The crew dives into how taste is evolving, how culture keeps getting repackaged, and what it really means to build movements that last. It starts with a breakdown of the "Guys with Dads" — the new class of well-funded outsiders shaping scenes they didn't build (08:00). Jordi explains why Animal House stepped back from events and how Live Nation and brands priced out the real ones (15:00), while Melanie unpacks how brands ghost-promote off the backs of tastemakers they never credit (21:00). Michael gives a rare inside look at how culture gets treated in boardrooms (26:00), and the group talks about fatigue, fragmentation, and why monoculture may never return (40:00). Donny drops his now-iconic "water" analogy — culture is the resource, taste is knowing what to say no to, and if you truly have culture, there is no risk (52:00). The room gets vulnerable about ego, exclusion, and being overlooked by the same systems that profit off their taste (1:05:00), then Donny maps out the triangle: culture, taste, and money — and why most people only ever master two (1:12:00).

This episode features the full crew: Donny Slater (GM of Third + Hayden & Co-Founder of ROLLOUT), Melanie McClain (Founder of Blurred Lines, DSP Music Programming), and Michael Pelczynski (Co-Founder of Voice-Swap & EVP at Rostrum Pacific). They're joined by guest host Jordi Ross, Founder and CEO of @animalxhouse and @3rdshiftnyc.