:55,560 --> 01:15:00,280
Speaker 1: paid some creators to make videos. These days, it is

1284
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:04,160
Speaker 1: more of a UM, hey, let me set you up

1285
01:15:04,160 --> 01:15:06,760
Speaker 1: with this brand. And there they do matchmaker and you know,

1286
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:09,760
Speaker 1: they take a cut sometimes and sometimes they don't. Okay,

1287
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:14,760
Speaker 1: let's assume I'm successful on TikTok and TikTok knows who

1288
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:18,160
Speaker 1: I am. I'm literally going to get an email from them,

1289
01:15:18,200 --> 01:15:20,439
Speaker 1: Hey we think or they're going to contact me. However

1290
01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:23,760
Speaker 1: that uh, you know this brand is interesting you should

1291
01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:25,080
Speaker 1: were or am I going to have to get a

1292
01:15:25,120 --> 01:15:27,960
Speaker 1: manager who's going to work the relationship? How does it work?

1293
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:31,559
Speaker 1: So both ways? So if you have a manager, they'll

1294
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:34,240
Speaker 1: talk to your manager. If it's just you, they'll talk

1295
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:36,680
Speaker 1: to you and yeah, you'll get contacted by them and

1296
01:15:36,720 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 1: be like, hey, we identified you, or this brand is

1297
01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:42,960
Speaker 1: interested in working with you. Or they'll send brands like

1298
01:15:43,479 --> 01:15:46,960
Speaker 1: a dossier of like fifteen people being like, hey this

1299
01:15:47,120 --> 01:15:49,720
Speaker 1: these people would fit with your brand. Um, you know

1300
01:15:49,760 --> 01:15:51,720
Speaker 1: you should you should reach out to them. We'll give

1301
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:53,919
Speaker 1: you connect or you know, we'll connect you with them.

1302
01:15:54,000 --> 01:15:56,680
Speaker 1: Let's assume I've had some success and I say, this

1303
01:15:56,760 --> 01:15:59,679
Speaker 1: is what I want to do for my occupation. How

1304
01:15:59,680 --> 01:16:03,720
Speaker 1: do I make sure other than doing great content, how

1305
01:16:03,720 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 1: do I make sure that opportunities come my way? Most

1306
01:16:09,360 --> 01:16:12,480
Speaker 1: of the people that we speak to you for the podcast,

1307
01:16:12,720 --> 01:16:16,679
Speaker 1: um for the Foundering podcast had agents, you know they

1308
01:16:16,760 --> 01:16:18,880
Speaker 1: really they started out without one and then at a

1309
01:16:18,880 --> 01:16:21,599
Speaker 1: certain level, they ended up getting a manager or getting

1310
01:16:21,600 --> 01:16:23,840
Speaker 1: an agent, and a lot of the things they do

1311
01:16:24,040 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 1: is those brand partnerships. Um. But oftentimes, you know, like

1312
01:16:28,160 --> 01:16:31,160
Speaker 1: the brands will just message them or you know, sometimes

1313
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:33,080
Speaker 1: they start off with free stuff. Hey, I'll give you

1314
01:16:33,120 --> 01:16:35,559
Speaker 1: this free sweatshirt if you wear it in your in

1315
01:16:35,640 --> 01:16:40,200
Speaker 1: your in your video, or like these unboxing videos where

1316
01:16:40,200 --> 01:16:43,160
Speaker 1: they're like, you can keep the stuff we send you, um,

1317
01:16:43,200 --> 01:16:45,240
Speaker 1: as long as as long as you make a video

1318
01:16:45,280 --> 01:16:47,679
Speaker 1: about it. So that's kind of like the gateway drug

1319
01:16:47,760 --> 01:16:50,200
Speaker 1: of of this marketing is like people will start that

1320
01:16:50,240 --> 01:16:53,240
Speaker 1: way with like free merchandise, um, and then they kind

1321
01:16:53,240 --> 01:16:55,519
Speaker 1: of build up from there. And this can be done

1322
01:16:55,560 --> 01:17:01,080
Speaker 1: without any involvement from the TikTok organization. Correct. Okay, how

1323
01:17:01,120 --> 01:17:04,400
Speaker 1: many people are making an excess of fifty thousand US

1324
01:17:04,600 --> 01:17:11,360
Speaker 1: on TikTok? Oh? Gosh? I mean alone for the Foundering podcast,

1325
01:17:11,439 --> 01:17:15,600
Speaker 1: we spoke to a dozen, so you know, um, there's

1326
01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:20,160
Speaker 1: definitely you know, people who are making a lot of money.

1327
01:17:20,240 --> 01:17:22,639
Speaker 1: I don't have a number for you though. Okay, how

1328
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:27,640
Speaker 1: many people are making seven figures? I think you know

1329
01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 1: Forbes did this uh Forbes did this piece uh that

1330
01:17:32,920 --> 01:17:37,040
Speaker 1: were like the richest TikTok stars, like their seven highest

1331
01:17:37,040 --> 01:17:41,960
Speaker 1: earning TikTok stars. Um, I remember they did this, I

1332
01:17:42,000 --> 01:17:48,240
Speaker 1: think yeah, last summer and um, and so they had

1333
01:17:48,360 --> 01:17:52,920
Speaker 1: you know, this woman Addison Ray five million dollars, Charlie Demilio,

1334
01:17:53,280 --> 01:17:56,920
Speaker 1: you know, two million dollars a year. Her sister Dixie

1335
01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:00,160
Speaker 1: Demelio three million dollars a year. You know, these are

1336
01:18:00,240 --> 01:18:02,960
Speaker 1: people who are probably now making double that, given the

1337
01:18:04,240 --> 01:18:09,559
Speaker 1: given the popularity. Now, okay, that's a lot of money. UM,

1338
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:11,880
Speaker 1: let's assume they pay me a million. I'm making a

1339
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:14,760
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. Forget taxes. How much of that

1340
01:18:14,800 --> 01:18:22,040
Speaker 1: has net to me? Their estimation was this pre tax,

1341
01:18:22,920 --> 01:18:28,400
Speaker 1: pre tax earnings. UM. You know, if they don't, um,

1342
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 1: take some of that out, I'm assuming some of that

1343
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:33,680
Speaker 1: goes to their managers. My question. You know, if you're

1344
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:36,600
Speaker 1: a successful musical artist, you have the manager, you have

1345
01:18:36,720 --> 01:18:39,679
Speaker 1: the lawyer, the accountant, you have the agent, and they're

1346
01:18:39,720 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 1: chipping away at the gross and many of them take

1347
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:44,720
Speaker 1: off the top. So in this particular case, if I

1348
01:18:44,760 --> 01:18:48,920
Speaker 1: get a million dollars, let's assume I gotta pay an agent.

1349
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:52,240
Speaker 1: Am I gonna have to pay anybody else? I spoke

1350
01:18:52,280 --> 01:18:55,720
Speaker 1: to one TikTok star who told me that he, you know,

1351
01:18:55,760 --> 01:18:58,200
Speaker 1: he makes seven figures on TikTok and then he was

1352
01:18:58,240 --> 01:19:01,920
Speaker 1: mostly doing it himself. That he he had hired an assistant,

1353
01:19:02,360 --> 01:19:05,960
Speaker 1: some young kid out of college, and um, you know,

1354
01:19:06,040 --> 01:19:08,880
Speaker 1: he had a manager. But when I asked him, you know,

1355
01:19:08,880 --> 01:19:11,840
Speaker 1: how much are you making personally? You know, he said

1356
01:19:11,960 --> 01:19:16,439
Speaker 1: seven figures. Um, so I'd imagine it was still you know,

1357
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:19,719
Speaker 1: his his his manager and agent is also making enough

1358
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:22,400
Speaker 1: that it's worth it to them, you know, to continue

1359
01:19:22,400 --> 01:19:24,160
Speaker 1: doing that. But a lot of these managers, you know,

1360
01:19:24,240 --> 01:19:27,320
Speaker 1: they're managing dozens of people at a time. They have

1361
01:19:27,400 --> 01:19:31,640
Speaker 1: these kind of big houses of of folks. Um. You know,

1362
01:19:31,680 --> 01:19:34,120
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that that all that that that all

1363
01:19:34,160 --> 01:19:37,800
Speaker 1: adds up. Okay, you have any idea what percentage the

1364
01:19:37,840 --> 01:19:42,200
Speaker 1: manager takes. I don't. It's a good question though, Okay,

1365
01:19:42,360 --> 01:19:44,960
Speaker 1: So let's talk about these houses. Give us the history

1366
01:19:45,000 --> 01:19:50,160
Speaker 1: in the status of these houses. Oh, the hype houses. Um,

1367
01:19:50,280 --> 01:19:54,559
Speaker 1: so they're called hype houses or TikTok mansions, and um,

1368
01:19:54,960 --> 01:19:56,400
Speaker 1: you know, I think this started it back in the

1369
01:19:56,479 --> 01:20:00,200
Speaker 1: Vine days. I don't know if you remember Vine, but um,

1370
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:03,639
Speaker 1: I certain yeah, like they would call it. They all

1371
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:06,720
Speaker 1: there was like one house on Vine Street that they

1372
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:09,320
Speaker 1: found in l A. And it was like this collaboration

1373
01:20:09,360 --> 01:20:12,439
Speaker 1: houses where they would all make videos together. And what

1374
01:20:12,560 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 1: they what these folks realized was that, you know, the

1375
01:20:16,439 --> 01:20:20,320
Speaker 1: more they make videos together, the more they can boost

1376
01:20:20,360 --> 01:20:24,599
Speaker 1: their view counts and the more followers they get because

1377
01:20:24,600 --> 01:20:27,640
Speaker 1: people are like suddenly invested in the drama. And so

1378
01:20:27,720 --> 01:20:32,839
Speaker 1: it's this like real World, you know meets Shark Tank

1379
01:20:33,240 --> 01:20:37,200
Speaker 1: kind of um experience where it's like ten kids living

1380
01:20:37,200 --> 01:20:41,120
Speaker 1: in a flashy house in Los Angeles making you know,

1381
01:20:41,200 --> 01:20:44,000
Speaker 1: doing brand deals and with for brands, it's great, right,

1382
01:20:44,080 --> 01:20:46,679
Speaker 1: you make one deal with the house and you're suddenly

1383
01:20:46,720 --> 01:20:49,640
Speaker 1: in ten popular kids videos. Um. You know, it's a

1384
01:20:49,720 --> 01:20:53,000
Speaker 1: much more efficient way of doing some of these deals.

1385
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:56,559
Speaker 1: And then like the their followers get invested in the drama,

1386
01:20:56,600 --> 01:20:59,000
Speaker 1: and then you have like the Hollywood Reporter and other

1387
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:02,920
Speaker 1: like you know, l A magazines and stuff following them

1388
01:21:02,960 --> 01:21:05,799
Speaker 1: around and and stuff like that, and so it starts

1389
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:08,440
Speaker 1: to drum up even more business and even more followers

1390
01:21:08,479 --> 01:21:15,559
Speaker 1: for them. How many of these houses are there, there's definitely,

1391
01:21:15,760 --> 01:21:18,400
Speaker 1: I mean I can count on my like top of

1392
01:21:18,439 --> 01:21:21,240
Speaker 1: my head. Maybe you know, a dozen or so, but

1393
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:24,360
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure there's a lot more smaller collaboratives

1394
01:21:24,400 --> 01:21:26,840
Speaker 1: of people who are like trying to trying to break

1395
01:21:26,880 --> 01:21:30,640
Speaker 1: into it. Okay, let's talk about a house. You know,

1396
01:21:31,040 --> 01:21:33,960
Speaker 1: especially some of these are enrichy neighborhoods and they're large.

1397
01:21:34,960 --> 01:21:37,880
Speaker 1: Who gets the house started? You know, they have you know,

1398
01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:41,479
Speaker 1: maybe ten or twenty K a month to rent the house. Yeah.

1399
01:21:41,520 --> 01:21:45,400
Speaker 1: So the person we spoke to Alex Warren, who lives

1400
01:21:45,400 --> 01:21:49,559
Speaker 1: in what was originally called the Hype House. Um, he

1401
01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:52,080
Speaker 1: was the one who started the house with his friends

1402
01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:59,560
Speaker 1: and kind of recruited people. UM, I don't remember if um,

1403
01:21:59,600 --> 01:22:02,320
Speaker 1: I don't know who ended up footing the bill there,

1404
01:22:02,360 --> 01:22:06,720
Speaker 1: like the original rent for all of this. Um. But

1405
01:22:06,800 --> 01:22:09,479
Speaker 1: you know it's this like ten bedroom they have a pool,

1406
01:22:09,600 --> 01:22:12,240
Speaker 1: they have like a pool table in a movie theater,

1407
01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:16,760
Speaker 1: in a game room, and you know, a million bedrooms. Um.

1408
01:22:16,800 --> 01:22:19,160
Speaker 1: And then they all kind of like live together and

1409
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:20,880
Speaker 1: they have a they order to take out all the

1410
01:22:20,920 --> 01:22:25,200
Speaker 1: time and things like that. Um. There have been stories

1411
01:22:25,880 --> 01:22:31,320
Speaker 1: and some you know, cautionary tales around managers who end

1412
01:22:31,439 --> 01:22:35,639
Speaker 1: up putting the down payment, you know, like the rental, Like, um,

1413
01:22:36,960 --> 01:22:40,799
Speaker 1: the what's it called when it's a down payment for rental,

1414
01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:44,599
Speaker 1: it's a mortgage or it's a rental, it's at least well, yeah,

1415
01:22:44,760 --> 01:22:47,160
Speaker 1: like the first like two months put you know, putting

1416
01:22:47,240 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 1: up front, like the first two months or something, and

1417
01:22:50,280 --> 01:22:53,080
Speaker 1: then like they're not making it as much money as

1418
01:22:53,080 --> 01:22:55,760
Speaker 1: they wanted to and then the manager stuck with like

1419
01:22:55,840 --> 01:22:58,840
Speaker 1: all these kids who you know. So there's been some

1420
01:22:59,439 --> 01:23:02,840
Speaker 1: there's been some um cautionary tales around some of the

1421
01:23:02,880 --> 01:23:04,960
Speaker 1: managers who kind of take who have kind of taken

1422
01:23:04,960 --> 01:23:06,759
Speaker 1: a chance to kind of try to start their own

1423
01:23:07,320 --> 01:23:11,120
Speaker 1: and then um and then having it, you know, go

1424
01:23:11,200 --> 01:23:13,840
Speaker 1: into utter failure. Well, there was a recent story. I

1425
01:23:13,880 --> 01:23:15,640
Speaker 1: think it was one of the Paul brothers, I'm not

1426
01:23:15,680 --> 01:23:20,519
Speaker 1: absolutely sure, and they said he had the house and

1427
01:23:20,640 --> 01:23:25,120
Speaker 1: he was giving a certain percentage to the other people

1428
01:23:25,120 --> 01:23:27,599
Speaker 1: in the house and taking the lion share a great

1429
01:23:27,640 --> 01:23:31,160
Speaker 1: deal for himself. Is that sometimes a case? Yeah, I

1430
01:23:31,200 --> 01:23:35,000
Speaker 1: mean it's not that expensive I mean to rent some

1431
01:23:35,080 --> 01:23:37,680
Speaker 1: of these houses. I mean the Hiphe house, I remember,

1432
01:23:37,720 --> 01:23:40,160
Speaker 1: I think it was like a nine million dollar house.

1433
01:23:40,200 --> 01:23:42,599
Speaker 1: But you're renting it, so you're not you know, you're

1434
01:23:42,600 --> 01:23:48,400
Speaker 1: paying maybe twenty something like that, um, maybe even less.

1435
01:23:48,600 --> 01:23:50,840
Speaker 1: You know, for these things and you're dividing it up

1436
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:53,679
Speaker 1: between ten. Some of them are stuffing like fifteen people

1437
01:23:53,760 --> 01:23:56,439
Speaker 1: into it, and so you know, you could take a

1438
01:23:56,479 --> 01:24:00,080
Speaker 1: cut that way. Um, you know, every every month, you

1439
01:24:00,120 --> 01:24:03,320
Speaker 1: could take a cut that way. Okay, let's just say

1440
01:24:03,760 --> 01:24:06,840
Speaker 1: I'm a guy in Kansas, I'm making a hundred k year,

1441
01:24:07,360 --> 01:24:11,200
Speaker 1: I'm moving to the Hype House. Am I all already

1442
01:24:11,320 --> 01:24:13,120
Speaker 1: going to have to give a percentage of that to

1443
01:24:13,160 --> 01:24:17,240
Speaker 1: the hype manager just for living in the Hype House? Yeah?

1444
01:24:17,280 --> 01:24:20,040
Speaker 1: I think you have to pay rent, you know, for example,

1445
01:24:20,400 --> 01:24:24,800
Speaker 1: and you know some of the houses though, they've gotten sponsorships,

1446
01:24:24,840 --> 01:24:27,960
Speaker 1: so like they'll get an energy drink to like sponsor

1447
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:30,639
Speaker 1: the house, and then you could that's your pay that's

1448
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:33,080
Speaker 1: your payment right that they're paying their they're paying their

1449
01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:37,200
Speaker 1: monthly rent for the house. Okay, if you are a

1450
01:24:37,240 --> 01:24:40,240
Speaker 1: successful creator, how often do you have to post a

1451
01:24:40,360 --> 01:24:46,160
Speaker 1: video constantly? So we uh we we did this event

1452
01:24:46,320 --> 01:24:49,599
Speaker 1: with one of the people, um Karen Spencer, who we

1453
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:53,800
Speaker 1: um interviewed on our podcast, who's a managers who's been

1454
01:24:53,800 --> 01:24:56,599
Speaker 1: in digital and social media for a long time. And

1455
01:24:56,640 --> 01:24:59,400
Speaker 1: you know, she says that you know, you're incentivized to

1456
01:24:59,479 --> 01:25:03,200
Speaker 1: post often when you drop off, your fans drop off,

1457
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:06,240
Speaker 1: and TikTok um you know, shows you no love when

1458
01:25:06,360 --> 01:25:09,680
Speaker 1: you don't show them love. And so you know it,

1459
01:25:09,960 --> 01:25:13,120
Speaker 1: it goes back to the original goal of TikTok which

1460
01:25:13,120 --> 01:25:15,559
Speaker 1: is to keep people on as long as possible. If

1461
01:25:15,600 --> 01:25:18,160
Speaker 1: there's not enough content, they're not keeping people on. And

1462
01:25:18,200 --> 01:25:20,599
Speaker 1: if there's not enough content from the popular people, you're

1463
01:25:20,600 --> 01:25:24,599
Speaker 1: not keeping these eyeballs. And so, you know, you don't

1464
01:25:24,640 --> 01:25:27,439
Speaker 1: realize how much time it takes to make these videos,

1465
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:30,800
Speaker 1: and so you know, your you might look like you're

1466
01:25:31,120 --> 01:25:33,400
Speaker 1: spending the day lounging around in the pool and it

1467
01:25:33,400 --> 01:25:37,280
Speaker 1: looks super you know, glamorous, but you're really spending many

1468
01:25:37,360 --> 01:25:40,840
Speaker 1: many hours a day to make many videos a day

1469
01:25:40,960 --> 01:25:44,000
Speaker 1: UM to be able to keep people, keep people interested.

1470
01:25:44,640 --> 01:25:48,559
Speaker 1: And what about would you say, one video a day,

1471
01:25:48,640 --> 01:25:53,599
Speaker 1: one video a week, multiple videos a day, multiple videos

1472
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:57,360
Speaker 1: a day. Okay, let's talk about the issue of bad

1473
01:25:57,400 --> 01:26:01,880
Speaker 1: actors on the weather, young people on the format, people

1474
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:07,200
Speaker 1: getting information they shouldn't have, trolling these people privacy, what's

1475
01:26:07,240 --> 01:26:11,639
Speaker 1: going on there? Yeah, So we devoted all of episode

1476
01:26:11,720 --> 01:26:16,760
Speaker 1: for the Foundering Podcast to this issue of UM, the

1477
01:26:16,840 --> 01:26:20,000
Speaker 1: young kids that are on the app, and so I

1478
01:26:20,040 --> 01:26:23,920
Speaker 1: think you know, the takeaway is bad stuff happens on

1479
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:28,400
Speaker 1: all social media apps. Um, the differences is too. One

1480
01:26:28,560 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 1: is some of these kids are really really young. They're

1481
01:26:32,280 --> 01:26:36,120
Speaker 1: eight years old, they're nine years old, they're in elementary school,

1482
01:26:36,160 --> 01:26:40,840
Speaker 1: and they're seeing some really really mature things. UM. The

1483
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:44,000
Speaker 1: second thing is that it's so difficult to see what's

1484
01:26:44,000 --> 01:26:49,320
Speaker 1: going on. Apparent has a really difficult time monitoring and seeing.

1485
01:26:49,400 --> 01:26:53,040
Speaker 1: Unless you're literally physically sitting next to your child, it

1486
01:26:53,160 --> 01:26:55,200
Speaker 1: is hard to see what they're looking at. And you

1487
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:58,400
Speaker 1: can set all sorts of different things, you know, you

1488
01:26:58,400 --> 01:27:01,280
Speaker 1: could set words to alter out, you could set time

1489
01:27:01,360 --> 01:27:04,160
Speaker 1: limits on them, you can set all different things, but

1490
01:27:04,240 --> 01:27:06,679
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, unless you're physically sitting

1491
01:27:06,680 --> 01:27:09,160
Speaker 1: next to them, you don't know exactly you know, what

1492
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:12,439
Speaker 1: they're looking at. And so, you know, we tell this

1493
01:27:12,560 --> 01:27:16,720
Speaker 1: story where we talked to a woman UM who told

1494
01:27:16,800 --> 01:27:19,679
Speaker 1: us her her story about an eight year old family

1495
01:27:19,720 --> 01:27:24,800
Speaker 1: member who UM, you know, started using TikTok and you know,

1496
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:28,200
Speaker 1: started getting comments from older, older men or what they

1497
01:27:28,200 --> 01:27:30,640
Speaker 1: thought were older men, asking telling him what to do,

1498
01:27:30,680 --> 01:27:33,519
Speaker 1: what kind of videos to make, and he made a

1499
01:27:33,600 --> 01:27:37,000
Speaker 1: video of himself in his underwear because he was told

1500
01:27:37,040 --> 01:27:39,200
Speaker 1: to make a video of himself and his underwear dancing

1501
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:42,559
Speaker 1: around to it, posted it on his feed. His feed

1502
01:27:42,600 --> 01:27:46,160
Speaker 1: got you know, twenty hits or something, twenty views, nothing,

1503
01:27:46,680 --> 01:27:50,960
Speaker 1: But then one of these men downloaded his video and

1504
01:27:51,000 --> 01:27:53,680
Speaker 1: then reposted it up on their TikTok account, and then

1505
01:27:53,680 --> 01:27:56,760
Speaker 1: it got thousands, and suddenly this eight year old is

1506
01:27:56,760 --> 01:28:00,479
Speaker 1: in his underwear and that's on the internet forever. And

1507
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:02,320
Speaker 1: you never know what these people are going to do

1508
01:28:02,400 --> 01:28:05,479
Speaker 1: with that. You never know, like what some of these

1509
01:28:05,479 --> 01:28:07,920
Speaker 1: people are are doing, how they might find him, how

1510
01:28:07,960 --> 01:28:11,920
Speaker 1: they might use the app. You know. UM. In recent years,

1511
01:28:12,400 --> 01:28:15,920
Speaker 1: like in January a few months ago, UM TikTok made

1512
01:28:15,920 --> 01:28:19,760
Speaker 1: a number of changes to make this a safer place. UM,

1513
01:28:19,800 --> 01:28:22,760
Speaker 1: but it's still you know, your You get exposure to

1514
01:28:23,560 --> 01:28:30,000
Speaker 1: things like an arexia suicide, you know, UM, anti vax stuff, UM,

1515
01:28:30,240 --> 01:28:33,920
Speaker 1: just all sorts of really mature content that you don't

1516
01:28:33,960 --> 01:28:38,080
Speaker 1: necessarily want, you know, an eight year old looking at now.

1517
01:28:38,120 --> 01:28:42,360
Speaker 1: In the past year, the US government, specifically under the

1518
01:28:42,439 --> 01:28:47,760
Speaker 1: former guy, wanted to shut TikTok down or sell it

1519
01:28:47,840 --> 01:28:52,280
Speaker 1: to an American company because of privacy data issues. What's

1520
01:28:52,320 --> 01:28:59,880
Speaker 1: the real story there? So the most frustrating part about

1521
01:29:00,040 --> 01:29:03,479
Speaker 1: doing this foundering podcast and spending so much time studying

1522
01:29:03,520 --> 01:29:07,559
Speaker 1: TikTok is that we still don't have the answer as

1523
01:29:07,560 --> 01:29:10,080
Speaker 1: to whether or not this app is a national security

1524
01:29:10,120 --> 01:29:12,439
Speaker 1: threat or not. And so that was kind of the

1525
01:29:12,439 --> 01:29:15,880
Speaker 1: whole thing, right from Trump saying, we think that all

1526
01:29:15,960 --> 01:29:20,080
Speaker 1: this very personal data that powers your algorithms is at

1527
01:29:20,120 --> 01:29:24,360
Speaker 1: the end of the day, owned by Chinese company. And

1528
01:29:24,520 --> 01:29:27,040
Speaker 1: in China there is a law that says, if the

1529
01:29:27,080 --> 01:29:29,439
Speaker 1: government asks for this data, you have to give it

1530
01:29:29,479 --> 01:29:32,519
Speaker 1: to me. Now, TikTok says, all of our data is

1531
01:29:32,560 --> 01:29:36,520
Speaker 1: stored in the US and with backup servers in Singapore,

1532
01:29:37,080 --> 01:29:39,720
Speaker 1: and it's not stored in China, and TikTok itself is

1533
01:29:39,760 --> 01:29:42,719
Speaker 1: not available in China, and so therefore we're not giving

1534
01:29:42,720 --> 01:29:46,559
Speaker 1: money away to the Chinese government. Now, if you take

1535
01:29:46,600 --> 01:29:49,479
Speaker 1: them at face value, it could be true right now,

1536
01:29:49,960 --> 01:29:53,439
Speaker 1: they could also not be giving data to the Chinese government.

1537
01:29:54,000 --> 01:29:57,360
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they're not amassing a massive trove of

1538
01:29:57,439 --> 01:30:02,200
Speaker 1: really personal data, really, you know, kind of these personal

1539
01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:06,479
Speaker 1: profiles of um tens of millions of Americans that could

1540
01:30:06,479 --> 01:30:09,360
Speaker 1: be used for nefarious purposes in the future, or that

1541
01:30:09,400 --> 01:30:13,080
Speaker 1: could be hacked, you know, by a government actor who

1542
01:30:13,320 --> 01:30:15,599
Speaker 1: might have keys to the castle. Like you don't really

1543
01:30:15,640 --> 01:30:18,479
Speaker 1: know any of those things because it's impossible to prove

1544
01:30:18,520 --> 01:30:20,759
Speaker 1: a negative or something that will happen in the future.

1545
01:30:21,280 --> 01:30:23,640
Speaker 1: And so that at the end of the day is

1546
01:30:23,680 --> 01:30:27,519
Speaker 1: the crux of the issue is that the facts are

1547
01:30:27,680 --> 01:30:30,320
Speaker 1: TikTok collects a lot of data that could eventually be

1548
01:30:30,439 --> 01:30:34,200
Speaker 1: dangerous and dangerous hands UM, and that they are owned

1549
01:30:34,240 --> 01:30:38,519
Speaker 1: by Chinese company subject to Chinese laws. So those are facts.

1550
01:30:38,760 --> 01:30:41,800
Speaker 1: What you don't know is has anything wrong been done?

1551
01:30:42,080 --> 01:30:44,320
Speaker 1: You don't we we don't know that there's no publicly

1552
01:30:44,360 --> 01:30:47,800
Speaker 1: available data. And Trump never made the case and UM

1553
01:30:47,840 --> 01:30:52,280
Speaker 1: publicly at least, and when he left office, everything was

1554
01:30:52,400 --> 01:30:56,759
Speaker 1: just one big question mark because the Biden administration came

1555
01:30:56,960 --> 01:31:01,879
Speaker 1: into power and UM basically put a hold on everything.

1556
01:31:02,040 --> 01:31:05,400
Speaker 1: And so this idea of banning the app or selling

1557
01:31:05,400 --> 01:31:08,080
Speaker 1: it to a US company or all the lawsuits that

1558
01:31:08,120 --> 01:31:12,960
Speaker 1: are currently held up in court, um we're frozen. And

1559
01:31:13,000 --> 01:31:15,559
Speaker 1: the Biden administration said, yes, we're going to look at

1560
01:31:15,600 --> 01:31:19,160
Speaker 1: this UM, but not right now because we have COVID

1561
01:31:19,200 --> 01:31:21,200
Speaker 1: and the economy and other things that that are that

1562
01:31:21,280 --> 01:31:24,800
Speaker 1: are pressing, and that we're going to focus on right now. Okay,

1563
01:31:24,800 --> 01:31:28,160
Speaker 1: you talk about the vaunted algorithm, which is obviously great

1564
01:31:28,200 --> 01:31:32,960
Speaker 1: for TikTok. Is there some special skill byte Dance has

1565
01:31:33,240 --> 01:31:36,000
Speaker 1: that there are algorithms are better or just good for

1566
01:31:36,040 --> 01:31:39,800
Speaker 1: their platform, Like do they write better algorithms than Facebook

1567
01:31:39,800 --> 01:31:43,879
Speaker 1: and other platforms? It's hard to really know the answer

1568
01:31:43,920 --> 01:31:46,640
Speaker 1: to that. Um. You know, we speak to a lot

1569
01:31:46,680 --> 01:31:48,519
Speaker 1: of people who say the answer is flat out yes,

1570
01:31:48,560 --> 01:31:53,040
Speaker 1: that is just much more sophisticated. The other UM answer

1571
01:31:53,200 --> 01:31:55,479
Speaker 1: that I get to that question is they have so

1572
01:31:55,520 --> 01:31:58,599
Speaker 1: many more years of data. If you remember, they started

1573
01:31:58,640 --> 01:32:00,960
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, bite Down started in two

1574
01:32:01,000 --> 01:32:04,400
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. So here is nine years of training your

1575
01:32:04,479 --> 01:32:07,960
Speaker 1: data on people and the way people think. And so

1576
01:32:08,160 --> 01:32:12,160
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily matter that that was in China, Like

1577
01:32:12,200 --> 01:32:15,519
Speaker 1: they share a lot of that technology and the way

1578
01:32:15,560 --> 01:32:18,320
Speaker 1: that the algorithm works, and so you just have a

1579
01:32:18,320 --> 01:32:22,280
Speaker 1: more sophisticated way of of analyzing a lot of this

1580
01:32:22,400 --> 01:32:26,840
Speaker 1: data that they've been able to amass over the years. Um.

1581
01:32:26,880 --> 01:32:29,720
Speaker 1: What I know is that TikTok to me feels so

1582
01:32:29,800 --> 01:32:34,680
Speaker 1: much more addictive UM than Facebook or or Instagram do

1583
01:32:35,200 --> 01:32:39,080
Speaker 1: and um and so much more personalized and so you know,

1584
01:32:39,240 --> 01:32:41,800
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, Like, how do you really know

1585
01:32:41,880 --> 01:32:45,439
Speaker 1: who has a better algorithm unless you're inside those companies

1586
01:32:45,439 --> 01:32:48,439
Speaker 1: and able to identify that. But it seems to be

1587
01:32:48,479 --> 01:32:50,920
Speaker 1: working for them because more and more people are downloading

1588
01:32:50,920 --> 01:32:53,920
Speaker 1: it and staying on it. Okay, if we move towards

1589
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:58,320
Speaker 1: the future, I would call all of the social media

1590
01:32:58,400 --> 01:33:03,320
Speaker 1: platforms i e. The audience can move anywhere. And certainly

1591
01:33:03,360 --> 01:33:07,080
Speaker 1: since my Space, which ultimately faded away, all of these

1592
01:33:07,120 --> 01:33:09,800
Speaker 1: things have continued to exist, but they are not the

1593
01:33:09,880 --> 01:33:15,120
Speaker 1: hot platform. Okay, what is going to happen to TikTok?

1594
01:33:15,200 --> 01:33:19,519
Speaker 1: I know you actually predict the future, but predicted yeah

1595
01:33:19,560 --> 01:33:22,559
Speaker 1: so so in uh in our last episode of the

1596
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:24,800
Speaker 1: Foundering podcast, which isn't out yet It will come out

1597
01:33:24,840 --> 01:33:29,520
Speaker 1: next week. Um, but I'll give you a preview is um.

1598
01:33:29,600 --> 01:33:32,080
Speaker 1: You know my bad is on this company getting bigger

1599
01:33:32,240 --> 01:33:35,360
Speaker 1: and better and they are moving fast. They are hiring

1600
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:38,720
Speaker 1: more people. Uh. They got Trump off their back for

1601
01:33:38,800 --> 01:33:41,160
Speaker 1: at least a year. You know, they have the U. S.

1602
01:33:41,200 --> 01:33:44,639
Speaker 1: Government who has let them not paid attention to them

1603
01:33:44,680 --> 01:33:47,200
Speaker 1: for the last six months as they continued to grow.

1604
01:33:47,800 --> 01:33:50,160
Speaker 1: They had the pandemic help them get more people on

1605
01:33:50,280 --> 01:33:53,799
Speaker 1: there and they are expanding. So right now they're expanding

1606
01:33:53,800 --> 01:33:56,880
Speaker 1: into e commerce. Like if you think about that opportunity,

1607
01:33:57,439 --> 01:34:00,680
Speaker 1: Facebook has totally failed in e commerce and degram is

1608
01:34:00,720 --> 01:34:03,760
Speaker 1: not really realized it's full potential. Same with Pinterest, Like

1609
01:34:03,800 --> 01:34:07,840
Speaker 1: if they can crack e commerce, um faster and better

1610
01:34:07,880 --> 01:34:11,240
Speaker 1: than everyone else, then it opens up a whole new

1611
01:34:11,600 --> 01:34:14,599
Speaker 1: avenue for them in a way that you know hasn't

1612
01:34:14,600 --> 01:34:17,160
Speaker 1: really been done before in the US, though is being

1613
01:34:17,200 --> 01:34:19,840
Speaker 1: done a lot of in China. So you know, I

1614
01:34:19,880 --> 01:34:22,160
Speaker 1: think they go up from here. I don't think it's

1615
01:34:22,200 --> 01:34:25,599
Speaker 1: a fad. Um. You know, we can do this again

1616
01:34:26,160 --> 01:34:29,080
Speaker 1: in five years and see if I'm right. But um,

1617
01:34:29,120 --> 01:34:31,880
Speaker 1: but I do think that there's a that, you know,

1618
01:34:31,880 --> 01:34:35,759
Speaker 1: if they continue on this trajectory of moving fast and

1619
01:34:36,439 --> 01:34:40,960
Speaker 1: um constantly iterating new features for people, that um that

1620
01:34:41,040 --> 01:34:43,559
Speaker 1: they'll just keep going with their success. Now it is

1621
01:34:43,560 --> 01:34:46,920
Speaker 1: a Chinese company, as you stated earlier, these are multi

1622
01:34:46,920 --> 01:34:50,440
Speaker 1: furious companies. They're giving your news, they're giving e commerce, etcetera.

1623
01:34:50,680 --> 01:34:53,160
Speaker 1: Do you believe that model can be replicated in the

1624
01:34:53,280 --> 01:34:58,720
Speaker 1: US and possibly by Bye Dance? So I think the

1625
01:34:58,840 --> 01:35:00,800
Speaker 1: hardest thing to be replica get in the US as

1626
01:35:00,840 --> 01:35:04,479
Speaker 1: the payment because payments are so heavily protected in the

1627
01:35:04,560 --> 01:35:08,720
Speaker 1: US compared to UM. You know, Walmart, for example, has

1628
01:35:08,760 --> 01:35:11,280
Speaker 1: been trying to get a payments license for decades and

1629
01:35:11,320 --> 01:35:14,479
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to do that, And so I think

1630
01:35:14,479 --> 01:35:18,560
Speaker 1: it would be so hard for a Chinese company to

1631
01:35:18,600 --> 01:35:21,840
Speaker 1: be able to take payments in the US. And without payments,

1632
01:35:22,000 --> 01:35:25,080
Speaker 1: I think it would be really hard to become as

1633
01:35:25,120 --> 01:35:27,920
Speaker 1: big as they are and ubiquitous as they are in China,

1634
01:35:28,200 --> 01:35:30,519
Speaker 1: because that's what kind of how they got it in

1635
01:35:30,640 --> 01:35:33,040
Speaker 1: China is like they became the wallet and so everything

1636
01:35:33,120 --> 01:35:36,680
Speaker 1: is purchased on there and so um and so you

1637
01:35:36,760 --> 01:35:40,160
Speaker 1: just started doing everything on those apps. Now they could

1638
01:35:40,200 --> 01:35:42,479
Speaker 1: get around that they could partner with someone they could

1639
01:35:42,520 --> 01:35:45,320
Speaker 1: partner with like a PayPal or Amazon or someone like that.

1640
01:35:45,360 --> 01:35:50,000
Speaker 1: Like you have no idea how they would do that, UM,

1641
01:35:50,040 --> 01:35:52,200
Speaker 1: but I think that that would be one big roadblock

1642
01:35:52,280 --> 01:35:55,519
Speaker 1: for them. Well, in America today we go to multiple

1643
01:35:55,840 --> 01:36:02,479
Speaker 1: sites for our information literally news and you know, social etcetera, etcetera.

1644
01:36:03,080 --> 01:36:06,800
Speaker 1: And whereas in China, to my understanding is these platforms

1645
01:36:06,800 --> 01:36:09,439
Speaker 1: are a black hole that will cover all three sixty

1646
01:36:09,479 --> 01:36:13,479
Speaker 1: degrees of life. I think byte dance wants to do that.

1647
01:36:13,560 --> 01:36:17,000
Speaker 1: Do you in America? Do you think it's replicable. I

1648
01:36:17,080 --> 01:36:19,280
Speaker 1: think that they would love to do that, UM, but

1649
01:36:19,360 --> 01:36:21,439
Speaker 1: I think we're far off on that. And I think

1650
01:36:21,439 --> 01:36:25,600
Speaker 1: that they're big roadblocks in areas like um, you know,

1651
01:36:25,640 --> 01:36:28,680
Speaker 1: like payments that they wouldn't wouldn't necessarily be able to

1652
01:36:28,760 --> 01:36:31,679
Speaker 1: do UM in a way that they can in China.

1653
01:36:31,800 --> 01:36:35,599
Speaker 1: Like in China, bitte Dance has a payments license and

1654
01:36:35,880 --> 01:36:39,240
Speaker 1: that they got last year. I think, UM, and they

1655
01:36:39,280 --> 01:36:42,840
Speaker 1: are doing that, and so you can starting to buy

1656
01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:45,720
Speaker 1: more things there, you're reading your news. They're like more

1657
01:36:45,720 --> 01:36:48,600
Speaker 1: and more touch points are happening in the US. I

1658
01:36:48,600 --> 01:36:51,559
Speaker 1: think it's just much harder UM. So I think for

1659
01:36:51,680 --> 01:36:55,599
Speaker 1: now they're going to stick with entertainment. But and but

1660
01:36:55,600 --> 01:37:00,320
Speaker 1: but expand into e commerce, probably education, probably language like

1661
01:37:00,400 --> 01:37:04,160
Speaker 1: things like that, UM that are a little less sensitive

1662
01:37:05,240 --> 01:37:07,760
Speaker 1: given that they are still a Chinese at the end

1663
01:37:07,800 --> 01:37:10,799
Speaker 1: of the day, still owned by a Chinese company. Okay,

1664
01:37:10,840 --> 01:37:14,759
Speaker 1: you said at the beginning, you told your editor years back, WHOA,

1665
01:37:14,880 --> 01:37:19,080
Speaker 1: this TikTok is happening. You're not only covering TikTok? What

1666
01:37:19,160 --> 01:37:22,080
Speaker 1: else is happening right now that we should be aware of?

1667
01:37:23,120 --> 01:37:29,080
Speaker 1: In tech, our music or well anything tech primarily, but

1668
01:37:29,200 --> 01:37:32,800
Speaker 1: you can put all these different elements together. Let me

1669
01:37:32,840 --> 01:37:36,640
Speaker 1: think about that one. I mean you brought up clubhouse.

1670
01:37:36,760 --> 01:37:41,360
Speaker 1: I think clubhouse is definitely interesting. Um. You know, I

1671
01:37:41,400 --> 01:37:44,160
Speaker 1: am in the kind of anti clubhouse camp. I think,

1672
01:37:44,680 --> 01:37:48,720
Speaker 1: like I don't see the future as much as some

1673
01:37:48,760 --> 01:37:51,320
Speaker 1: of the people that I'm talking to. You're you're preaching

1674
01:37:51,320 --> 01:37:53,640
Speaker 1: to the choir. My goal is to never talk on

1675
01:37:53,680 --> 01:37:56,920
Speaker 1: the phone. If the younger generation won't even have voicemail,

1676
01:37:56,960 --> 01:38:00,000
Speaker 1: who wants to sit there? You know, it was driven

1677
01:38:00,160 --> 01:38:04,439
Speaker 1: primarily by high profile people on an exclusive basis, and

1678
01:38:04,479 --> 01:38:06,840
Speaker 1: we've learned with clubs if you can't get in while

1679
01:38:06,920 --> 01:38:09,519
Speaker 1: that drives. It's not even on the Android yet, and

1680
01:38:09,560 --> 01:38:11,760
Speaker 1: now everybody's trying to imitate it. I don't think it's

1681
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:16,360
Speaker 1: ultimately a big company or feature. But listen, we have

1682
01:38:16,439 --> 01:38:19,439
Speaker 1: all the craziness with robin Hood apps, so you never

1683
01:38:19,479 --> 01:38:22,679
Speaker 1: know in reality anything else you can say that might

1684
01:38:22,720 --> 01:38:25,479
Speaker 1: be on the horizon. Yeah, I mean I do think

1685
01:38:25,640 --> 01:38:28,840
Speaker 1: this investing. Um. Speaking of investing, I mean, I don't

1686
01:38:28,880 --> 01:38:34,559
Speaker 1: think people are realizing this um massive interest from gen

1687
01:38:34,680 --> 01:38:38,479
Speaker 1: Z and investing and using TikTok and Facebook and Reddit.

1688
01:38:38,520 --> 01:38:42,160
Speaker 1: I mean, we saw with the power of Reddit, and

1689
01:38:42,200 --> 01:38:46,720
Speaker 1: in the financial markets, um to Rock, game Stop and

1690
01:38:46,840 --> 01:38:53,000
Speaker 1: other other stocks. There's a there's an account on TikTok

1691
01:38:53,040 --> 01:38:56,160
Speaker 1: of like financial investing, and you know, I've spoken to

1692
01:38:56,240 --> 01:38:58,639
Speaker 1: one creator who was saying, like, yeah, in the stock

1693
01:38:58,680 --> 01:39:01,400
Speaker 1: market now because I learned all about it on TikTok.

1694
01:39:01,479 --> 01:39:05,559
Speaker 1: And so you don't realize like how much social media

1695
01:39:05,720 --> 01:39:08,960
Speaker 1: is interacting with the financial markets and how much these

1696
01:39:09,000 --> 01:39:12,479
Speaker 1: young kids like gen Z and younger are learning about

1697
01:39:12,479 --> 01:39:15,639
Speaker 1: the markets and investing real money, and they're learning all

1698
01:39:15,640 --> 01:39:18,920
Speaker 1: about it through through these platforms. And I think that's

1699
01:39:19,240 --> 01:39:22,640
Speaker 1: kind of an overlooked area that people aren't quite realizing.

1700
01:39:23,400 --> 01:39:25,560
Speaker 1: And that begs a question of n f t s.

1701
01:39:25,680 --> 01:39:28,240
Speaker 1: Any n f t s in the TikTok world, what

1702
01:39:28,280 --> 01:39:31,320
Speaker 1: do you think is happening there? I am sorry, like

1703
01:39:31,479 --> 01:39:35,280
Speaker 1: I just don't. I still I don't. I don't get

1704
01:39:35,439 --> 01:39:37,719
Speaker 1: n f t s. I don't understand it. I feel

1705
01:39:37,760 --> 01:39:40,400
Speaker 1: like such an old person when people talk about n

1706
01:39:40,439 --> 01:39:44,679
Speaker 1: f t s and um, I don't know, I don't.

1707
01:39:45,120 --> 01:39:50,120
Speaker 1: I don't get it. But I also, um, it's not

1708
01:39:50,320 --> 01:39:52,559
Speaker 1: my strong suit, Like I'm not an expert of that

1709
01:39:52,640 --> 01:39:55,000
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and like, but yeah, I am a

1710
01:39:55,040 --> 01:39:57,840
Speaker 1: complete neo fight when it comes to my question is

1711
01:39:57,840 --> 01:40:01,200
Speaker 1: is anybody on TikTok or Bite Dancer they monetizing via

1712
01:40:01,360 --> 01:40:03,639
Speaker 1: n f T s Oh, you know, I wouldn't put

1713
01:40:03,680 --> 01:40:06,439
Speaker 1: it past them. I know, I'm not aware of anything

1714
01:40:06,840 --> 01:40:11,480
Speaker 1: um that TikTok is doing with n f T s UM.

1715
01:40:11,520 --> 01:40:15,320
Speaker 1: I think that um, there was I think I've read

1716
01:40:15,320 --> 01:40:19,960
Speaker 1: there was one TikTok star that sold one video like

1717
01:40:20,040 --> 01:40:22,400
Speaker 1: as an n f T. But I don't think that

1718
01:40:22,600 --> 01:40:27,880
Speaker 1: um TikTok itself like had a role in that. UM.

1719
01:40:27,920 --> 01:40:30,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think that they're putting you know,

1720
01:40:31,040 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 1: some of these creators themselves are seeing the value in

1721
01:40:34,240 --> 01:40:36,320
Speaker 1: in selling an n f T of their videos. But

1722
01:40:36,520 --> 01:40:39,080
Speaker 1: I haven't seen TikTok itself do it well. As Jimmy

1723
01:40:39,160 --> 01:40:44,479
Speaker 1: Kimmel told me, it's imaginary baseball cards. On that, I

1724
01:40:44,520 --> 01:40:48,479
Speaker 1: think we've covered the landscape. Thank you so much for

1725
01:40:48,600 --> 01:40:51,960
Speaker 1: doing this well, Thank you so much in your article

1726
01:40:52,160 --> 01:40:56,000
Speaker 1: just like picking apart every little bit and relating it

1727
01:40:56,080 --> 01:40:59,240
Speaker 1: and putting it, you know, using your vast you know,

1728
01:40:59,640 --> 01:41:03,200
Speaker 1: not a an experience of the record label industry and

1729
01:41:03,240 --> 01:41:06,880
Speaker 1: talking about um, you know, just kind of picking apart

1730
01:41:06,960 --> 01:41:09,000
Speaker 1: one by one the article. I was just so floored

1731
01:41:09,080 --> 01:41:11,519
Speaker 1: away by your thoughtful response to it, so thank you

1732
01:41:11,560 --> 01:41:13,519
Speaker 1: so much for that. Well that's it, you know, as

1733
01:41:13,520 --> 01:41:16,320
Speaker 1: they say in today, no one can be an expert

1734
01:41:16,439 --> 01:41:20,000
Speaker 1: on everything, although to a great degree the information is

1735
01:41:20,000 --> 01:41:22,040
Speaker 1: out there if you know where to look. And the

1736
01:41:22,080 --> 01:41:24,040
Speaker 1: old days, there are a hundred records on the chart.

1737
01:41:24,120 --> 01:41:26,639
Speaker 1: Everybody who was in the business new all a hundred records.

1738
01:41:27,040 --> 01:41:29,439
Speaker 1: No now records go number one, you've never heard of them.

1739
01:41:29,479 --> 01:41:32,080
Speaker 1: So I was so impressed with your article that it

1740
01:41:32,120 --> 01:41:35,559
Speaker 1: went into depth and certainly was never covered in the

1741
01:41:35,640 --> 01:41:40,040
Speaker 1: music press. So for those listening, we certainly have gotten

1742
01:41:40,040 --> 01:41:42,679
Speaker 1: the top line. If you want to go deeper, as

1743
01:41:42,720 --> 01:41:45,919
Speaker 1: Shelley says, you can go to the Foundering podcast, easily

1744
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:49,840
Speaker 1: searchable online, where they go further in depth. Once again, Shelley,

1745
01:41:49,920 --> 01:41:53,960
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this. Thank you. Until next time.

1746
01:41:54,240 --> 01:42:01,600
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sex O