Joining Erik on this episode is Jarrod Dicker (@jarroddicker), who is CEO of Po.et. He has a background in journalism and tech and formerly worked at the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.

Jarrod explains how he came to the idea for Po.et, why blockchain technology is important, and how it can augment journalism. He points out that if the protocol is successful, the company is likely to go out of business since the network will be self-managing. He talks about the idea of “proof of effort” and how it enables third party verification and smart contracts via the blockchain for journalists, photographers, and hopefully in the future all kinds of content creators.

They talk about the news business more broadly, including how the big tech platforms have been encroaching on the businesses of news organizations and why Slate makes more money on 50,000 pageviews on its own site than it would make through 6 million pageviews via Apple News. Jarrod explains why he says that we are in the “Napster era” of the news business.

Jarrod also talks about the future of the news business, and why journalists will become more like free agents. He says that readers and advertisers will have more direct contact with journalists outside of any given news organization, similar to the way that fans attend an artist’s concert not because of the artist's label, but for the artist specifically. This is in contrast to the prominence of the name of the news outlet in a journalist’s work.

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Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.