Braze for Impact

Jon Hyman, Braze CTO and Founder, gives his insights on the future of data privacy, the responsibilities of entrepreneurs/lawmakers, and the pressures on tech giants to comply to a new frontier of legislation.

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:17]

PJ Bruno: Hello there. This is PJ Bruno and welcome back to Braze for Impact; Your weekly tech industry discussed digest. Very thrilled to have with us here today, our CTO and founder at Braze, John Hyman. John thanks for being here.

 

[0:00:31]

John Hyman: Thanks for having me on the podcast PJ.

 

[0:00:33]

PJ Bruno: I mean as you it's been a long time coming. We've had to reschedule numerous times.

 

[0:00:37]

John Hyman: It's been challenging, but I've wanted to be here for a while.

 

[0:00:40]

PJ Bruno: I know. Well luckily now it seems like the equipment is working okay. Finally, glad to have you on the mic. For those of you who don't know, John Hyman is our MC extraordinaire so to get him in here, for me, is a big deal. So, John where do we start. Privacy. Privacy is in the air. Everyone's talking about the past year has been just a crossfire for some of these tech giants. Facebook specifically. And it kind of seems to have caused a lot of companies to like pivot their focus towards really like catering to that anxiety that some people have around privacy. So, where do you want to start?

 

[0:01:13]

John Hyman: There really is so much to unpack when it comes to privacy, but I like that what you just mentioned in your introduction is that we are seeing some companies starting to pivot more toward that as a focus. If I even look at what's been going on this week alone, yesterday we had Apple announce a credit card with Goldman Sachs and a competitive feature that they are really pushing hard is the privacy aspect of it. So, Apple says that Goldman Sachs isn't going to use your data in any way other to than to operate the card. So they are not going to share or sell that data to third parties.

 

[0:01:49]

PJ Bruno: Okay.

 

[0:01:50]

John Hyman: That information about your purchases is going to exist on your iPhone and not in Apple's cloud. Apple is not going to see it. They didn't even put your credit card number on the card itself, so the card itself is basically just blank with a chip and a stripe...

 

[0:02:04]

PJ Bruno: [crosstalk] Oh wow.

 

[0:02:04]

John Hyman: ...and your name.

 

[0:02:06]

PJ Bruno: Sounds very futuristic doesn't it?

 

[0:02:08]

John Hyman: It does look pretty cool and I think will show everyone that you got a lot of disposable income.

 

[0:02:12]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:02:12]

John Hyman: When you pull out it might be the new AMEX Platinum card or something.

 

[0:02:16]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. [laughing]

 

[0:02:16]

John Hyman: But, what we look at the line that they're taking is that they're really trying to sell this privacy aspect and I think that if you look at Apple's business overall they are also trying to differentiate themselves from the larger tech companies like Facebook and Google because they want to say that they respect your privacy. I remember back at CES in Las Vegas they had a big, cheeky ad up that just said," What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone." And they were really just taking this jab...

 

[0:02:44]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:02:44]

John Hyman: ...you know at google and other providers because they're putting that forward as a focus. They release a lot of features. We have one coming out on Safari and on your iPhone that is going to limit the time that cookies can live on your device. It's something called "Intelligent Tracking Prevention" that Apple's coming out with. And so they're really trying to make a deliberate push into saying, "We're a privacy provider for you. If you want your data to be safe, then you should use Apple Products." And I think its really interesting positioning, because globally privacy is a word that's on everyone's tongue. We see a lot of different scandals...

 

[0:03:18]

PJ Bruno: Um-hmm.

 

[0:03:19]

John Hyman: ...that are happening in the news and they're not just happening from technology companies. They're really just happening with any kind of big data breach or any other system. We've seen things like Equifax losing and leaking the Social Security numbers of more than half of Americans. We've had Starwood and Marriott leak the names of and information of 100s of millions of their consumers. These aren't great, big tech companies that consumer tech companies like Facebook. And then we just go to those companies and there still countless scandals there on Facebook had. Cambridge Analytica had had...

 

[0:03:53]

PJ Bruno: Right. Of course.

 

[0:03:53]

John Hyman: 50+ million subscriber information that had leaked. I believe even last week Facebook said that they had leaded, in plain text, the passwords of about ten or twenty million users. And so there's just really this non stop barrage...

 

[0:04:08]

PJ Bruno: Jesus.

 

[0:04:08]

John Hyman: ... Of bad press when it comes to privacy that consumers are listening to and I think being shaped by and seeing that," Hey, there is all of this data that's out about me in this world and I want to now kind of clamp down on that." Apple, I think, is taking a fairly opportunistic you know kind of look at...

 

[0:04:27]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:04:27]

John Hyman: ...how they want to position themselves in it. But, I do think its fairly interesting that we see now other businesses are having to shift toward that.

 

[0:04:35]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. Definitely. I mean you know what's interesting to me is it seemed like a lot of these fines that were happening you know just last week federal prosecutors are like conducting a criminal investigation into data deals with Facebook and that was all around user consent. And so it was not compromised passwords. Its not like okay you're potentially losing all of your you know information. It was just more okay they're using your information to sell or to make decisions. Where do you stand? As far as the data privacy person like, personally, because me... I'm like," I kinda don't care." Like I'm sorry I wish I did more but its like as long my information or like my bank account is not compromised if you're using that data, even unbeknownst to me, to like better cater to me I kinda don't mind. Like where do you sit on the fence?

 

[0:05:29]

John Hyman: So the reason, to me, that this is a challenging situation is really multifaceted. One, it comes down to the fact that I think the average consumer may not be aware of all of the things that are ongoing about them on their phones, by Facebook, on the Internet. All these little pieces of information that are essentially are tracked about them and I'm not sure that the average consumer may understand this profile which built up. And the reason that I think that is because we do see very strong adverse reactions to when this does happen in the press. So, the New York Times writes a story about some information that's being sent to Facebook and then you see essentially online or through politicians commenting on news programs that there a strong reaction to things that do seem somewhat day to day in the running of what is essentially an analytics company. And so I'm not... I think that's kind of one part of it is people may not be aware of the full scope about it. The second part is, do you think that in some cases, to your point, it may be a bit hard to understand the damages that it can be caused to an individual by having all of this information out there? So a lot of people are using Facebook and Google and they're using it for free and everyone knows that if you're not paying for a product then you are the product. But, I think if you had to enumerate and ask people to enumerate the actual downsides, to them, that might be challenging that goes kind of hand in hand with that first part of it. I mean, literally I think if you had like a Harris Poll and you called a 1000 random Americans and you said," Hi there. I'd like to conduct a survey and I'm curious to know your opinions on why is it bad for you that Facebook has this information on you?" And I think that you might get some responses that prosper anecdotal of, "I know someone that had their identity stolen" or," It seems pretty creepy to me." But, in term of actually enumerating those problems unto them, I think that that could be a bit hard cause it's such an abstract challenge. So, I think that we're essentially working against that as well which makes it a hard topic to discuss because some people like, "[inaudible] what does this really matter? Like I'll give my information." Its interesting if you just think about the amount of information that I'll give online all the time. Like I'm constantly putting in my zip code and my email address.

 

[0:07:36]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:07:36]

John Hyman: Gender. All these different things into different forms online. Not even thinking about kind of what the purpose is there.

 

[0:07:43]

PJ Bruno: Do you have your credit card memorized?

 

[0:07:45]

John Hyman: I used to [crosstalk] have my credit card memorized. But then Google Chrome started to remember the credit cards for me. So, it does then go back to that convenience factor of I can forget information. I think the same with phone numbers, I used to know [crosstalk] all of my friends phone numbers growing up. At home, we would dial it on the phone lines. And now I think I had if you were a friend before 2006 then I know your phone number I can still go back though elementary school or high school and list out those phone numbers. Even now, I couldn't even give you Bill Magnuson's cell phone number. And I know the first six digits I think. But, I probably just can't because he and I didn't meet until later in life when I already had my phone replacing parts of my memory for me there.

 

[0:08:32]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. Exactly.

 

[0:08:32]

John Hyman: But, essentially, we come back to where I stand. I do think that ultimately there is a lot of benefit to providing consumers with personalized and relevant information. I do think that that is in the... For the benefit of consumers.

 

[0:08:47]

PJ Bruno: Um-hmm

 

[0:08:47]

John Hyman: You ever receive an email and it's about something to purchase and it's a product that you'd never looked at never been interested in may not even be right for you at all. You know a lot of us have had direction like," Why am I getting a you know a sale on boots when you know I was looking at you know dress suits" or other things online and...

 

[0:09:08]

PJ Bruno: Um-hmm

 

[0:09:08]

John Hyman: ... This doesn't match my kind of shopping interest right now. So, I think that it is really a beneficial if we can deliver personalized customer experiences to consumers based on their interests, based on things that are relevant to them, to their demographics...

 

[0:09:22]

PJ Bruno: Um-hmm

 

[0:09:23]

John Hyman: ... To their behaviors, to what we think they're going be add most value to them. I do think that is extremely valuable and you see that Google can do it to when you ever Google something into a search bar and then your like the auto completed exactly what I wanted. Its like they knew me really really well. And then some parts there's like a ... It feels a little bit creepy of you know if my phone listening to everything that I'm saying. But, on the other hand, you know, we think about of like how many times have you been wanting to think of an actor or actress's name or you're trying to learn more information about something you are watching on TV or on your phone and you just it just auto completes it and it's just like it's a great experience from a consumer. To be able to get that information faster. And so, it ultimately is good to the consumer. But, all of this being said, I will say that brands and companies do have a responsibility to their consumers, and to their customers, and to their users. To protect information that's been entrusted to them.

 

[0:10:19]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:10:19]

John Hyman: And not to use it for other purposes that the customers is not necessarily aware of.

 

[0:10:24]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:10:24]

John Hyman: Or I think would be like reasonably able to assume. Like I can reasonable assume that Facebook is going to use my information to show me an advertisement or sell it to some company, but I don't think I'd be reasonably want to assume that they're going sell my information to a political campaign...

 

[0:10:41]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:10:41]

John Hyman: ...to target me...

 

[0:10:42]

PJ Bruno: Jesus.

 

[0:10:42]

John Hyman: ... Based on the interest or things that they have. They even though it may kind of follow naturally if you think about it a little bit more, but I would say that it doesn't seem that reasonable to me. It doesn't seem reasonable to me if I give information to a food delivery service and then they sell that to someone who is now talking to me about... Moving in my area or setting up my electrical utilities or switching cable providers or any of those kind of things.

 

[0:11:06]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. Yeah.

 

[0:11:06]

John Hyman: I wouldn't think those things would naturally follow. But, if I do give information to a delivery service I'm going to want them to show me cool new restaurants I might like or dishes I'm into [crosstalk] or help me reorder things I have ordered recently or remind me that it's snowing tonight and, therefore, I should order in and just be cozy. Those things are a boon for me.

 

[0:11:25]

PJ Bruno: Right. Well, rather you're someone who cares about consent or not, it seems to be not stopping any of the fines that are being put on some of these big companies. I mean, you mentioned it last time we spoke about how like Facebook they're getting fine after fine. Tons of fines, but still posting record profits. So, I guess the question becomes like what's the incentive? Like, how much longer? What's the longevity around the plan of being able to just eat fines and not change your strategy? Right? Because big company right? It's not an easy pivot. So, I guess that's the question. It's like you can tell they did this whole new shift to privacy focus. Like what are your thoughts around that?

 

[0:12:09]

John Hyman: I think that if you want to influence the behavior of companies, there are essential two was of doing it. One, is you can do it through I'll say cultural opinions and attitudes of what's acceptable. This is where we see things like pressure of people talking to having a conversation about what they believe is acceptable or not. Taking to Twitter. Taking to the news and putting social pressure on a company to change. The second part is that you can do it through legislation and regulation and that's really where a government can exercise its power. If you look at companies like Facebook, what you mentioned is fairly true. If you go back to Facebook's Q4 earnings that they announced at the end of January so just about two months ago, we go back to where Facebook was in January you think that they had just come off of you know a crushing amount of different scandals. Their stock price had dropped, I believe, 30 or 40% from its October high. There were a lot of things in the news going on of other people saying that teenagers are leaving Facebook in mass or that advertisers are pulling information from Facebook where there were scandals and it seemed like you're like," Wow! Facebook's really is going to have to do something about this." Then, what they do in Q4 is they just you know had very strong Q4 earnings data. They talked about in January completely beat the expectations of the street and ended up having their stock price go little bit back up. It's not fully recovered where it is, but [inaudible] you do see them performing really well. Though, the fines are a part of it. So, you're looking at fines from Facebook we know that Google I was reading this article that Google pays more in EU fines than it does in taxes. Just kind of a...

 

[0:13:52]

PJ Bruno: That's nuts.

 

[0:13:53]

John Hyman: ... Preposterous thing on principal alone. But, you really want to just try to slowly get these companies to change over time and I think that companies, ultimately, are can become slower moving organizations just like you might see with governments or anything else like that. And but you can slowly recalibrate them to what is acceptable.

 

[0:14:16]

PJ Bruno: Um-hmm.

 

[0:14:16]

John Hyman: And over time they'll be paying these fines and it might just be the cost of doing business. But, a long term strategy is going to be that you can't live in that world forever because you're going to have either the pressure continue to fall on you...

 

[0:14:31]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:14:31]

John Hyman: ...and this is when you see things like Elizabeth Warren making claims that she wants to break up tech companies so we can get to that and talk about that in a moment. But, you also then just have the massive consumer opinion, which will just continue to just fall down on you or have consumers' opinion exploited by companies like Apple who'll then try to push more fines.

 

[0:14:52]

PJ Bruno: It is a sick troll. It is a sick troll.

 

[0:14:52]

John Hyman: Yeah, it is grave by them and they you know Apple actually been a really staunch supporter of increased privacy rights. Because, again, it's a competitive advantage for them. So, I think that over time, in the long term view, they're going to want to make those changes. So, I do think that fines are effective in the long term. I don't think that they're effective in the short term. But, in terms of incentivizing behavior it's a really good way to slowly move the needle there.

 

[0:15:15]

PJ Bruno: So what about tech giants or CEOs informing new legislation because I remember I talked to Susan Wiseman and you know she was our GDP our queen over here as we were going through it and she mentioned that a lot of that legislation had you know was not informed. It was not informed by a specialist. It wasn't informed by tech CEOs or subject matter experts. So I guess my question becomes: A) Should they leverage to help make legislation and B) Is that dangerous because you know having someone who has so much invested in what's going on help create laws that sounds you know somewhat a slippery slope?

 

[0:15:56]

John Hyman: One thing I think is going to be absolutely be true is that... The crafters of this legislation are certainly going to try to use it to maintain a competitive position. So, if you do have Apple having a seat at the table in that conversation they're certainly going to want to do things that allow them to out perform Google. I think you just see this over and over again of just essentially of just lobbying this you're always trying to lobby in your self interest or in your industry's interest or something like that.

 

[0:16:23]

PJ Bruno: Sure.

 

[0:16:24]

John Hyman: All that being said though, the technology's changing in a really fast pace. And so, one of the challenges that comes just in front of any kind of legislation is are you even legislating the things that are relevant to today and also going to be relevant tomorrow? We also have to think about what the world is going to be like if we have self-driving cars or when 5G is everywhere and, therefore, we have in there meta things connected in our homes. There's a lot more things that we want to think about that maybe we to start to legislating. Like I don't even understand all of this information that Alexa is collecting on me at home. But I see cases of Alexa and Amazon being subpoenaed in murder trails and things like that and we got to even answer those questions of like," What's it going to be like when daily life is just so full of sensors and robots and monitors and...?" Perhaps we've already gotten there.

 

[0:17:15]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:17:16]

John Hyman: But, I do think that like the government isn't going to do an effective job at legislating what is going to be effective in the future without talking to the industry. So, I absolutely feel that you have to have industry experts essentially have a seat at the table and just to kind to elucidate this though kind of funny example. If you just go and watch that hearing of Mark Zuckerberg on congress. I mean, it's apparent how woefully ignorant a lot of the politicians are of...

 

[0:17:44]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:17:44]

John Hyman: ... How the Internet works, on how Facebook works, on how really anything in modern technology is actually functioning. So, you want to make sure that you got great experts in there for sure.

 

[0:17:55]

PJ Bruno: So, what else? What's next? What's the future look like? I know that we have this whole California Consumer Protection Act. So, what's the path forward for consumer data protection? What can American legislation do better than Europe has done?

 

[0:18:10]

John Hyman: So, for folks who aren't so familiar with California Consumer Privacy Act I'll give you a little bit of the backstory here. So, we had the EU create GDPR which is their big data protection regulation and this one's effect May 25, 2018. And it allowed citizens of the EU to have a certain number of rights when it comes to their data online. They have the right to amend information that's about them, request information that's being collected on them. Business could only collect data for certain under a certain business reason. Like they had to get other consent or have a valid business concern. You could only collect the information a minimal set of information that you needed to do a job and only had to keep the information around and retain it for as long as you needed and no more than that. And so it really kind of helped businesses kind of one lay out the things that they needed to do and it helped their consumers in the long run. And you saw in 2018 a lot of businesses talk about GDPR. It was kind of the headline of all of the privacy kind of blogs and security blogs. Braze, we hosted a conference on it with some of our partners. I wrote blog posts on this. We had Susan Wiseman, our general counsel, also discussing a lot of GDPR. It was kind of the big news. And then when you look over to the U.S. We still have really nothing comparable when it comes to legislation. So, California took a look at this and said," Look, we can do something about this and we can create our own privacy act that is akin to what the EU citizens have on the GDPR." So, essentially what this would mean then is that California is a state that is going to create legislation that applies only to state residents of California or maybe there's a little more than that. But, essentially only applies in the California jurisdiction. And that would require companies have to understand they need to give different rights to folks in America based on what state they are in. Now, I don't think that that is a great way for us to go about doing privacy and what I mean by that is a state legislated privacy act. Because, if you play that down what you'll find is that you'll end up with a patchwork of different states having their own different legislative agendas and...

 

[0:20:30]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:20:31]

John Hyman: ...and maybe you'll have to do something in the one state. You know even it... just even the concept of states is an incredible concept to me that you could do something that is completely legal in one state and then travel 20 miles across a border and that exact same thing will get you thrown in jail. There are a lot of different cases in America of which we have laws of varying severity and varying degree or laws that things that are legal or not and if you think about that with data it I think that it can really start becoming mind-boggling for what that imposes on business and what that imposes on companies in order to do. So, if you look at the political side of this, you have the Republican Party in the United States that wants to do more of a federal approach. And at the tech companies are also in support of that. So if you look at what these big giants are saying it's like, "Look, like we should really do this at the federal level not at the state because otherwise this is going to start getting a bit challenging for us to do." And that is something that I actually support. I do think and it's not just the Republicans that'll say that there's bipartisan support on wanting to do data privacy on a federal level here in the United States. But, I think that's essentially the right level at which we need to operate.It is we need something that is national that is going to protect people not just in California, but also in North Carolina and...

 

[0:21:44]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:21:45]

John Hyman: ...North Dakota and Texas and in New York.

 

[0:21:46]

PJ Bruno: It's going to get pretty nasty out there.

 

[0:21:48]

John Hyman: We need to have it all essentially be this same thing as this great country of ours have the same protections for all of our citizens. Not just those who happen to live on the sunny side of it.

 

[0:21:58]

PJ Bruno: Gosh. I do wish I lived in California. I will say that. [Laughter]

 

[0:22:02]

John Hyman: Yeah. Every time I go there and then I come back to New York and it's snowing and I just wonder," You know I could be a place where there's great wine and good surfing and beaches and ...

 

[0:22:12]

PJ Bruno: ... And they're thinking data privacy legislation like," That's important to me."

 

[0:22:15]

John Hyman: Yeah. They're in some things ahead of they're time.

 

[0:22:20]

PJ Bruno: [Laughter] Well, all right John, well, that's about our time man. Wrapping up, any words to the wise on any companies that could be dealing with user data in the future?

 

[0:22:29]

John Hyman: Well, one thing that I'll just say is I think that the question around privacy is could be just fairly interesting as we move into the future. I was talking a bit about the Internet of things and just really there's a lot of data being collect all around us and, as a consumer, I really would love to just understand what that all is. So, I mentioned Alexa and I have to imagine that Amazon has a different profile of me when I am talking to Alexa than when my wife is talking to Alexa. They must know and have this different personas of okay we got you know they probably figured out how many people are in our house. And also you can then use the things in our house to really track a lot about our lives. I once read some funny article that was something like in Canada they have their water plumbing supply and their plumbers who ever runs their water utility... I don't... It's not the plumbers. But, they have to essentially have someone who manually is kind of sitting at like basically the water power plant and turning up capacity at half-time in hockey games. Because in Canada everyone's watching the hockey game and then it goes to commercial break or goes to half-time and then everyone goes and uses the restroom.

 

[0:23:48]

PJ Bruno: Ah.

 

[0:23:49]

John Hyman: And everyone flushed at the same time. And they need they have like 10 or 20x the amount of like water pressure that they need to push down there. The reason that I bring up this crazy example is because if you think about all if you just think about that as a thing then you play if forward and think well if you had a sensor on every time a flushed the toilet, you had a sensor on when I turned on the gas on my stove, or when turned on the television , or when I told Alexa to turn on the lights in my living room you could map out everything that I'm doing in my apartment. And I think that it's going to be fairly interesting to think about like what it's going to be like in the world where a lot of different companies can accurately map out what you're doing. Even now just with a phone in my pocket, I know that Google and Facebook have a lot of information about me. If I walk... Go between here and the restaurant and I'm having dinner tonight I sure they're going to know did I run? Did I walk? Did I take a bike? Did it take the subway? Did I take a car? They really could kind of track you back through that. And it's one thing where you got this giant these giant tech companies that really are the most valuable companies in the world that have this information and we're hoping, at least I'm hoping as a consumer, that they're good stewards of that as best as they can and protected as best as they can. But, there will be other companies that then start to get this information. They'll be my utility companies that'll start maybe track or and perhaps it will be like Ford or General Motors as they have a self-driving car and then they know all this other information of what's going on in the car. You know, perhaps the other vendors inside my apartment or my house and I think that really the next thing that we need to just make sure that we're thinking about is just holistically what's going to happen when just have so much data about us available that's very granular that can really paint this whole picture of who you are and what are we going to have to do as a society in order to deal with that. So, and so I think that that is going to be like a kind of fairly interesting next step as we go into the Internet of things and we look at legislation. I think that's really going to be the only way to solve it is make sure that we have tight legislation on all of that different kinds of data there. But, it's just something that I think is one is exciting. I think that it's exciting that we're going to have these things or these pieces of technology in our lives. But, we need to just make sure that it won't be done irresponsibility.

 

[0:26:09]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, and I hope it is. It's up to you lawmakers. We're looking at you. John, thanks so much for being here.

 

[0:26:15]

John Hyman: Yeah. I had a great time. Thanks so much.

 

[0:26:16]

PJ Bruno: And thank you guys for being here with us. Take care.

[0:26:19]

Jared Dent, Senior Director of Marketing Strategy and Ops at Turner, sits down with Myles Kleeger, President/CCO at Braze to chat March Madness -- from reminiscing the glory days to top picks for the tourney! Many brands use the vehicle of this tournament to bolster engagement with customers. Jared also gave us insight into Turner's marketing strategy in the new world: a multi-screen, streaming, Teamcast NCAA experience.

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:17]

PJ Bruno: Hello there again this is PJ Bruno, welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discussed digest. I am thrilled to have with my today two good friends Myles Kleeger, our president and CCO at Braze; and also Jared Dent whose marketing strategy and operations at Turner. Welcome Jared. Welcome Myles. As you know, March madness is upon us. Today kicks off the sweet 16, feeling the jitters a little bit, you see people in the office wearing their shirts; it's all about those bragging rights, right? How we feeling? Anxiety? Joy? Myles, I know you've got some butterflies.

 

[0:00:57]

Myles: Yeah, for full discloser here, I'm a blue devil, in case anyone didn't know. I'm still actually recovering from Sunday's events which were thrilling and horrifying all at once.

 

[0:01:13]

PJ Bruno: That was a close one. You're a big Zion guy, I guess right?

 

[0:01:18]

Myles: Yeah, I am a huge Zion guy, I love this Duke team, I love all Duke teams, but I particularly love this Duke team; we can talk more about that if you'd like. But, the thought of this season coming to an early and unfortunate ending this past Sunday; was honestly something I couldn't really fathom. As I was watching it unfold, it's been meant to be this year in a lot of ways, but then all of a sudden, we were going to lose. We should have lost that game, on multiple levels. But those guys, one of the reasons I love them, is they have a will to win that I have rarely seen, and that's what makes them special. They just don't back down from anyone or anything.

 

[0:02:01]

PJ Bruno: It was a wake up call at least, right? It's kind of like okay, now it's time to get moving.

 

[0:02:03]

Myles: Yeah, so I'm kinda old, but when I was a sophomore, lets go way back to 1995, I think was around the last time Georgia Tech was relevant.

 

[0:02:13]

PJ Bruno: 2004, final four championship game, thank you.

 

[0:02:19]

Myles: Nice, actually we didn't make it to the finals that year, we lost in the final four. Exactly. But if anyone remembers 1995 UCLA Tias Edney, he literally ran down the court in like 1.2 seconds, hit a layup to win the game, I think it was the first round. Would have been a monster upset, they win and then they coast the rest of the way, and I think all great championship teams have to survive that moment of adversity, and I'd like to think that last Sunday was our moment. We will see.

 

[0:02:48]

PJ Bruno: So ideally the hard part is over, and now we're just going to strengthen out, cruise through to the finals. Zion, I gotta say, when a man is busting out of his sneaks, it's time to leave the college game and go to the pros, you know?

 

[0:03:03]

Myles: Yeah, and there's a lot of speculation out there that he's going to get the biggest sneaker contract in the history of sneaker contracts. Largely because Nike can't afford to not sign him. If you think about it, if he does not sign with Nike, everyone will say, Oh he doesn't trust them the shoes aren't good enough for him, they have to get him. Which means he is going to cash in.

 

[0:03:22]

PJ Bruno: Jared, you got a horse in the race as this point? Anything you looking for?

 

[0:03:27]

Jared: As Myles eluded to Georgia Tech not being in the tournament, especially or the last couple years now, it's been more about work for me and enjoying some of those close games.

 

[0:03:38]

PJ Bruno: That's good.

 

[0:03:40]

Jared: Yeah, we're struggling a little bit right now.

 

[0:03:42]

PJ Bruno: Well you know I got a surprise for you Myles, I am actually a Virginia Tech, alum.

 

[0:03:46]

Myles: Are you really?

 

[0:03:47]

PJ Bruno: I went to three different undergrads. I went to University of Delaware, Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech.

 

[0:03:51]

Myles: Wow, interesting and Delaware and Notre Dame are both coached by former Duke assistants, by the way.

 

[0:03:57]

PJ Bruno: [inaudible] lets go. All right so I got love for you man. We wish you the best.

 

[0:04:03]

Myles: Well thank you, I'll be there tomorrow night.

 

[0:04:05]

PJ Bruno: You're gonna be there?

 

[0:04:05]

Myles: Yeah heading down to D.C. In the morning. And I don't intend to come back until very late Sunday.

 

[0:04:11]

PJ Bruno: That's a true fan. Well all right, lets get into it, shall we? March madness, obviously be all have our memories and what not, and obviously Jared, working at Turner, he's had to work very closely with it for the past...

 

[0:04:26]

Jared: This is year nine as part of the Turner NCAA relationship. Everyone asks me, Is it crazy? Is it mayhem going on? And I'd say, yes but, after nine years it's sort of a normal, a normal life.

 

[0:04:40]

PJ Bruno: Normal stress right? It's the best time of year.

 

[0:04:44]

Jared: You know what you're walking into, you know what you're planning entails, you know what the execution is going to look like. It's certainly mayhem, madness if you will.[inaudible]

 

[0:04:54]

PJ Bruno: You're actually one of the few whose allowed to say march madness, you don't have to come up with...

 

[0:05:00]

Jared: Some way around that, yeah. It's exciting. Year nine of the deal. I've been there the whole time, this is my thirteenth year at Turners. It's just a giant tin pole for us that we certainly get really excited about, that we put a lot of our energy and effort into. It's an event that truly is, it's big right?

 

[0:05:21]

PJ Bruno: Obviously it's the biggest college tournament but it's also seasonal event that's an opportunity for any brand to take advantage of to bolster engagement. When march comes around, I know two things to be certain. One, I am going to bail on lent about a week into it and two, it's march madness and I'll probably lose some money.

 

[0:05:42]

Jared: Sometimes those things are correlated.

 

[0:05:46]

PJ Bruno: This year I'm giving it up. But yeah, cool thing is, we see a lot of companies taking advantage of it, obviously the restaurant industry with all of their free delivery party packs. Cool thing for adobe analytics, their hack the bracket technology, stats compiled from 56,000 colleges. Last year they only offered 50,000 rows of data, this year 3.5 million rows of data. So you can get your hands in that and try to inform your bracket. My favorite one we've seen thus far, Buffalo Wild Wings has introduced the jewel stool. A custom bar stool with a cooling system built into the seat and this recognizes a reported rise in vasectomies during the NCAA basketball tournament; when thousands of men schedule the procedure to coincide march madness so they can spend their doctor ordered rest time watching games.

 

[0:06:35]

Jared: True story, I have a friend who had a vasectomy timed around it. Full disclosure, I have not had a vasectomy, however, last year I tore my ACL skiing; conveniently had surgery the day before the NCAA tournament so I literally saw every single minute of the tournament last year. It was magical. I was in a lot of pain, but I was also in a lot of joy.

 

[0:07:02]

Myles: I read that stat, it was something like Athena health reported that in 2017 vasectomies increased as much as 30% during march madness. That's nuts though. I thought it was more like, you know what? My college team is doing so bad, I just don't want to procreate anymore. I thought the motive was a little different.

 

[0:07:25]

Jared: There's gotta be easier ways to take a couple days off to watch some basketball I have to imagine.

 

[0:07:30]

PJ Bruno: So after the past your almost 13 years at Turner, Jared, what kind of strategies and promotions stick out to you at Turner for this time of the year?

 

[0:07:41]

Jared: Yeah I think that for this, the scope and scale of it is one thing; so what truly has been a challenge for us, especially in the beginning, is that you probably didn't know where Truth was on your t.v. Dial right? No knock to Truth, I love them, Impractical Jokers fan, for sure. But I think that was one of the biggest things, is that CBS had the tournament solo for so long, so how do we become that destination as well, so a lot of it is really just putting the TBS, the TNT, Truth logo associating that with march madness; I think that in the beginning that certainly was the challenge. Outside of that, where we are at now is, we're trying to be everywhere you want to watch the tournament. Really trying to be fan driven. We're on some 17 different platforms you can stream march madness.

 

[0:08:40]

PJ Bruno: YouTube now, right?

 

[0:08:41]

Jared: Yeah, everywhere right? And so we're trying to be across all those devices, we're trying to be there for the fan; because we understand that certainly, we want you to watch on TNT, we want you to watch on TBS but the tournaments going on; unless you've had a vasectomy you're not going to be in front of a T.V the whole time. So, we wanna make sure we're on whatever platform you want to watch on, we wanna make sure the app, we wanna make sure you're on your connected device, whatever it is. So I think, that's sort of the biggest transition that we've moved to; from just exposing us as part of it for TBS and TNT, to truly being on whatever platform you want. And you have access to the tournament and you can watch and enjoy.

 

[0:09:22]

PJ Bruno: Also, just on top of that too, creating some almost fresh content formats around, obviously the game is the game; but I know after the miraculous Duke comeback last weekend there was 5 minute clip you guys put together that basically, on the march madness on demand app, that basically compressed or condensed the end of that game into a 5 minute thing you could watch on the go. Which was awesome for people who are not huge passionate fans they can get pulled into the drama of it and then become a fan from there.

 

[0:09:59]

Jared: Did you guys do your brackets? Do you guys have brackets in eh wild?

 

[0:10:03]

PJ Bruno: Of course. And who do you have going all the way?

 

[0:10:08]

Myles: I might have Duke going all the way, you might want to fact check that one.

 

[0:10:12]

PJ Bruno: I will check you on that.

 

[0:10:15]

Jared: I'll admit, first off NCAA.com the official bracket of march madness, plug there. But I will admit I have Duke going all the way as well, but I will cavi ant that as a warning, I do a bracket every year with jyutsu my dad and my brother for 30 years now, I have won one time. So despite the fact of how much college basketball I watch, how invested I am, for whatever recon I cannot pick...

 

[0:10:43]

PJ Bruno: 'cause you pick with your heart.

 

[0:10:44]

Jared: Yeah that's right. Probably too much heart, probably too much ACC bias.

 

[0:10:47]

Myles: Yeah, I have a lot of ACC bias as well.

 

[0:10:50]

Jared: It's looking good right now. 5 out of 6 teams not bad.

 

[0:10:53]

Myles: Better to have ACC bias than PAC 12 bias.

 

[0:10:56]

Jared: Especially right now.

 

[0:10:57]

PJ Bruno: Gotta go with your gut at the end of the day.

 

[0:10:59]

Myles: I'm just curious, who else do you have in the finals?

 

[0:11:01]

Jared: I think I've got that rematch between Duke and UNC. Watching that NACC tournament.

 

[0:11:06]

Myles: Did you know that we have never ever once played in the NCAA tournament.

 

[0:11:09]

Jared: I did not.

 

[0:11:10]

Myles: IN any round, yeah.

 

[0:11:11]

Jared: Wait what?

 

[0:11:12]

Myles: Yeah. Never. We always get put in different brackets and things, or in different regions and it's never worked out that way, so it would be pretty special to see.

 

[0:11:24]

PJ Bruno: Oh man, lets see that. You know what I will say for Duke? Because I am not a huge Duke fan, but JJ Redick now plays for the Sixers.

 

[0:11:33]

Myles: He's all tatted up too.

 

[0:11:34]

PJ Bruno: He's all tatted up, he's got his own podcast.

 

[0:11:36]

Myles: He's transformed through the years.

 

[0:11:37]

PJ Bruno: He has. He's such a leader, right? I mean I just love to see him out there. Go Sixers. Anyways, it is pretty cool though that the idea of the bracket, obviously there's the official place to get your brackets, but then there's all these other brands that are leveraging the idea of the bracket; and the idea of play, we're going to get you involved. It just seems like such a brilliant technique.

 

[0:12:00]

Jared: The pop culture aspect of march madness, is what ultimately drives it to the level that it is, because college basketball fans are certainly one thing, but if you look at the scope and the scale of march madness; it's because of the casual fan coming in and being truly invested, where they may watch the super bowl, but their not nearly as invested. Something about those brackets really just draws people in. They've got skin in the game, and it just feels like anybody can win. My brother watches no college basketball whatsoever, can pick a bracket that beats me, consistently. It hurts but.

 

[0:12:39]

Myles: I don't know if that says more about you or less about him but it deodorant real matter. [inaudible] the casual fan part of it, I agree is what makes it so special. We're here in New York here right now and we've rarely had regionals here but a few years ago we had one, I know we have one coming up next year; but it's just so fun to bring people in from all over the country, sporting their colors walking around the streets. It's just a fun vibrant, it's just like Saint Patrick Day every day, when this is going on. People are just happy.

 

[0:13:09]

Jared: Until they lose.

 

[0:13:10]

Myles: Yeah, but even then, it's just like you're part of something bigger, though. Which is really cool. Even around the office here. Yeah like people rocking gonzaga t-shirts, they don't wear gonzaga t-shirts very often around here, but they feel compelled to do so now.

 

[0:13:23]

PJ Bruno: It's pretty rad, and so now lets talk more about Turner specifically. Cause all these brands are tacking advantage but Turner, I mean in the past decade we've just seen so many changes, we've seen so many transitions across multiple screens, you've got streaming, Myles mentioned team cast, right? So, how is the cross channel marketing really changed the game for you guys?

 

[0:13:46]

Jared: Yeah, for us, certainly team cast is a great example, what we try to bring to the table, no knock to CBS, they're great partners with us, is that we're constantly trying to innovate, we're trying to bring that cross channel. Trying to put in front of people, new kinds of content, new ways to interact, because if you look at the media landscape, it's changing. There are certainly lots of different ways to consume it, whether it's a condensed game like you mentioned, whether it's through the eyes of some of our talent, I think that's something that's unique that we can bring to the table.

 

[0:14:22]

Myles: Charles Barkley is unique.

 

[0:14:23]

Jared: Right, for sure. And like you mentioned, team cast. SO every year the way our deal works is that every other year we rotate the final four with CBS. So this is an off year for us, so this is CBS final four. So you won't see team cast this year, but you will see it back next year. We see growth, we've seen people are starting to understand what those destinations are and that they're able to find something that's unique to what their looking for. Certainly the innovation trying to be cross channel, has made us change the game. You can't just say tune into TNT and that's it. That can't be your only message.

 

[0:15:01]

PJ Bruno: Absolutely, and for me the whole team cast, being able to watch the game through the perspective of your team, I didn't realize how valuable that was until I watched last years Superbowl, Eagles versus the Patriots, and listening to the commentators because I am a birds fan, I was like, why am I hearing it through this New England perspective through the whole game. It kind of like sullied it for me a little bit.

 

[0:15:27]

Jared: Yeah I agree. There's a big anti Duke bias in the media. Particularly guys like Thor Rafter, he's great, but I think sometimes there's a lot of, people try to compensate because they say, that their such Duke homers, I think sometimes people try to go the opposite direction so they are not accused of being a Duke homer. So, I'm sitting there listening to it, I'm like really? Come on. That was so not a foul. It irritates me sometimes. SO having that opportunity of hearing the different perspectives of broadcasters is really cool.

 

[0:16:03]

PJ Bruno: That's what we want man.

 

[0:16:05]

Jared: I think from a marketing standpoint too what's been big for us is because we are a cross channel, the way we're marketing is really about making real time decisions, so were integrating live scores, live feeds into our ad placements, wherever they are. If its a billboard, if it's an ad online, where ever were connected, we're trying to integrate, give you that sense of, you're missing out right now. And then what we're doing Is making real time decisions on what's driving people where. How are people then going from our ad placements out there, and are they downloading the app, are they streaming online are they going to a connected device? Then make decisions real time is that funnel working or do we need to move our dollars somewhere else. So that's sort of getting into the nitty gritty.

 

[0:16:56]

PJ Bruno: Yeah those live scores, man that's huge. Thats big

 

[0:16:59]

Jared: But that's a big component of it right? So its driving that immediate urgency for consumers to go, I can't miss this, and then also making sure we're getting that message effectively in the right place.

 

[0:17:10]

PJ Bruno: Awesome, two of the things we talk a ton about here at Braze, and we're always thinking about is, personalization in automation. More and more marking departments, marketing companies need to think about this stuff. So, from where you're sitting for almost the past 13 years, what are some of the most game changing automation personalization pieces that you've seen at Turner?

 

[0:17:35]

Jared: I mean for sure it's the growth, the ability to use data, and the ability to truly attract your marketing [inaudible], and get effective attribution. I think that the game changer. No longer is it just were buying radio spots and we're buying TV spots and we're just gonna run them and fingers crossed everything goes well. Really its that knowing who we're talking to, knowing what type of message that should be based on the data. Is this a casual fan? Cause then its probably more about brackets then don't miss this game. Or to be honestly maybe this year, more about, you gotta see Zion. If you're a casual fan, you're probably tuning in for Zion, that's whats driving in a lot of instances. But if you're hardcore it's about here's the whole tournament, here's every which way you can watch it and get connected to it. It's making those decisions based on knowing the consumers. I think that's where the marketplace and marketing is driving to; more technology based more data driven, it's more attribution. It's no longer the old school mad men style.

 

[0:18:41]

PJ Bruno: I'm curious Jared, as kind of purveyors of all things tournament related and visibility in so much data. For your corporate champions and your key sponsors, we all know who they are, do you provide that layer of consecrative advice to them, in terms of what types of activations might be most effective for them?

 

[0:19:02]

Jared: For sure. I think we look to partner with them in way that are going to be effective for them. Ultimately, that's valuable for us. Our partners are happy if they are seeing success, then we're happy as well because that drives revenue on our end at the end of the day. So, it certainly is partnering with them it's helping them understand our data, our consumers that we have access to, so we can help draw those activations. Some of them may be activations that we then actively pursue a brand that we say what we're doing here aligns with you. Aligns with what you're looking for.

 

[0:19:39]

PJ Bruno: Huge, makes sense. Wow, I mean, this has been a great time you guys. I wish your teams the best of luck. Virginia Tech, give them hell. But at the end of the day...

 

[0:19:49]

Jared: You took us down a month ago.

 

[0:19:51]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, yeah. But now I mean it's for keeps.

 

[0:19:54]

Myles: And the big guy wasn't on the floor.

 

[0:19:57]

PJ Bruno: That's true. Well, hey Myles, we wish you the Best of luck, no matter what. Thanks for being here. Jared thank you so much for flying up, hanging out with us.

 

[0:20:04]

Jared: Myles, I'll tell you real quick, just because you'll appreciate this, since we were talking about Turner experience. I love my job, and sort of the reason is that I get to travel to some of these events. I'll be in Minneapolis for the final four there.

 

[0:20:18]

Myles: I hope to see you there.

 

[0:20:19]

Jared: That's right. You'll appreciate this as a Duke fan, I was at the Villanova North Carolina final. And I look and probably a couple rows in front of me just off to the right is Michael Jordan watching that game. I mean that's huge right, being a basketball fan. That's amazing. SO I almost watched the game through his eyes just to see how is he reacting to everything that's going on, and when that Villanova buzzer beater went in and literally you could see the pain in Michael. So I know as a Duke fan to see the tar hills fall that way makes you feel a little better inside.

 

[0:21:03]

Myles: It does, it does. Everyone's going to face their time in that position, you know? I've been there before. I do like to root for the ACC overall. Accept if it's Carolina.

 

[0:21:15]

PJ Bruno: Well, if you guys to make it to the final four together, make sure to snap a picture for us.

 

[0:21:19]

Myles: By the way, the activation you guys do on site of the final four is ridiculous. I was at Indianapolis in '15, it was so impressive.

 

[0:21:28]

Jared: We've got a log of stuff in store this year in Minneapolis. SO we are excited about it. That's another thing of turning this into a bigger cultural event.

 

[0:21:37]

PJ Bruno: Its an experience, right.

 

[0:21:39]

Jared: It is an experience. It has to feel wrapped around the game.

 

[0:21:43]

PJ Bruno: In a lot of ways its the Superbowl of college. All right, well thanks for being with us, y'all. This is Myles Kleeger, Jared Dunn, and PJ Bruno wishing you happy brackets.

[0:21:53]

Product professionals Diana Kim and Sarah Wilson give me the scoop on SXSW 2019. DK sat on a panel with Maria Menounos and the Female Quotient to talk personalization. Sarah saw every female-fronted band she could get her eyeballs on. Listen in to hear about the great food, scooter saturation, and meeting celebrities. 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:18]

PJ Bruno: Hello there again. This is PJ Bruno. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest, and I'm thrilled to be with two very good friends today. We have Diana Kim; hello, Diana.

 

[0:00:30]

Dianna Kim: Hello.

 

[0:00:32]

PJ Bruno: And also, we have Sara Wilson. Both product girls. DK, a product manager, and Sara, a product designer. Hi, Sara.

 

[0:00:39]

Sara Wilson: Hey!

 

[0:00:40]

PJ Bruno: How you guys doing? So, I have them with me because they're fresh off of South by Southwest. They're here; we missed you guys, first of all.

 

[0:00:47]

Sara Wilson: Aw.

 

[0:00:47]

PJ Bruno: The whole office just felt empty without your energy. But I gotta ask. South by Southwest: I want to hear it all. Firstly though, it's Austin. It's South by Southwest. It's 2019. Was it just CBD everything, down there? Was it just-

 

[0:01:03]

Sara Wilson: [crosstalk] There was a good amount of it.

 

[0:01:04]

PJ Bruno: Yeah?

 

[0:01:05]

Dianna Kim: Yes.

 

[0:01:05]

PJ Bruno: CBD toilet paper. CBD fidget spinners.

 

[0:01:08]

Sara Wilson: They just handed it to you when you walked off the plane.

 

[0:01:10]

PJ Bruno: Right, exactly. "Welcome! Get weird. Here."

 

[0:01:11]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, "Open your mouth, take a drop." Yep.

 

[0:01:14]

Dianna Kim: I did go to a Viceland party. It was called Skateland, and a bunch of people were roller skating, and there was a bus there. And I was by myself, and I went into the bus, and people were just rolling up joints and doing a lot of CBD oil, and I was like, "What did I just get myself into?"

 

[0:01:30]

PJ Bruno: You were like-

 

[0:01:30]

Dianna Kim: Just immediately walked out. I was-

 

[0:01:32]

PJ Bruno: Hello?

 

[0:01:33]

Dianna Kim: Hello? Hello?

 

[0:01:34]

Sara Wilson: What are you guys doing in here?

 

[0:01:35]

Dianna Kim: I felt like the lost child, like I just didn't belong.

 

[0:01:40]

Sara Wilson: But for real, when I got off the plane and was waiting for a cab, I thought it was going to be Fyre Festival-

 

[0:01:45]

PJ Bruno: Oh no!

 

[0:01:45]

Sara Wilson: Because it was a line, of like one hundred people, and it took forty-five minutes to wait for a cab, and I was like, "If I get to my Airbnb, and it's a wet mattress, I'm going to be really mad."

 

[0:01:54]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:01:54]

Sara Wilson: But like-

 

[0:01:55]

PJ Bruno: Where's my luxury?

 

[0:01:56]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, but, thankfully, it was a really nice Airbnb. And a really nice week.

 

[0:02:01]

PJ Bruno: Lovely! Well, let's jump right into it! What do we got here? First off, I do need to hear about Nancy from Stranger Things, because that's been driving me crazy.

 

[0:02:10]

Sara Wilson: Oh boy! What a night. We were out-

 

[0:02:13]

PJ Bruno: Oh, what a night.

 

[0:02:13]

Sara Wilson: We were out Saturday night, and ran into some celebrities, and-

 

[0:02:18]

PJ Bruno: Pretty standard.

 

[0:02:18]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, so we saw Nancy, from Stranger Things-

 

[0:02:22]

PJ Bruno: Who I like.

 

[0:02:22]

Sara Wilson: And then I guess one of the girls from 13 Reasons Why was also out, but I haven't seen it, so I didn't recognize her.

 

[0:02:28]

PJ Bruno: Were they at South by Southwest for events? Or they just, were down there, hanging?

 

[0:02:32]

Dianna Kim: So, looking back, I think that they were having events, but I did not hear about them.

 

[0:02:38]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, it was pretty much a drive by, take a picture, and then keep moving.

 

[0:02:42]

Dianna Kim: Yeah.

 

[0:02:42]

PJ Bruno: Okay.

 

[0:02:43]

Sara Wilson: They weren't interested in being friends, sadly.

 

[0:02:45]

PJ Bruno: Aw.

 

[0:02:45]

Sara Wilson: But I still have a picture.

 

[0:02:47]

PJ Bruno: The picture tells a different story.

 

[0:02:49]

Sara Wilson: It proves that-

 

[0:02:50]

Dianna Kim: Best friends for life; BFFs.

 

[0:02:51]

PJ Bruno: Firstly, it proves that.

 

[0:02:52]

Sara Wilson: Did it really happen if there's not a picture on my Instagram? I don't know.

 

[0:02:57]

PJ Bruno: I'm always asking myself that question. The humidity? Was that a gross thing?

 

[0:03:01]

Sara Wilson: Oh, first impression: my hair grew like three inches when I stepped off the plane.

 

[0:03:05]

PJ Bruno: Oh!

 

[0:03:06]

Sara Wilson: Yeah. It was a constant battle to get my hair to con-

 

[0:03:10]

Dianna Kim: I just gave up.

 

[0:03:10]

Sara Wilson: Yeah.

 

[0:03:11]

PJ Bruno: You're like, "No."

 

[0:03:12]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, I turned it into, just, frizzy pigtails. I just gave into it.

 

[0:03:16]

Dianna Kim: [inaudible]

 

[0:03:16]

PJ Bruno: I like that look, though.

 

[0:03:17]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, it worked.

 

[0:03:19]

PJ Bruno: It works down there, I think.

 

[0:03:21]

Sara Wilson: And, I can say that I am still bloated from all the food.

 

[0:03:24]

Dianna Kim: Barbecue. So great.

 

[0:03:26]

Sara Wilson: Barbecue, donuts, tacos.

 

[0:03:27]

PJ Bruno: And it was just, stands are trucks? They're big into trucks there, or no?

 

[0:03:31]

Sara Wilson: Trucks, restaurants-

 

[0:03:32]

Dianna Kim: Yes.

 

[0:03:32]

PJ Bruno: Food trucks?

 

[0:03:33]

Sara Wilson: Everything.

 

[0:03:34]

Dianna Kim: Yup. We didn't make it to the Salt Lick, which is about forty minutes outside of the city, and that's the place you go to for barbecue, but we heard that- Just, given, we didn't have a car, we had to get an Uber, that would have been like a hundred dollars, one way! And the line would've been ridiculous, so we decided not to.

 

[0:03:52]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, we passed. And there's enough good food inside Austin-

 

[0:03:54]

Dianna Kim: Yeah.

 

[0:03:55]

Sara Wilson: That, we ate plenty good, all day, every day.

 

[0:03:56]

PJ Bruno: Right. And they had, you know. South by Sex- Southwest. Ugh. "South by Southsex" actually has a lot of great food, and humidity, but it has other things, too, right?

 

[0:04:08]

Sara Wilson: Yeah! Like what?

 

[0:04:09]

PJ Bruno: That's what I'm asking you guys! Tell me what's up!

 

[0:04:11]

Sara Wilson: There was a lot of good music. I'm-

 

[0:04:13]

PJ Bruno: You were stocking out all of it.

 

[0:04:14]

Sara Wilson: I'm a music-

 

[0:04:15]

Dianna Kim: She was there for two weeks!

 

[0:04:16]

Sara Wilson: Well, like nine days. Yeah, I'm kind of a music snob, and so I had my big list, and I still feel like I could've gone and seen like fifty more bands, and I'm still kicking myself for it, but I just want to say, there were so many awesome female artists up there. That was the majority of what I saw, were really strong female frontwomen, and that was so dope. King Princess, she's amazing. Ratboys is one of my favorites; I've seen them like four times in the past year. Emily Blue is from my hometown; she was super dope. There were just, band after band, that were just so dope, and that's kind of the heart of South by Southwest.

 

[0:04:50]

PJ Bruno: You introduced me to a lot of new music, because, just watching your story, I was like, "Oh, gotta check that out, gotta check that out too!"

 

[0:04:56]

Sara Wilson: I'm currently building a playlist of all the things I saw and heard about but didn't make it to at South by, so stay tuned. I can share out that playlist.

 

[0:05:03]

PJ Bruno: Everyone stay tuned for that South by Southwest playlist.

 

[0:05:06]

Sara Wilson: I'm pretty big on making my playlists.

 

[0:05:08]

PJ Bruno: What about the work stuff? We did work stuff, too, right? Or was it all dancing, and-

 

[0:05:13]

Dianna Kim: Work hard, play hard.

 

[0:05:14]

PJ Bruno: And CBD.

 

[0:05:14]

Sara Wilson: Well, Dianna's not going to toot her own horn, so I will. She was on this really dope panel at the Female Quotient, and-

 

[0:05:22]

PJ Bruno: Dope, dope.

 

[0:05:22]

Sara Wilson: It was just super dope. It was just this amazing moment, to see her sitting up-

 

[0:05:26]

Dianna Kim: Thank you.

 

[0:05:27]

Sara Wilson: Among these powerful women-

 

[0:05:30]

Dianna Kim: And a celebrity.

 

[0:05:31]

Sara Wilson: And a celebrity!

 

[0:05:32]

Dianna Kim: Not me. Of course.

 

[0:05:33]

PJ Bruno: And, I'm a celebrity!

 

[0:05:36]

Sara Wilson: Tell everybody how you made buddies!

 

[0:05:38]

Dianna Kim: Oh yeah, no, so the Female Quotient, awesome organization, and, Shelley, the CEO of the Female Quotient, is really good friends with Maria Menounos, who is a reporter, on E!, and, so, I see this beautiful woman, just walking by with her glam squad, and I'm like, "What is she doing here?" And, next thing you know, they're pulling up another chair next to me; I'm like, "Oh. She is-"

 

[0:06:02]

Sara Wilson: Gonna be in it.

 

[0:06:02]

Dianna Kim: She is right here with us, in it.

 

[0:06:04]

PJ Bruno: Oh, she's here to talk shop. Okay.

 

[0:06:05]

Dianna Kim: Yeah! And I didn't realize all the things that she did. She has an organization called Rally, which seems awesome. She's also building a platform for the ESPN of after-show buzzworthy stuff. But it was very intimidating, being on a panel with her. She's so well-spoken, very polished. And also, I didn't realize that she survived brain cancer, so, after we're doing our introductions-

 

[0:06:31]

Sara Wilson: And her mom, too.

 

[0:06:32]

Dianna Kim: Yeah, and her mom! So, after we're doing introductions, they're like, "Okay, tell us something that you wouldn't say on LinkedIn." And so she said that, and I'm sitting here, like, "What am I going to follow this up with?" And the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "I'm a cat mom."

 

[0:06:49]

PJ Bruno: Wait, the prompt was, "What would you not post on LinkedIn?"

 

[0:06:52]

Dianna Kim: Yeah, like, "Tell my about yourself."

 

[0:06:53]

PJ Bruno: Well, that's accurate.

 

[0:06:54]

Dianna Kim: Yeah. I guess, maybe I would say that on LinkedIn. Would that, [inaudible] third job-

 

[0:06:58]

PJ Bruno: I feel like the scope of things I wouldn't say on LinkedIn is vast! [crosstalk] You really could've picked a lot of things out of the dark and hit bullseye.

 

[0:07:05]

Dianna Kim: Right?

 

[0:07:05]

Sara Wilson: That's pretty harmless.

 

[0:07:06]

Dianna Kim: And I had to keep it pretty PG, for the audience.

 

[0:07:09]

PJ Bruno: Right, exactly, so it narrowed the scope a bit.

 

[0:07:12]

Dianna Kim: But great conversation, with her. She had, actually, a lot of input on personalization and how it impacts with technology, and we bonded over dominoes. Apparently, she loves dominoes, and I do, too, so that worked out.

 

[0:07:24]

PJ Bruno: So, best friends!

 

[0:07:26]

Dianna Kim: Best friends.

 

[0:07:26]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, I've never seen her outside of a taxicab television, trying to sell me some sort of television program. But, she seems fantastic. I'm glad she was there for the Female Quotient. That's rad.

 

[0:07:39]

Dianna Kim: Yeah, it was really cool.

 

[0:07:40]

PJ Bruno: Cool! Also, what else? Bumble?

 

[0:07:43]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, we went, and saw a number of pop-up shops, or takeovers, and, I think that there was a strong theme of human experiences, not only in the talk tracks, but also just in what brands were doing at South by. Like Bumble took over this coffee shop, and they were handing out free coffee. Because they're not just giving you a free pen, or a bag. It wasn't just handing out free stuff that you don't need. It was about giving you an experience and bringing people together.

 

[0:08:11]

PJ Bruno: Right, right. But at the coffee shop pop-up, somehow the women needed to start the conversation, or something, or?

 

[0:08:17]

Sara Wilson: Surprisingly, no.

 

[0:08:19]

PJ Bruno: No?

 

[0:08:19]

Dianna Kim: So, I actually texted my boyfriend before this, because you needed to download the app, in order to get in, and I was like, "Just to let you know, I'm downloading Bumble, I'm not here to date," but, when you download it, you can actually go for networking, which I didn't know.

 

[0:08:31]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, big time!

 

[0:08:32]

Dianna Kim: And for friends!

 

[0:08:33]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. Roxy Rosales did that, that one night.

 

[0:08:37]

Dianna Kim: I thought it was a cool experience. I think the question I have for brands, as a performance marketer, in my previous role: I'm like, "How much do these things cost, and does it actually have an output?" And it seems really, really cool, to be there for the interactive experience, but, I'm always curious to what the ROI is [crosstalk]-

 

[0:08:54]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. So, did you get your questions answered, somewhat, by that?

 

[0:08:59]

Dianna Kim: No.

 

[0:08:59]

PJ Bruno: You just continue to-

 

[0:09:00]

Dianna Kim: I mean, we saw the Bumble thing, which is really cool. No puppies, though.

 

[0:09:04]

Sara Wilson: There were supposed to be puppies. We missed the puppies. We did see puppies-

 

[0:09:07]

PJ Bruno: Oh, they advertised puppies.

 

[0:09:08]

Dianna Kim: Yeah, they advertised puppies. And free coffee.

 

[0:09:11]

Sara Wilson: But there were puppies at Madewell. Which, doesn't make much sense, but there's a good picture of Diana with a cute little puppy.

 

[0:09:18]

Dianna Kim: Yes, yes.

 

[0:09:20]

PJ Bruno: Aw. Which you can see, right here, if you guys can see at home. There it is. Good. Sorry.

 

[0:09:29]

Dianna Kim: We also got free food, from Uber Eats. They had a pop-up shop. They flagged us; we were walking by, and they were like, "If you show us you have the app downloaded, we'll give you free-" What was it.

 

[0:09:39]

Sara Wilson: Popeye's, or something? Fried chicken?

 

[0:09:41]

Dianna Kim: Oh, yes. And it was right after we had lunch, too. So, I love Popeye's chicken.

 

[0:09:46]

PJ Bruno: There's no way to say no.

 

[0:09:47]

Dianna Kim: Oh, there's no way to say no to a biscuit and some chicken tenders.

 

[0:09:50]

Sara Wilson: I said no, but Diana was like, "We can do it." And we did.

 

[0:09:53]

Dianna Kim: There's always room for more.

 

[0:09:54]

Sara Wilson: There's always room.

 

[0:09:55]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. Don't say that "don't" or "I can't" around me. You can. I know you can.

 

[0:10:01]

Sara Wilson: We just have to work hard enough.

 

[0:10:01]

Dianna Kim: Get rid of that negativity. You can always do it.

 

[0:10:04]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:10:04]

Dianna Kim: But, I think that was a great way to get downloads, or, if you haven't used the app, to actually use it for free stuff. The actual output of that; I loved it. And they actually had ice cream, the next day!

 

[0:10:14]

Sara Wilson: They did. They had different food-

 

[0:10:15]

Dianna Kim: Each day!

 

[0:10:16]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, to bring you in.

 

[0:10:17]

PJ Bruno: Jeez.

 

[0:10:18]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, it was pretty cool.

 

[0:10:19]

PJ Bruno: They know how to get us going.

 

[0:10:20]

Sara Wilson: One of them that didn't require an app download was Facebook. We missed this event; I really wanted to go. Like, every couple hours, they had a screen printing workshop, and it was off in this warehouse, kind of a little bit away from Downtown, and the first fifteen people to come, you could screen print your own bag.

 

[0:10:36]

PJ Bruno: Oh, cool!

 

[0:10:38]

Sara Wilson: And it was a whole workshop where you would learn how to screen print.

 

[0:10:41]

PJ Bruno: That's really fricking cool. I've never heard anything like that, actually.

 

[0:10:44]

Sara Wilson: It's an experience, you get to make something, you get to be proud of it, you get to keep it. And then, that brand, you're going to remember them, every time you use that bag.

 

[0:10:52]

PJ Bruno: Everyone's just going to think fondly of Facebook now, I'm sure.

 

[0:10:55]

Sara Wilson: So fondly.

 

[0:10:56]

Dianna Kim: Hopefully.

 

[0:10:58]

PJ Bruno: I mean, that was the goal, was it not? AI? Personalization?

 

[0:11:03]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, everything was- I looked and there were at least seventy events or talks that had the word AI in the title. We kept going, "What's the difference from this one, from that one?" Because they all had the same title, pretty much. And it's all about, "How do we use AI? How do we personalize everything? How do we make it human?" Which is very on topic. We definitely support that. But it kind of hit a point where we were like, "Is there even anything to take away from this?"

 

[0:11:33]

Dianna Kim: It was saturation of the message. Everyone was talking about the same thing, or, I'm not going to blatantly say which companies were on this panel, but it was just so high level, because they only had [inaudible] or executives on it, that they weren't getting into the actual, "How do you implement AI? How do you [crosstalk] it."

 

[0:11:49]

PJ Bruno: Right. It was just the philosophy behind it. It got very zoomed out.

 

[0:11:52]

Dianna Kim: Yeah, it got kind of tough, in some of the talks. It's definitely a very hot topic right now, but I think that, execution-wise, it could be helpful from a Keynote perspective, or, what I would like to see in the future, more of a Keynote perspective, with someone actually doing this in a meaningful way.

 

[0:12:09]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. Same.

 

[0:12:10]

Sara Wilson: And that's what I can say about the Female Quotient panel that Diana was on. There were a lot of real-life examples, and it was tangible. It was just something that, I walked away, and I felt like, "Oh, I could take that idea, and I could implement that," and it wasn't just a really broad concept of feelgood ideas.

 

[0:12:16]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. You could actually take it and do something with it, right?

 

[0:12:16]

Sara Wilson: Yeah.

 

[0:12:16]

Dianna Kim: The other thing to touch on is the human element, because I feel like, if I saw that in any sort of conference, like ten years ago, I'd be like, "This is weird. Why are we talking about this?" I feel like it's over-exaggeration of how robots are going to take over, but I don't necessarily think that's the case.

 

[0:12:49]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, do you think it's that course-correcting of, "Don't be scared that robots are doing all these things. There's still this human element." It's like a way to alleviate that panic, around, "Oh my god, Skynet knows where I am."

 

[0:13:01]

Dianna Kim: Yeah.

 

[0:13:02]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, I think that was a big part of it, is, they were asking, "How do you teach robots to be human?" And it's like, "Well, behind every bot, or everything that is artificial, is a human!" So, it inherently gets some of that, but there is some amount of correcting that you can do, to make sure that it doesn't just take over.

 

[0:13:21]

PJ Bruno: What's the wildest comment you heard, during one of the- Did you hear anyone being like, "Yes, but how can you assure me that a robot won't take my life at some point?"

 

[0:13:31]

Dianna Kim: Gosh.

 

[0:13:33]

Sara Wilson: I don't think that we heard that at any one talk track.

 

[0:13:37]

PJ Bruno: Because, "There are no stupid comments."

 

[0:13:40]

Sara Wilson: Right. "Everybody's feelings are valid."

 

[0:13:42]

PJ Bruno: But what was the most idiotic thing that you-

 

[0:13:45]

Sara Wilson: People on scooters.

 

[0:13:47]

PJ Bruno: Oh. Okay.

 

[0:13:48]

Sara Wilson: That was the worst thing that we saw, were people on scooters.

 

[0:13:51]

PJ Bruno: Because they're a big scooter-

 

[0:13:51]

Dianna Kim: And we were one of them.

 

[0:13:53]

Sara Wilson: We were-

 

[0:13:53]

Dianna Kim: On a-

 

[0:13:54]

Sara Wilson: Exactly once.

 

[0:13:55]

PJ Bruno: Self-loathing.

 

[0:13:55]

Sara Wilson: And, I have to say, they got me. They were like, "Load twenty dollars into the app." And I was like, "Yeah, dope!" And then I spent, like a dollar fifty, and was too afraid to use some ever again-

 

[0:14:04]

PJ Bruno: Why were you afraid?

 

[0:14:05]

Sara Wilson: Because they're not stable. They go, quickly. You have to ride on the roads. There's a lot of traffic in downtown Austin-

 

[0:14:13]

PJ Bruno: And they're like a scooter town, anyway, so this must have been like-

 

[0:14:16]

Sara Wilson: Like thousands of scooters. They hire people to go and wrangle the scooters, put them in the back of their truck, and take them back.

 

[0:14:23]

PJ Bruno: God. It's like Vietnam.

 

[0:14:23]

Dianna Kim: Yup. It was a lot of scooters and electric bikes.

 

[0:14:26]

Sara Wilson: Yes, the bikes.

 

[0:14:27]

Dianna Kim: I think that, just to get people around the city quicker, I think it makes sense. But, at the same time, not having proper bikes lanes freaked me out. We caused traffic on a pretty busy road, going down a hill.

 

[0:14:42]

Sara Wilson: We just took over the entire lane and turned around and there were like thirty cars backed up behind us, because it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk.

 

[0:14:50]

PJ Bruno: Oh, wow. But, totally legal to ride in the street.

 

[0:14:53]

Sara Wilson: You're supposed to. When you-

 

[0:14:54]

PJ Bruno: You're expected to.

 

[0:14:55]

Sara Wilson: When you download the app, you have to consent to, "These are the rules, I have to ride in the road, these are the certain things I can do."

 

[0:15:03]

PJ Bruno: What about riding on the median? Is there a rule there?

 

[0:15:06]

Dianna Kim: You go for it.

 

[0:15:07]

Sara Wilson: You want to do some tricks? Catch some air?

 

[0:15:09]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. I just want to put my life at risk, for once.

 

[0:15:13]

Sara Wilson: Oh no, I felt like just going straight and flat was enough of putting my life at risk.

 

[0:15:17]

PJ Bruno: I haven't been on one of these. So, these are Birds?

 

[0:15:20]

Sara Wilson: Yeah.

 

[0:15:21]

Dianna Kim: There are a few others.

 

[0:15:21]

Sara Wilson: Lyft has it now, and you can locate them, in the app. It'll say, "Show scooters nearby," and you can go pick one up. One was a Lime brand; there were five or six different brands. They all kind of looked the same.

 

[0:15:34]

Dianna Kim: Jump was another one; I think that was an electric bike service.

 

[0:15:37]

Sara Wilson: Yeah. And then they also had these people on bicycles with the little carts behind them, the pedicabs. Those are dope.

 

[0:15:45]

PJ Bruno: Oh, it's like a rickshaw, right?

 

[0:15:47]

Sara Wilson: Yes!

 

[0:15:48]

PJ Bruno: That's the one. They had those in New York.

 

[0:15:49]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, great service.

 

[0:15:51]

PJ Bruno: Really good?

 

[0:15:51]

Dianna Kim: Oh, so great. So cheap. It was like five dollars.

 

[0:15:54]

PJ Bruno: Because in New York, they cost an arm and a leg, I think.

 

[0:15:57]

Dianna Kim: Do they?

 

[0:15:57]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, because I think they romanticize, like, "Ah, take in the city, don't [crosstalk] of a car!"

 

[0:16:02]

Dianna Kim: Well, in Central Park, yeah. No, this was five bucks, we got a nice breeze in our hair. It was just wonderful.

 

[0:16:08]

Sara Wilson: And the music was so good.

 

[0:16:09]

Dianna Kim: He had a speaker. Yeah. It was great.

 

[0:16:12]

PJ Bruno: Excellent. So, outside of DK throwing it down for the Female Quotient, what was your favorite, or most inspirational, thing that you saw? Or took in? On the weekend? I know it was a lot.

 

[0:16:27]

Sara Wilson: I don't know. My answer has to be that panel with Diana. That was-

 

[0:16:31]

Dianna Kim: Aw. Thank you.

 

[0:16:32]

Sara Wilson: That's like, kind of cheesy, but it was just a good moment for Braze. It was a good moment for women. It was a good moment for my good friend. There were just so many great things about it. I was like a proud mama.

 

[0:16:44]

PJ Bruno: I'm getting a little-

 

[0:16:45]

Sara Wilson: I know.

 

[0:16:45]

Dianna Kim: You guys, I'm going to cry.

 

[0:16:48]

Sara Wilson: Aw.

 

[0:16:48]

Dianna Kim: I think that the Female Quotient did a- I'm just going to give them a huge shout-out, because, even the panels before, the one I spoke on and the panel after; they did such a great job with the content. Whether it's the personalization equation, which is what we talked about on my panel, or just looking at diversity, or how men view women in the workplace, which was an all-male panel, afterwards. I think they did such a great job with content generation. And also just diversity, in general, was a big, big theme, at South by Southwest, this year.

 

[0:17:19]

PJ Bruno: It sounds like they nailed it. It sounds like they nailed all the right spots.

 

[0:17:22]

Dianna Kim: Yeah. The one thing I didn't see, though, but I wish I did, but the lines were so long: the Instagram founders were speaking at a Keynote, or like a fireside chat. Just talking about their experience at Facebook and why they left. I think it's a very cool moment to see, because, right now we have a lot of executives leaving Facebook. The Facebook Execudus.

 

[0:17:45]

PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm. Oh, that's not yours? Or that's-

 

[0:17:48]

Dianna Kim: I don't know. Can I take that?

 

[0:17:50]

PJ Bruno: I think so. I'd never heard it.

 

[0:17:52]

Dianna Kim: I'm just going to take it.

 

[0:17:52]

PJ Bruno: Patent pending.

 

[0:17:53]

Sara Wilson: You heard it here, first.

 

[0:17:55]

PJ Bruno: Execudus.

 

[0:17:55]

Dianna Kim: But, it kind of shows, especially with that big of a company, what Mark Zuckerberg's trying to do with the privacy pivot, and how they're really trying to focus on privacy, but is it really more of a PR play? We'll see about that. But I wish I was there to see it, in person.

 

[0:18:12]

PJ Bruno: So, did you get any hot takes? Do we know at all, what they were gawking about? Did they talk a little bit about the-

 

[0:18:19]

Dianna Kim: They lost a lot of autonomy. I feel like-

 

[0:18:21]

PJ Bruno: Right. I read the article that was something like, that was the victory, in a way. Taking that responsibility off, and now they're moving on. It's kind of like, the finality of them now, "Okay. Fully acquired now."

 

[0:18:33]

Sara Wilson: They've done their job.

 

[0:18:34]

Dianna Kim: Goodbye.

 

[0:18:35]

PJ Bruno: We did it.

 

[0:18:37]

Dianna Kim: I read an article about the WhatsApp CEO, thinking, "No, still delete Facebook, we are our own company." I wonder how long that's gonna last, until Facebook really has their arms fully into the WhatsApp platform. TBD, but we'll see.

 

[0:18:55]

PJ Bruno: The Facebook Execudus. It is so much better as one word.

 

[0:19:01]

Dianna Kim: I'm going to take that.

 

[0:19:03]

PJ Bruno: It's yours! It's yours.

 

[0:19:04]

Dianna Kim: Cool.

 

[0:19:06]

PJ Bruno: Cool. I mean, any predictions for next year's? Do we have anything that we think we'll see? Hopefully, you guys will be back there, next year.

 

[0:19:15]

Dianna Kim: Hopefully.

 

[0:19:16]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, maybe.

 

[0:19:16]

PJ Bruno: Was this your first time going, Sara?

 

[0:19:17]

Sara Wilson: Yes, this was my first time in Austin, first time at South by. All, a lot of firsts. It was great.

 

[0:19:23]

Dianna Kim: I'm trying to think of any shows that are- So Game of Thrones had a huge thing, there. It was like, they had a blood drive. A lot of the content producers put a bunch of stuff on. I'm wondering what show is coming up next year, because I feel like a lot of content producers are going to have huge buyouts of bars, and cool interactive things.

 

[0:19:43]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it sounds like they're setting the bar, for these cool interactive experiences.

 

[0:19:49]

Sara Wilson: Yeah, bringing celebrities in, and giving you something to take home that you made. Some really cool, innovative things that brands are doing.

 

[0:19:57]

PJ Bruno: Well, South by Southwest, sounds like you're setting the bar. Other conferences, you better get up on that. MAU, we're looking at you.

 

[0:20:06]

Sara Wilson: Check in with Diana after that one.

 

[0:20:09]

Dianna Kim: I'll be there. I'll be there in Vegas.

 

[0:20:10]

PJ Bruno: We will. We'll be there. I'll be there as well! Looking forward to it!

 

[0:20:14]

Sara Wilson: You guys have fun.

 

[0:20:14]

Dianna Kim: I'll be at the crabs table.

 

[0:20:17]

PJ Bruno: Yo, wait, is that the highest odds? The crabs table? It is, right?

 

[0:20:21]

Dianna Kim: I don't know, I just think it's the most fun.

 

[0:20:23]

PJ Bruno: I think it's also best odds in the house, according to Spencer Burke.

 

[0:20:27]

Dianna Kim: Oh, and he knows everything, so.

 

[0:20:28]

PJ Bruno: Well, he knows how to gamble.

 

[0:20:30]

Dianna Kim: I gamble with Spencer.

 

[0:20:32]

PJ Bruno: I'm telling you, you're in good company. I told him I'm not super lucky, but he was like, "You come with me."

 

[0:20:37]

Dianna Kim: Beginner's luck. You'll totally make it.

 

[0:20:39]

PJ Bruno: So excited. Well, I guess we'll see you guys at MAU. MAU, you got something to top, right now. Thanks again for joining us this week, you guys.

 

[0:20:48]

Sara Wilson: Of course, thanks for having us.

 

[0:20:49]

Dianna Kim: Thank you.

 

[0:20:51]

PJ Bruno: This is PJ Bruno, and I'm accompanied by Diana Kim, and also the lovely Sara Wilson. Thank you guys again for being here. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

 

[0:21:01]

Sara Wilson: Bye.

 

[0:21:01]

Dianna Kim: Bye.

[0:21:01]

Taylor "The Creator" Gibb and Omari Matthew put on their aprons and chef hats to get in the zone for this week's topic: The Future of Food. Listen in on trends around the benefits and downfalls of leveraging a third party delivery service, the laboratory-made IMPOSSIBLE burger, and robocar advertising... that's right.. Robocar!

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:17]

PJ Bruno: Hey again, this is PJ Bruno welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest, and I'm so thrilled today to have two very close friends of mine, and that is Taylor Gibb, Taylor the creator, lovely to see you here.

 

[0:00:33]

Taylor Gibb: Thank you so much, gosh I am flattered, and Taylor the creator, in almost rhyme that I never stumbled across before, so super flattered there.

 

[0:00:41]

PJ Bruno: Absolutely, and also to my right, your left, Omari Matthew, wearing this amazing apron today.

 

[0:00:48]

Omari M.: Yo, what's up you all, how you all doing?

 

[0:00:50]

PJ Bruno: Dude you're so fashion forward I don't even know what to do about it, so I'm like...

 

[0:00:52]

Omari M.: Yo dude, it's just, I don't know, I wake up with it sometimes, I'm just like, I've got to wear the apron.

 

[0:00:58]

Taylor Gibb: For all you listeners at home, nobody does an outfit of the day selfie quite like Omari, in the office bathroom too, just one point.

 

[0:01:05]

Omari M.: I have started trying to count, and at 50 of I try to take a mirror selfie in every bathroom I go into.

 

[0:01:14]

PJ Bruno: Dude, I mean, I got to say, I feel like anytime someone says, "Yo Omari, nice shirt," you're immediately down on one knee, just kind of posing it, it's like a reflex, you're just down, you're like yep, fashion.

 

[0:01:25]

Taylor Gibb: Make it fashion, I love it, I would buy a coffee table book of all of your mirror selfies, I think that you've got a market there.

 

[0:01:33]

PJ Bruno: I want that. Taylor, what are we talking about today? What is this?

 

[0:01:36]

Taylor Gibb: Guys, I'm so glad that you asked PJ, this week I thought it would be really cool to talk about something super near and dear to my heart, which is food. There have been some really interesting articles out in the news recently just about the future of food. I got a couple of different themes going here, we got what's food going to look like? Is it going to be substantially different from what we see it like today? We've got how are you going to get your food, right? I really very heavily on my Seamless, my Caviar, my Postmates, what's that doing to the industry? Then also just thinking a little bit beyond that, the ways that we get our food are becoming more and more pervasive, more advertising heavy, and when we think about some of these new campaigns running out there in the world, ways for different restaurants to get you to the door, maybe even taking the wheel, a little spoiler there.

 

[0:02:26]

Omari M.: The future of food.

 

[0:02:28]

PJ Bruno: I feel like it belongs in a World Fair, in like-

 

[0:02:33]

Omari M.: Yeah.

 

[0:02:35]

Taylor Gibb: Step right up-

 

[0:02:35]

Omari M.: Just top hat guy.

 

[0:02:36]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:02:36]

Taylor Gibb: It's all on a comb.

 

[0:02:37]

PJ Bruno: Why don't you come on down and see what world will be like in 2020. Awesome, what's this first one?

 

[0:02:43]

Taylor Gibb: That was great, yeah so, first things first, let's talk a little bit about this article, consumers love food delivery, restaurants and grocers hate it. So this article is talking a little bit about how as consumers rely more and more heavily on this on demand food industry, whether it's getting groceries from Jet.com, whether it's getting your pad Thai from the little place around the corner but having someone else bring it to you, which I do. Our habits of consumption are shifting drastically, and I think it's tough for the industry to keep up, so I'm just curious, maybe start with Omari about some of your thoughts about, first of all this article, and about this trend in general?

 

[0:03:25]

Omari M.: Yeah, yo, so the article was immediately drawing to me because I think the first thing that I was pulled out, was that orders are not profitable for the restaurant, and working with these businesses like Postmates, like Grubhub, is not on the long term profitable, but it keeps them there, it keeps them relevant.

 

[0:03:47]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:03:48]

Omari M.: That is super interesting to me because restaurants can't not use something like Grubhub, Postmates for their future, but they have to deal with it unfortunately.

 

[0:03:58]

PJ Bruno: They have to loss money in the near term to keep up with competition, right?

 

[0:04:02]

Omari M.: Exactly.

 

[0:04:02]

Taylor Gibb: Totally, it's everybody's doing it, all the girls in school have the same bag, and maybe you don't even like that bag but you have to have it or else nobody's going to ask you to the prom. I think that's what happened to me, it's just about a bag, right?

 

[0:04:14]

PJ Bruno: They just want to go to the prom, these guys here.

 

[0:04:15]

Taylor Gibb: Everybody here, that's right, and you know who can take them to the prom? Is these third party delivery services that a lot of these restaurants rely on. So you could be the mom-and-pop shop around the corner making meatballs, get really big online, but you don't have the infrastructure in place to have somebody out and making deliveries day in day out, and so a lot of these places rely on these third parties that will take a little bit off the top. Problem is, if your third party isn't reliable, if your delivery guy gets lost on the way, maybe something spills, everybody is going to blame the restaurant, not necessarily the delivery service, which is another big problem I didn't even consider when I was looking into this.

 

[0:04:52]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, I didn't even think about that.

 

[0:04:54]

Taylor Gibb: Definitely.

 

[0:04:54]

PJ Bruno: Way less control.

 

[0:04:55]

Taylor Gibb: Then even building the infrastructure to get all of the food, keeping it cold, keeping it ready to go at the door, did you guys see everything about that?

 

[0:05:04]

Omari M.: Yeah, and I think when I read that I think immediately to one of my favorite restaurants, Xi'an Famous Foods.

 

[0:05:10]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, love.

 

[0:05:11]

Omari M.: Oh, if you've never had hand pulled noodles, it is amazing.

 

[0:05:16]

PJ Bruno: That's the truth dude.

 

[0:05:18]

Omari M.: But one of the things, and they have it all over the restaurant and if you know, you go to Xi'an Famous Foods, is you want to eat it within 15 minutes, because at that point the oil begins separating. So you're losing a lot of the experience when you're ordering and trying to order from certain restaurants, and you're losing what might be the optimal form that this food experience could've been.

 

[0:05:39]

Taylor Gibb: Oh totally, and it's interesting to because we're aware of this, we know that foods often times best in the restaurant, but I saw this crazy statistic in the article, nearly 1/3rd of restaurants meals in the year ending in September were consumed at home, up from 2% in the previous year. So this is a massive jump, we all just got a lot lazier, things are getting a lot easier, and we all did it at the same time. So we're aware of this, we love the experience of going into a restaurant, but it seems like the trend is moving.

 

[0:06:07]

PJ Bruno: Is that everywhere, or is that just New York City?

 

[0:06:09]

Taylor Gibb: I think this one was in, I'd have to get back to you, it looks like just New York City, in this article here, which-

 

[0:06:16]

PJ Bruno: Okay, okay, that makes sense.

 

[0:06:17]

Taylor Gibb: We're super on demand here, if I can have my remote taken to me from a bike courier from across the room in a couple of years, I want it.

 

[0:06:25]

PJ Bruno: I need that third party, that is just too far for me, and it's Saturday, I need to be waited on.

 

[0:06:29]

Taylor Gibb: Well PJ, tell me though, as a consumer, are you a big fan of these on demand services, are you a Postmates man?

 

[0:06:35]

PJ Bruno: Oh I'm a Seamless man through and through, honestly when I'm on the west coast, I go Postmates just because I think that's the way forward, yeah, I'm a big believer in having my food delivered to me and paying way too much for it, and I'm going to pay for that in the long run, and I understand that.

 

[0:06:50]

Taylor Gibb: Oh totally.

 

[0:06:51]

PJ Bruno: But man have I ever bought into the convenience of it.

 

[0:06:55]

Omari M.: Wait, why do you pay more? I'm super interested because it's, you know it's cheaper in the restaurant.

 

[0:07:03]

PJ Bruno: Right, okay, so I know it's cheaper in the restaurant, but I got home from a long day at work, and I don't know if you know this about me but I don't eat breakfast, so I haven't eaten breakfast, I eat lunch, but I only have a small window for lunch, and you know downstairs it's one portion and then get out of my face, and if I don't have enough time to go down around 2:00 pm to get my second lunch well then I'm pretty hungry. So the portion that I get-

 

[0:07:26]

Taylor Gibb: Maybe they've never heard of second lunch Sam?

 

[0:07:27]

Omari M.: Second lunch.

 

[0:07:28]

PJ Bruno: 11:00 eez? Afternoon tea? For all you [Louder] fans out there.

 

[0:07:32]

Taylor Gibb: Oh [inaudible].

 

[0:07:34]

PJ Bruno: But yeah, no, I actually I consume ridiculous embarrassing large dinners sometimes, and I'm talking like a medium pepperoni pizza with a side of waffle fries, and two Pepsi's, that's embarrassing, but, so take that and then put the charge on top of it, honestly guys, sometimes I'm paying like $30 to $35 for a meal, it's terrible, it's disgusting, but once I've gotten home, and I sit on that couch, and I'm in that chill mode, it's you know what? I'm the king of the castle, I have some money to throw around, I could spend it on a trip to Bali, I could spend it on experiences or my friends, but you know what, my gullet is craving something special right now.

 

[0:08:11]

Taylor Gibb: You know what your gullet might be craving too, in 10 years or so? Here's a segue for you, it could be an impossible burger, maybe you're going to be craving, you're going to say, I want that Pepperoni... Pepper...

 

[0:08:22]

PJ Bruno: You got it, sound it out.

 

[0:08:27]

Taylor Gibb: Cut that out because I want a pepperoni pizza, but I want that pepperoni to be FO pepperoni, maybe a little peppofoni pizza.

 

[0:08:36]

PJ Bruno: Ooh, you got it patent pending.

 

[0:08:38]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah, TM, everyone listening in.

 

[0:08:40]

PJ Bruno: Taylor the creator, on her stuff.

 

[0:08:41]

Taylor Gibb: That's right. We've got another article here that I picked out because I think it's super fascinating, we were talking earlier today about the impossible burger, which for those of you at home that might not be aware, is this I think a vegan burger, so all plant based, but it grills like meat, it sears like meat, it bleeds like meat, a little creepy, but I'm kinda in to it. A lot of people are saying that this is the way forward, not only for making a more cruelty free experience for eating, but for the good of the planet, because this doesn't mean that we're going to be taking up a ton of livestock, which produces CO2, our farming practices will be different. So first of all, I'm just really curious as to if either of you guys have tried any of these meats of the future?

 

[0:09:31]

PJ Bruno: What about you Omari?

 

[0:09:31]

Omari M.: Yeah, I buy it monthly.

 

[0:09:32]

PJ Bruno: What?

 

[0:09:32]

Omari M.: I buy the Beyond Meat, because there's a Whole Foods really close to me.

 

[0:09:37]

PJ Bruno: Oh cool.

 

[0:09:38]

Omari M.: So I hop in there and I get the beyond meat burger.

 

[0:09:40]

PJ Bruno: And this is lab made meat that we're talking about.

 

[0:09:42]

Omari M.: Yeah, we're talking lab, scientific coats.

 

[0:09:45]

PJ Bruno: Not learning at Braze type stuff, this is actually-

 

[0:09:50]

Taylor Gibb: Shameless plug. In a laboratory.

 

[0:09:50]

Omari M.: Yeah dog, it's so good, it's really, really good. I was blown away the first time I had it because you pull it out, you take it out the box, and it very much feels like a hamburger patty, it looks like a hamburger patty, you slap it on the pan, you hear that sear that you always look for in a good burger.

 

[0:10:10]

PJ Bruno: And it stays together? Because I feel like the concern when you come to veggie based patties, it crumbles, or it falls apart a little too easily, because it doesn't have the [sinues], right? Doesn't have the meat, but does that?

 

[0:10:19]

Omari M.: Yeah, it holds together like a charm, and I've had my roommate eat a burger, and he was, "Honestly if you didn't tell me this was a Beyond Meat burger I would've thought it was a regular burger."

 

[0:10:32]

Taylor Gibb: That is crazy, and they were in the article talking about the ways that they make this fake meat, and it's, they have a vat of what's called, we said, heme is how you pronounce it?

 

[0:10:41]

PJ Bruno: Heme.

 

[0:10:41]

Taylor Gibb: Why don't we have fake blood, just a big ole vat of fake blood, like an Edward Tolman-

 

[0:10:46]

PJ Bruno: Is it that metallic?

 

[0:10:47]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and it's interesting too though because we were saying a lot of the reason that people are so reluctant to change the way that they are eating is because it's kind of cultural entrenched. I want to have my burger, and I want it to be the kind of burger that I want. But PJ you made a really good point earlier that this is effecting more than us.

 

[0:11:06]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it just is, I think especially America we're very much like, I have my freedoms, and I want to be able to have what I want, and I'm entitled to have a burger. But to me as soon as we're in a situation where animal agriculture is creating a bunch of CO2 and Methane, in whatever 10 or 20 years the environment is looking not so good. As soon as you're in a situation where your free will is affecting the future health of not just people on this planet, but future generations, that is when it's time to say, okay, maybe we need to rethink this for the good of all.

 

[0:11:41]

Taylor Gibb: Totally.

 

[0:11:41]

Omari M.: Word.

 

[0:11:42]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah, I mean is your McDonald's burger really worth it? Who knows? I mean maybe in the moment at 3:00 am, you're like, screw future generations.

 

[0:11:50]

PJ Bruno: Right, exactly, and you know that said, me being on my soapbox here, I eat meat, so it's not like, but it just is more like if we had this call to arms, kind of like everyone it's time, let's do it, I'd be the first one on there. But I mean as long as they're going to still have meat available, I'm probably going to eat that.

 

[0:12:07]

Taylor Gibb: Ah, I love it.

 

[0:12:09]

Omari M.: Dude, that's okay.

 

[0:12:09]

Taylor Gibb: You know what? Omari's going to have [crosstalk]-

 

[0:12:11]

PJ Bruno: It's impossible though dude, you-

 

[0:12:13]

Omari M.: Yo, dog, you all are more than welcome, come through, I'll cook you all some impossible patties.

 

[0:12:16]

Taylor Gibb: Let's have a cook out.

 

[0:12:17]

PJ Bruno: You do that Sunday-

 

[0:12:18]

Taylor Gibb: Let's have some Tofurky.

 

[0:12:19]

PJ Bruno: Sunday dinner.

 

[0:12:19]

Omari M.: Yeah dog.

 

[0:12:19]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, amazing, we're getting to grilling season too here, Omari bring your apron, we're going to set up a meat free cook out.

 

[0:12:26]

Omari M.: I'm with it.

 

[0:12:27]

PJ Bruno: Oh actually, don't forget, also insect protein will become very big in our future.

 

[0:12:33]

Omari M.: Ooh.

 

[0:12:33]

Taylor Gibb: Ooh.

 

[0:12:33]

PJ Bruno: I know, I know, Ooh, there's oohs like ooh, and then there's oohs like ew ooh, but you should know-

 

[0:12:39]

Taylor Gibb: I can see it.

 

[0:12:39]

Omari M.: Insects man.

 

[0:12:40]

Taylor Gibb: Oh my god. Oh, I'm getting on a tangent but I've got to ask you guys, this is one of my favorite ice breakers. If you were given an unlimited budget and your only task was to make insects delicious, like the food of the future, what would you do? Because I'm always like nacho cheese powder, or like-

 

[0:12:56]

Omari M.: Yeah, ground them up.

 

[0:12:57]

Taylor Gibb: Grind them up.

 

[0:12:59]

PJ Bruno: For me I just think salsa's, I bury things in ketchup because I like ketchup, sriracha would make that a next level.

 

[0:13:05]

Omari M.: I think that there are whole, either Mexican or South American cultures where insect protein was the only source of protein during their time, during that civilizations time. So they've invented amazing ways to incorporate it, and it's persist because food is history, food is culture. So it's persisted over time and you see, I think there's a really great Chef's Table on it. On this guy who creates, I don't know exactly the dish he makes, but he sticks to using insects for it, because it's a culturally relevant dish, and it's so ingrained in who he is and where he's from.

 

[0:13:45]

PJ Bruno: See that's the thing, it's like at the end of the day insect proteins, they're not going negatively affect the environment like animal agriculture does, but if you flip the script and you went to that guy, and were listen, insect proteins is messing stuff up, we need you to stop doing that, he's like no, that's part of who I am.

 

[0:14:00]

Omari M.: Yeah.

 

[0:14:01]

Taylor Gibb: So true.

 

[0:14:01]

PJ Bruno: So it's culturally entrenched is the way to put it I guess.

 

[0:14:05]

Taylor Gibb: Although I wonder how culturally entrenched all these things are, here's another segue for you. Talking a little bit about the power of culture, about I'm going to have my McDonald's burger whenever I want it, wherever I want it, and then a little bit of a swerve coming in from our buddies down at Burger King. So for those of you who haven't heard, this is a Burger King one cent Whopper detour, essentially this is a campaign that Burger King ran where if you ordered a Whopper within, I forget it was something like 300 feet of a McDonald's essentially right there, through their app, you would get it for one cent.

 

[0:14:38]

PJ Bruno: That's right.

 

[0:14:39]

Taylor Gibb: So that's I think brilliant marketing number one, but two opens the door to some really interesting different ideas for marketing, perhaps incredibly pervasive, and that's what this article is about. So we're talking in the future, you're sitting here, beep, bop, in my little robot car, and I'm like, "Robot car take me to Subway sandwiches," and it's, "All right Taylor," my robot car is very friendly about it, it's like, "But Taylor, but I need to tell you that Quiznos," which it's still around in the future, I'm not sure if it's around right now honestly, "Quiznos-

 

[0:15:12]

PJ Bruno: It came back in the future.

 

[0:15:13]

Taylor Gibb: If Quiznos has made a return and for now only you get one dollar Quiznos sandwich, "Taylor I can take you right there, right now, as your robot car." And I'm of course going to say, "Robot car take me to Quiznos, thank you." So all of that aside, let's think about marketing in the future. We've got self driving cars, we've got the idea of perhaps more Uber and Lyft where your Lyft driver could say, "There's a deal going on at CVS where we can get you some, it looks like you're feeling really sick after this night of drinking, do you need some Advil? I'll take you there, I have an ad."

 

[0:15:45]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:15:45]

Taylor Gibb: Tell me a little bit about what you think about this kind of advertising of the future, doesn't necessarily have to food, but lets kind of talk about that.

 

[0:15:53]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it's interesting because they did mention in the article, it's funny because it starts with the whole trolling Whooper detour thing, but then it goes into like, imagine the future, you get a hankering for fast food, and your robo car pulls up, stuff like that, and basically goes through the whole scenario, but in the future where your car is a robot, and your car has screens all on the inside that advertises to you constantly. So first of all, on one side of the coin really interested in a dystopia future where I have advertising screens in my robo car feeding me images all the time, that's a little creepy.

 

[0:16:27]

Omari M.: It's a Black Mirror episode.

 

[0:16:27]

PJ Bruno: It is a Black Mirror-

 

[0:16:28]

Taylor Gibb: I mean I always hit mute on those Taxi screens.

 

[0:16:30]

PJ Bruno: Oh, every time, I turn it off, I don't even mute it.

 

[0:16:33]

Omari M.: I just get out. This is not worth it.

 

[0:16:35]

Taylor Gibb: See you.

 

[0:16:36]

PJ Bruno: I rip the screen down, throw it out the window. But no, and then they go to talking about in the future they can have these eye tracking cameras and biometric sensors where it's paying attention to your body and what you want. So if you're tired it's like, "Oh, there's a Starbucks close by. Or you're feeling anxious because of your rapid eye movement, go get a massage, there's one down the street." So it's kind of this thing of I don't want to be sold stuff all the time, but if it's based on how I feel, and if it's picking up those, it's that personalization touch. So it kind, I can argue both sides of it.

 

[0:17:12]

Omari M.: Dude, I never feel like people, I'm more like, I'll never feel like people get this right, because I'm a strong believer that once a marketing department, no offense to any marketing department, once a marketing department gets a hold of something, and they do it well, every other marketing department well we've got to do the same thing, and it goes way too far, and then all of a sudden consumers are now, everyone's doing this, this is incredibly invasive, it's who I am, and what I am, and where I am.

 

[0:17:39]

Taylor Gibb: Totally.

 

[0:17:39]

PJ Bruno: That's what they do, they push the envelope until they find where they've crossed that line.

 

[0:17:43]

Omari M.: Exactly.

 

[0:17:43]

PJ Bruno: Then they try to like... Reel it in, reel it in.

 

[0:17:45]

Taylor Gibb: Sorry.

 

[0:17:45]

Omari M.: And it's so hard to reel it in, yeah.

 

[0:17:47]

Taylor Gibb: Apologetic tweets, and I got to tell you guys listening here on the line, Omari used to be part of our marketing department here at Braze.

 

[0:17:53]

Omari M.: I love marketing.

 

[0:17:54]

Taylor Gibb: He's since moved on to support, but I'm actually curious as your kind of marketers take here, talking about the strategy behind something like this. How can a brand maybe ride on the coattails of something let's say way in the future you've got this robo car, ride on these coattails but make it an experience that consumers are going to love, that they're going to want more of? What's the key to finding that line, finding that good balance? Tough question.

 

[0:18:17]

Omari M.: That's a touch question, I feel like a lot of is just taking yourself out of one your shoes as a marketer, and then two the entire business, because I feel like it's really easy to step on toes when you're not cognizant of the toes you're stepping on.

 

[0:18:36]

Taylor Gibb: Well put, well put.

 

[0:18:37]

Omari M.: So you're able to, you're going to push out ideas and push forward marketing campaigns that can really get invasive for a lot of consumers. I mean there was a large point in time when I don't think anyone could really get post messages, right? Until we found the sweet spot.

 

[0:18:54]

Taylor Gibb: The dark ages.

 

[0:18:55]

Omari M.: Yeah, the dark ages, and now post messages are expected, and now consumers are able to turn off their post notifications, finally.

 

[0:19:04]

Taylor Gibb: Sure.

 

[0:19:04]

Omari M.: Where back in the day everyone was automatically opted in, and now they figured out look, maybe everybody doesn't want to be automatically updated, we should give them a choice. I think as long as marketers are aware that they are invading another person, or coming into another person's space with advertisements that might not be relevant to them at the time, as long as you're aware of that, your campaigns should naturally become something that's valuable to the consumer.

 

[0:19:31]

Taylor Gibb: Nice.

 

[0:19:31]

PJ Bruno: Well you know what's an interesting thought though is in the future, in your robo car, you're getting all these advertisements, and let's say all of them are hyper personalized, so there's not a single one that's not relevant, so it's every single, even if you don't want it, it's oh you realize that this is based on information about you, so it's relevant even if you don't want a massage at this moment, you realize that you're tired and it's picking up that you're tired. So every advertisement is personalized and relevant, and so then I think it becomes a matter of just exhaustion from people advertising to you. So to me, I think maybe the next tactic would be changing the format, or changing the medium, because you're in your robo car, there are seven screens all around your robo car, and you know you're going to get advertised to for the duration of the trip. So how do you change that and make it feel a little more like someone wants to take care of you, or someone wants to do something that you're interested in versus someone wants to make money off of you. It might be moving away from screens, because if you look at a TV in a car, you know you're being advertised too, and in the future in the robo car, that is almost synonymous, seeing a screen will just feel like marketing, it will feel like advertising, so in the future I hope, come on future, I'm rooting for you, we need to kind of surpass the screen, and do something that feels a little more... It's funny, what was it? It was, it might have been Black Mirror, but it was basically in the future the idea that your ad buddy, it's basically instead of receiving an advertisement, it's all right, I'll use ad... Oh, you know what it was? So basically, sorry, I'll explain, the ad buddy is basically it's a person, an actual person that sits next to you, and you're like, "Oh, I don't have enough money in my account to pay for my Metro card," like, "That's okay, do you want to use an ad buddy for the next seven hours and then that will pay for your Metro card?" It's like, "All right, fine." Boo, ad buddy, and then you just have this human that's next to you, a real human whose paid to just kind of read advertisements to you for the next seven hours.

 

[0:21:28]

Omari M.: [inaudible] think of that.

 

[0:21:28]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it's more human, and it's a step backward, but it's-

 

[0:21:31]

Taylor Gibb: It's off the charts on the humanity effects.

 

[0:21:34]

Omari M.: Yeah right.

 

[0:21:35]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, but this is a real person.

 

[0:21:36]

Taylor Gibb: We are an actual human.

 

[0:21:36]

PJ Bruno: Exactly, anyways, it was that show on Netflix with Emma Stone, and-

 

[0:21:43]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, Jonah Hill.

 

[0:21:44]

PJ Bruno: Jonah Hill, yes.

 

[0:21:45]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, I don't remember what it's called.

 

[0:21:46]

PJ Bruno: That's what it was.

 

[0:21:46]

Taylor Gibb: But that is hilarious.

 

[0:21:48]

Omari M.: Oh, oh my god it's on the top of my head.

 

[0:21:50]

PJ Bruno: It's true, we're surrounded by computers and we're not going to look it up, we're going to, that's the question of the day, if you guys get back to us with the answer to that show, you win some sick swag.

 

[0:21:59]

Taylor Gibb: Oh that's right.

 

[0:22:00]

Omari M.: Yeah.

 

[0:22:01]

Taylor Gibb: Swiggity swag.

 

[0:22:02]

Omari M.: And a high five.

 

[0:22:03]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah, even more I think valuable for Omari's...

 

[0:22:07]

PJ Bruno: Any final thoughts about, I just love thinking about the future, I'm sorry, Back to the Future is my favorite movie of all time, so just considering.

 

[0:22:13]

Taylor Gibb: Oh boy, that Mary McFly.

 

[0:22:15]

PJ Bruno: The funniest thing about when you think about that stuff, people are like, oh in the future, flying cars, that was the biggest thing they could think of, it's dude, it's called a plane, it exists already, think of something better.

 

[0:22:27]

Taylor Gibb: Do better.

 

[0:22:28]

PJ Bruno: Do better.

 

[0:22:28]

Taylor Gibb: I just love the Tomorrowland kind of version of the future too, it's like oh, and then everybody takes a pill instead of eating, and there's-

 

[0:22:34]

PJ Bruno: Oh, that's what, see I forgot to get to that, the future of food, is it in pill form? Do we get it injected? Is there a chip that you have inside of your neck that releases proteins and...

 

[0:22:45]

Taylor Gibb: I think we should have photosynthesis tattoos that take in the sunshine-

 

[0:22:50]

Omari M.: Oh that would be tight.

 

[0:22:50]

PJ Bruno: Whoa.

 

[0:22:50]

Taylor Gibb: So need a little morning coffee or something, no way, go outside get your tattoo in the sunshine and it's bo do dup, and feeling it for the day, that's my idea for the future. Patent pending, we've got peppafony, and we got photosynthesis tattoos, anybody who wants to approach me with a deal, you on, I know you're listening, please just reach right out, all right?

 

[0:23:12]

PJ Bruno: Awesome.

 

[0:23:13]

Taylor Gibb: Well, Omari, did you have a final thought about the future of food, I saw it?

 

[0:23:17]

Omari M.: Oh, no.

 

[0:23:18]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, no, just wearing that apron, looking super fly. PJ, thank you so much for having us on the podcast today, I think it was a great time talking about tasty things and tomorrow.

 

[0:23:29]

PJ Bruno: And what they could taste like tomorrow.

 

[0:23:31]

Omari M.: Heck yeah.

 

[0:23:31]

Taylor Gibb: That's right.

 

[0:23:32]

PJ Bruno: And thank you guys for being here with us, this is PJ Bruno.

 

[0:23:35]

Taylor Gibb: Taylor Gibb.

 

[0:23:36]

Omari M.: Omari Matthew.

 

[0:23:37]

PJ Bruno: You guys come back now, you hear? Take care.

[0:23:39]

Lord of Growth, Spencer Burke, and SaaS Sales Mercenary, Patrick Forquer, talk Slack and Lyft heading for IPO while Gap is splitting into two independent public companies. 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:18]

PJ Bruno: Hello there, welcome back to Braze For Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. I'm PJ Bruno, and joined with me again, the lord of growth, Spencer Burke. How's it going?

 

[0:00:29]

Spencer Burke: Hey, PJ.

 

[0:00:30]

PJ Bruno: And also with me, from the sales org, the man who churns out more hot takes than hot cakes, Patrick Forquer.

 

[0:00:38]

Patrick Forquer: Hey... Great to be with you Peter.

 

[0:00:40]

PJ Bruno: It's good to have you guys back. This is a good episode too, we're talking all about IPO's, IPO readiness, who's getting themselves out there now, who plans to do it in the future. And then also, a nice little article about Gap splitting up later. But, before we jump in, level setting. Everyone's good? Patrick, you're feeling nice?

 

[0:01:00]

Patrick Forquer: I'm just looking at your... Pineapple shirt.

 

[0:01:03]

PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

 

[0:01:04]

Patrick Forquer: And... It's really inspirational.

 

[0:01:06]

PJ Bruno: I think it's going to get us in the right zone.

 

[0:01:08]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, I'm ready for summer, it's the coldest day of the year.

 

[0:01:11]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, sheesh.

 

[0:01:12]

Patrick Forquer: Pretty depressing here in New York. I can't leave because my wife could have a birth at any moment, so I can only think about Florida. And I see your shirt and I'm transported to another world PJ, so thank you.

 

[0:01:23]

PJ Bruno: Is the birth imminent?

 

[0:01:24]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, we're in the red zone, as they say.

 

[0:01:27]

PJ Bruno: Oh, wow.

 

[0:01:28]

Patrick Forquer: T-minus six days until the due date.

 

[0:01:31]

PJ Bruno: Holy cannoli! [crosstalk]

 

[0:01:32]

Spencer Burke: Wow!

 

[0:01:33]

Patrick Forquer: So, to say I'm a ball of stress and emotion would be an understatement.

 

[0:01:39]

PJ Bruno: It'd be a good day.

 

[0:01:40]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, it'd be great.

 

[0:01:42]

PJ Bruno: Awesome.

 

[0:01:43]

Patrick Forquer: Everyone pray for me, that's all I have to say.

 

[0:01:44]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:01:45]

PJ Bruno: Everyone out there, please, pray for Patrick Forquer.

 

[0:01:47]

Patrick Forquer: Yes, please. (laughs) And my wife.

 

[0:01:49]

Spencer Burke: Obviously. (laughs)

 

[0:01:49]

PJ Bruno: Obviously, and the child to be-

 

[0:01:51]

Spencer Burke: That's a lot more stressful for you obviously. (laughs)

 

[0:01:55]

PJ Bruno: All right, first article of the day, we got this seven billion dollar Slack has filed to go public. Slack, one of the most hotly anticipated IPOs of 2019 announced Monday that it had confidentially filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which sells an enterprise collaboration and chat platform, joins the ranks of Silicon Valley unicorns like Lyft, Uber, and Zoom, that could make history as the largest cohort of multi billion dollar privately funded companies to hit the public markets.

 

[0:02:28]

Patrick Forquer: Wow.

 

[0:02:29]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:02:30]

Patrick Forquer: Quick aside, when I was-

 

[0:02:32]

PJ Bruno: Oh, good.

 

[0:02:33]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs) About Slack. So, when I was interviewing at [inaudible], now Briz, I was also at the same time interviewing at Slack. And so I'm in this, one of their big glass conference rooms in their office down in Soho, and I'm interviewing with a woman on video chat. And like halfway in, kind of normal conversation going on, and then all of a sudden, apropos to nothing, she just kind of freezes up and gets super awkward. Starts stuttering, is like, "uh-" And then I turn around and Stewart Butterfield (laughs) standing outside the door, just waiting to come in. And then his PR woman came in and kicked me out of the room, mid-interview. So that was my-

 

[0:03:14]

PJ Bruno: That's why you didn't get the job.

 

[0:03:15]

Patrick Forquer: That was great.(laughs)

 

[0:03:16]

PJ Bruno: That was when you met Stewart.

 

[0:03:18]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs) Yeah, so Stewart and I are old friends-

 

[0:03:19]

PJ Bruno: Old buds, from back in the day. [crosstalk]

 

[0:03:20]

Patrick Forquer: Really happy for him. Spencer, what do you think of this story? I don't know, start us off.

 

[0:03:27]

Spencer Burke: I mean, it's really exciting, we have a couple IPOs we're talking about in the cast today. Slack, I think, has become pretty iconic in the sense that it came out of nowhere, it feels like.

 

[0:03:40]

PJ Bruno: Out of nowhere.

 

[0:03:41]

Spencer Burke: And now, it's everywhere. In interviews, customers, Slack is all over the place. People want to connect with us over Slack more than they do over email. So I think it's exciting to see companies that you know IPO-ing on this kind of timeframe. Because, you know we're going to talk about Lyft, but like Airbnb, Uber, these companies that signify the unicorns in a lot of peoples' minds. We haven't really seen a lot of velocity towards IPO yet, so this really one of the first ones.

 

[0:04:16]

PJ Bruno: Right, exactly. They're moving quick. They started working on the app at the end of 2012, they did their soft launch in August of 2013. And then they had, I read this article they did this crazy friends and family press blitz, and in the first day had 8,000 people using it. And then in two weeks, 15,000.

 

[0:04:36]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, also big shout-out to the U.S. Government for shutting down for a month, so all these IPOs that we're talking about we probably could've talked about a month sooner had the government been open but, you know...

 

[0:04:47]

PJ Bruno: (laughs) Exactly, well hey, we're on their clock.

 

[0:04:49]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, one thing I find interesting too is as I read more about the Slack IPO was, they're doing a couple things differently. First they're a direct listing, so instead of doing a traditional IPO you're hiring an underwriter, who then likes to stint the stock pricing, and goes out to institutional investors for you. They basically, during direct listing to the exchange where their initial investors and employees who have stock can essentially create an exchange on their end, and then sell their stock individually, and to the upper market. The two benefits for the investors are there's not a lock-up period, you don't have to wait any specific amount of time. And it can be good and bad I guess, but since there's no defined price, the market sets the value, so it's super interesting. Which is why they're able to file confidentially, where they're not releasing the type of info that we'll talk about with Lyft. Where we see more detail on the growth [crosstalk] metrics et cetera. And what I was also looking at was interesting because they sell traditional subscription software at per seat pricing. And their per seat pricing and user base has gone up rapidly, as we've talked about, which is obviously a huge attribute to their success. They've made about 380 million in revenue last year, and somewhere I read that they have 900 million on the books, so, unlike Lyft they're not IPO-ing to raise money for the company, they're basically just IPO-ing so they can pay their initial investors back, they raised about a billion dollars. So completely different... State of business for most of the IPOs that we'll talk about for the rest of the podcast where its like they have a ton of money on hand, they're growing at a huge clip, they're relatively profitable for a company at their stage. And, you know, super interesting. I think they're the first to reck listing since Spotify, and I can't wait to see where the price falls, and how much shares go into the market from an availability perspective. So, be super interesting to watch, unlike traditional...

 

[0:06:53]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, I was looking at some stats for IPOs generally, and one thing that was really interesting for me is most IPOs, it's like 40%, are in healthcare. I think we get really immersed in technology being in a tech space. Like, if its an IPO it has to be a tech company. In reality there's a much broader market that exists around IPOs and across industries. And actually, on the confidential filing, I think it's like 99% of companies do that, so that's the common trajectory for the process.

 

[0:07:29]

Spencer Burke: That's interesting.

 

[0:07:32]

Patrick Forquer: Also, I was reading about the general enterprise collaboration space. It's growing at a 15% year over year clip, which is awesome for Slack, and obviously they have a huge market share. But I was also reading about their competitors and I saw Yammer...

 

[0:07:46]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:07:46]

Patrick Forquer: Would you like me to repeat that? [crosstalk]

 

[0:07:48]

PJ Bruno: I haven't heard that word in so long.

 

[0:07:51]

Patrick Forquer: Yes. Slack totally changed the game for this space, and everyone else is just trying to catch up. But, I was just thinking back to past softwares I used before I started using Slack, and it's just like, what a disaster.

 

[0:08:02]

PJ Bruno: Didn't Yammer try to do like the same thing, wasn't it-

 

[0:08:05]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, just basically, horribly.

 

[0:08:07]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:08:07]

PJ Bruno: Right, just bad. Just bad.

 

[0:08:07]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs)

 

[0:08:08]

PJ Bruno: Well you know they pride themselves, Stewart says, it's always like they're veracious when it comes to user feedback. They're just constantly taking it in, and mitigating risk. I guess it's like if they tried out with a group of engineers and one engineer says, "Oh, I don't like it, I'm not going to use it," that's like... It's kind of over for that opportunity. But yeah... Also as PR goes, I think he learned with Flicker, press and doing it the right way it's like, how you win the game. They were the official sponsor of the World Cup for Christ's sake. No tech company does that.

 

[0:08:44]

Spencer Burke: I didn't even know that, really?

 

[0:08:45]

PJ Bruno: Oh yeah, if you watched any of the games Slack was everywhere, you know. So, they knew what they were doing with that. Let's move on. Lyft. Files for IPO. It [inaudible] it's growth and reveals it lost 991 million last year. Yeah, I mean, how do I feel about this? I'll give you guys just the opening tagline here: "Potential investors in Lyft Inc. Initial public offering got their first look at the ride-hailing companies financials Friday, revealing a startup that's hustling to outrun it's growing losses. Lyft's revenue is exploding, and so is its net loss. Like many IPO candidates, the San Francisco company has never turned a profit. It lost 991 million in 2018 up 32% from the year before, even as revenue from the same period doubled." And yeah, I don't think profitability really matters to IPO anymore. IPO should help that kind of, that relationship has changed quite a bit.

 

[0:09:49]

Patrick Forquer: A couple of folks had thoughts on this, and tech industry just got Slack shown also. Shout-out to Boris and Chris for their [inaudible]. I read from recode, I'm reading the stats, so I hope it's true, but 80% of companies that have filed IPO in the past year have not been profitable the year leading up to their IPO. And the last time the percentage was that high was 2000... So not good times potentially, but if you see a company like Lyft... Most of the analysis of their IPO that I was reading people look at things like competitive advantage, product market fit, their margins, and then their growth metrics. So obviously growth is really good, so it comes down to your point of view on... They're going to raise money to pay off some losses that they have, or put towards R&D and investment, and expansion. But, do we really think that their product market fit or competitive advantage is that far superior to an Uber or any of the other ride sharing competitors? And I think that's kind of the key question. If you're going to invest in something like Lyft you're going to have to ask yourself-

 

[0:11:04]

PJ Bruno: Do you use Lyft?

 

[0:11:05]

Patrick Forquer: I do.

 

[0:11:06]

PJ Bruno: You do-

 

[0:11:06]

Patrick Forquer: Well, Lyft-

 

[0:11:06]

PJ Bruno: Over Uber?

 

[0:11:07]

Patrick Forquer: Braze costumer, obviously.

 

[0:11:09]

PJ Bruno: Shout-out.

 

[0:11:10]

Patrick Forquer: Shout-out. (laughs)

 

[0:11:11]

PJ Bruno: Got to do it.

 

[0:11:12]

Patrick Forquer: Great cross channel, customer engagement, Lyft.

 

[0:11:14]

PJ Bruno: Love it.

 

[0:11:14]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:11:16]

Patrick Forquer: But in all seriousness, yeah I use Lyft, it's a great product. When you talk to drivers, drivers who do both almost unanimously tell me that Lyft is better to their drivers, they pay them more, they treat them with more respect.

 

[0:11:30]

PJ Bruno: Right, they get bonuses now.

 

[0:11:30]

Patrick Forquer: They get bonuses and all that jazz. So that part I really like, it's just if the idea is that we're moving towards an autonomous future, where the cars drive themselves, then the real competitive situation you have to look at- it's not necessarily with Uber but its with car manufacturers like Tesla or GM, or whoever may be making these autonomous cars and then could have a more clear enough sight into unseating some like a Lyft or an Uber. And obviously that's not tomorrow, but in terms of long-long term growth, you know, something to watch.

 

[0:12:04]

Spencer Burke: So are you... Thumbs up, thumbs down?

 

[0:12:08]

Patrick Forquer: I'm thumbs up on Slack, I think I'm thumbs down on Lyft.

 

[0:12:12]

Spencer Burke: Oh, why?

 

[0:12:14]

Patrick Forquer: I don't know. It might have a couple of good quarters, I think if you're going to buy something and just set it and forget it, it's not something that I would want to hold for a really long time, just cause I don't think that the return for profitability or margin perspective is going to be where investors want it to be over the next three or four quarters. I mean... They lost a billion dollars last year.

 

[0:12:34]

PJ Bruno: Patrick's picks.

 

[0:12:35]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah. (laughs) [crosstalk]

 

[0:12:38]

Spencer Burke: Not financial advice. (laughs)

 

[0:12:42]

Patrick Forquer: What do you think PJ, you going to buy some Lyft?

 

[0:12:44]

PJ Bruno: no. No, I'm definitely the type of guy that I'm ETF, index funds all the way. Just hang on to it until I die, like literally that's it.

 

[0:12:52]

Spencer Burke: Keep it simple.

 

[0:12:53]

PJ Bruno: My father taught me well.

 

[0:12:54]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:12:54]

PJ Bruno: It's all about low risk, live forever.

 

[0:12:58]

Patrick Forquer: Spencer, what do you think? Slack vs Lyft, which one would you buy?

 

[0:13:02]

Spencer Burke: I think Lyft is more exciting to me. I think, for me Lyft's IPO represents an opportunity for people to buy into this vision of the world with ride sharing, [inaudible] one. They also talk about autonomous vehicles, so, that's all on the radar. Someones not going to sneak up on them and be like, "Oh, cars drive themselves now," and Lyft's like, "Oh shit, we didn't see this one coming."

 

[0:13:30]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs)

 

[0:13:30]

Spencer Burke: And I think they wanted to file before Uber, just so that their owning this conversation. So even though they're to turning a profit right now, we know Ubers in the same position. And so they can kind of own that, be out there talking about it, control the messaging, and they're going to get a wave of investment from people who haven't had an opportunity to buy Uber and some of the private financing that they've done. Now Lyft's there in the public market, you want a piece of that action, it's there.

 

[0:13:59]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. I still don't get how they're going to grow out of that hole though. Because last year, effectively they lost $1.50 for every ride that was given. [crosstalk]

 

[0:14:13]

Patrick Forquer: Spencer doesn't care.

 

[0:14:15]

PJ Bruno: (laughs) He was literally was going to say, whatever Patrick says, I'm going to take the opposing standpoint, and I'm going to [inaudible] him into the ground.

 

[0:14:23]

Spencer Burke: Yeah, I don't know if it matters necessarily. We're stuck in this idea that they need to be profitable, right now. Amazon got a lot of criticism for a long time because they were investing so much [crosstalk] back into the company, and Ubers raised, through debt and venture capital, 24 billion dollars in financing in the private markets. So people are investing in these companies at an insane scale already. So the difference now is that the three of us, anyone, can go buy a piece of Lyft. People are already investing quite a bit here, it's now just in a public market. So means there's more scrutiny, they'll have to have a track tour profitability, but I think in a public market it gives you some pressure in a form to do that.

 

[0:15:17]

PJ Bruno: Right, I agree. I also think, and I'm not saying that I'd never buy [inaudible] if it's a slam dunk vs Slack. But if you think about, okay we're going to prioritize growth over profitability, Amazons obviously the model for that. And they've done a great job and been a great investment for a lot of people. But also, Amazon's market share and their competitive advantage is pretty vastly superior to their competitors set, if you look at overall eCommerce sales Amazon is obviously very dominant in that way. And Lyft is as well. I mean, obviously it's them and Uber kind of neck and neck, but the question then becomes do you of their marketiture long term. And I don't have an answer, but its just something to think about, something I would think about.

 

[0:16:05]

Spencer Burke: But I think even this kind of starts the Segway into our next topic a little bit. Even the way you're framing that kind of exposes that Amazon isn't just an eCommerce business. And they don't provide a lot of reporting to break everything out, but I think it's something like AWS is 50% of the revenue. And so it's like, all right, who is their eCom competitors? Okay, you can go through Walmart and other folks in that space, but then there's AWS, and who's their competitor? Google, Microsoft, and that's it. And maybe they should be two separate companies.

 

[0:16:38]

PJ Bruno: Maybe it should be two separate companies, on that note...

 

[0:16:43]

Spencer Burke: Great pivot.

 

[0:16:43]

PJ Bruno: Yeah I know, what a Segway.

 

[0:16:45]

Spencer Burke: You're a pro

 

[0:16:48]

PJ Bruno: So Gap will split into two publicly traded companies, and their stock surges. Gap said Thursday that they'll split into two independently publicly traded companies, one comprised of it's Old Navy brand, ans the second a yet to be named company that includes its other brands like Banana Republic and Athletica. And yeah, The Gap stock surged like 23% on that call. Any initial thoughts about this?

 

[0:17:15]

Patrick Forquer: I always like when you know something was a semi-hastily made decision, where it's like, we're splitting into two companies, it's going to be Gap and then company Y. (laughs) We haven't named the second company yet. We just know that this one company is doing really horribly and this other one is doing really well. We need to split them up so we don't cannibalize our business.

 

[0:17:36]

Spencer Burke: I actually thought that was a great move, because then the press is about, it's about the change and their stock surged on the news-

 

[0:17:43]

PJ Bruno: Interesting, right.

 

[0:17:44]

Spencer Burke: Instead of criticism of, oh why did they call it some random acronym, or why is it Gap instead of Banana Republic? It's new-co, don't worry about the name, this is super exciting.

 

[0:17:56]

PJ Bruno: New-co right.

 

[0:17:57]

Patrick Forquer: New-co, doesn't matter.

 

[0:17:58]

Spencer Burke: Exactly, yeah.

 

[0:18:02]

PJ Bruno: And it's funny because I guess it's to protect old Navy's business, because they're doing quite well, and they want to keep themselves apart from some of these other brands. But Old Navy, I remember when I was a teenager it was quite cool place to shop, but I specifically called my cousins yesterday, my 15 and 17 year old cousins to be like, "Hey, do people go to Old Navy?" And they're like, "No!"

 

[0:18:24]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs)

 

[0:18:25]

PJ Bruno: "Okay, well where are you guys shopping?" They're talking about Urban Outfitters-

 

[0:18:27]

Spencer Burke: I love that you're doing this research.

 

[0:18:29]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, Pacsun, Lululemon. I was like, "You can afford to shop at Lululemon?"

 

[0:18:33]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:18:33]

PJ Bruno: What did they pay you in high school now! What's the salary in high school?

 

[0:18:38]

Patrick Forquer: I was also bummed to see that their closing a bunch of Gap stores, because-

 

[0:18:41]

Spencer Burke: Like 200.

 

[0:18:41]

PJ Bruno: Yeah

 

[0:18:44]

Patrick Forquer: Several times on business trips I have spilled a, you know, coffee or breakfast item onto a shirt that I'm wearing to a meeting and almost always The Gap is the nearest store that opens at 8:30- 9:00 am.

 

[0:18:59]

Spencer Burke: You got to have a back up shirt.

 

[0:19:00]

PJ Bruno: That's true. Except today, you currently have a stain on your shirt.

 

[0:19:03]

Spencer Burke: Do I?

 

[0:19:04]

PJ Bruno: (laughs)

 

[0:19:04]

Patrick Forquer: I looked, dang it.

 

[0:19:08]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:19:08]

Patrick Forquer: But no, The Gap clutch, the large slim fit blue Gap shirt. Can't miss.

 

[0:19:14]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, that's true. Well you have a build like a large model, so I think that it probably fits you just right

 

[0:19:19]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs)

 

[0:19:19]

PJ Bruno: But you know, Old Navy, when they had those fleeces come out-

 

[0:19:22]

Patrick Forquer: Oh, the performance fleece?

 

[0:19:23]

PJ Bruno: They cornered the market, obviously.

 

[0:19:25]

Patrick Forquer: (laughs) They sure did.

 

[0:19:25]

Spencer Burke: Those commercials.

 

[0:19:27]

PJ Bruno: That's all I remember, I was walking down the street, all I could remember was that whole advertising campaign around fleeces. I was like, God, they were in their stride then, and now I don't know if it's as accessible to the younger market.

 

[0:19:38]

Spencer Burke: Yeah, the switch from a business Podcast to a nostalgia Podcast.

 

[0:19:41]

PJ Bruno: You know what, I think the best Podcasts weave in both.

 

[0:19:45]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:19:45]

Patrick Forquer: To Spencer's point, I think it'll be interesting to see if these other kind of retail conglomerates who have brands performing at different levels like Gap and Old Navy, will split off if [inaudible] comes to mind, as well as a couple of others. Abercrombie, Hollister, et cetera. Where certain brands, certain markets doing really well have really good margins, and then really good [inaudible], or really good eCommerce business. And so I think in that perspective we might see more of this as brands in retail continue to get more specialized. And obviously AWS should be a standalone company. And I think Kevin was talking about it, it would've been the fastest company to a billion in earnings in history if it had been its own thing.

 

[0:20:31]

Spencer Burke: Yeah I think it's interesting splitting out the higher end brands from Old Navy. I was reading, apparently Diesel jeans is filing for bankruptcy, [crosstalk] (laughs) they totally missed the move to eCommerce, they took out all these leases on super expensive real estate on fifth avenue because they were trying to be a luxury brand, but the only stores that were performing were the ones that were the outlets, the discounted. So it's clear, people don't want to pay full price for these jeans, and if you look at that as two different businesses, ones really healthy, ones not so healthy. It's all rolled into one, and with some bad decisions on real estate, but I think that kind of highlights for why this is a move that's valued by the markets, right. They can understand the two different sides of this company in a more coherent way, rather than trying to lump it all together.

 

[0:21:31]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, the way this is, it seemed like a more proactive move verses, "Oh we're drowning." It felt a little more like, "Okay, we're going to take this..." I don't know, The Gap seems like a pretty smart company when it comes to some of the stuff they're doing, especially with personalization and whatnot. They have their, I don't know if you guys know but they have their own proprietary CDP that they use.

 

[0:21:56]

Patrick Forquer: I think that the worse thing that happened to The Gap was... What's that movie with Steve Carell where he's the dad on the rebound, and then Ryan Gosling says to him, "You can do better than The Gap." And I think I saw that while wearing a Gap shirt, and I felt really bad [crosstalk] about myself.

 

[0:22:10]

PJ Bruno: Oh, it's like crazy about love or something like that. Crazy in love, or something.

 

[0:22:15]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, well... You can't do better than The Gap. I think Spencer's wearing Gap right now if I'm looking [inaudible].

 

[0:22:20]

PJ Bruno: Is this Gap?

 

[0:22:21]

Spencer Burke: I'm not, I don't do brand endorsements.

 

[0:22:23]

PJ Bruno: Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?

 

[0:22:26]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:22:26]

PJ Bruno: Tell us! Tell us!

 

[0:22:27]

Spencer Burke: We don't have a Patreon, but you can send a large slim fit to-

 

[0:22:31]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, MeUndies, if you're listening... We need a sponsor.

 

[0:22:37]

Spencer Burke: Actually Pat, as our historian and financial analyst I have a question for you.

 

[0:22:42]

Patrick Forquer: Yes.

 

[0:22:42]

Spencer Burke: In the article it says the current market cap for Gap is 9.7 billion.

 

[0:22:48]

Patrick Forquer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

 

[0:22:48]

Spencer Burke: Slack could be valued at seven billion in their IPO, how do you... I think for a lot of people Gap, know them, I can see their stores, wearing their clothing, almost ten billion dollar company, sure. Slack, it's a chat app. It's almost worth the same valuation. How do you explain that to people?

 

[0:23:12]

Patrick Forquer: I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[0:23:14]

PJ Bruno: (laughs)

 

[0:23:14]

Patrick Forquer: Well I mean Gap also has a very large international brand and presence, so its not just like a domestic U.S. Brand. But, I don't think you do, and especially if you look at the seven billion, I don't know what the multiplier, I think it was like 25x to earnings.

 

[0:23:31]

PJ Bruno: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

 

[0:23:32]

Patrick Forquer: So, I mean, we talk a lot about that here at Braze in terms of having SAS based revenue model, investors tend to like subscription based business more than they like retail business, because retail is subjects to market fluctuation and seasonal, overhead, seasonal impacts, macroeconomic impacts. You know, if Slacks an essential part of your business and the market goes down, you're still going to use it because it's how you run you're business. But I might not go buy a Gap shirt if-

 

[0:24:06]

Spencer Burke: (laughs) I don't know, you're doing it to do business, right?

 

[0:24:08]

PJ Bruno: So you're saying Slack is recession proof? You know that you will have to work until the day you die-

 

[0:24:11]

Patrick Forquer: Well no, nothing-

 

[0:24:12]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:24:12]

PJ Bruno: And that is certain.

 

[0:24:15]

Patrick Forquer: Well when Social Security- [crosstalk]

 

[0:24:17]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:24:18]

Patrick Forquer: When Social Security evaporates in the next 20 years we are going to all be working until we're 90 anyway.

 

[0:24:23]

Spencer Burke: I feel like we have gone off the rails-

 

[0:24:26]

PJ Bruno: (laughs) I think that's part of it. Well anyways, just in time for us to wrap up. Any final parting words-

 

[0:24:33]

Spencer Burke: Kill switch.

 

[0:24:33]

PJ Bruno: On IPO readiness?

 

[0:24:35]

Patrick Forquer: I just can't wait for Bird's IPO, that's all I have to say.

 

[0:24:38]

PJ Bruno: That's your jam.

 

[0:24:40]

Patrick Forquer: Yeah, that's my jam.

 

[0:24:41]

Spencer Burke: (laughs)

 

[0:24:41]

PJ Bruno: So many [crosstalk] plugs today.

 

[0:24:42]

Patrick Forquer: Shout-out to Cordy Thorten if you're listening.

 

[0:24:46]

PJ Bruno: Spence, you want to leave the people with something good? Something great?

 

[0:24:49]

Spencer Burke: No, I'm done.

 

[0:24:51]

PJ Bruno: All right, well you know what, I think I'm done too. But you guys, stay sharp, keep your eyes open, eyes on the prize, and come back and see us next time.

Email Product Manager Gurbir Singh and the Deliverability Godfather himself Andrew Barrett sit down to talk ISPs (Internet Service Providers), ESPs (Email Service Providers, and how they factor in to your emails making their way into the inbox.

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:18]

PJ Bruno: Hi there, this is PJ Bruno. Welcome back to Braze for Impact. I'm very, very excited to have with me today, two of my very good friends, special guests. One, Gurbir Singh, who's a product manager here at Braze, and he owns email. Hello, Gurbir.

 

[0:00:33]

Gurbir Singh: Hey, PJ. How's it going?

 

[0:00:34]

PJ Bruno: Pretty good, man. Also with us, Andrew Barrett, our director of email deliverability in the house. How's it going, buddy?

 

[0:00:41]

Andrew Barrett: It's going well. It's going great. I'm so happy to be here in the same room with you guys for a change.

 

[0:00:45]

PJ Bruno: I know. Andrew's usually in D.C. Doing the remote thing, but we see them all the time on Slack, the deliverability dojo. He is the Sensei. He's there answering all the questions. Today, I wanted to get these two email champs in the room. Just talk a little bit about deliverability, but also more specifically ISPs and ESPs. What are they? What are they responsible for? Let's pretend I know nothing except a small amount of information. Right now, that is, correct me if I'm wrong, ISPs, they provide the internet, they can leverage spam filters and blacklists to protect people from unwanted mail. Examples, I guess would be Comcast, AT&T, Verizon. Is that accurate so far?

 

[0:01:33]

Andrew Barrett: Absolutely.

 

[0:01:33]

PJ Bruno: Okay. Jump in and stop me as soon as it's inaccurate information.

 

[0:01:38]

Andrew Barrett: No. Everything you said right there is absolutely true, but you take it one step higher. What they really are are businesses. They're businesses that are in the game to make money. Same as anybody who's actually sending mail to users of the inboxes that they provide. One of the big questions out there in deliverability land is, how do you make money off of an inbox that you're not charging anybody to use? Right? It turns out that everything we say about delivering email has everything to do with, not just the business model that we're in as marketers and senators, but also what's the ISP's business model here? Once you understand how the ISPs are making their money, all kinds of light bulbs start going off in your head around deliverability. What you find is that when you align your email sending program to the ISP's revenue requirements, what their business model is, all of a sudden, bang, deliverability happens.

 

[0:02:39]

PJ Bruno: It's magic.

 

[0:02:41]

Andrew Barrett: It is magic. You can't avoid it. It is an inevitable outcome of aligning your business model with the ISP. The great news is, is that everybody wants the same thing. Right?

 

[0:02:53]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:02:53]

Andrew Barrett: Email recipients want email that they love to read. ISPs want to be able to put that content in front of their users of the free inboxes. That's because the more often those recipients can engage with the email, the more and better opportunities the ISPs have on making money, because their customer is not the inbox user, their customer is the advertiser that's putting contextually relevant advertising alongside the email that we're sending. If we're sending mail that users want to read, the recipients are happy, the ISPs are happy, we're happy, everybody's happy.

 

[0:03:37]

PJ Bruno: I mean, and that's the dream state is making everything happy. But I guess does it mean that traditionally, ISPs look out for the email receiver, while ESPs prioritize the email sender? Is that, not at all?

 

[0:03:53]

Gurbir Singh: No, I mean I think ISPs definitely do look out for the users, but as Andrew said, they definitely look out for their own business model as well. Then, ESPs are really focused on working with the brands. Right? These guys are the delivery agents. They're the ones sending out massive amounts of emails on behalf of various brands around the world. Their goal is to say, I want to get you in an inbox. I want to make sure you're successful. It's kind of hand in hand a little bit. The circle of life is really, if you make the ISPs money, you're going to be good.

 

[0:04:27]

Andrew Barrett: That's right. I mean, anytime our business model is in conflict with the ISP's business model, we lose. All right?

 

[0:04:34]

PJ Bruno: Gotcha.

 

[0:04:36]

Andrew Barrett: It's important to understand that the users of those free inboxes are not the ISP's customers. Right? The users of the inbox are the inventory, and it's an inventory with a super short shelf life. The ISPs, their job is to create a pleasant and curated email experience for the users for their inventory, so that they'll last long enough to show them some advertising.

 

[0:05:04]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:05:06]

Gurbir Singh: That's a good point.

 

[0:05:06]

Andrew Barrett: If you can just keep that in mind, that relationship between those three parties in this little love triangle that is email-

 

[0:05:15]

PJ Bruno: Email is a love triangle. Don't kid yourself.

 

[0:05:17]

Andrew Barrett: That's right. It's very tightly interwoven.

 

[0:05:21]

PJ Bruno: Okay. Let's take a step back. In the beginning, ISPs showed up materializing out of basically nothing. Right?

 

[0:05:31]

Gurbir Singh: Well, I mean a lot of the original ISPs were just the people who provided the internet. Right? Like AOL. They allowed you to connect to the internet, and then they were like, look, there's this thing called email and you can get it. We'll provide you an inbox where you can receive all your email. Same with Yahoo.

 

[0:05:48]

PJ Bruno: At some point along the way, there were abusers. Is that right? Because this has got to be kind of, I'm talking about-

 

[0:05:56]

Gurbir Singh: Anywhere there's volume, there's to be people looking to game the system. Right? There's going to be abusers, there's going to be people who are going to say, "Click here and get 10 free and ringtones," and you know that takes you somewhere else where you don't actually think you're supposed to be going. There's always going to be people gaming the system, and the ISPs, that does not jive with their business models, so they created a spam folder, and they put these guys in the spam folder, and they got really sophisticated at tracking who is a spammer, who's not. That distinction is really where ESPs, I think, really help along with keeping marketers honest and saying, look, if you put this subject line in, that's spammy, don't do that. Here's some best practices. Here's how you should create your content. Here are the people you should target. Things like that.

 

[0:06:44]

PJ Bruno: Right. It doesn't stop at best practices. Right? We got here, the Gmail Promo Tab, which launched I guess, 2013, when Gmail announced the creation of different inbox tabs, including the promotions tab. Now, initially, it was said that Gmail is killing email marketing. Was this the notion that was kind of felt across the board by marketers that this was a tough pill to swallow?

 

[0:07:08]

Andrew Barrett: Well, marketers definitely felt that way. In fact, we saw a lot of ... A couple of guys I remember back at that time were proposing a class action suit against Gmail, forgetting for the moment that Gmail, at the same time was also providing them for use of this infrastructure that they could use to reach their intended recipients. Nevermind that. Right? They're putting us in the fake inbox. I can understand the frustration. It's hard to have something taken away that you had for so long. But the other side of the coin is that way of thinking that, oh, you're putting me in the promotion set. I think that's wrong thinking on behalf of marketers. I think that that assumes a model of advertising that is more interruptive. Right? Like TV and radio, which is very linear. You're watching your story, and wait a second, wouldn't you like to buy some soap? No? Okay, well let's get on with the story then, and so on like that. Right? Email and other digital channels are not linear. Right? I think that marketers are best served when they can get their message in front of the recipients when they are their most receptive to it, and they are most receptive to marketing messages, not when they're reading email from grandma in upper Poughkeepsie. If you interrupt that, right, you're way more likely to get exactly the wrong kind of attention from the recipient in the form of a spam complaint. On the other hand, if you're enjoying strong placement in the promotions tab, people will turn to that tab when they are ready to see the promotions. I'm not a regular guy because I like email, but I like to see what winds up in there, mostly because I'm curious about the content and-

 

[0:09:12]

Gurbir Singh: Right. It's research for you at that point.

 

[0:09:14]

Andrew Barrett: But I do a lot of buying out of that promotions tab.

 

[0:09:18]

PJ Bruno: The most relevant things are pushed to the top of the promotions tab. That's pretty much how it works. Right?

 

[0:09:24]

Andrew Barrett: It can be, especially with some of this newer stuff that Gmail is rolling out, especially on the mobile side.

 

[0:09:30]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. It's like the new Gmail promotion tab does that. It groups up your messages based on industries, based on relevant, for when the offer is expiring, things like that. There's a number of variables that Gmail has introduced, but the traditional promotion tab was just if you got there and it's at the top of your inbox, it's there. Right? I think that's what was frustrating for marketers is that they spent all this time learning to get into the primary tab and now they're being asked to say, by the way, we redid the promotions tab and we give you all these new levers to pull and play with. Now, go back into the promotions tab, and people are rightfully so, kind of upset because it's just being thrown at them.

 

[0:10:10]

Andrew Barrett: Well, they're are only upset if they don't remember what marketing was like before.

 

[0:10:14]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah.

 

[0:10:15]

Andrew Barrett: Right? They have this beautiful one-to-one direct channel to ostensibly engaged recipients that never existed before in the history of the planet, and nobody writes a check to Gmail to send email to Gmail's users. It's a gift horse. To get angry about that seems a little disingenuous to me.

 

[0:10:36]

PJ Bruno: It feels very human.

 

[0:10:37]

Andrew Barrett: Well, okay fine. They're human beings.

 

[0:10:42]

PJ Bruno: You get something you want and then you get it taken away, you get pissed off. But no, I mean, they've been optimizing that promotions tab. Right? It's card based. It's like, you know what? We know you want to be in the inbox, but let's create something great in the promotions box that actually optimizes for what you're trying to do.

 

[0:10:59]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. I think it's a really good push by Gmail. One, they're going to collect way more data around what the message really is. Two, they're going to collect, are people actually interested in these offers, or are we going to push people down? You can see the business opportunities there for Gmail to say, similar to ad, you can pay to be at the top or you can pay to be at the top of your own industry bundle. If I'm Nike and Adidas, I could theoretically page email and say, "Put me always above Adidas." Right?

 

[0:11:31]

PJ Bruno: Wow.

 

[0:11:32]

Gurbir Singh: I don't know if they're actually thinking things like that, but I just see a bunch of different opportunities that they kind of opened, that other ISPs don't even have the luxury to even think about right now.

 

[0:11:43]

Andrew Barrett: Yeah, they could do that, but I think they have a longer game in mind. Right? If they do something that appears to inhibit, in any way, the user's engagement with the inbox in its totality, I think they're not doing themselves any favors. What I think that we'll continue to see, and I'm guessing here, too, is that the kinds of changes we'll see in the promotions tab are those that award senders who are doing a better job at sending content that appears to be more engaging to a preponderance of recipients. That is awarded a better placement in the inbox.

 

[0:12:25]

Gurbir Singh: That's true. I think they also, or actually the first ESP in my opinion that's actually adopted a mobile phone. This update to the promotion tab is directly for people who use the Gmail application. Right? They've acknowledged desktops are going out of time and we are getting switched to a mobile only world, and they're one of the first that are actually adopting. It's like this card that's coming out, it's a static image, but future iterations allow you to scroll and tell different cards and have different images and different links.

 

[0:12:58]

PJ Bruno: Right. That's what AMP is, right?

 

[0:13:00]

Gurbir Singh: No. AMP is completely something that's just interactive email.

 

[0:13:04]

PJ Bruno: But within the email you can actually kind of scroll and click in and see different.

 

[0:13:08]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. It's like having a website right in your inbox so you don't have to leave, which is another pain point I think for marketers because the behavior is always been, I want to drive traffic to my website, and now all of a sudden, when this thing comes out, it's still in beta, but when it does come out, you're basically telling your customers you're living within the Google ecosystem. Right? You're browsing within the Google ecosystem, they're going to do some actions. You have no insight, no way of knowing what they're doing outside of the parameters you provided them. That's it. You can't dynamically change the workflow on your website as you typically do. This is a bigger change than people think it is, in my opinion.

 

[0:13:56]

PJ Bruno: Gurbir, you're a big part of what we do here with our email at Braze. Obviously, you helped push our content blocks live, email preference center, all this stuff, optimizing the crafting and sending of emails, a big part of what you do. How do you overcome that resistance to change? Do you guys give a lot of thought to that when you're like-

 

[0:14:16]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. First of all, I mean, I work with a really talented engineering and design team that kind of put all these things together.

 

[0:14:22]

PJ Bruno: Shout out.

 

[0:14:23]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah, shout out. I might be at the face of it when it comes down to external, but there are some true heroes back there. But yeah, I mean, we do a lot of research when we're looking into new features. The content blocks is a great example, right? Content blocks, typically known as the email only feature, with other industries. When we looked at it we said, well, wouldn't it be cool if you could use it in Push, if you can use it on web? The same exact offer being tied to a user across every channel you want. You can have that consistency easily as a marketer, without having to replicate and create these over and over again. That operational cost is what we looked at a lot. Right? The cost of a marketer sending up four separate messages, setting up four different channels, and then ensuring, is the QA right on all four of them? Testing that and then sending it out. Right? If we can reduce the time for you to create all of that, those are the things we look at.

 

[0:15:24]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:15:25]

Gurbir Singh: But yeah.

 

[0:15:29]

PJ Bruno: Andrew?

 

[0:15:30]

Andrew Barrett: Gurbir is the expert there. Every day, I will defer to his expertise there. I like to keep my head down in the inbox. That's where I'm most comfortable.

 

[0:15:40]

PJ Bruno: That's where he belongs.

 

[0:15:41]

Andrew Barrett: Right.

 

[0:15:42]

PJ Bruno: That's good. I'm trying to get all these things straight in my head. Do we see, traditionally, ISPs, they do want to protect the receivers of mail, right? I mean, obviously they want to protect their bottom line, but will be under the guise of this?

 

[0:16:00]

Andrew Barrett: Well, no, I mean it aligns very well at times perfectly with their own business model because if they're putting their own customers at risk to third parties, they're not going to keep coming back to their inboxes just to get shot at again.

 

[0:16:14]

PJ Bruno: Gotcha.

 

[0:16:14]

Andrew Barrett: They want to keep them around. Keeping bad things, malware, spam, other types of things, out of that inbox, speaks directly to the longevity of their business model and the longevity of their inventory, the users.

 

[0:16:33]

PJ Bruno: Launched back last year, in 2018, you guys know about this, the BIMI. I don't know if they call it BIMI, or if it's just brand indicators for message identification? For those of you who don't know, it's a standardized way for brands to publish their brand logo online and lets logos be easily incorporated into messaging and social media applications. It does this with built in protections, which is building off of D-Mark.

 

[0:16:58]

Andrew Barrett: Right.

 

[0:17:00]

PJ Bruno: I mean, I guess we could say at this point D-Mark is starting to catch on more and people are using it more.

 

[0:17:06]

Andrew Barrett: Absolutely. Gmail has been kind of a kingmaker in that regard. I mean, if you ask Gmail, they would prefer that everybody use D-Mark for everything all time, which is fine. For the longest time, it was really a tool for high value targets like financial institutions, insurers, banks, things like that to keep bad guys from trying to spoof their brand in order to capture login credentials and things of that nature. D-Mark, at its roots though is an authentication protocol, or a platform standing, a reporting mechanism that stands on top of authentication. The timing is really kind of interesting because Google Plus business pages are going away. Right? That whole Google Plus social media experiment is going to get killed off here in a couple of weeks. That was how you got your logo or your picture in the inbox next to your subject line was through validating a business page and [crosstalk 00:18:25].

 

[0:18:25]

PJ Bruno: That was the only way to get it in there?

 

[0:18:27]

Gurbir Singh: Well, you could do it through their promotions tab now, too. You can just pass in a logo and it works. That's why I don't get why?

 

[0:18:34]

Andrew Barrett: Well, yeah, but I don't think they would pick up that logo unless they had some kind of assurance that you were using that logo, that you were an authorized user of that logo, which means-

 

[0:18:47]

Gurbir Singh: You can just pass in any logo when you use the promotions tab. We've tested. I can pass on anything, which is why I find it really funny where-

 

[0:18:54]

PJ Bruno: That's crazy. That's nuts.

 

[0:18:54]

Gurbir Singh: Right, but it's Google, right? Look how big Google is, how many teams did they have? Clearly somebody's not talking to somebody.

 

[0:19:04]

Andrew Barrett: Well, I think BIMI will replace that functionality.

 

[0:19:08]

Gurbir Singh: Probably.

 

[0:19:08]

Andrew Barrett: You've got this authentication standard backing up the presentation of this logo, and suddenly you don't have to rely on Google Plus anymore, and align in the header of your html to prove that you actually own the domain, so that the logo or the picture can turn up in the subject line. It comes at a good time and it helps to enhance this message around adoption of D-Mark.

 

[0:19:33]

PJ Bruno: You said Google is really a big advocate of D-Mark. Do they have a vested interest in D-Mark?

 

[0:19:41]

Andrew Barrett: I don't think that they do. I'm not sure why they're so hot and bothered over D-Mark above and beyond the other authentication protocols, SPF and DKIM, which are sort of prerequisites for D-Mark. D-Mark is just the reporting thing. The question I think that's on a lot of people's minds these days that pay attention to this kind of stuff is, does a more restrictive D-Mark policy get you better inbox? I mean, you can publish a D-Mark policy that says, if it fails, don't do anything. Right? Or you can have a D-Mark policy that says if it fails DKIM, reject it, or quarantine it, or do something with it. Do you get more inbox if you say, if it fails? Yeah, don't do anything.

 

[0:20:30]

PJ Bruno: Or if it passes, is there some sort of reporting? If it passes and D-Mark is present, then you could have some sort of reward?

 

[0:20:37]

Andrew Barrett: Maybe.

 

[0:20:38]

Gurbir Singh: Like positive effect, like a scoring system, goes up or down?

 

[0:20:42]

Andrew Barrett: Do not know. Don't know.

 

[0:20:44]

Gurbir Singh: Black box.

 

[0:20:46]

Andrew Barrett: I think it's still working itself out. I'm not at all sure why Gmail is championing D-Mark.

 

[0:20:53]

PJ Bruno: I mean, this thing, the BIMI thing, it was created by [Authenticators] Working Group, which was led by cybersecurity firm, Agari, and then also representatives from Comcast. Failmail, right? Microsoft.

 

[0:21:07]

Andrew Barrett: Well, Agari is in the D-Mark reporting business. Right? So that's their vested interest in participating, but I don't know what Gmail's is other than having a handy replacement for the death of Google Plus.

 

[0:21:24]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. I mean, I could see if you can be a better inbox provider and essentially wipe out spam, which is the majority of volume that these guys ever see. Right? It's like 90% plus or something. That's a lot of storage costs. Right? ISPs have to keep every email around. They just do. Right? You can scroll back years and years of your Gmail inbox and you'll see, you can still find it, you can still click it. That's sitting somewhere. They're paying for that cost. If they can wipe away 90% of that somehow with a better authentication system, that's a lot of money for somebody. I can see that being a really big beneficial ad for them.

 

[0:22:05]

Andrew Barrett: I agree with you to an extent. There's a lot of spammers out there who are signing their stuff with a DKIM and SPF and that are publishing a D-Mark record.

 

[0:22:14]

Gurbir Singh: Well, I'm assuming with BIMI, it's another level, essentially. That's why they're working towards that one, and hopefully that one solves it. Like anything, there's always-

 

[0:22:24]

PJ Bruno: There's always counterfeiters out there, man.

 

[0:22:26]

Gurbir Singh: Yeah. Someone's going to break it.

 

[0:22:28]

PJ Bruno: Catch me if you can. Moving on, what's the future, what are the big things on the horizon that email senders should be looking for, as far as feature specific, as far as, I mean, legislation affecting anything?

 

[0:22:48]

Andrew Barrett: Well, I think we can call the legislation one absolutely dead and cold now. The Federal Trade Commission recently completed a two year review of the 16 year old CAN-SPAM federal law and decided it was all good, man. They spent two years looking at that sucker and decided, wow, it just can't get any better than how it is, which is really, really frustrating. I was at the Federal Trade Commission in the spring of 2003 for two days of testimony from a bunch of different groups, and there was five different versions of anti-spam language. It's five different competing versions pending in the lower house in Congress. They were trying to merge all those disparate versions of the language together in what would eventually become CAN-SPAM, and they were taking all this input from nonprofit anti-spam, watchdog groups, senders. They actually had a couple of spammers on the stage talking about why they do what they do, and that sort of thing.

 

[0:24:02]

PJ Bruno: Interesting.

 

[0:24:02]

Andrew Barrett: It was all in. Everybody scrubbed in on this thing. What came out in 2003 act, which was largely the [Burns Widen Act 00:24:14] was terrible. I mean, not only did it fail utterly to advance a definition of spam, which I don't blame them for because that is problematic on its face for a whole bunch of reasons, but where they really fell down is that they failed to advance a meaningful definition of email. Right?

 

[0:24:37]

Gurbir Singh: They left it as a digital communications?

 

[0:24:39]

Andrew Barrett: For the purposes of this statute, email means "an electronic message," period. Full stop.

 

[0:24:48]

PJ Bruno: Great.

 

[0:24:49]

Andrew Barrett: What? Really, really bad. Ideally, the definitive quality of email would have been transit via SMTP.

 

[0:25:02]

Gurbir Singh: Right.

 

[0:25:02]

Andrew Barrett: That's what was needed there. You can never look to lawmakers to predict the future. It's not the law we wanted, but it was probably the law we deserved. It was just that, and so I was really astounded when they decided that they weren't going to make any changes.

 

[0:25:22]

Gurbir Singh: Didn't California, or aren't they evaluating their own special law just for the state of California?

 

[0:25:29]

PJ Bruno: Leave it to California.

 

[0:25:30]

Andrew Barrett: Yeah. Well, they had one before 2003. California is great at passing really restrictive laws, only to have them be superseded by federal legislation months and years later. The California anti-spam law was very restrictive and it was in place for only a couple of months before the federal law came in and eviscerated it, superseded it.

 

[0:25:55]

PJ Bruno: All right, guys, we're at about time. Before we close up shop, any last words of advice to email sender's, email receivers? It can be simple to something you want to go out on. What's the big takeaway?

 

[0:26:11]

Andrew Barrett: Just remember that business relationship between those three parties, and if you can keep that in mind, that relationship will inform every decision you ever have to make as a sender. If I had to define deliverability in one sentence, it would be, how not to look like a spammer. That's it. But there's a whole lot underneath that that can keep folks talking for days, and hours, and careers.

 

[0:26:36]

PJ Bruno: And podcasts.

 

[0:26:37]

Andrew Barrett: And podcasts.

 

[0:26:38]

Gurbir Singh: Andrew's going to write a book.

 

[0:26:39]

Andrew Barrett: And career long podcasts.

 

[0:26:40]

PJ Bruno: I have to make this a whole series. Gurbir, you got some final thoughts?

 

[0:26:44]

Gurbir Singh: I mean, I circled back to Andrew. It is a business. Understanding the motivations of each of these guys will help you, and make you successful.

 

[0:26:56]

PJ Bruno: Absolutely. I'll say to spammers out there, if you're looking for alternative forms of revenue, check out the speaker circuit, because apparently, they'll be willing to have you on stage. Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out with us. This is PJ Bruno, Gurbir Singh, and Andrew Barrett. You guys take care.

[0:27:14]

In the wake of Davos 2019, the World Economic Forum, tensions are running high. Large companies are being scrutinized for reaping huge tax breaks while not giving back to the community. CEOs are trying to balance a board's expectation of making fiscally responsible decisions and also maintaining a culture of trust and creativity. Should tech entrepreneurs be tasked with fixing the world? Is it their responsibility? 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:17]

PJ Bruno: What's up guys? Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. I'm PJ Bruno, and I'm thrilled to have with me today two very close buddies. Across from me is Boris Revechkis, product manager here at Braze, and also I believe descendant of Rasputin? Is that-

 

[0:00:34]

Boris Revechkis: That's accurate, yes. What's up everybody?

 

[0:00:36]

PJ Bruno: Cool. Here he is. And to my right, your left, we have also a good friend of mine, Ryan Doyle, who's recently become an AE here at Braze. He is the legitimate country boy turned bonafide city boy. How you doing here Ryan?

 

[0:00:50]

Ryan Doyle: How y'all doing? Yeah, no. Only recently, seven months now.

 

[0:00:54]

PJ Bruno: Wow.

 

[0:00:54]

Ryan Doyle: Yes.

 

[0:00:54]

PJ Bruno: What a turn.

 

[0:00:55]

Boris Revechkis: Doyle Farms.

 

[0:00:57]

Ryan Doyle: Doyle and Son Farms.

 

[0:00:58]

Boris Revechkis: Doyle and Son Farms.

 

[0:00:58]

Ryan Doyle: Remember where you came from.

 

[0:00:59]

PJ Bruno: That's right.

 

[0:00:59]

Boris Revechkis: Love it.

 

[0:01:00]

PJ Bruno: How you guys doing? I know, Boris you're fighting a cold-

 

[0:01:03]

Boris Revechkis: I'm getting some cold.

 

[0:01:03]

PJ Bruno: And somehow you made it here today, I love that.

 

[0:01:05]

Boris Revechkis: I'm hanging in there, doing it for the podcast.

 

[0:01:09]

PJ Bruno: God, that's the commitment we need to see more of, kind of across the board.

 

[0:01:12]

Boris Revechkis: I may faint. I may faint during the podcast, but if I do, just go on without me.

 

[0:01:16]

Ryan Doyle: We'll keep going yeah.

 

[0:01:17]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, we'll edit it out. We'll edit out your faint-

 

[0:01:19]

Boris Revechkis: Perfect.

 

[0:01:19]

Ryan Doyle: I can do your voice.

 

[0:01:21]

PJ Bruno: Ryan, how you doing buddy?

 

[0:01:22]

Ryan Doyle: I'm doing fantastic. Just meetings, meetings, meetings, deals, deals, deals.

 

[0:01:26]

PJ Bruno: Cool.

 

[0:01:26]

Ryan Doyle: They really crack that whip.

 

[0:01:27]

PJ Bruno: They do, don't they?

 

[0:01:28]

Ryan Doyle: Yes.

 

[0:01:30]

PJ Bruno: You told me yesterday you had a cool little prospecting adventure and a weird experience.

 

[0:01:35]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, you want me to talk-

 

[0:01:36]

PJ Bruno: Can you share? Yeah, yeah. Give a little splattering of it.

 

[0:01:39]

Ryan Doyle: So, just the background on it was, I had a prospect who came to Braze because they were launching an app. That app had to do with paying with your face. It's a facial recognition technology. They wanted to put in coffee shops, so when you walked in you wouldn't swipe, tap, nod, whatever, you would just grab your drink and go. So I walk up to this guy's office, and there's a camera, and a screen that shows me my face, and it pulls down a match from the internet of my face. Like with a little rectangular box and some matrix-y numbers side by side, and it says, "Welcome Ryan Doyle." I'm like, "Oh, this is weird." So I go in, and he's telling me about the launch. They're talking about these pieces of third party data that they've been using at this coffee shop downstairs to test this out. Where someone will come in and they'll say, "Hey Boris, welcome back. Do you want this latte? Your significant other loves it too." Or, "Maybe you'd like to try this," or, "How's your dog?" or, "How's your child?" On the creepiness scale, they found that mentioning someone's dog was much creepier than mentioning how their children were.

 

[0:02:45]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:02:46]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, but, they ran into the issue of, a couple of people they talked to about their dogs, their dogs had passed away.

 

[0:02:51]

PJ Bruno: Oh God.

 

[0:02:52]

Ryan Doyle: Doesn't happen as frequently with children I suppose.

 

[0:02:55]

PJ Bruno: You hate to see that.

 

[0:02:56]

Ryan Doyle: You hate to see it.

 

[0:02:57]

Boris Revechkis: That's all very disheartening.

 

[0:02:59]

PJ Bruno: I mean, you got to walk that line between personalizing and not going too personal.

 

[0:03:03]

Ryan Doyle: Too personal.

 

[0:03:04]

PJ Bruno: I feel like that's same thing goes for conversation in general. Anyways, thank you Ryan for that little tid bit.

 

[0:03:09]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah. It was an interesting night on the live.

 

[0:03:12]

PJ Bruno: That's good. That's good. So we got a lot to get to today. Really excited to jump in. Our first article, Amazon Isn't Interested in Making the World a Better Place by Kara Swisher from New York Times. This is, we all know that, I mean, most of us probably know at this point if you live in New York City that Amazon pulled out of their second HQ that they planned to have in Long Island city. Boris, you're a Long Island city boy.

 

[0:03:37]

Boris Revechkis: I am. I'm a Long Island city resident.

 

[0:03:39]

PJ Bruno: Were you excited to potentially have them move into the neighborhood?

 

[0:03:43]

Boris Revechkis: Not particularly, and I don't think there were many in the neighborhood who were. Yeah, I have a lot of mixed feelings. Obviously, we working in tech, in some sense, have a horse in the race, but I don't know that they really considered the effect on the surrounding community. Obviously the backlash reflects that.

 

[0:04:04]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:04:04]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah.

 

[0:04:05]

Boris Revechkis: I think they could've done a lot better job in laying the ground work for that. A few weeks ago, I tweeted, which seven I think, at least seven people read that Amazon should just take some of the benefit that they were getting in taxes and just plow that into the subway system. Just be like, "Here. Love us."

 

[0:04:24]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:04:25]

Boris Revechkis: Then, "Okay, fine. Now we have, okay, we have common interest."

 

[0:04:28]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:04:28]

Boris Revechkis: Be a part of the community. Contribute.

 

[0:04:30]

Ryan Doyle: It's a corporate good will.

 

[0:04:30]

PJ Bruno: It's as easy as that. Right?

 

[0:04:31]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Kind of like get the public on your side, and it just didn't seem like they really cared what people thought about the whole situation.

 

[0:04:37]

Ryan Doyle: They were shopping for a deal.

 

[0:04:38]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Pretty much.

 

[0:04:38]

PJ Bruno: I guess so. Yeah, I think a lot of the uproar came up, I think Miss Swisher put it so well in her article. "In an era when all kinds of public services are being cut in the city's infrastructure is crumbling, why is a trillion dollar corporation getting so much?" Then it was finally revealed how much, $3 billion in tax breaks.

 

[0:04:57]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah.

 

[0:04:58]

Ryan Doyle: I think-

 

[0:04:58]

PJ Bruno: So people were kind of up in arms.

 

[0:05:00]

Boris Revechkis: This is really reflective, I think, of the whole, and this second article we'll talk about later, the whole combination of these factors where you just have a system that's sort of out of wack. The incentives that drive progress are now driving outcomes that are clearly undesirable. Like, this article doesn't hold back in that regard, but like I love the phrase "modern [hellscape]". Like shooter for to San Francisco is a modern [hellscape], which is, that's strong language.

 

[0:05:24]

Ryan Doyle: That's really strong.

 

[0:05:25]

Boris Revechkis: That's strong language and-

 

[0:05:27]

PJ Bruno: Pretty polarizing.

 

[0:05:29]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Obviously she's talking about genuine problems, but is that direction we want to go in, or is that something we want to try and tweak the system so that we don't get pushed in these directions? I do think that the Amazon move into the city was something that would exacerbate the kind of issues that would push us in that direction, in the direction of problems like San Francisco has.

 

[0:05:50]

Ryan Doyle: There was like an argument on the other side of it where the incentives that we were handing out as a city to get them here, we're far, far below what we would gain in economic incentives. Part of the argument was like, "Well, we're not giving them anything tangible. There's three billion in tax credits and what not," so it's not money that exists-

 

[0:06:07]

Boris Revechkis: A future tax, yeah revenue.

 

[0:06:09]

Ryan Doyle: And ready to put somewhere else, but I feel like my personal notion is that that money does come from somewhere. It comes from us in our future taxes, and part of it did come out of New York state incentives to bring new businesses here. It would've retired 1.5 billion out of a $2 billion grant that companies get for moving business to New York state. I just think part of the sentiment that I agree with is maybe people in general are tired of this trickle down notion where we put up a big amount of money, or some type of incentive with the hope that it would come back to us. I think we've just been fatigued with that type of situation over and over.

 

[0:06:45]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. I think that's spot on.

 

[0:06:48]

Boris Revechkis: In terms of concentrating the wealth too, we can, ideally, we would just replace that same activity by encouraging many other smaller companies to come to New York instead of one giant company. And trying to encourage the same type of outcome, but by spreading that tax revenue, or rather, break around to other companies and other industries.

 

[0:07:11]

Ryan Doyle: I mean, Braze is here. We're about to move to a new office in New York City. Where's the incentive? You know?

 

[0:07:16]

Boris Revechkis: That's true.

 

[0:07:17]

PJ Bruno: Where's the tax breaks guys? I was surprised to see Amazon buckle so quickly. You know? It just seems like at the first sign of scrutiny, boom, they're out. Now it seems like they just want to bolster their office in D.C. I was very surprised that they didn't-

 

[0:07:33]

Boris Revechkis: I think it becomes like a no-win scenario for them, because having to fight back all the negative attention if they tried to negotiate, the publicizing of the negotiations would probably be very damaging I think. So I think they decided it was just, "Why do this?"

 

[0:07:47]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, and I wonder if they'd had so little investment in New York already. I mean, it was just in word that they were coming here. So far, this deal is only how old that another city might've reached about, but, "Look, here's the incentive, we can provide. If New York doesn't want it, we'll give it to you."

 

[0:08:02]

Boris Revechkis: Right.

 

[0:08:02]

Ryan Doyle: Maybe that's yet to be announced. I thought I heard Nashville somewhere out in the ether that that might be the other location they go to.

 

[0:08:09]

Boris Revechkis: But it's also, it's not like they're not here. Right? They have an office here. They have many employees here. They're going to continue hiring and expanding in New York and their existing office. So it's not like all or nothing. It's so-

 

[0:08:19]

PJ Bruno: They have a foot hole.

 

[0:08:20]

Boris Revechkis: Right.

 

[0:08:20]

PJ Bruno: They didn't feel like they were losing much I guess.

 

[0:08:22]

Boris Revechkis: Right.

 

[0:08:22]

Ryan Doyle: Yep.

 

[0:08:23]

PJ Bruno: Well, I for one, being an Astorian, and that's in Astoria for those of you who don't know.

 

[0:08:28]

Boris Revechkis: Nice.

 

[0:08:28]

PJ Bruno: I'm thrilled that there's not going to be so much congestion, and it's not going to turn into a complete circus on my train.

 

[0:08:35]

Ryan Doyle: Your apartment's going to stay nice and cheap.

 

[0:08:37]

PJ Bruno: You know what? Let's hope so. As long as I can not have a lease, and as long as my landlord just keeps all the stuff off the books, you didn't hear that here.

 

[0:08:47]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, we're going to cut that out.

 

[0:08:48]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah, we'll take that out. We'll take that out in post.

 

[0:08:50]

Ryan Doyle: That's fine.

 

[0:08:50]

Boris Revechkis: Perfect.

 

[0:08:52]

PJ Bruno: Perfect. All right, well let's move on to the big topic this week. As you guys know, Davos, which we all know at this point is the knight, former smuggler in service of Stannis Baratheon from Game of Thrones-

 

[0:09:06]

Boris Revechkis: The onion knight. Man, I love the onion knight.

 

[0:09:07]

PJ Bruno: I'm just so curious, like what's going to happen to him in the final season. That's what I really want to know.

 

[0:09:11]

Ryan Doyle: I've never watched Game of Thrones, and you really lost me there for a second.

 

[0:09:15]

Boris Revechkis: Wow.

 

[0:09:15]

Ryan Doyle: I feel like I want to wait for it to all be released.

 

[0:09:18]

Boris Revechkis: Can we just edit Ryan out of the entire podcast?

 

[0:09:19]

Ryan Doyle: No, no, no. See, I've got the plan. They're going to release all of Game of Thrones. I'm not going to deal with all this anxiety and anticipation. I'm just going to watch it when I feel like it.

 

[0:09:27]

PJ Bruno: You're really good at planning anxiety out of your life these days. Like, any time you identify it-

 

[0:09:31]

Ryan Doyle: That's why I'm hanging out with you last.

 

[0:09:33]

PJ Bruno: Wow. I noticed that. The patterns are starting to, this is a loaded moment.

 

[0:09:37]

Boris Revechkis: This is a loaded moment. I'm not watching the last season, I'm just saying. I can't I refuse to watch it until the books come out.

 

[0:09:41]

PJ Bruno: You can't do it?

 

[0:09:42]

Boris Revechkis: I need the books. I need the books. Give me the books. Are you listening George R. R. Martin? You're out there, aren't you? I know you're listening to this podcast. Finish the damn book.

 

[0:09:52]

PJ Bruno: Let me course correct a little bit. Davos, of course we're talking about the world economic forum that went down just last week I believe. There's this great article that Tim Leberecht did for Ink Magazine called Purpose Washing, Hustle Culture, and Automation: Business at a Crossroads. It's just a really good, I mean, I love his opening statement here, so let me just read it for you guys to get us in the zone. "Business leaders today must constantly wrestle with opposing forces. They must embrace data, and at the same time listen to their gut feelings. They must cater to efficiency pressures, and also create a culture of trust and creativity. They must ensure short-term profit, while thinking about the long-term impact of their business, acting as 'civic CEOs', stewarding 'woke brands'. Now some may call this ambidexterity, or others schizophrenia. At any rate, it's not surprising that being stuck in the middle of such dichotomy breeds uncomfortable tension and conflicting rhetoric. Double agendas can lead to double speak." You guys read this one, right?

 

[0:10:58]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, that's heavy.

 

[0:10:58]

Boris Revechkis: Sure did.

 

[0:11:00]

PJ Bruno: Oh, it's heavy. I mean, any initial thoughts? Ryan, you want to kick us off here? We're going to edit you out, but just go ahead.

 

[0:11:09]

Ryan Doyle: Just on the whole topic of Davos, there was ... I just found it so interesting, like its kind of come to the head as like our own New York representative, who was kind of in this Amazon fight. Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been talking about this certain type of marginal tax rate, and those things get brought up at Davos. People laugh at it, but it was the reality for a long time in America to have a very high tax rate marginally on a certain group of users. So, just to hear these topics brought back up right now, and then at Davos, it all just seems so timely. Then was kind of kicked off, I think again yesterday when that Tucker Carlson-

 

[0:11:50]

PJ Bruno: Thing with Fox News.

 

[0:11:51]

Boris Revechkis: So beautiful. Can I just call out how amazing it was that you said, "Users," instead of, "Tax payers"?

 

[0:11:56]

PJ Bruno: Nice.

 

[0:11:56]

Boris Revechkis: Love it. That's Braze life right there.

 

[0:12:00]

Ryan Doyle: I just got out of a sales conversation, so let me reset. Let me reset.

 

[0:12:03]

PJ Bruno: Rewire.

 

[0:12:04]

Boris Revechkis: We have 300 million users in this country.

 

[0:12:07]

PJ Bruno: You got any hot takes from the article here?

 

[0:12:09]

Boris Revechkis: There were a lot of big ideas in this article. A lot of it was about inequality in general, which is, you know, that's a trip. We can spend a lot of time on that. A lot of it was about AI, and refers back to what we were talking about earlier with that company doing face recognition, and privacy, and responsibility. Like in the quote you read, the pressure, the tension between using data, and exploiting data, and making people uncomfortable. I thought it was interesting that the Microsoft CEO had come out in favor of a US version of a GDPR, which is very cool.

 

[0:12:38]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:12:39]

Boris Revechkis: I mean obviously, I think at Braze we're very much behind that idea.

 

[0:12:42]

Ryan Doyle: We would love that.

 

[0:12:42]

Boris Revechkis: We would love that idea.

 

[0:12:43]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:12:44]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah. I think that speaks to that sort of idea of responsibility. Right? Don't use data in ways that makes people uncomfortable when they're picking up coffee.

 

[0:12:52]

Ryan Doyle: Don't mention their poor, dead dog.

 

[0:12:55]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah, exactly. Maybe what we need is actually some legislation to create some barriers, some boundaries so that collectively we're not cringing when we walk by an advertisement and it's asking us about our last doctor's visit.

 

[0:13:09]

Ryan Doyle: Jeez. Well, if I could just add in, I think one of the reasons we haven't had legislation is, this was in one of those articles that kind of attack myth that's been going on for a long time. That Silicon Valley is here to save the world. All these tech founders come in, and they have an idea that will not only benefit us in a business sense, but, "We are going to change the world to be a better place." Maybe that's why legislation has been so slow to get up behind it, because we not only know what people are doing with our data because it's such a new occurrence, but we kind of trust these people who say that they are going to change the world for the better. So, I think we're starting to see for the first time that might not be the case.

 

[0:13:49]

PJ Bruno: But that's the thing. Does that mean that if you decide to start a company and become a tech entrepreneur, it is now on you to make the world a better place? Like, obviously I think if you have the means, you should try to give back, but does that mean it's just a given? It's inherent anytime a tech leader tries to start something new? Is it, "Well, you know, keep in mind you must be giving back"? You know, or is it just like, "You need to pretend to give back"?

 

[0:14:15]

Boris Revechkis: Question for life.

 

[0:14:16]

PJ Bruno: Question for life.

 

[0:14:17]

Ryan Doyle: I think because, is it our duty as human beings to always try to make the world a little bit better of a place? Not just tech founders PJ.

 

[0:14:24]

PJ Bruno: Jeez.

 

[0:14:26]

Boris Revechkis: Jeez. Personally, I don't know whoever believed that the full T-tech industry would unequivocally and unambiguously make the world a better place without making profit first. Like, our society, corporations, businesses, are economy is structured around organization which are obligated to increase value to shareholders.

 

[0:14:49]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:14:50]

Boris Revechkis: Put the shareholders interests first. Like, that's how our society is organized. It's great that tech founders want to make the world a better place. Anyone who does want to, it's great, but the reality is that when a company becomes large enough, and then also becomes publicly traded, you are obligated to make certain kinds of decisions. That's the way our society is structured. An interesting counter pointer alternative to that approach would be something like a B corporation, which is something that's come up in like the last decade or so, which is kind of cool.

 

[0:15:22]

Ryan Doyle: What's that?

 

[0:15:23]

Boris Revechkis: It's like a non-profit that basically has come up with this, so they're like S corps and C corps. They're like the, C corps are the most common and all that. This is like a non-profit that says, "We'll certify you as a B corporation," which means you're not just looking out for your share duty to your shareholders, but you're also incorporating into every decision you make, you're impact on the community, on the environment, on society at large. It's very difficult, and not a lot of huge brands have done this yet.

 

[0:15:51]

Ryan Doyle: Are their any examples?

 

[0:15:53]

PJ Bruno: I was about to say-

 

[0:15:53]

Boris Revechkis: Like Ben & Jerry's.

 

[0:15:54]

Ryan Doyle: Like an honest corporation?

 

[0:15:54]

Boris Revechkis: Kickstarter is a B corporation I think.

 

[0:15:56]

PJ Bruno: Ben & Jerry's?

 

[0:15:58]

Ryan Doyle: Of course they are.

 

[0:15:58]

PJ Bruno: I knew I liked those.

 

[0:15:59]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah.

 

[0:15:59]

Boris Revechkis: It's not widely popular yet, but because it's really onerous, because you're now saddling like your board and your whole organization with this responsibility, because you're not just here to make us money. You're here to think about your impact on everyone, your employees, your customers, your surrounding community, the environment, etc., etc.

 

[0:16:14]

Ryan Doyle: Right.

 

[0:16:15]

Boris Revechkis: In conjunction with your financial responsibilities and interests. So it's not easy, but the idea being that we're trying to change the incentives, or this is an attempt to change the incentives corporations to do better.

 

[0:16:28]

Ryan Doyle: We don't have to legislate that as a norm, but it would be cool to incentivize those types of bigs, just to have a little more people who are thinking in that mindset.

 

[0:16:37]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah.

 

[0:16:37]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah.

 

[0:16:39]

PJ Bruno: Sorry. One of the things they picked out from this article, that I thought was an interesting thing, was the idea of reinventing capitalism. Is it a business or a government affair? I mean, I'm curious to know what you guys think, because my instinct is that it should be ... Maybe I'm just more regulation prone, because at this point, there's like a lot of bullies in the game with a lot of money and a lot to lose. We need to level the playing field a little bit, but yeah. I mean it just, I don't know. Who's it on?

 

[0:17:13]

Ryan Doyle: I think that it has to be a dance, because it takes two to tangle. Right? Business is not going to have a direction without regulation, and regulation won't have anything to regulate without the growth of business.

 

[0:17:23]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:17:23]

Ryan Doyle: I just read this interesting book on Teddy Roosevelt, and some of his first run-ins with monopolistic industries, and how he really came to be known as the trust buster. It's just interesting this dance that happens where there might be a little give with business, and then government does a little take, but then government gives a little over here. Then there's a little more take by business. So, I think it's definitely something that happens in parallel. I just think that we might be asking it because business seems to be moving faster at the moment.

 

[0:17:52]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah. I think there's sort of this ideal that is always pushed that from the very start of a company to the point where it's Amazon's size, it can operate under the assumption that growing is always good, and representing a larger share of your market is better always. But ultimately, we have to recognize that, in a purely mathematical dynamical system sense, when you get that big your constraints are now different. You're not just like a fish swimming through the sea. You can now touch the edges of the sea. Right? You're like, it's a fish tank now and you're a big fish, and every motion of yours, you're hitting the walls and you're crushing other fish.

 

[0:18:35]

Ryan Doyle: That's a good way to put it.

 

[0:18:35]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it is.

 

[0:18:35]

Boris Revechkis: Also, you have to, the rules of the game have now changed. The rules, as far as government is concerned, have to account for that. You can't just treat that big fish like a tiny fish in the ocean.

 

[0:18:46]

PJ Bruno: Yeah.

 

[0:18:46]

Boris Revechkis: With where the limits are, pretty much unreachable once you've started to actually hit the edges of the tank, like the rules of the game need to change. Otherwise, things will go wrong. I think that's just pretty much what monopolies are and why that happened 130 years ago, 140 years ago, and why we're running into it now with tech companies. Government is behind in this industry because we have people who ask Mark Zuckerberg in congressional hearings how his company makes money. They have no idea what they're talking about, and they're just completely out of their depth. Therefore, we're now in a situation where these companies are just occupying such a vast proportion of these industries, that their every decision rocks the boat, to use another ocean, water.

 

[0:19:28]

Ryan Doyle: I like how it metaphors dude.

 

[0:19:29]

PJ Bruno: Doesn't resonate with me.

 

[0:19:30]

Ryan Doyle: I'm a big fish in a small tank.

 

[0:19:34]

Boris Revechkis: So, yeah. I mean, we just have to, we have to come to the terms of the fact that we need to, and even the companies themselves need to realize like, "Hey, you're not just a company anymore that's striving to get more customers and generate more revenue. You have such an outsize influence on your surrounding society that you have to think ahead." It's like the same thing with climate change. You can't, not to invoke another massively complicated and heavy topic-

 

[0:19:58]

Ryan Doyle: You're not getting deep enough here yet.

 

[0:19:59]

PJ Bruno: We'll save it.

 

[0:19:59]

Ryan Doyle: Yeah, we'll save it.

 

[0:20:00]

Boris Revechkis: Like, you have to be aware of your outputs and what you're doing to the surrounding area. You can't just keep throwing poison into the river and assuming it'll wash away to the ocean, when now the whole river is tainted, and the ocean is tainted, and whatever, whatever.

 

[0:20:13]

Ryan Doyle: Still talking about metaphors.

 

[0:20:14]

Boris Revechkis: Total a metaphor.

 

[0:20:15]

PJ Bruno: Yeah. A little real life too.

 

[0:20:18]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah.

 

[0:20:18]

PJ Bruno: Cool. I mean, any closing thoughts from you two before we wrap her up?

 

[0:20:23]

Ryan Doyle: I mean, I just had one question in all of this to ask Boris, because we touched a little bit on AI and machine learning today. I wanted to ask with Boris, specifically his role here has to do with AI and machine learning. I guess, how do your moral obligations play into your day-to-day role or how you see yourself in the AI industry and learning industry? Do you ever think about the impact your decisions or your work has, and if so, how do you try to exercise judgment in the work you put out?

 

[0:20:53]

Boris Revechkis: I mean, the short answer is absolutely. The more involved answer that we may or may not have time for-

 

[0:20:59]

Ryan Doyle: It's a big closing question.

 

[0:21:00]

Boris Revechkis: It is. It is.

 

[0:21:00]

PJ Bruno: I love it.

 

[0:21:01]

Boris Revechkis: The bottom line is that we have to, you know. Braze as a company, I think, embraces the idea that we have to be responsible with our choices and we have to consider their impacts on people. So, we have to be mindful of how we allow our own customers to use data to influence their relationships with their own end users in a way that is responsible. To use another analogy, here we go again, the way I like to think of it, if you were just like a general store owner in the old west. Your customers are coming in, and you have a business, and you're trying to see where you're making money, where you're losing money. You would find your best customers, you would try to figure out what they want, and you would cater your business to insure your own livelihood and well being. So in a lot of ways, our customers are trying to do the same thing, but they're trying to do it for millions of their own customers. So of course they can't do it, and they can't have an army of people trying to parse all the data and interactions that they have with all their customers. You need machines. You need algorithms to go and figure out what the patterns are so you can say, "Oh, this pool of customers like products x, y, z. We should focus in this area. We should cater to these customers. We should communicate with them more. Here are the customers that are disaffected. They're not interested in us anymore. Why are they not interested? We need to do better." Right? It's like those common sense questions that any business own would ask, we're now just using machine learning and AI. We're helping our own customers use machine learning and AI to answer those questions, just at a scale that's unmanageable to do without those tools. Again, long answer, but as long as we're doing that without using data in a way that would clearly make people uncomfortable and would leverage data that they don't want us-

 

[0:22:36]

Ryan Doyle: We'll use data we didn't have the right to use.

 

[0:22:37]

Boris Revechkis: Exactly. So I mean, GDPR is really like almost the shield for this. Right? Like, "Hey, we're just not going to use data in ways that is irresponsible or that people don't want us to do in order to further these ends." But when people are explicitly told what's going to happen to their data, and how we and our customers are going to use it, and they're okay with that, great. That's sort of what it comes down to.

 

[0:23:01]

Ryan Doyle: Thank you for answering that.

 

[0:23:02]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, I appreciate that too.

 

[0:23:03]

Boris Revechkis: Yeah.

 

[0:23:04]

PJ Bruno: I want to close it out real quick. I think this article is so good, and I really love the closing paragraphs. So this is how he summed it all up. "A perfect storm is brewing: the agony of old systems, the void left by less and less trustworthy tech platforms, the disruption of the labor markets by the fourth industrial revolution, and the critical importance of reinventing capitalism and redefining the meaning of meaningful work. In the middle of conflicting agendas, CEOs will have to make tough choices. The most responsible of them know they will have their role to place in tackling all these issues, but are also humble enough to realize that, now more than ever, business can't do it alone." Is that a cough drop?

 

[0:23:51]

Boris Revechkis: Sorry. I had to get a cough drop.

 

[0:23:52]

PJ Bruno: All right. Well, signing off, this is PJ Bruno.

 

[0:23:56]

Ryan Doyle: This is Ryan Doyle.

 

[0:23:57]

Boris Revechkis: And Boris Revechkis.

 

[0:23:58]

PJ Bruno: You guys take care. Come see us again sometime.

[0:24:00]

This week, Taylor Gibb from the customer success team at Braze brought in Senior CSM, Jordan Houghton, to discuss how she met her husband on OKCupid. Match Group finally acquires Hinge, adding to it's caché of dating apps, and don't forget about Bounce (the dating app on which you can do nothing EXCEPT meet for a date that very evening).

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:02]

PJ Bruno: On this Valentine's Day, me and the team would like to say, whether you're swiping for fun or looking for that special one, whether you're cuffing at home, or just love being alone, if you're going to give a gift, make sure it's relevant, personalized, and well timed. That apple of your eye wants nothing that isn't personal, and poorly timed, well, that's a crime. So, this year, kiddies, avoid the mess of a shameful Valentine's tragedy. Keep it personal, and treat your valentine like your customer engagement strategy.

 

[0:00:36]

The Captain: This is the captain. Brace for impact.

 

[0:00:45]

PJ Bruno: Hi again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest, and I'm so thrilled today to have back again by population demand Taylor Gibb from CS. How you doing, Taylor?

 

[0:00:58]

Taylor Gibb: I am excited to be here. This is a big one.

 

[0:01:01]

PJ Bruno: It is.

 

[0:01:02]

Taylor Gibb: This is an inaugural run of me on this podcast on Valentine's Day in 2019.

 

[0:01:08]

PJ Bruno: It is, and you brought a buddy with you, I see. You have a friend.

 

[0:01:10]

Taylor Gibb: I definitely did. We roll deep in succeed, I like to say, so I brought one of the very best, and I'm apparently rhyming.

 

[0:01:15]

Jordan: No. This is Jordan.

 

[0:01:18]

Taylor Gibb: Jordan, guys, it is so good to have you here, and I really wanted to lean into our Valentine's Day festive podcast here.

 

[0:01:26]

PJ Bruno: Ooh, I'm intrigued.

 

[0:01:26]

Taylor Gibb: I brought a little theme in to guide today, because you know we're all thinking about love. A lot of us in New York City are kind of looking for that special date tonight, a lot of restaurant reservations out there-

 

[0:01:36]

PJ Bruno: Don't you know it?

 

[0:01:36]

Taylor Gibb: ... So I wanted to kind of focus in on dating apps today, and Jordan, I brought you in not just because you've got a silky smooth voice-

 

[0:01:45]

Jordan: Oh, thank you very much.

 

[0:01:47]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah, absolutely, but because I know that you actually... You've got a particular stance on dating apps, or at least the way that they were a couple of years ago. Do you care to elaborate there?

 

[0:01:56]

PJ Bruno: Interesting.

 

[0:01:56]

Jordan: I am a success story of dating apps. I met my husband on OkCupid.

 

[0:02:01]

PJ Bruno: How about that?

 

[0:02:02]

Taylor Gibb: That's right. Yeah. I brought in one of the very best. Jordan, tell me about your OkCupid experience there.

 

[0:02:09]

Jordan: Okay. So, this was a few years ago. I had absolutely no intention of meeting anybody online. I just wanted to make a profile, maybe have some people reach out, make me feel a little bit better about myself, never thought I'd actually go out in person, and met some really great people, and met my husband.

 

[0:02:27]

Taylor Gibb: That is a huge success story, and I always used to think that was rare, that you were more likely to run into a dud than you were the one, but these success stories are getting more and more prevalent. I think I saw a statistic that it's expected something wild, like 71% of couples in the year 2025 will have met online.

 

[0:02:45]

PJ Bruno: What?

 

[0:02:45]

Taylor Gibb: I saw that, and I thought that was just absolutely crazy because it seems like maybe five years ago that the idea of dating online was this kind of... I don't know.

 

[0:02:54]

Jordan: No. I made the mistake of telling my mom, as I was walking to my first online date, that I actually had made a profile on OkCupid, and I was going to meet somebody, and I'm from Kansas originally, and she was literally screaming into the phone, begging me to either go to a public place, or turn around and walk home, because you don't know who you're going to meet, and they could very much be an ax murderer.

 

[0:03:14]

PJ Bruno: So, the advice there is don't always listen to Mom?

 

[0:03:17]

Taylor Gibb: If we wanted to tell you one thing here in this podcast, it's don't listen to your mom.

 

[0:03:22]

PJ Bruno: It could cost you the love of your life.

 

[0:03:23]

Taylor Gibb: Come on.

 

[0:03:24]

PJ Bruno: So, wait. Was this the mobile app, or this is the-

 

[0:03:26]

Jordan: This was the mobile app.

 

[0:03:27]

PJ Bruno: Okay, cool.

 

[0:03:28]

Jordan: I got really addicted to swiping.

 

[0:03:29]

Taylor Gibb: An early adopter.

 

[0:03:30]

Jordan: Yes.

 

[0:03:30]

PJ Bruno: Early, early adoption.

 

[0:03:31]

Jordan: Yes.

 

[0:03:32]

Taylor Gibb: I love that.

 

[0:03:33]

Jordan: I was very much into it.

 

[0:03:34]

Taylor Gibb: You know, we're going to dig into a little bit more on kind of the dating apps, the pros and cons, ways they're changing here later, but I would be remiss if I didn't have a mini intro for you, PJ-

 

[0:03:44]

PJ Bruno: Oh, really?

 

[0:03:44]

Taylor Gibb: ... Because I know, and without going too far into detail, I know that you've used your share of dating apps, maybe a bit of a connoisseur.

 

[0:03:51]

PJ Bruno: Oh, wow.

 

[0:03:52]

Jordan: A connoisseur of dating apps.

 

[0:03:52]

PJ Bruno: Where are you getting your information?

 

[0:03:54]

Taylor Gibb: I don't know.

 

[0:03:55]

PJ Bruno: You been through my phone?

 

[0:03:57]

Taylor Gibb: I've been swiping through your phone when I was testing earlier.

 

[0:03:59]

PJ Bruno: You know, I like to do research, so I like to... I have Hinge on my phone. I think that's pretty neat. We're going to touch on Hinge soon. I've tried Tinder, I've tried Bumble, and there's something to be said for it. I think I can argue for both sides. There's something very cool, especially in a city like New York, the ability to connect with random people that, honestly, I have a handful of people that are still friends to this day that I met on dating apps, so that's a cool thing, but then, of course, other side of the coin, you start to not appreciate people as much. They're just so easily dismissible, and you just don't really put the time that's required to build something that matter and lasts.

 

[0:04:37]

Jordan: Oh, tell me-

 

[0:04:37]

Taylor Gibb: We kind of forget that they're human beings because they're just a sound bite, maybe a picture, and one thing about them that may or may not have caught your eye, and you forget that, hopefully, they're a fully fleshed human being on the other side that might be waiting for your text, or might but hoping that you swipe right on them. I think it's really easy to have choice paralysis when there's an endless array of options.

 

[0:04:57]

PJ Bruno: Totally. Well, that leads really nicely into our first little article here, which may be the solution to that swipe paralysis, or whatever you want to call it, people not willing to jump in and get stuck in and meet someone in person. We're really thrilled, actually, to be able to plug a good friend of ours. A previous coworker from Braze, Dylan Petro, was able to launch his dating app, Bounce, and all you can do on the app is date. Right? There no chatting?

 

[0:05:26]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.

 

[0:05:27]

PJ Bruno: It's just literally you connect, and that night, the date, it's on. They pick a spot. Is that right?

 

[0:05:31]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.

 

[0:05:31]

Jordan: They do.

 

[0:05:31]

Taylor Gibb: That's right, and I have to say, I actually was one of the first users of this app. I remember Dylan gave a special code to a beta group of testers, and there's something really exciting about it. Right? You get a notification on your phone... First of all, love notifications here at Braze, so having get ready to go on a date, that's amazing to get delivered to your lock screen.

 

[0:05:53]

Jordan: It also makes sense, though, because it is so time-sensitive, it's not just so-and-so likes you, or you have 35 swipe right people, but it's like, you have a date in 25 minutes, or two hours from now, so it's very time-sensitive, so that's the right channel, in my opinion. An email could get lost in your inbox.

 

[0:06:09]

Taylor Gibb: Absolutely, and it's funny, too. This article that we brought up here says that this is the perfect dating app for Millennials who have this kind of analysis paralysis. It even said anything that I'm unfortunately very familiar with. It's like swiping through Netflix, and you've got so many options that you just end up looking at the options for an hour and going to bed.

 

[0:06:27]

PJ Bruno: Yep, yep.

 

[0:06:28]

Taylor Gibb: This is exactly what I do every time, and so when it comes to dating, absolutely, I'm going to keep swiping.

 

[0:06:33]

PJ Bruno: That's the thing. It's like, because, I don't know, you always go back to the well, and I'm a big Netflix browser, and some people are just like, "Oh, my God. Pick something," but I enjoy going through all the stuff and just keep scrolling and scrolling, and so sometimes I get into that mode with swiping. It becomes-

 

[0:06:51]

Jordan: Definitely.

 

[0:06:51]

PJ Bruno: I mean, they've gamified it. Right?

 

[0:06:53]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.

 

[0:06:53]

PJ Bruno: So, it's like you're talking to someone, and I don't know, there's always that incentive get back in and continue to swipe.

 

[0:06:59]

Jordan: My girlfriends, they have a rule that if you've been texting for more than three days and they haven't mentioned a date, to cut it out right then-

 

[0:07:05]

PJ Bruno: That's a pretty good rule.

 

[0:07:05]

Jordan: ... Because they're not necessarily interested in dating, so Bounce is so interesting because it's forcing you to say, "I actually want to meet someone tonight. My makeup's already on. I got my shoes on. Let's go. Let's not just go back and forth and then just flow into the ether of ghosting."

 

[0:07:18]

PJ Bruno: Right. Right.

 

[0:07:18]

Taylor Gibb: Definitely, and I know that PJ hates when he puts on his makeup, expecting to go out on a day. He's got it all, and then they ghost him.

 

[0:07:25]

Jordan: He's got the shoes on, he's got the mascara ready to go.

 

[0:07:26]

Taylor Gibb: God, and he just looks so good, so fly.

 

[0:07:28]

PJ Bruno: When you put that much time into it, of course you're going to be upset when nothing comes to fruition.

 

[0:07:31]

Taylor Gibb: Absolutely.

 

[0:07:32]

Jordan: Lord knows, you're not going to meet someone in real life, so why would you actually go out unless you've got a date already planned?

 

[0:07:37]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. That's silly.

 

[0:07:38]

Taylor Gibb: So, here's the devil's advocate thing, though. I find that some of my friends who are maybe a little more shy, a little more reserved, really like to put in that emotional groundwork before they meet somebody. Love the idea of being on Hinge and being able to message for weeks. It's kind of a... You've got your Jane Austen pen pal romance a little bit.

 

[0:07:54]

PJ Bruno: Yeah, it's a vetting process.

 

[0:07:55]

Taylor Gibb: There's something to be said, right?

 

[0:07:56]

PJ Bruno: There is.

 

[0:07:56]

Taylor Gibb: Because it may be that for a certain kind of person, well, maybe for anybody, it's scary to meet somebody that night not knowing much about them. Right?

 

[0:08:03]

PJ Bruno: Absolutely, and I'll say about Hinge, actually, out of all the apps that I've used, Hinge is pretty good about giving you more than just, okay, this is what a person looks like. They have those little prompts. Have you seen these texts? It's just like-

 

[0:08:14]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah. Oh, I love those little prompts.

 

[0:08:16]

PJ Bruno: It's thing like, "Something I'll never do again is," or, "One thing I'm weirdly attracted to is," and it just is three prompts that you can pick what they are, and it just tells you a little bit about themselves, and if it's funny or quirky and weird, it's just kind of like, oh, okay, I can get down with this. So, it's kind of like-

 

[0:08:31]

Jordan: That's why I loved OkCupid. The concept of just meeting someone because they're within a hundred feet of me and good looking freaked me out. So, I think I answered, I'm not kidding, maybe 300 or 400 questions. It was like an SAT that I filled out to potentially meet the love of my life, and it was actually really interesting, some of the questions that I differed with people. Yeah, it was really interesting to me because I'm similarly of the mind of you, Taylor, that I don't necessarily want to meet a stranger unless I'm literally in the same place as them. The idea of leaving my house and meeting a complete stranger would've freaked me out a little bit, so I think having both sides of it, either I know what you look like, I know what you think like, I know what you believe, I know what we're doing, we're both interested in sushi. Cool. Okay.

 

[0:09:15]

PJ Bruno: One thing I'll say for the audience out there is even if you're using dating apps, and you're not quite finding that special one, you're losing if you're not learning, so at least take stuff away from it. For example-

 

[0:09:25]

Taylor Gibb: You're losing if you're not learning. I like that.

 

[0:09:27]

PJ Bruno: ... Two things I found, just call it research, one is that apparently I look different in every picture I own.

 

[0:09:34]

Taylor Gibb: Great.

 

[0:09:34]

PJ Bruno: So, apparently I look different in every photo, one, and two, girls who own cats are less likely to own guns than girls who have dogs.

 

[0:09:43]

Taylor Gibb: That's interesting because you would think it's a little utilitarian.

 

[0:09:44]

PJ Bruno: I'm a dog-

 

[0:09:45]

Jordan: Have you met a lot of gun-wielding dog owners in New York?

 

[0:09:48]

PJ Bruno: Actually, I don't run into them personally. I'm just telling you from the series of photos I see-

 

[0:09:52]

Jordan: Oh, interesting.

 

[0:09:53]

PJ Bruno: ... There's cat girls, and I'm like, "Cool. I like you. I'm allergic to cats, though, so sorry," and then girls... Not all dog girls have guns, but there are way more dog girls that have guns than cat girls.

 

[0:10:03]

Jordan: I will tell you a learning that I... I have two learnings. One, if you are taking a mirror selfie in a restroom, I'm probably not going to swipe right on you.

 

[0:10:12]

PJ Bruno: Well, you're married, but...

 

[0:10:14]

Jordan: Thank you very much. Tristan, I am not swiping.

 

[0:10:16]

Taylor Gibb: She might be researching, PJ.

 

[0:10:17]

PJ Bruno: Oh, you're doing research. That's right.

 

[0:10:18]

Jordan: Absolute research. But no, I also realized there's a game of which person are you in this picture that I love to play, where it's like you see a group, and you're like, oh, I really hope you're the second from the right, and then there's that two second of anticipation of swiping to the next picture and being like, oh, no, you are the guy on the left, or you're the one in the back that's just at the very end of the photo. It's such a fun game because it's so exhilarating.

 

[0:10:45]

Taylor Gibb: He's the guy photo bombing in the background.

 

[0:10:46]

Jordan: Yes. Yeah. No, it's my favorite part. Who are you? Which on are you?

 

[0:10:50]

Taylor Gibb: Who are you?

 

[0:10:51]

PJ Bruno: Oh, my gosh.

 

[0:10:52]

Taylor Gibb: Speaking of who are you, one thing I forgot to ask that I loved to hear is, I believe back in the day of OkCupid, maybe still, you would have a screen name that you'd have to put out there. Right?

 

[0:11:02]

Jordan: Oh, gosh. Yes.

 

[0:11:02]

Taylor Gibb: I want to hear about your screen name, Jordan. I almost forgot to ask.

 

[0:11:06]

Jordan: Oh, my gosh. I'm going to be giving you all my secrets now.

 

[0:11:09]

Taylor Gibb: That's what this is about.

 

[0:11:09]

Jordan: So, my screen name, true story, I made a profile and a password, so I made a username and a password, and it sat for six months because I was too mortified, this was five, six years ago, to actually add pictures and meet someone online. My username is [Rockjock3213].

 

[0:11:28]

Taylor Gibb: [Rockjock], like rock climbing?

 

[0:11:29]

Jordan: Some people would reach out about that.

 

[0:11:31]

PJ Bruno: I thought it was like rock show.

 

[0:11:32]

Jordan: So, mine's Rockjock, [J-hock 00:11:34]. It's a KU slang. I'm from Kansas, so it was important to me that I mentioned the fact that I love Kansas, I love sports, and 3213 are two of my lucky numbers.

 

[0:11:43]

PJ Bruno: So, say it again, one more time.

 

[0:11:44]

Jordan: Oh, gosh.

 

[0:11:45]

Taylor Gibb: We'd love to look this up. Everybody on the air, take notes.

 

[0:11:48]

Jordan: Rockjock3213.

 

[0:11:51]

PJ Bruno: Sounds like a total babe. I mean-

 

[0:11:52]

Taylor Gibb: I love it, Rockjock. Slide into those DMs.

 

[0:11:54]

Jordan: You know, PJ, any other time, if it hadn't been Tristan, you never know.

 

[0:11:57]

Taylor Gibb: Just waited a few more years.

 

[0:12:00]

Jordan: If you had done OkCupid, because Tinder and Hinge, all that scared me at the time, I wasn't quite ready to delve out of the question, question, question realm.

 

[0:12:07]

PJ Bruno: Fair.

 

[0:12:08]

Taylor Gibb: Well, that's a good transition, too. Right?

 

[0:12:09]

PJ Bruno: Wow. I missed the boat again, it seems.

 

[0:12:11]

Taylor Gibb: Well, as always, [Peej], you're one canoe behind, one safety boat behind, but I was going to say, I had a great segue before you so rudely coming off. I was going to say, speaking of Hinge, Tinder, Match.com groups, we do have another little article here that speaks to a somewhere dystopian future of dating, our overlords at Match.com, and good thing or a bad thing, essential, the article says, "Match Group, which operates dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid, completed its acquisition of the seven-year-old app Hinge on Thursday, following its purchase of a majority stake in June 2018." So, we've got a bit of a monopoly of love on our hands here, which sounds like it would but a great slow jam, but is instead a monopoly of love. PJ, get on writing that.

 

[0:13:04]

PJ Bruno: I'm going to do that.

 

[0:13:05]

Taylor Gibb: Instead, means that there's one company that's kind of determining at least my friend group's dating lives in 2019. What is your take on it, fellow pundits?

 

[0:13:17]

PJ Bruno: I mean, I think I speak for everyone in the room. Monopolies in general are a bad idea. Right?

 

[0:13:21]

Taylor Gibb: You always end up throwing the board. I mean-

 

[0:13:23]

PJ Bruno: You end up in jail.

 

[0:13:25]

Taylor Gibb: ... I was bound to.

 

[0:13:25]

PJ Bruno: I don't have a get out free card. Who knows? No. Yeah, I don't like this one bit, and I'm a big fan of Bumble and the whole female-centric thing that... Was it Whitney Wolfe Herd, I think the CEO [crosstalk]

 

[0:13:38]

Taylor Gibb: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep, exactly.

 

[0:13:40]

Jordan: Previously of Tinder.

 

[0:13:40]

PJ Bruno: Exactly. I love everything that she's done with Bumble, and they're staying strong, and they've staved off acquisition from Match Group. No, I don't like big, huge companies just absorbing and acquiring all this stuff, especially the Match CEO I guess was quoted saying, "Every person who's 18, 19, 20 should be on Tinder. We really want to be integrated into people's single social life, especially when they're young," put the hooks in. Just because, while I said, dating apps can bring you towards a lot of really cool people, and who knows, maybe even the love of your life. I can also make you kind of be detached from society in a certain kind of way. Right? You're looking at your screen all the time. You're easily casting away person, after person, after person. I don't know. That's the thing, is I don't know if it's super good for our psyche, as far as the way that we treat people in general, and I don't know that's an outlandish thing to say.

 

[0:14:33]

Jordan: I agree with that in the sense that one thing about choice analysis paralysis is the always consideration of what you didn't choose, so analysis paralysis being the more options you have, the more terrible your choice could be. If you had five versus 20, you could choose a statistically worse option if you had more than 20, things like that, but also, you're going to spend a lot of time thinking about the other 19 options that you didn't choose, which is very similar to dating apps.

 

[0:15:03]

PJ Bruno: Totally.

 

[0:15:03]

Jordan: I think that this concept that there's always the next person, which is also with these dating apps, their lifecycle, if they do their job, they're losing their audience. It's kind of like a babysitting app.

 

[0:15:16]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:15:16]

Jordan: If you get the nanny you're looking for, or the before, or the girlfriend, or the partner you've been looking for, you deactivate your profile, you're done with that. The cost of acquisition just got higher. So, for them, they either need to, as you mentioned, hook me back in by always having that in the back of my mind, that there's more option and I should go back and swipe, and I miss the gamification, or they have to buy every other part of their audience, which means this massive acquisition and having this monopoly.

 

[0:15:43]

PJ Bruno: I see. That makes sense.

 

[0:15:43]

Taylor Gibb: That's brilliant.

 

[0:15:44]

Jordan: So, no, it's not ideal. I think that it's changing... It's not just my thought. It's scientifically proven that it's changing the way people date, the way people interact, and I don't necessarily think it's for the best, but I think it's part of the nature of the game that everything is digital, and we want things in the palm of our hand, literally, and we don't necessarily want to have to go out. We're paying for convenience.

 

[0:16:06]

Taylor Gibb: That's interesting, and that's a really... It's a good take I think that a lot of people share. I will say, it's also interesting to think about being one of these companies. Right? If your goal at the end of the day is technically to match people up with their perfect other person, but then that means they're off the app. Right?

 

[0:16:26]

PJ Bruno: Right.

 

[0:16:26]

Taylor Gibb: So, I've posed this to clients before. I work with a few dating apps here at Braze, and I remember going in and saying, "Devil's advocate, if your app works perfectly, you're out of users. You don't have anybody in there. What does that make you feel like?"

 

[0:16:42]

PJ Bruno: Right. It's a catch-22.

 

[0:16:42]

Taylor Gibb: They said, "Honestly, we want as many marriages, as many people dropping off at the end of this as we possibly can do. When we look through the section of The New York Times, we want to see, 'We met on blank dating app. We met on this dating app,' and that's going to mean that we're really successful." Now, of course, that's me going in in the moment as an outsider. It could be that there are other things that come from that, but-

 

[0:17:05]

Jordan: It's de-stigmatizing it.

 

[0:17:07]

Taylor Gibb: Absolutely.

 

[0:17:07]

Jordan: The more that you see it's prevalence, that's great. I mean, I'm just going to throw this out there. I would love an app to make friends, because I think it's so easy to meet people with the instance of dating and love, and I think building community, if it's not at your office, or it's not in a friend group that you had from college, or it's not something that's based off of your personal belief system, it's really hard to make friends, and I think that's something that would benefit everybody. I know that Bumble tried to do that, I think, with business.

 

[0:17:34]

Taylor Gibb: Bumble BFF.

 

[0:17:34]

PJ Bruno: That's right, yeah.

 

[0:17:35]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah.

 

[0:17:35]

Jordan: Oh, yeah. They did it for business, too. I don't know how... I say this, but also, I met my person online, so I can't give them too much crap because I maybe wouldn't have met him otherwise. We both lived in the same city for six years and had mutual-mutual friends, never met, so I'm very grateful they were able to find the needle in the haystack was looking for.

 

[0:17:55]

Taylor Gibb: Most definitely, and there's an app for everything. You've got your Bumble BFF. You've got your Bumble for business. I just heard today about a new app called [Tudder], which is Tinder for cows, and if you're looking to breed your cow-

 

[0:18:08]

PJ Bruno: [Exsqueeze] me?

 

[0:18:08]

Taylor Gibb: ... You get online, and you find a... On Tudder, you can swipe, say, "This looks like the steer for my particular cow."

 

[0:18:16]

PJ Bruno: But how do cows even use apps?

 

[0:18:20]

Jordan: Is it the farmer looking for the best lady cow?

 

[0:18:23]

Taylor Gibb: I like to think it is just a cow that's swiping over there. He's got his big hoof, and he's like, "Oh, no, no. This will never do." [crosstalk]

 

[0:18:29]

PJ Bruno: What are the pictures of? It's just-

 

[0:18:31]

Taylor Gibb: They're of the cows. It's absolutely 100% Tinder, just with cows.

 

[0:18:35]

PJ Bruno: Is it like a group of cows, and you have to guess which cow is the one?

 

[0:18:40]

Taylor Gibb: Yep, and it's always the shortest cow, isn't it?

 

[0:18:41]

PJ Bruno: Exactly.

 

[0:18:42]

Taylor Gibb: Always the shortest cow.

 

[0:18:43]

PJ Bruno: It's always-

 

[0:18:43]

Jordan: Taylor, how did you find this? Did you product hunt this, or is this from experience [crosstalk]

 

[0:18:49]

PJ Bruno: This is a good question.

 

[0:18:49]

Taylor Gibb: Yeah. You know, we're actually trying to get them in as a client for next year, so thanks so much.

 

[0:18:53]

PJ Bruno: Tudder.

 

[0:18:54]

Taylor Gibb: I've just been doing Tudder.

 

[0:18:55]

PJ Bruno: We got our eye on you.

 

[0:18:56]

Taylor Gibb: Look out. We're going to be sending notifications. Is your cow lonely?

 

[0:19:00]

PJ Bruno: You know, just real briefly, I want to come back... I love that whole idea because Hinge says designed to be deleted. Right?

 

[0:19:07]

Taylor Gibb: Yes.

 

[0:19:07]

PJ Bruno: That's their tagline.

 

[0:19:09]

Taylor Gibb: That's it.

 

[0:19:09]

PJ Bruno: I love that that's their mission and standpoint, is to get everyone to get off of it. I don't really buy it, especially now that they're acquired by Match Group, which is this big, huge, monster Frankenstein company, so I just... My question is, how do you build customer loyalty? Right? It's by building brilliant experiences. Right? So, what does loyalty look like in this industry? How is loyalty fostered in an app like this?

 

[0:19:38]

Taylor Gibb: Oh, definitely, and it's funny too because we've got these preferences, but more and more, it's preferences within this Match monopoly. Right? I like OkCupid. I like Hinge. Match says, "That's great. It's all under us. Come on in." Yeah, fostering loyalty, and then also, there is somewhat distressingly now this price put on things like a super like, or a boost. It's like, not only do I like you, Jordan, but I'm willing to pay an extra $2.00 to show you how much I like you.

 

[0:20:06]

Jordan: Listen, that was before my time. That didn't exist back in the day.

 

[0:20:12]

Taylor Gibb: Do you think Tristan would've dropped a couple of bucks to say hi to you?

 

[0:20:14]

PJ Bruno: $2.00?

 

[0:20:14]

Taylor Gibb: $2.00?

 

[0:20:14]

Jordan: I think he did pay to be anonymous, so you couldn't see how often he looked at someone's profile. I didn't know that existed, so there might be some people out there that knew I was heavily stalking them.

 

[0:20:25]

Taylor Gibb: They're like, "Rockjock?"

 

[0:20:27]

Jordan: Oh, my gosh.

 

[0:20:27]

Taylor Gibb: Didn't you view my profile 20 times?

 

[0:20:27]

Jordan: Okay. This is getting too real. No, but to answer your question, PJ, this is something I actually thought a lot about. As a customer success team, we were doing some workshops, just trying to think about the user lifecycle across different verticals, and we were doing data apps at one point, and this is something that I think is so critical to think of as a marketer, but also as a person, is that it can be an exhilarating experience. I got in at a really good time, I found my person, I got out. It was great. It can be an incredibly lonely experience, especially if you're somebody who is putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, and maybe not getting the number of people interested in you that you'd hoped for, or the quality of people that you'd hoped for. I think that it's imperative that these companies remember that their relationship is with the person using their app, in that when you're the person that's bestowing all these amazing compliments, you can also be incredibly silent unintentionally, and so something that I like to think about is today is Valentine's Day. This can be a really tough day for some people, so use what you have. You have the ability to talk to them. Talk to them and remind them how many people swiped on them in the last year, how many people liked their photo, or how many people did they end up getting to see to build their community, things that you're in control of that aren't necessarily how hot did people think you are, or how many people wanted to go on a date that you said no to, weirdly, vanity metrics. Use what you have at your disposal-

 

[0:21:53]

PJ Bruno: Totally.

 

[0:21:53]

Taylor Gibb: Literally.

 

[0:21:53]

Jordan: ... And truly build a relationship that you can, which can be either the comforter or the cheerleader, or both.

 

[0:22:00]

PJ Bruno: So, so well said, Jordan. I love that message to everyone out there. You know, we're in the world of automation, and it's going to make our lives continually easier and easier, but let's not forget, along the way somewhere, we can lose something as well. So, on Valentine's Day, reach out to those loved ones, even if it's over the phone. Try to-

 

[0:22:19]

Taylor Gibb: Even if it's in a push notification.

 

[0:22:20]

PJ Bruno: Even if it's in a push notification that's triggered in realtime or near realtime. Who's to say?

 

[0:22:25]

Jordan: Be good to yourself, too. I think it's a love day. Love can be everything, but love should also point right back at you.

 

[0:22:32]

Taylor Gibb: Well, I can't-

 

[0:22:33]

Jordan: Getting sentimental there.

 

[0:22:34]

Taylor Gibb: That's good. It's Valentine's Day. It's the day to be sappy, and quite honestly, we can end it on that note.

 

[0:22:41]

PJ Bruno: I'd love to end it on that note. This has been beautiful, you guys. Happy Valentine's Day to you both-

 

[0:22:46]

Taylor Gibb: [crosstalk] Happy Valentine's Day.

 

[0:22:49]

PJ Bruno: ... And happy Valentine's Day to all you out there.

 

[0:22:50]

Taylor Gibb: All you listeners out there.

 

[0:22:52]

PJ Bruno: This is PJ Bruno-

 

[0:22:53]

Taylor Gibb: Taylor Gibb.

 

[0:22:54]

Jordan: And I'm Jordan.

 

[0:22:56]

PJ Bruno: Thanks a lot for coming with us, guys, and take care.

[0:22:58]

PJ Bruno sits down with Enterprise AE Patrick Forquer and VP of Growth Spencer Burke to discuss online grocery shopping, Reddit raising a huge Series D round with a near $3 billion valuation, and Warby Parker's new augmented reality shopping tool. 

 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[0:00:18]

P.J: Hi everyone and welcome to Braze for Impact. Your weekly tech industry discuss digest. So this is a place where we get together each week and just talk about what's happening in tech. This week I'm lucky to have with me my pal Patrick Forquer who is on the sales organization here at Braze. Next week we'll hear from someone from a different department, probably Customer Success, something like that and then the following week maybe someone from product and then so on and so forth. So we can get multiple different angles at what's happening in the tech industry. Like I said today, I'm lucky to have Patrick Forquer and also Spencer Burke. I'll have them introduce themselves.

 

[0:00:51]

Patrick: Hey, I'm Patrick [inaudible]. I'm a strategic account exec here at Braze.

 

[0:00:55]

Spencer: Thanks PJ. I'm Spencer Burke, the VP of growth.

 

[0:00:58]

P.J: How are you guys doing? How's the week trucking on?

 

[0:01:01]

Patrick: It's going okay. No, it's going great. It's great to be here with you P.J. Looking great in your Heather Gray shirt and as always.

 

[0:01:09]

P.J: It's a good color. Spence, how are we doing?

 

[0:01:11]

Spencer: Going well. Got a ski trip planned for this weekend driving up to Vermont, so can't complain.

 

[0:01:16]

P.J: Always at the skiing Spencer Burke.

 

[0:01:19]

Spencer: It's a winter. I got to get it in.

 

[0:01:20]

P.J: Got to get it in guys. You know what, without further ado, why don't we jump on to what's happening this week? This first article, 'Why people still don't buy groceries online'. This is a very interesting thing to me. Actually, let me set up the story because I think they did a really good way of setting this up in the article. Nearly 30 years ago when just 15% of Americans had a computer and even fewer had Internet access, Thomas Parkinson set up a rack of modems on a crate and barrel wine rack and started accepting orders for the Internet's first grocery delivery company, Peapod, which he founded with his brother Andrew. Back then, ordering groceries online was complicated. Most customers had dial-up still and Peapod's web graphics were so rudimentary that customers couldn't even see image of what images of what they were buying. Delivery was complicated too. So the Parkinson's drove to grocery stores in the Chicago area. They actually did this and bought what customers had ordered and then delivered the goods from the backseat of their beat up Honda Civic. When people wanted to stock up on certain goods, strawberry yogurt or bottles of diet coke, the Parkinson's would deplete whole sections of grocery stores. This is, this is wild. I mean it's interesting because we were all constantly talking about convenience and delivery of all sorts of things. Why not groceries? What's the deal?

 

[0:02:41]

Patrick: Yeah. So when I was reading this article, the first thing that came to mind was if, if we rewind 10 years from today and we took a poll of everyone at braise about, which would be more successful grocery delivery or an app on your phone where you tap on one button and a stranger in a Honda Civic pulls up and drives you somewhere. I think we all would have bet on the grocery delivery piece of that. Right?

 

[0:03:07]

Spencer: Every time.

 

[0:03:08]

Patrick: So it is crazy to me and the numbers are super low. I mean 3% of people getting grocery delivery. Spencer, what was your initial take?

 

[0:03:18]

Spencer: I'm curious, have you guys used the grocery delivery service?

 

[0:03:22]

Patrick: So I have, I had a really bad experience actually, so I haven't done it since. And I think that's part of the challenge in this article where-

 

[0:03:31]

Spencer: Can you get into that bad experience or is that...

 

[0:03:35]

Patrick: So we tried to use the grocery ordering off of Amazon Alexa and my wife ordered paper towels and-

 

[0:03:46]

Spencer: Just paper towels?

 

[0:03:47]

Patrick: Yes. And a couple of other things, but I kid you not, they delivered us what must have been the majority of the warehouses paper towels to the point where-

 

[0:03:58]

P.J: Jesus!

 

[0:03:59]

Patrick: ...for two and a half years, we were using paper towels off of that one order. So obviously that's an outlier. But yeah.

 

[0:04:08]

P.J: It seems like it's also, apparently America is really not adopting it as much as other countries like it seems like in Europe. Also in Asia it's like up to 20% or something like that of consumers are using online and it's only 3% here in America. Does that speak to anything that we're doing or what do you guys think?

 

[0:04:27]

Spencer: Well, I mean I think part of it is most people... Most people have cars. Most people live in an area where they have some kind of large grocery store chain and so if you're driving to work, stopping at the grocery store on the way home, it's not changing the convenience kind of function for everyone in the same way that like Lyft or Postmates or Seamless might for your average consumer. Personally, I've tried it here in New York. I recently moved to somewhere that just doesn't have as many large stores as close to me. I just thought, sure, why not? Let's try Amazon Prime. Amazon just bought whole foods recently and let's see how it goes. I think there's a lot of challenges with it. You don't see exactly what you're getting. If something's out of stock, you're relying on them making replacement or not providing it at all. So, if you're planning on using one of these services to plan a dinner you might not actually be able to cook what you intended to or you might not be able to put that meal together because the delivery service wasn't 100% versus if you're in the store, you can kind of course correct as you go.

 

[0:05:32]

P.J: Right. I feel like a lot of us order all sorts of things through the Internet. I'm sure that list goes on, but as far as grocery shopping something that...it's ordering Seamless as one thing, right? It's prepared and sent right over to you as opposed to groceries. People probably a little concerned like you want to feel your fruit, you want to see your meat, you got all these things. I feel like there's a little fear around that probably. For me anyways.

 

[0:05:59]

Patrick: Well definitely. And then you know, they talk about the challenges that these companies have. It's a lot more complex and it would look to me that on the surface with things like some items you have to keep warm. Some items you have to keep cool, you have to do it all really quickly. And so the people put, you know, preparing the packaging, have to know where everything is and then there's delivery and it's mostly in urban areas. So then there's parking challenges and all these things that I didn't necessarily.

 

[0:06:25]

P.J: There's tons of complications that go along with it. Apparently surveys have shown that shoppers are still concerned that they're being charged higher prices when it comes to online delivery and also complain about delivery drivers being late. Those are the two biggest complaints apparently.

 

[0:06:39]

Patrick: Yeah. And the last thing I noticed was in the second article that we were looking at on grocery delivery, there's the casual drop of Google in partnership with Bain, with Bain commissioned a research study, which as we know working in tech means that Google paid Bain to run this survey for them likely with a hypothesis that grocery delivery was about to explode.

 

[0:07:03]

P.J: I feel like they had an a hypothesis in mind. Yes. Something tells me, yeah.

 

[0:07:07]

Spencer: So I don't know if this was entirely altruistic on behalf of a like, yeah, let's do it. Let's go for it. We'd like you guys.

 

[0:07:13]

Patrick: And you know, I noticed Walmart recently pulled their products from Google Express, which is Google's grocery delivery service. So I think there's increasing competition around this for an incredibly small market at the moment. And I guess we'll see where it goes.

 

[0:07:31]

Spencer: Yeah. Before we move on. I, despite our skepticism, I think there clearly is something here and you know, whether it's Instacart or Postmates or Amazon or anything Walmart or Jet tries to do, there's clearly value to having a hall. You're grocery shopping, just show up at your door essentially. And I think like a lot of things on the Internet, whether it was a couple of years ago when everyone's like no one's going to put their credit card into their phone to buy something online. It's like there's all these articles about how many people abandon their carts because it's on mobile and they need to go back to their desktop. No one talks about that anymore. You just do it. I think we're not that far from whole foods being a warehouse of food for Amazon delivery rather than a grocery store. Right.

 

[0:08:18]

Patrick: Delivered by robots.

 

[0:08:20]

Spencer: Yeah, exactly.

 

[0:08:21]

P.J: And that's what the future looks like. Groceries delivered by robots.

 

[0:08:24]

Spencer: You heard it here first.

 

[0:08:25]

P.J: Yeah, we'll leave it to you guys. Next article of the day. Reddit is raising a huge round near $3 billion valuation. So Reddit is raising one. Sorry, $150 million to $300 million to keep the front page of the Internet running. Multiple sources tell TechCrunch. The forthcoming series D round is said to be led by Chinese tech giant, Tencent at a $2.7 billion pre-money valuation. And now depending on how much follow on cash Reddit drums up from Silicon Valley investors and beyond, it's post money valuation could reach an epic $3 billion. Yikes. And now my first concern that comes up immediately for this, and I feel like maybe you guys felt the same way. Censorship, right? I mean, maybe it doesn't matter, but Reddit remains a relatively safe space for trailers and conspiracy theorists alike. The currently banned apps and websites in China though, like massive lists just to shortlist as Google, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Snap, Insta, Youtube, flickr, Tinder, and Reddit of course. And that doesn't even include news publications, cloud storage products and email. So I don't know, there's something feels weird about this, right? Also like Tencent is also one of the most important architects of the great firewall of China. This is serious. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of meat here.

 

[0:09:53]

Spencer: It's like this is a different than I expected.

 

[0:09:54]

P.J: Oh really? It just seems like there's strange things at play.

 

[0:10:00]

Patrick: Spencer, I know you had some hot takes on this.

 

[0:10:02]

Spencer: No, go ahead.

 

[0:10:03]

Patrick: Well, yeah, I think it's interesting that Reddit has had a lot of challenges over the past couple of years. And PJ, you alluded to some of that where they've had some really bad homophobic, misogynistic, racist, threads that have propagated conspiracy theories and hate speech and they've dealt with it in different ways. Some of the ways that they've dealt with it has been good. Some of it's been not so good. I know their CEO was editing comments and specific threads to make them look a certain way. And then he got caught doing that and had to apologize. If they had been a bigger company, can you imagine if Facebook did something like that? He'd be hauled in front of Congress immediately. So, and I was thinking about the valuation piece of this too, where if you took all the bad stuff out, and you're looking at their monetization model, it's through ads, right? Like most companies. They're like most social companies but they've really only recently started monetizing through ads and their real strength has been a very supportive and loyal community of Reddit users. I don't use Reddit, but I know people who do and the people that use Reddit, love Reddit. They love it. They're like in the community, they're posting and commenting and all that stuff. And the challenge as we know scaling a business model where ads are the primary revenue driver is that you can lose some of that early days, communal feel when you start layering in promoted posts and different types of advertisements and it kind of loses its initial bespoke early day feeling those.

 

[0:11:54]

Spencer: Yeah. I think the flip side of the darker elements of Reddit is that Reddit, can be a place for really specific groups of people and that can be people in a city, someone with a certain medical condition, people who play a sport. Like recently I've been looking and there's a subreddit for woodworking and it's like, oh, this is maybe a hobby that I'd be interested in. And there's just a ton of resources and people who are helpful. So for everyone who's out there trying to make a joke, well, if there's a lot more of these people, but for everyone out there who's, who's kind of trolling and you're trying to be a little bit silly, there's a lot of people who are just passionate about something and go to Reddit to share it. And I think it's kind of inspiring actually, that those communities exist on the Internet in a place that it's not just a website for those people. It's a website that can serve any community and it happens to be Reddit for a lot of people.

 

[0:12:50]

Patrick: Right? Do you think that this changes anything for Reddit potentially down the road?

 

[0:12:58]

Spencer: Well, they stay in business for a little bit longer. I don't think so. I think you're probably reading too much into the the Chinese[crosstalk]

 

[0:13:07]

Patrick: have you been spending some time on Reddit recently PJ?

 

[0:13:09]

P.J: Actually, I've only been on Reddit maybe once in my whole life. I'm not a big ... My roommate is like obsessed. Anytime we're doing anything like watching a movie, he just is looking at his phone the whole time and he's in Reddit constantly living in the comments. Right?

 

[0:13:23]

Patrick: Nba Reddit as a really good, yeah. Community. Right. Community.

 

[0:13:27]

Spencer: I feel singled out now because I actually do spend a decent amount of time on Reddit

 

[0:13:32]

Patrick: That's all we need to hear from somebody.

 

[0:13:32]

Spencer: Don't use Facebook, don't use Twitter. Casually though love reading Reddit. The comments can be hilarious. But like I said, just moved recently. So looking for cool areas, restaurants, bars in my neighborhood and there's a subreddit for it. So just reading through it on a couple of times a week can pick out spots, find somewhere to go check out, and it's actually really interesting to see and it's like having a good neighbor or a friend recommend some places to you. You just there and it's a different feel than just going on Yelp and looking at aggregate and total summation.

 

[0:14:08]

Patrick: Are you getting into woodworking? Is that what this is?

 

[0:14:11]

P.J: Yeah. What do you, tell me more about that.

 

[0:14:13]

Spencer: I won't go down the rabbit hole of the hobbies that Reddit has inspired or there's some really, I'll just ... There's some really specifics. I'll read it. That's all. That's all I'll say.

 

[0:14:23]

Patrick: I mean, but what you're describing though, Spencer, is the kind of dual nature of all of these social media sites. On one hand, they can connect people who feel lonely or who are passionate about a certain topic that maybe others around them aren't passionate about and find that community that they'd been looking for. On the other hand, there's Jonses with hate speech and things like that and who knows, maybe Reddit Will start handling this really well and it'd be a success story, so I'll be interested to what they do with all this capital and it's a huge inflection point for their business and kind of their all or nothing shot I feel like so.

 

[0:15:00]

Spencer: Just as an example, they're on the weeds podcast of ox podcasts. They're talking about a study of where they paid people to give up Facebook who are on the platform. They weren't planning to give it up. And those people who are basically just happier, they socialize more, they watch a little more TV, which is maybe the one question one thing.

 

[0:15:19]

Patrick: And they have some money now, which is nice.

 

[0:15:22]

Spencer: But they were less politically divisive. They were a little less informed on some things, but just like genuinely happier. I think one of the interesting things that happens in Reddit versus Facebook, that the communities are moderated by people from the community. So there are subreddits to help people quit smoking, to quit drinking. And when those people will talk about their success, there's so much positive in encouragement and positive feedback and the negative elements of that. Unlike Facebook where anyone from high school that you don't really know anymore can come in and comment and make you feel pretty bad about something or give you that kind of fomo feeling. There's a community of people supporting you trying to do whatever it is. Whether it's something you know, trying to get rid of some addiction or learn some new hobby, which I think so that moderating the fact is it makes it a little bit different than other types of social networks.

 

[0:16:14]

P.J: A little more like true democracy going on over there.

 

[0:16:18]

Spencer: Or a benevolent dictatorship. In the case of moderation.

 

[0:16:22]

Patrick: If Reddit is the front page of the Internet, does that make Facebook like the national enquirer? Who's to say, hi,

 

[0:16:33]

P.J: Let's move on. We got a little of time left. Last article of the day. Warby Parker's new shopping tool lets you try on and buy glasses virtually using your iPhone's camera. So now this article is Warby Parker announced new shopping tool and it's more convenient for iPhone owners, Virtual Try-on. The tool, which lives inside the glasses by mail companies app is available on February 4th. So this Monday it just launched. The caveat is you'll need an iPhone X, iPhone XR or iPhone XS to take advantage. So not just for iPhone users. If you have an old school iPhone, you're not going to be able to use this thing either. Spencer, you wear glasses sometimes, right?

 

[0:17:13]

Spencer: Yep. You got me.

 

[0:17:15]

P.J: You guys can't see. But sometimes he wears glasses. Do you have feelings on this? Do you get ex ... Does this get you excited?

 

[0:17:22]

Spencer: [inaudible]radio? Yeah. Not really. I'm pretty straight forward. When I went to go buy my most recent pair of glasses, went to a store in New York, asked the guy for some help. He picked out two pairs, tried them on, chose one, locked out. And I might be an anomaly there, but I think from-

 

[0:17:41]

P.J: Boom! I love that.

 

[0:17:42]

Spencer: But I think this is really interesting to me because it sort of solves two problems. One is it's helping people try glasses. It's lowering friction to make a purchase. The second is it's giving people a better sense of what they're going to look like without going in the store. So it's going to reduce the likelihood that they need to go in and make a return or [inaudible] me back in, which of course has a cost to Warby. So hopefully for for them the business outcome is it's increasing revenue, making the purchase easier and they're reducing their operating costs by reducing the number of returns.

 

[0:18:16]

Patrick: Yeah. To me, reading the article and there was a lot of buzz about this. This story appeared multiple of the new sources that I read on a regular basis and while it's cool and definitely the benefits that Spencer's talking about are real. I also didn't understand necessarily the getting as much buzz as it did because to me it just feels like they took Snapchat filters and turn them into [crosstalk] Whoa, we can do now what Snapchat could do two years ago and it's just Warby Parker glasses instead of like Elton John glasses. I mean it's cool, but I want the Elton John one.

 

[0:18:55]

Spencer: Yeah.

 

[0:18:56]

Patrick: So it's just definitely cool and I think there's obviously a business case to be made from a technology perspective. It wasn't super exciting. I think there's other use cases for AR for things like the way that Wayfair and other furniture stores are doing it where you can see, you can overlay a couch in a living room type of thing that would be more valuable than, productize smart Snapchat filter.

 

[0:19:21]

Spencer: So you don't wear glasses do you?

 

[0:19:22]

Patrick: I do not.

 

[0:19:29]

P.J: 20-20 vision. I honestly just don't trust that augmented reality fit. I don't think it'll necessarily match real life. And I guess it's for two reasons. One, I just don't trust that just looking at yourself with this augmented pair of glasses on will necessarily look the way to look in real life. Also, we're not even considering the feel. the feel of a pair of glasses has to feel right. You know, so until they have augmented feeling technology out, I'm not buying.

 

[0:19:57]

Patrick: Well, the other thing I was thinking about too, along those lines, PJ is 97% of Americans won't freaking order groceries, but there's going to be some huge wave of people putting something on their face every day that they saw on an app.

 

[0:20:11]

P.J: That's what I'm talking about.

 

[0:20:13]

Patrick: Hot tech Spencer. I don't know.

 

[0:20:14]

P.J: There it is. It's called augmented reality. It's inherently different. It's like if you think about catching a charter as art in Pokemon go is so different from trying to catch on in real life. Have you ever tried, it's entirely different. Wait, one more question for you guys. What I want to hear, what's an augmented reality app that you're just hankering for that you just really want? And I'll give you a second to think. Well, I'll tell you mine and you know, growing up I was very into a Tamagotchi if you guys remember those little pet on your key chain, but just like a cool little Tamagotchi that only I can see my pet. No one can see them. I look around where is he? Okay. There he is on the ground. You've got to feed them. You got to take care of them. And then you know when it comes to having to really take care of him, like you just close the app, close the phone. I don't need to worry about buying pet food or any of that stuff. Something that makes me feel like I have a little buddy.

 

[0:21:08]

Patrick: So an AR Tamagotchi

 

[0:21:09]

P.J: An AR Tamagotchi you heard it here first.

 

[0:21:12]

Patrick: Wow. Here's all my money. [inaudible]

 

[0:21:17]

Spencer: You don't use Reddit. You don't order groceries online, you don't think that trying glasses on with your phone is a good idea. But they are Tamagotchi.

 

[0:21:26]

P.J: I am on Facebook so you can find just about out of time here. You guys, thanks so much for being on here with me. This is PJ Bruno.

 

[0:21:35]

Patrick: Patrick [inaudible]

 

[0:21:36]

Spencer: And Spencer Burke.

 

[0:21:37]

P.J: signing off. You guys take care.

[0:21:39]