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Social media was coined with the premise that you would get content from people you followed, your social circle. You know, I was very fascinated when I invested in Tumblr because I thought Tumblr was different in 2008. I think when I invested in it, I'm like, "Oh, this is weird. You follow like art or like music. You don't follow people." And that was a foreign concept. I was very taken by it. If you look back at my digital receipts, I was also a very loud advocate for musically when it looked like it was just 13 and 14 year old girls dancing. And by the way, I was very cautious to go in there. I was like, uh, you know, like it's really young people. But what was interesting
was I already saw what I saw on Tumblr, which was musically was giving you content in a different way. Mhm. And then Tik Tok was when I and obviously I got very loud about Tik Tok years ago precoid because I saw what was happening which was I didn't have a word for it interest media but I was realizing you were getting content served to you around your behaviors on the platform not just the behaviors of who you were following. And I think everyone who's listening knows this. People know that we now get content based on what we're currently interested in not who we follow. Really? Someone today with no following can put out a piece of content that outperforms someone who has millions of followers. That's right. [snorts]
Does that mean in your perspective that the creative is actually winning over the individual creator? Well, I wouldn't say winning over. It's that every creator has a level of merit that we've never seen before. So, I'm a creator. I have a lot of followers. I go through hot streaks and cold streaks. I feel like I'm starting, in fact, I can feel it that I'm in a hot streak right now. I'm starting to tune it up properly. A year ago, I felt like I was in a cold streak. That didn't mean that, you know, a str has an advantage over me. I still have my followers and followers still have some sort of inherent opportunity for more reach. But it is, it's why I'm so intoxicated with it. It's like sports, right? like
Kobe Bryant at the end of his career, may rest in peace, was not the same player he was in his prime, and that meant a young LeBron or young Steph Curry could outperform him. I think that's what I love about where content is right now. I'm a legend, at least. Thank you for saying that. I've done a good job. I'm proud of who I've been. But last year when I wasn't at the top of my game, I love that you that people that just started had an opportunity to outpace me, get more views, get more recognition, and that's um that's fun and I love the merit of that. So I would say it's it's a merit of the individual content. Um and so I don't think it's the piece of content over the creator because the creator creates the content.
It's just the content, baby. You know what I mean? Like as they say in the old Hollywood ways, like it's, you know, it's it's just the [__] content. And [clears throat] that should be intoxicating, you know, like all of us in this room behind the camera, in front of the camera, we've had better eras of content creating than others. The fact that tomorrow, if you decide to get back in the game, if you make good content, you're back in the game. In the creator economy today, the thing that AI is really best at is creating more content. get in interest media which you just spoke to. Creating content, it's really about creating the best content, right? Because content is
the best video is going to win. So really, there's two options. If you're a creator today, you can use AI to scale or as a creator, you can deliberately choose to not use AI and potentially use that as a way of standing out. So what's your take? My take is that all of us should fall in love with and, not or. One of the most interesting debates that I've watched play out in the last decade is the concept of quantity versus quality. Let me be very blunt with this. Quantity is not debatable. You either make 800 pieces of content or you make one. It's not subjective. It's objective. 800 versus one is 800 versus one. Quality is subjective. What makes quality? Is it
the production value? Is it the fact that you don't make a lot of quantity? Is it the substance of your video? Is it the lighting? Is it the audio? So, couple things. One, first I believe quantity is a meaningful competitive advantage and I think the receipts have played out. If you look at the people that are winning, quantity is a very consistent variable in the brands and the people that have elevated over the last three years. Now that doesn't mean you can't win on quality and make one meaningful. They both exist. They both matter. You wrote a blog post back in 2015 talking about how Starbucks was launching a media property. Now 11 years later, it's common knowledge that brands
are becoming media properties. And you were one of the first people to call this. So for a brand who hasn't yet started this process of really thinking of themselves as a media property or entity, whatever you want to call it, what's the best way to get started? By getting started. Let me dissect that. Let's say this was a long time ago. Gary, you were one of the first people that said eating well and going to the gym and exercising would be good for your body. How would you recommend starting? If there is a company listening right now, whether they're a SAS B2B business or they sell concrete or they sell flowers or handbags that don't realize they're a media company first and then
they happen to sell flowers, concrete or handbags, then they have not been paying attention to what I've been yelling about for 20 years and what the world's been yelling about for the last 36 months. And so I would say by starting to make content, if you're a writer, you write. And so you're on Substack and Beehive. If you're a yapper like me, you start making videos or a podcast. You have to find your medium, written word, audio, video, but you need to start making content. And like, you know how you do that? You can interview people. It helps because it makes it easier.
You can do what I do and rant because you just have a lot of ideas and you got to get them out. Um, you can document and vlog. You can do a lot of things, but what you can't do is sit on the sidelines because it is a massive competitive business advantage.
