Inside the big business of the creator economy, with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky

Today I’m talking with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, who run the Creators Division at United Talent Agency. UTA is an enormous talent agency, and Ali and Raina's creators division represents some of the biggest creators and influencers in the world. So I really wanted to know how Raina and Ali identify up-and-coming talent, how they work with that talent to build durable businesses, and what the machinations of being a top creator actually look like in practice. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: The power brokers behind the $250B influencer economy | Wall Street Journal The Influencer Cliff | Carmen Vicente (TikTok) UTA Unveils Upscale Office for Creators | The Hollywood Reporter YouTube Stars Breach Hollywood’s Most Gilded Gate | New York Times CAA, TPG form holding company to acquire creator-led businesses | Variety How creator talent agencies are evolving into multi-platform operators | Digiday Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt; this episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:33Speaker 04

  Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil I. Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. We've had another special episode of Decoder recorded at the Cannes Lion Advertising Festival in the south of France. I'm talking with Ali Bearman and Raina Panchansky, who run the creators division at United Talent Agency. UTA is an enormous agency. Half the people you've ever heard speak, or perform, or show up anywhere have UTA agents representing them. For full disclosure, that includes me. UTA handled the sale of the forthcoming Decoder book, which means I paid them money, making this a reverse conflict of interest. Now you know. Anyhow, that has nothing to do with Ally and Raina, whose Creators Division represents some of the biggest creators and influencers in the world. Stars as diverse as Charli D'Amelio and Markiplier, Kai Sennett and Emmett Chamberlain,

• 2:17Speaker 04

  Alex Cooper and Alex Earl. So I really wanted to know how Raina and Ally identify up and coming talent, how they work with that talent to build durable businesses, and what the machinations of being a top creator actually look like. After all, all of these folks are running multimillion dollar businesses with several different revenue lines. You'll hear Ally and Raina talk directly about what it takes to build those businesses, what kinds of deals they strike, and how it's all very different than the traditional Hollywood model, where your agent just takes a cut of your movie earnings. Here, UTA is helping creators literally launch products, and it's fascinating that the stars of today are going from making media to making products of their own. Not all of them can do it, so I wanted to know how Raina and Ally help their clients make that jump and what makes them successful at it. Of course, we also talked about AI, which was all the rage at Cannes,

• 3:01Speaker 04

  and the nature of the social platforms themselves, which enable these creator businesses but can also destabilize them at the drop of a hat. I think you'll find Ally and Raina to be refreshingly chill about all of that, even though they represent some VTubers of their own. There's a lot going on in this one. Ally and Raina have been working with digital talent going back to the blogger days, and they have a lot to say about how it actually works. Okay, Ally Berman and Raina Penchansky, here we go.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  Raina Penchansky, Ally Berman, you are the co-heads of the Creators Division at United Talent Agency. Welcome to Decoder.

• 3:42Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thanks for having us.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I am really excited to talk to both of you. I need to disclose right away, I'm a UTA client. This is like a reverse conflict of interest. Like, I think I pay UTA money, but that's fine. So it's a good conflict. I'm hoping it causes a journalism scandal and this gets shared widely. I am very curious about how the Creators Division works. You guys have been in the game forever. One of our ideas here on Decoder is that the structure of organizations tells you a lot. And Creators has been reorganized. You guys are the new heads. It started in 2024. We're here at Cannes. It's creators everywhere here. They are the future of advertising. There's so much money floating around this festival in advertising. Tell me how UTA works with creators, how this division is structured, your backgrounds, how we got here.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  I'm gonna let Ally start.

• 4:32Speaker 06

  Well, just me personally, I've been at UTA, I'm going into my 16th year.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 06

  And I've only ever worked at a talent agency, for better or for worse. I started my career at another agency a few years into that, moved over to UTA in a very Jerry Maguire meets Entourage-esque moment. And worked on the more, you know, traditional literary side of the business. But was in love with the internet and what the internet was at the time. Which was very blog-centric, self-discovery was really up to you. You didn't have algorithms, you know, feeding to you. It was, you know, obviously a very different area, era. And at the time, UTA had a burgeoning, what was called, digital department.

• 5:19Speaker 06

  That was really a catch-all for anything that was non-traditional film or TV. And I went into that division as an entrepreneur. And ultimately, really gravitated towards artists who were forming their own communities. And, you know, going direct to consumer. And really believed that there was going to be a day where you could monetize those communities. And so helped shape what, at the time, was the digital talent division.

• 5:51Speaker 06

  And right around that time, our third co-head, who's not here today, Orin Rosenbaum, he's at Cannes, but not physically in this room. He's doing another interview downstairs. He was doing the same thing, but on the audio side of the business. And so, we were, and even, you know, beyond that, beyond my story, UTA was the first agency in Hollywood to think about artists in a way other than what you traditionally thought of them as.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 06

  And so, you know, we're actually celebrating our 20th year.

• 6:23Speaker 06

  As a, what we now refer to as a creators' division. And so, you know, Orin was building, you know, similar to what I was building, but on the audio-focused side. We acquired two companies, you know, one on the gaming and esports side, and then... I'll kick it over to Rena and then we'll pick it back up to where we are today.

• 6:41Speaker 05

  So I was one of the co-founders of Digital Brand Architects and this is 16 years ago, actually before Instagram had even launched. And I came from a traditional marketing background. And so what I was drawn to in terms of like seeing the bloggers that Ally referenced, the bloggers, the bloggers at the time, were these people who were building these communities directly with their audience. And I'd come from fashion and marketing and I was used to this sort of top-down relationship with the consumer. And it was so exciting to see at the time, all these women, these sort of street style women who were building this relationship with their audience and who were like essentially the next generation of editors and the next generation of media properties and they just didn't sort of know it yet. And so in my time at the brand that I had been with, I was working with a lot of these,

• 7:25Speaker 05

  you know, women in fashion and they would sort of come to me organically and say like, "Oh, you know, such and such brand wants me to post, like what should I charge?" Or so-and-so wants me to be in a lookbook or a fashion show. And it became like sort of this, I became sort of like a very godmother of sorts, you know, it's just like, you know, answering questions in the vein of like, "How do you build?" And it was totally organic at the time and it was just like, I was inspired by these women and thought like, "Oh, there's something here." I didn't know it was, you know, I think like most sort of entrepreneur stories, it wasn't necessarily, I wasn't connecting the dots. It's like what the business was, I was like inspired by like the storytelling component of it and, and sort of what they represented in terms of where there was like, "Oh, wait, there's something, there's something here."

• 8:06Speaker 05

  And that's, so 16 years ago and then UTA acquired DBA in 2019. And now it sits within the realm of UTA creators. So I have the role of CEO of DBA and then co-head with Ally and Orin. And we've sort of, we've built this, you know, they're church and state in terms of management and agency, but we have a back of house that services both. So we have a brand partnerships team and a products development team and this like massive data and analytics and sit at the epicenter really of like everything that's sort of taking place in the, in the, the overused word of creator economy, but. Yeah, and really, and building and thinking about, you know, what this next chapter, to your point, you know, every single conversation is around creator, that's fine, but then what

• 8:51Speaker 05

  does the next chapter of it look like? And I think what we, what Ally and Lauren and I come to the table with is this idea of like, we've been in this long enough to be, you know, to know it so well, but to also be able to anticipate and be excited about the sort of next chapter of it. And that's like our love language for the three of us.

• 9:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, completely. I think, you know, what's inspiring us, what continues to inspire us is, is, you know, setting the bar, which is what we did, you know, 20 years ago. And we've been building this for 20 years. And so, you know, where are we going to place the next bar? And that's what we're constantly talking about and thinking about. And I mean, you look around at this festival and it's, I mean, the opportunities are absolutely limitless, you know, for the first time, I think, in the history of this ecosystem. If there's like a tagline for 2026 especially, I say it often, but it's, we've arrived,

• 9:50Speaker 06

  you know, this direct to consumer, you know, creator storyteller, artist world is everywhere. And it's inescapable. It's inescapable for brands. It's inescapable as an artist. So it's really exciting.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  I keep looking around and I keep thinking of like the, the, the version of Cannes Lion from, you know, 10, 15, maybe even five years ago. And then I'm looking at it today and it's like, all these people are capturing content. And there's like, it's like, it's such a, you can, it just must feel so different for the people who have been sort of doing this for a long time to sort of see. But it also has a different vibrancy to it. It feels really energized, you know, it, it, you can tell that there's just like a little bit of a, of a shift.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I'm struck very much by how much everyone seems to have only just discovered the creator economy or just pretending.

• 10:43Speaker 05

  Tell us about it.

• 10:43Speaker 04

  That it's brand new. I can sense that from both of you. Help me just unpack a little bit of agency world for one second. You described a split, church and state split between agency and management. I think most of the audience thinks agency and they still think of Ari Gold from Entourage. That's obviously not the kind of business you're running. And I want to talk about that because it seems like you're building businesses for folks in a way that isn't just signing deals with Hollywood Studios. Explain the difference between management and agent.

• 11:12Speaker 05

  I mean, I think that it's in, I can speak to it from the creator space.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 05

  Um, which is different, I think, than the traditional space. But, you know, it's very much, creators have so many hats and they're doing so many things. And there's a nuance to whether it's capturing content, whether it's content strategy, whether it's, you know, not being PR, but certainly talking about perception and talking about, you know, sort of like overarching things around your brand, thinking, you know, roadmaps to all the various sort of things that exist. A lot of these creators are doing things that live offline of their, of their content that's on platforms and they're building experiences and they're building events. And so, you know, the relationship between manager and agent in the creator space is incredibly nuanced because the agents are also nuanced and multifaceted.

• 12:03Speaker 05

  But I think that, you know, creators have, it's not like a, you're walking on set and you have a thing and you do a thing and you book this. It's like, there's so much that goes into it as well and so much of that is very intangible and organic. And so I think that the, the manager sort of has a lot to do with that in the sort of day to day of managing, you know, the nuance of what it takes to capture content, build the thing, you know, build whatever offline, the book, you know, all the sort of things that are going along with that. And then the agent is obviously involved in the, in the, in the more business side of it. But it's a delicate balance. And I think you, obviously, Ali, can speak more to the agency.

• 12:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, the other thing that I've been reflecting on a lot is, you know, obviously, and I keep saying it in this interview, but, you know, we built this division 20 years ago, but I think there's no better time to be a creator, influencer, whatever you want to call it, and be represented at a agency.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 06

  Because of how multifaceted careers have become and that it's not.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  You know, at a time in the creator economy, it was really just driven by brand deals, you know? And we were working with clients who we'd say, oh, their business is that I don't mean to use the word "just" because I don't mean to minimize it. Those businesses are incredibly healthy and vibrant and important. But this business, you know, their business is it's just going to be brand deals, endorsement deals. Now, I would argue that if we go and we look at our roster, the majority of our clients are doing way more than just brand deals. And so when, you know, you're being represented in an agency, and especially you've got a creator division inside an agency, they're really quarterbacking their careers inside all the different dimensions and facets.

• 13:58Speaker 06

  But, you know, there are the entertainment, and we're so fortunately fortunate, you know, to be, you know, seated at a place like UTA, where we've got experts and market leaders in literally every area.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Can I, I'm just going to put forth an idea of structure here, and you guys can react to it. It just sounds, as you're describing it, a traditional media company from 10 years ago would have a bunch of infrastructure, right? They would have accountants and finance people and a licensing division. And then they would have talent, and they would pay the talent, whatever number. Maybe UTA would like negotiate that talent rate. But that would be the end of UTA. And then the business, whatever big old Hollywood studio, would have like rooms full of accountants, like making the business go.

• 14:35Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  This is my imagination of what old Hollywood was like. But that was like basically Sony's business. We're going to make a show, we're going to pay everybody, and then we're going to license that show to whatever networks around the world. It sounds like UTA and what you guys are doing is we've decentralized the talent, right? They don't all work for studios in the same way. And you're providing that infrastructure layer so that creators don't have to think about, okay, like, how does my business actually work? You have a playbook or you have an approach for each of those creators. Is that a good way to think about it? Because I'm constantly thinking about where the centralization and decentralization comes. And the big media businesses, in my opinion, don't seem like they have a future. Like, they can't support all that overhead.

• 15:18Speaker 06

  Well, I think...

• 15:20Speaker 05

  That's a tricky one because our clients are the modern day media businesses. And so.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  But they don't have room full of accounts. I hope not. You're not telling them to hire room full of accounts, right?

• 15:32Speaker 05

  No, no, but they've got extensions of their teams that are helping them think through what is their P and L. And we do have some clients who have in-house accounting because it's necessitated. But I mean, we're certainly decentralizing it, but I think the centralization happens within their own orbit and within their own organization.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  It does. I'm just really curious about, you know, big media companies are struggling in a lot of ways. And a lot of the reason they're struggling is their distribution has gotten way away from them. Right? So if you own a broadcast network, that is very lucrative, but there is a time limit on how much money that thing is going to make. And how many people are going to watch it? Right? I don't think a lot of people are turning on their TVs to watch over their broadcast anymore. That number is going down. They are all opening Instagram every single day, probably while they're watching TV. And the cost structures of making that content are changing. And so I think that means the structures of the companies that make the content have to change with them. And it just seems like you two are figuring out a role to play inside of those structures.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  Yes, and we're figuring out how to optimize for the new version of what those media companies are, which is, yeah, they are. To Ally's point, they're their own media companies. So what does that entail, right? Is there going to be physical product? Are we going to do events? What is the TV component of it? Like, we are working within the world of how are we taking all of this and turning you into the next media company? But yes, to your point, it's completely become decentralized. And but we sit at this sort of epicenter of connecting those new dots in the decentralized world.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is why I'm asking the structure question. Like, so many times on Decoder, my joke is if you tell me your structure, if you tell me your org chart, I think it's like 80% of your problems.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  And it's like the 20% where the magic is. And here it just seems like this isn't an org chart. You have a bunch of clients who are building businesses and you two are playing some huge role in structuring those businesses. So they're predictable, so they're monetizable, so they operate this difference between management and agent, right?

• 17:33Speaker 05

  I mean, I think that's why there's such nuance in talking about it because the pie is so big. And so, and there are so many things that creators have the ability to do because, again, of the sort of community and the relationship to audience. So because of that seismic shift, the opportunities are endless.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  So our job is to sit at that intersection of like, how are we connecting the dots between this person's content and then all of the sort of plethora of opportunities?

• 18:01Speaker 04

  We have to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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• 20:17Speaker 04

  Welcome back. I'm talking with UTAs Raina Panchansky and Ally Behrman about how distribution shapes media and how influencers are shaped by platforms. One of the things I'm really curious about, Ally, I read a story you were quoted saying platforms come and go. Other people perceive that as a threat. That's the opportunity. You know, just to be like all Marshall McLuhan about it. I believe that the medium is the message, that your distribution shapes what you make pretty directly. A TikToker is different than an YouTuber. Like, I think we all understand this intuitively now. Those distribution platforms, they have an infinite array of content. The algorithms come and go. How do you... Most media businesses are shaped by their distribution, like in real ways. Like, a print newspaper company understands, like, our whole flow has to generate the stories

• 21:00Speaker 04

  by the end of the day so the print newspaper can go out. A broadcast television company understands its distribution. They make something for that distribution. Content creators have to understand every distribution, and it's ever-changing. How do you build a business around distribution that is not really in your control or is not really predictable that way?

• 21:18Speaker 06

  I want to go back to the first part of your comment slash question, which is, you know, the distribution determines what the content is or what the product is. What we believe in is that the end of the day, a star is a star. So it doesn't matter what the platform is or what the distribution is.

• 21:37Speaker 06

  If you're a star, you're a star. You know, it doesn't, you know, whether you're a YouTuber or a TikToker or a podcaster. I mean, that's why we formed this creators division because we believe that, you know, anyone who's going direct to their audience and building these communities and are stars, like it, it, it's irrespective of where they fall, right?

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Well, I just, I, I think a lot of corporate structures tend to mirror their distribution, at least in media. And here, the distribution is like the Wild West. It's just constantly changing. So how do you, you know, if the goal here is to help people build media businesses and distribution is just sort of a constant wildcard? How do you think about building those businesses that's sustainable as Instagram changes or TikTok changes or everyone quits Vine or whatever it is?

• 22:19Speaker 06

  To be clear, the goal, the universal goal for everyone isn't to, you know, build a media business for everyone, you know? Every, every goal for each one of our clients is very bespoke. You know, as the algorithms change and as platforms continue to change, what we've always said is you have to be platform agnostic and you have to be multi-platform. You cannot put all of your eggs in one basket. And so, you know, that's been an increased, we, we, we've seen an increased opportunity with that philosophy because of how now how many platforms are out there.

• 22:53Speaker 06

  And, you know, that's what's widening the talent funnel, right? Like, you know, I think a lot about how if you were to draw what the celebrity, you know, creator celebrity ecosystem looks like today, the, the funnel has never been wider. It's the widest funnel we've ever seen because you've got, you know, everything from long form to short form to editorial to like, you name it, right?

• 23:23Speaker 06

  But the spout has never been more narrow. And in order to

• 23:31Speaker 06

  What we're trying to do is, you know, future, not future proof, but help our clients get through that spout.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 06

  And in order to do that, you have to be across everything because if one thing changes, like you're still carrying the weight of the direct connectivity to who you're speaking to.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  And I think you rely on the platform, but you also build your own, you know, you build your own direct to your audience relationship, you know, however that one of that's sub stack newsletters. Like I think you want to, you know, it's a diverse, it's diversification.

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 05

  I don't want to always be beholden to the algorithm, but I, we love these platforms and they're, you know, incredible partners. And then there's also how am I building separate from that as well?

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 06

  I think a really big component of that and an increasingly big, you know, increasingly bigger component of that is the, you know, in real life experiences that a lot of our clients are, are building, whether it's something that directly involves them or it's something that they're powering, you know, whether it's something that they're on stage and people are buying tickets and coming to see them, or if it's a store, you know, that it's their brand, that's a physical brick and mortar. And, you know, people who subscribe to their content are coming to experience that in real life. And I'm really excited to see how that continues to evolve and take different shape with, you know, all that's available.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. You've mentioned your clients several times. I want to talk about clients and some of the things you build for them. To get there, I want to ask you the other question I always ask everybody on Decoder, which is about decisions. How do you guys make decisions? This seems like an ever evolving space. You can't obviously have a predictable framework, but what's your process for making all the decisions you have to make?

• 25:11Speaker 06

  Well, I'll quote Rena from a meeting earlier where

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Oh, very good.

• 25:16Speaker 06

  We love to say no.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 06

  And, you know, like you, the, the stat that you stated earlier, when we're saying no to 90% of things, it makes it that much easier to really focus in on the 10 and, you know, figure out what makes the most sense. But I mean, the truth is, is that, you know, representing a client is, it's a, it's a human to human relationship. You have to really understand the artist as a human being to be able to understand what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. And that person, on a personal level, that's what I love so much about the job, is being able to connect with, you know, individuals on such a deep human level and say like, this is what you want to do and this is how we're going to get there.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  If you're just listening to this in a car or on audio, you, Ally lit up when I asked the decisions question. Why did that make you so excited? I've asked that question to hundreds of people. You like lit up.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  Funny, I've had this and it's, I saw that and I had the same reaction.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  Really?

• 26:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 06

  Became alive.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  It's like the Ludacris concert last night wore off and you were like alive.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  The thing I think, it's, decision making is, for both of us, it's like, it's magic and logic, right? And I think that that's the, what's really great, I think, about our space and I, I'm assuming, I mean, that's what words are not, but the lighting up, because I sort of did the same thing, I was like, oh, that's a fun question. It's like, there's some, there's logic in what we all do, right? There's analytics, there's data, there's follower counts, all the things, but the magic is the most fun part of it. When you see a creator and you see a piece of content and you see something, like, we're inspired by it. It's like, we love it, like, that's what's motivating. And I think the decision making in our world comes down to the content and what you're sort of, and when you see someone and like Ally referenced like stars, like, there's just something, whether it's like they're endearing and they're, like, there's a thing

• 27:03Speaker 05

  and that's the magic and there's a spark in our, in our sort of day-to-day lives as it relates to clients. And I think that's what, knowing how to sort of toe the line between the magic and the logic, I think is the best part.

• 27:14Speaker 06

  Yeah. You know, whether it's magic and logic, and oftentimes what I say is, when I'm asked the question of, I'm not trying to veer us down this path, so I'll see this next thing with a disclaimer, but, you know, I often get asked, do you feel threatened by AI in terms of replacing your jobs and helping artists navigate their careers? And it's like, absolutely, well, first and foremost, no, we're not threatened by AI. We think it's, you know, to Rena's point, our clients wear so many hats, and so we think it's just, you know, created incredible, an incredible opportunity to, you know, help outsource a lot of, you know, resourcing. But no, because it's where art meets science, you know? And again, it's that human-to-human connection that really helps you figure out, you know?

• 28:02Speaker 05

  How you can help somebody accomplish their goals in life, which is such an incredible opportunity we have.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Don't worry, we're going to come back to AI. And what kind of threat it is. Rain, I want to ask you, you're also in this Wall Street Journal piece. There's a quote that says you have an almost psychic ability to discern when brand deals are good or bad.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  I didn't say that.

• 28:21Speaker 04

  And I've just, someone else said that about you. I don't think you disagreed with it, to be perfectly clear. That's a decision-making process? Do you just stare at the ocean and decide if a brand deal is good? Or does it just come to you? What is, what's your, I mean, that's, I think this is a, for many of our listeners who want to go into this career, knowing a brand deals to take and which ones not is like the first hardest question. So how does your almost psychic ability work? How do you make these calls?

• 28:47Speaker 05

  Listen, there are a lot, I could, I could give you the list of things I'm not good at, but I have high EQ. So I think that's the, that's the piece of the psychic ability. I think when, listen, we all have a gut sense of things. And your first instinct is normally the sort of right instinct. And I think people have a tendency to sort of second guess and, and, and this just might be the sort of entrepreneur in me, but I tend to sort of make, I sort of do things quickly. Like I'm thoughtful about it, but it's also a matter of like, huh, that doesn't feel right or something. Like you know, when something is a good idea and then you know, when you're taking a beat. And I think that, you know, if you're sort of taking a beat because you're hesitant,

• 29:32Speaker 05

  that that's normally not the right, you know, sort of place. But, you know, creators are, they are in tune to their audiences and they're, they're creators by their nature because they're meant to be doing this. And I think if you're meant to be in front of the camera, you also have, you are going to have the best sense of what you're supposed to be doing. And like, what is the right sort of, you know, and you build these teams and you all have these conversations and you sort of talk about these long-term strategies and plans, but ultimately. You know, the creators putting themselves in front of the camera and putting them at the forefront of this content. And I think if you're having, if you're trying to figure out what the right brand deal is, you gotta sort of go with your gut.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 06

  And I think it's so easy to default to just being so highly transactional in this space and just saying yes to everything that comes your way. But you know, what shapes you is the discernment, you know, and the, the, the point of view that, you know, you as an artist and your team around you have around what you should and shouldn't be doing. And you know, our goal is always for our clients to do what's obvious in terms of what their audiences, you know, want to see from them. But to continue to position them to do what's not obvious. So we can, you know, help them innovate and help them create, you know, continue, you know, different edges to who they are.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 05

  The most fun is when it's an outside the box idea. And then it's like, oh, is this totally left of center and this is going to feel like a little strange, like we should do this.

• 30:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Is that all incoming? Do you go out, do you come up with crazy ideas and go out to clients?

• 31:00Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely.

• 31:03Speaker 04

  What's that process like?

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Everybody in a room, brainstorming, talking about, you know, you, we used to say like, what do you want to do in five years? But five years feel so far, oh, well, far off. So it's like, what do we, what do we want to do in the next eight? Yeah. In the next eight, what do we want to do in the next eighteen, what are we trying to accomplish in the next eighteen, 24 months? We break it down to a lot of different things. Like what are the huge, what are the IP ideas? What are the huge sort of offline things we want to do? And then what are the steps that sort of lead us to that? And what are the things that we do along the way? What's amazing in terms of like, what's a dream thing that you've always wanted to do? But then what's like a really practical thing that we need to do to build, to get there?

• 31:38Speaker 06

  Absolutely. I was just going to say that, which is, it's like, you ask the question of, what are your goals? Let's build the strategy and then let's start down the path.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  Tell me about that cadence of this. I think most people see creators, like they just open the apps and they see the videos and they're excited and they're entertained. You're describing it like a business process, a series of meetings and goals and charts and KPIs. What, what's the process? Do you meet with creators on a cadence?

• 32:03Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, the majority of, of our clients were in weekly or bi-weekly or, you know, monthly touch bases. Because what we've done is the second that we start working together, we built what that overall strategy is. And then, you know, just like. You work at a company of a normal nine to five, but you're, you know, meeting as a team to update everybody on, you know, where this project is or, you know, where these numbers are if you're in a sales position. And we're doing the same.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm really curious about that because I think people who want to go into this career don't understand that they might be running a pretty complicated business on the backend.

• 32:40Speaker 06

  Yes, yes.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  And I'm curious, you know, you were early to some big names talk about, we've been talking about creators as a monolith, I think, for this conversation, but these are all different creators. I think you have Charlie D'Amelio, who has a very different business than Alex Earl and Jake Shane than Emma Chamberlain. Like, these all seem like people are situated differently. One, how do you decide, okay, these are the people we should go after and try to sign? Because you're pretty early. Like, historically, I think you in particular have seen the talent early, Ally, and made sure to go get them. And then you've got to convince them, okay, like, now you have to have a bunch of business meetings with me because that's the thing that's going to help you grow. And that's not the time you're spending making the content for the audience. So how do you identify the people early? And then how do you get them on the path to building the business?

• 33:25Speaker 06

  I think collectively, you know, on the, you know, management side of the creators business and, you know, the agency side, we believe that the earlier we partner with the talent, the better it is for them so that they can continue doing what they're doing, which is creating content and building community. Leave the rest to us to be, you know, trust us, you know, as part of what's left, what's left in the process. And fail fast at things, you know, like, try things, fail fast. But like I said earlier, continue working to what is that overall goal.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  I feel like vanishingly few people are ever going to experience the full force of an Ally Berman pitch.

• 34:07Speaker 06

  No.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Right? I mean, like, most people want to get it. Maybe that's a goal, but you're only going to selectively pick a few people. So what's it like? What do you actually say? Just trust me? Like, describe the pitch when you reach out to a creator that you've seen that has the star quality. What's the story you're telling?

• 34:23Speaker 06

  With all due respect, I cannot give out that recipe.

• 34:28Speaker 06

  I can't.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  You can describe the, you can describe the outcomes. What is this cookie like?

• 34:32Speaker 06

  I mean, ultimately, you know, I, on a, personally, like I was describing earlier, I want to be in business with people who I personally connect with.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:39Speaker 06

  Um, that's, that's the joy and the reward of that, of this job and this career for me. And I want to be in business with people who want to work really hard, who want to work, um, harder than I want to work, but ultimately I'm going to work just as hard if not harder.

• 34:58Speaker 06

  And, you know, people who have a real singular voice, that's, that's really, really important to me because I believe it's, it's that singular voice that's going to help you outstand a platform, outstand an algorithm change, outstand, you know, whatever it is. And, and quite frankly, like, that's always been the ethos of UTA, which is let's go identify and represent the most unique artists in the world.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  That was an all time declined answer and then a seamless pivot into pitching UTA. So I'm, I can tell that it's good. I'm going to figure out one of it. Will, will, Raina, will you tell me what is your outreach looks like to new creators?

• 35:38Speaker 06

  You know, it's, it's.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Why do I have to share mine?

• 35:42Speaker 06

  You don't want to give us a recipe either.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  I can't possibly sell a pitch.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  Of all the things I asked about, I did not expect to hit the brick wall here because I'm very curious, right? Like, UTA is a big company. You guys have big clients. Young creators that I know are very skeptical that someone is going to come in and run them over, right? There, there's just some part of that first step of you're going to take how much? You're going to do what? Like, how do I hold you accountable? And I'm, I'm really curious how you, you get over that wall.

• 36:07Speaker 06

  Listen, well, what I will say is for, you know, for, for both UTA and DBA, some, there are, our work speaks for ourselves. We have a lot of clients who are also just talking about, you know, this is my experience and it's been amazing. And so, you know, that's, we're very fortunate for that. I don't know. Again, for me, it's like, I love content. And, and it's funny, there's something that you sort of asked earlier and you were talking about, um,

• 36:32Speaker 05

  You know, the how often do you meet with clients? I am in my clients' DMs when they have post content that I love.

• 36:38Speaker 06

  Same.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  This is amazing.

• 36:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 05

  I love this. This should be a series. We should do something like this. Let's do this. That's the other sort of nuance of what you were talking about in terms of like the business and the like. That's the difference. Like we could, an idea can come from something that someone posts and then we're off to the races. And I think that, you know, it moves, the space is moving quickly, but also we're moving at the speed of content and making decisions and building off of a piece of content. And so like something that didn't exist yesterday that just happened today can could be the next IP in the show. You know? So I think that's the other sort of really fun thing about our space is that.

• 37:12Speaker 06

  I love that. We're moving at the speed of content.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  I know, I just, I just thought.

• 37:15Speaker 06

  That's so good.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  I can't participate in this, you guys. I can't, I can't be here for you guys workshopping a tagline.

• 37:21Speaker 06

  It's so good. It's so good.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  I swear I've never said that before.

• 37:25Speaker 06

  It's so good.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  But that, I was thinking when you were talking about cadence and frequency and, you know, sort of, I was laughing to myself thinking like, oh my God, my client, I'm literally like in my clients' DMs being like, mm, I don't know about that. But so the pitch is just like, I'm a real like straight shooter when I sit with clients. And I will say like, that thing you did, like that didn't land and here's why. And like what I think would land is X, Y, and Z. But I think it's because like what they sense from us and Orin, when they're in the room with us is like, we are consumers of content and their content. And we're not sort of like, hey, like here are the boxes you check and here's the things you should do. We're coming at it from the point of view of like, this is how we build together because I genuinely believe in what you're doing and this is how I see it.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 05

  You know?

• 38:07Speaker 06

  I mean, the table stakes are, you know, whatever, you know, percentage it is, like just that, that's the bare minimum. Like we just want to add value. Um, and if we're adding, you know, 10% of value, we're not doing our jobs.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 06

  We need to be adding 10 plus, you know?

• 38:24Speaker 04

  The reason I'm saying 10% is I'm pretty sure that's the rate, right? That's the commission on deals like the standard.

• 38:28Speaker 06

  At agencies.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  At agencies.

• 38:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  I'm curious how that works in a, in Creator World. I, I understood how it worked in old Hollywood world, right? Tom Cruise gets a big check. The agent takes 10% of it. Everyone's rich and happy. We're all by boats. In Creator World, there's a bunch of brand deals, even negotiated, I think, equity deals for Alex Earl and Poppy. Like, how does the rate work when the, the shape of the deals is so varied and a lot of these things turn into businesses over time?

• 38:53Speaker 05

  Mitch, it's really deal-dependent, obviously, especially as you're talking about these sort of larger things that we're building. They're fluid conversations with clients, right? So it's like, we're not in the room unless we add value. And we add a tremendous amount of value. And so that value conversation comes with a number, and we just sort of talk through like, what makes the most sense? The standard in terms of like, the brand deals and like, you know, it's a 10% agency commission. And then there's, you know, always sort of conversations. Sometimes, honestly, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. It just sort of depends on what the structure of the deal looks like and what our role is in it.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm curious about those deal structures, because that seems like it's also the Wild West. So many of your creators, creators across the ecosystem, are now just starting their own businesses, right? To sell their own products. And for as much as we might not be threatened by AI or as much as we don't think the algorithms change, I'm often struck by how lucrative it is for creators to go from digital businesses to physical businesses.

• 39:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 04

  Which basically is not how things should work, right? You should go to a way higher margin digital product.

• 39:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  But all the creators have to leave, like, digital world, and they have to market. Like, I think it's crazy that the Paul Brothers sell bottled water, which is historically not a great thing to be wanting to ship around the world. But that is a vastly more lucrative business than their digital business. So there's a part here where we're going to stand up a white-label makeup line or whatever the thing is that we're going to do. How do you play in that? Because it feels like those deal structures and those commission rates would be very different than the standard brand deal commission.

• 40:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, and listen, I mean, we've been doing those deals for quite some time and have put together some of the, you know, some, if not all, of the most successful examples of those. Those are really complicated deal structures, and they take a tremendous amount of time and energy and detail. And we participate on them. We sit on the cap table along with clients because, again, we're in the room, putting it all together, and then staying and being a part of it. I think the difference with those kinds of deals is that it's not, you know... It's not just... It's not just an...

• 41:02Speaker 05

  It's not just instruction. It's not just a licensing deal. You are, you know, we are involved in packaging, distribution, marketing, you know, all of the things that really are fundamental to launching these brands. And we're sitting at the table right alongside these teams and helping and facilitating.

• 41:18Speaker 06

  And to be honest with you, there it's not a straightforward answer.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:21Speaker 06

  Because there are infinite ways that these deals come together. Whereas, you know, on the more traditional, uh, you know, just highly transactional side of business, it's, you know, a fee for a service, right? And these are incredibly, you know, as Rena said, complicated, but can come together in so many different ways in terms of, you know, capital coming from here or capital coming from there or, you know, from the talent directly. And, um, it just, it really depends on how the deal shapes and how it all comes together. And then we, you know, like Rena said, we get in a room and we have a conversation, we figure it out. But it is not just an introduction and it's really about staying in there because

• 42:03Speaker 06

  every day we're sitting across the four corners that is our client's business. And so we're constantly trying to figure out, how do we maximize, you know, speak in metaphorical terms, how do we build the biggest book? How do we add as many pages to this book as possible? Um, and we're not just trying to, you know, hand it in with a one-page document.

• 42:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think the reason I'm pushing on this is this is new. It feels new for talent to be meeting to launch physical products, businesses, to have something that will create enterprise value that they can maybe sell at the end of the road in a way that selling a TikTok channel might not be as easy to transact on.

• 42:40Speaker 06

  Right.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  And I see the push from all of the biggest creators to launch that next business. I don't think UTA has historically been in the business of we're going to help you launch products. We're going to sit in your design meetings or your packaging meetings. I don't think the other agencies have either. You're, I think it's CAs or competitor, they just launched a fund to buy creator businesses in this way. It seems like that's one of their opportunities. You seem less interested in actually transacting and owning the things, right? You're trying to help the creators build their own businesses. There's something shifting, right? Where we understand that the businesses should have a long-term value and maybe exit in some way.

• 43:15Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I think one thing I think is important to note, if you're sort of a creator or someone who wants to, you know, be in the space of going from digital to sort of physical product, the money's not the issue. Money is.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Candidly is easy to come by. So that's not really, it's about being in business with people who understand how to launch successful businesses. And for all of the incredible examples of the successes in any sort of tradition, in any sort of launching of products, we can, we can all think of thousands that weren't successful. So it's like the devil's in the details in terms of like, who are your partners? Who are you building with? Who has the infrastructure? Who understands these spaces? Who's been in them for a long time? Who's done these sort of sorts of deals? Like who knows the entire sort of landscape? The capital isn't the, isn't the issue. It's the infrastructure. It's the knowledge. It's the institutional knowledge. It's the rest of it. That's really, I think what's important. That's what we're, you know, very happily bringing to the table.

• 44:14Speaker 04

  It is true that sitting here in the south of France, at one of the most moneyed events I've ever been at, the capital does not feel like the issue.

• 44:20Speaker 05

  It's not, it's really not. The capital is not the challenge.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  There's just a lot of money floating around here that has no idea what to do.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Yes. But you gotta really understand and know how to bring a product to market and how to connect those dots to have this be successful.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 05

  And again, and it goes back to you have to really understand your client. You have to speak that language.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  We have to pause here for another short break. We'll be back in just a minute.

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• 46:28Speaker 04

  Welcome back. I'm talking with UTA's Ally Berman and Raina Panchansky about how creators might fall off the influencer cliff. So there's a concept that I've been really fascinated about lately. I don't know if you've heard it or seen it. It's a TikTok influencer. She's a social media thinker. I think her name is Carmen Vicente, and she coined this term called the influencer cliff, which is when the creator goes to try to directly sell their own product and the audience rebels because that's a misalignment, right? They accept the sponsorship deals or the brand integrations because that supports what they're there for. And when you flip the switch to being more directly commercial, that misaligns you with the audience, and then we all end up issuing apologies. And she says, most people, like, a lot of people fall off the cliff and some people get to exit. You have a lot of clients who've managed to pull it off. What do you think the difference is? Why do you think?

• 47:13Speaker 04

  You're nodding your head. I think you generally agree with this concept.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  I very much agree.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  That it's really hard. Why do you think some creators fall off the cliff and they can't sell directly to their audience and some people are able to achieve escape velocity?

• 47:24Speaker 06

  I think there's a fundamental philosophical relationship between...

• 47:31Speaker 05

  This talent and their audience because the reason why they have this relationship in the first place is because the content has been free. And so the first time that they're asking their audience to transact, that's going to go one way or the other. There has to be a content market fit, right? It has to be something that is only going to continue to add to this free content that the audience has been getting and it's going to continue to get. There's a technical shift in what that relationship is between the artist and their audience. And it's not going to work for everyone.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  What are the signs that it'll work and what are the signs it won't work?

• 48:08Speaker 05

  Again, it's got that content. If you can fit it into your content and not have to make a big effort to do so, that checks the biggest box by far. I'll give an example. We have a client, Patrick Star. He has a beauty line that he came out with five years ago, One Size Beauty, one of the biggest beauty brands at Sephora, a product of his, his setting spray, which one of the products he's known for sells every eight seconds at Sephora. He came and said, we had this conversation, it was sort of like, of course, Patrick Star, it was like, yes, insane YouTuber, you know, beauty space is going to have a makeup line. And everybody, we found this amazing partner and we had all these conversations. And it was like, okay, where should we start? What product are we going to start with?

• 48:53Speaker 05

  And he said, when I was younger, I worked at a MAC store and I was a boy who wore makeup and I walked in and I had all this makeup on and this, and I walked into MAC to work and they said, you're wearing too much makeup, you need to take it off. And he said, my first product is going to be makeup remover wipes. That's what I'm launching with, that's my story, that's who I am. It fundamentally represents who I am. I'm not launching with foundation, I'm not launching with, with eye, and this is what I'm launching with. Which was a starkly different thing than how you would normally launch beauty. You're launching a beauty brand with makeup remover? Like, that sort of feels counterintuitive. That was 100% the right decision and it was his decision, the partner supported it. And it was, but it was a counterintuitive thing, but his audience knows him and that

• 49:38Speaker 05

  is exactly what he should have done. When you come at it from the point of view, when you're launching something and you are so profoundly passionate about that thing and you know exactly what that point of view is and how it intersects with your audience and with selling to the audience, then it's, then you're going to find success. When it's like, oh, I'm, I want to do a brand. Then it's a little more challenging. And that's when I sort of, the cliff happens.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  What do you say no to, right? I mean, it sounds like you're hearing a lot of ideas. Ninety percent knows. What are the things you've said no to?

• 50:09Speaker 05

  We say no, I mean, again, ninety percent of it.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  People show up and they're like, I want to do a line of car fresheners. And you just say no.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  Car fresheners actually sounds, I mean, I'm just saying, like, anyone out there?

• 50:21Speaker 04

  It's like, what a crowded market. I'm gonna be at every gas station in America.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  Exactly, hold on a minute, actually, yeah. What I find that we say a lot when ideas come in is sort of like, okay, let's break that down. That market, okay, supplements are challenging for X, Y, and Z reason. How's R is going to be different? How, you know, where are we going to sit? Alcohol is challenging for X, Y, and Z reason. Like, every, listen, everything's hard. I think we all sort of know that, right? It's not, we make things, we certainly make things a lot easier. But it is, these are challenging rooms and challenging spaces. And the market is crowded and you have to really come at it from the right place. So I think it's less about like, we definitely say no a lot. But it's also a matter of like partnering and just sort of like laying out things and talking about them from the really organic sense of like, what's going to be the challenges here? What could be the potential pitfalls? And like, how are we going to do it differently?

• 51:09Speaker 05

  I think it's more about like, how is, how are we going to come at this differently?

• 51:13Speaker 04

  One of the things that really strikes me in this conversation and every creator conversation I've had recently is how much the role of being a creator is also the role of being a marketer. And I've heard a lot of the bigger creators now just openly describe themselves as marketers. Their money comes from working with brands or building businesses and marketing their own businesses. And they understand that some part of what they're doing is selling. I think this is different from traditional entertainers. Certainly different than traditional journalists. It, it just feels like a big shift. Like, everything is advertising or everything is driven by marketing in some way. My colleagues at New York Magazine just ran a story called "The Fetus Fake." And it's like, everything is bought and paid for. And there's some response from the audience that's like, I don't like this.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  I don't like living in a world that's this commercial all the time. I feel like all the creators are trying to balance this as much as they can. You have a much wider view. You're building big businesses with these folks. How do you feel about this notion that everyone is becoming a marketer in the end?

• 52:09Speaker 05

  Well, I think.

• 52:11Speaker 06

  This is a moment in time where there's a little bit of pushback, but I would say that, you know, our prediction is that, yes, everybody is a marketer, but we're moving towards a world where everybody's a consumer. And those two things match up perfectly. And so you look at Gen Alpha, and it's all they know. All they know is to, you know, consume, purchase, consume, you know, consume content, you know, purchase products, or, you know, whatever is being fed at them.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Is that good?

• 52:46Speaker 06

  I mean, I'm not here to be the arbiter. I think that's a different podcast. Yeah, I was just gonna say.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  That's this podcast.

• 52:52Speaker 06

  I'm not here to be an arbiter of...

• 52:53Speaker 04

  I'm gonna drag you into your feelings whether you like it or not, Ally.

• 52:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm not here to be the arbiter of, you know,

• 52:58Speaker 04

  Well, can I?

• 52:59Speaker 06

  what's ethical in the, in our, you know.

• 53:01Speaker 04

  Sure, but I'll just give you a counter example to that. Well, I insistently make journalism, which means I don't make as much money as I should. And what we, our joke about, like The Verge's subscription product, that stopped being a joke and actually became the thing we started marketing, is what you're buying from us is our ethics policy. You can't buy me. I won't do a brand deal. I won't even read the ads on the podcast, which drives everybody crazy. We are just leaving money on the table every single day. And our youngest consumers had no idea that was a thing. Right? They don't, they didn't grow up in that world. There was no, you know.

• 53:33Speaker 06

  Gen Alpha's like, where are the ads?

• 53:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're like, where are the ads? Like, and we're like, no, we don't do it. Like, I literally have to say out loud, these are the things.

• 53:39Speaker 06

  Are you not using sleep?

• 53:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And now a message from our sponsors. Like, we just don't do it. We don't integrate the content. And we say this is what differentiates our information from everything else. And that's fine. Like, we just, it's just marketed, and maybe it will die. Maybe I should have been reading the ads every single day. But you just mentioned Gen Alpha in that way, and it's like, I don't know if anyone is telling them that there are other ways to be. And so like, the notion that it's all consume and market and purchase, at some point, like, people just like grow up and their habits change and their tastes change.

• 54:11Speaker 06

  Maybe we'll sign the next anti-marketer.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  That's, that's the move.

• 54:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  It just feels like maybe, in the deepest way... Like, there will be a rebellion to that, right? There's, in every counterculture, there's some rebellion against that kind of commercialization.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  Well, I think that, listen, the pendulum always swings, right? But I think that you're sort of, like, we're seeing it now in terms of nostalgia having this big moment and everyone being sort of nostalgic and, and everyone loved, you know, everyone was obsessed with Love Story and this, the sort of nostalgic content and the throwbacks to the 90s or whatever. You know, I have an 11-year-old daughter, she's Gen Alpha, like, she has only grown up knowing that this is what it is. She doesn't have the point of reference that I have where I'm remembering, like, looking through the pages of Vogue and, you know, and having that sort of emotional relationship with, like, the ads or the content. There, you know, these generations aren't comparing it to anything. They're not necessarily thinking that there's a bad or a good version of this. This is just sort of what they know. And I think that, you know, obviously pros and cons to everything, and I think, but

• 55:07Speaker 05

  at the end of the day, if you think of it, we're all sort of our own marketers, right? Whether that's in our day-to-day job and our role, whether you're advocating for yourself and as a, you know, for your salary raise or whatever that is, we are all sort of marketers. Some of us are marketers with a platform.

• 55:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 05

  And some of us are marketers on our everyday.

• 55:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I think I mentioned it earlier, you know, when I first got into the digital ecosystem, it was at a time where you were driving your own algorithm. So, like, to Rena's point, it's like, I can remember growing up and I was driving the algorithm in terms of, you know, going through this big Vogue magazine or InStyle magazine and figuring out what I liked. But now, the world knows the consumer.

• 55:48Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:48Speaker 06

  And I just don't know, I don't know if that's gonna change. I think that's the world we live in now. I really do. And I think it's, it's a spectrum, right? And I think some people will, you know, want to be more, uh, forward about, you know, self-discovery and, you know, I don't want to be fed as much, right? But I also think that it's just the world we live in.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  I also think that the other side of the coin is that we're living in a more egalitarian society, right? So it's like there are people on the internet who didn't have a place before, you know, like you're getting, you're being exposed to different people, you're being exposed to different things, like, you know, you're seeing different kinds of content, like people who are, whatever that is, like, I think that the other side of the coin is that, like, it's opening, it's broadening the sort of spectrum of who can become, you know, there used to be a sort of mechanism for who got to be famous and who got to have a voice, and that doesn't exist, and that anybody, you know, a lot of people can have a voice, and that's all, that's a good thing.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  So we've come now inexorably to AI. And my, maybe my own dim views of the platforms that you, I don't think you share, but if I had to describe the mistake the traditional media companies have made over the past 10 years, it's we will get enough scale to bring YouTube to the table and cut us a bigger check than everyone else, right? Jonah Peretti was just on Decoder, and maybe the original sin of millennial digital media was Jonah Peretti believed he could go so viral that Facebook would pay him money. And Mark Zuckerberg looked at him and said, "I can replace you with an army of teenagers who will work for free," and he killed most of these companies, like, they're all gone. You still have that problem, right? Only you have, you have stars who have risen above it, but at any point, you still have that problem, right? You have a bunch of stars in your roster who have risen above it, you have a lot of

• 57:36Speaker 04

  scale, you have good relationships with the platforms, it seems like, but you still have no ability to bring Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, to the table and get better rates for your talent, right? You have to monetize them in other ways. And at some point, Neil and Adam Mosseri, who runs Instagram, they're going to start putting AI content into these feeds, perfectly tailored to the consumer, they've already said they want to do this, and they're going to start taking minutes of attention away from all of the creators, and something else will happen. And I'm saying this in sort of stark terms. Because they say it all the time. They're not shy about it. Adam Mosseri just put out a blog post where he's like, maybe every Instagram app will be different for every person. And I'm worried about what that will do to society, but we're gonna do it anyway.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  And I immediately wrote Adam and said, you gotta come on the show. And Adam, if you're listening, you gotta come on the show and talk about that with me. But that's the future that platforms see. They're gonna even more infinitely tailor the contents of people. That they will make AI avatars of creators on YouTube. Somewhere, they will reap the rewards of the AI avatars of the creators on YouTube. That's not 10 years from now. That's tomorrow, right? That's coming really fast. How are you thinking about hedging against those threats?

• 58:47Speaker 06

  Neil Mohan said yesterday that YouTube's position is that there's too much AI slop out there. And he wants to make sure that YouTube is a place for, you know, real human-made or human-touch AI content.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Do you believe him?

• 59:04Speaker 06

  I do believe him. I think YouTube is the best place to tell a story and is one of the best places to tell a story. And I firmly believe that there has to be a human touch on the product.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  I mean, it's, obviously, we're all talking about AI. And it's been interesting because in all the meetings that I've been in with sort of creators and brands, talking about it this week, everyone sort of goes to the same thing, which is like, yeah, AI is a great tool. But I, like, there's only so many sort of cats bouncing on, you know, like, does that, you know, like, you get, you look, at a certain point, you sort of look past the AI-generated content and you're like, I see that it's AI, it's fine, it's whatever. Like, no one seems to be, like, really gravitating towards this idea of, like, the consumer, I mean, does not seem to be gravitating towards this idea of, like,

• 59:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, they hate it. The polling data is clear. They're booing graduation.

• 59:57Speaker 05

  They're not, like, it's not, it's, the content's not contenting. So like, will it exist? Of course. But listen, we just saw this massive thing go down in New York with the Knicks, right? This insane desire for this, like, human connection and for, you know, the conversation was taking place on these platforms, and then it was taking place offline. And I think that, like, that we're only going to see more of this sort of the relationship between the platforms and the content and creators, building these communities and building these audiences, and then sort of figuring out these IRL experiences. It's not a coincidence that there was that, this groundswell around these sort of moments and finding this community and finding your people. And I think that that's a little bit of a... You know, the other side of the coin to like the AI content.

• 1:00:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I think, you know, the opportunity for platforms now is for them to continue to protect the creator or the artist in the midst of everything that's happening with AI and be able to balance the ecosystem, you know, make sure that, you know, the human, you know, can still survive. And they have a real opportunity to do that. I mean, you look at what these platforms have done in terms of producing stars and, you know, where we were 10 years ago to where we are today. And now they need to preserve that.

• 1:01:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. If I look around Cannes and just the conversations I've had here, two days ago, I interviewed the CEO of Digitas, huge ad agency. She's great. And she's a tech CEO. She thinks about data and scale and platforms, and that is one side of the advertising industry. Right? How much data can we collect to put the right product at the right time on the right shelf at Walmart? And that is how she thinks. Then there's the creator side, which is like the human side. It's like the cuddly face of Cannes. But actually, everyone here is transacting on data. Like, there's a lot of money floating around data here in frankly, like terrifying ways. It feels like the platforms are continuing to use the presence of the creator, the presence of the stars to sort of, like, don't, don't look at our real business. Don't look at where the real scale is, which is Meta will perfectly target creative to you and maybe even generate

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  it with AI, because that is the growing part of their ad business. And Mark Zuckerberg has said it out loud. You just give us money, we will AI generate the ads perfectly for individual consumers, and we'll just deliver you business results. The whole ad ecosystem here like knows this is coming for them. They think this is an existential threat. It seems like both of you are just much more confident that that human face of this business, the creator economy, will outlast the sort of naked ambition of the tech executives that run these platforms, even though they keep saying they're going to put more AI in the feeds. And it's not like the AI content is getting worse.

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  Right? It's, it's, it's something else.

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  Right. But, but what we see is that there's a direct relationship between Success and relevancy drives, drives conversion. Like, the more relevant content is, the more relevant the brand working with the creator, like, the more relevant the partnership, the more success that comes from it. And I just don't know that you're gonna see that level of sort of relevancy from AI generating this continuation of like, your words, the AI slop content, but, you know.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  Well, I don't think it's slop. For example, every creator I know, right, the pressure to make more stuff just exists. Some of the youngest TikTokers I know, they just are like, I have to make four posts a day, every single day. Like, that's the way I'm gonna win, that's gonna win. That's a lot of pressure to create. Every one of those videos is valuable for a day or a week, and then they're gone, right? Like, you don't have catalog value. Of course, they're gonna start using AI to make some of that content. They're gonna relieve the pressure in the most natural way.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Right, but that's using it as a tool to enhance their...

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  But I just think it's a small jump from there to like, let YouTube make the next video for me. And now, we're not really having an AI slop conversation, right? The platform is helping the creator in some, maybe in very meaningful way. And then, it's a small jump from there to, we made a VTuber. Like, there's a totally virtual creator. And I actually think UTA reps some VTubers, right? So like, there's just a spectrum from slop to synthetic creator, that it looks like it's compressing more rapidly than maybe anybody thought it would.

• 1:04:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, listen, not no, but again, I think the idea is like, audiences are built from that, the human component of it. And community is built, and community ultimately is the most important thing that we're, that these creators have. And I don't, you know, you can't build community solely from AI content.

• 1:04:23Speaker 06

  And, you know, I know I keep phrasing it in this way, but I think that's the opportunity, because I firmly believe that these worlds will cohabituate, you know? Whether it's, you know, OpenAI, or it's Anthropic, you know, they have incredible executives in place who are meeting with, like, we have incredible relationships with those platforms, just like we do YouTube and, you know, the video and social media platforms.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Do you worry about your creator's likeness is being taken, their voice is being taken? We see this happening all over the place.

• 1:04:56Speaker 06

  Sure, we worry about it, but...

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  Do you have a mechanism to stop it?

• 1:05:02Speaker 05

  I know. I mean, is it what the question is, is there a mechanism to?

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm just saying, like, one of the things I think UTA provides at scale is you have relationships with the platforms. And the platforms are full of synthetic content, creators' faces being used, creators being redressed. I see that all the time now. Do you have, do you have the ability to go to the platforms and say, we need to stop this, right? There's not like a great legal mechanism yet, like in any of our countries to like, say, that's my likeness, please take it down. I'm wondering if you have come up with those solutions with the platforms are sure letting it happen.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  I mean, I listen, I don't think that there's any solutions to, you know, to any of the sort of nuance of that. I think that, you know, we, we work on behalf of our clients to make sure that, you know, their name and likeness aren't being used. You know, to the extent that we can, to your point, like whether, whether that's in the confines of like legal or whether it's through legal channels or what have you. You know, we're, we're out to protect our clients to the extent that obviously we want to.

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm curious. That just feels like the bleeding edge of having to protect your clients. Right? It's very easy to reuse the content. It's very easy to steal people's, people's likeness. It's very easy to steal people's voices. It just feels like there's some part of the creator economy that's going to run into that. It's just massive scale. I mean, there's a reason there's deep fake legislation floating around and everyone understands that it's a problem. I'm just wondering if you're hearing that from your creators and if you're taking that to the platforms.

• 1:06:21Speaker 06

  I think that, you know, the platforms have also been incredibly responsible in protecting the talent too. I mean, you look at, you know, the tools and that YouTube has come out with and, you know, like, like I said earlier, like this is where the platforms have a continued opportunity to.

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Speaker 06

  Prioritize and protect, you know, the human beings that power the storytelling.

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. You both have given me a lot of time. I just want to wrap up like a very quick lightning round question. We exist in a time of like huge platforms. What do you see as an ascent? Is there a next platform on the rise that you've got your eye on? Is there's, there's another move digitally that people should be? Where's the next group of creators going to come from?

• 1:07:00Speaker 06

  I think there's going to be a real resurgence in live content. I think, you know, we saw an incredible boom around that, you know, pre-COVID and into early COVID. And then as people started to. Get back out into the world. The business just started to change.

• 1:07:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 06

  But I think, you know, and that business was so concentrated in gaming or, you know, more streaming culture. And I think we'll start to see, you know, other categories that, you know, and niches and verticals that really start to thrive in that medium.

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. What are you, Raina?

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  I mean, listen, Gen Alpha.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  Marketing consuming.

• 1:07:43Speaker 05

  Can 2036?

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  We're going to come back around. What's next for ETA? What should we be looking at from the both of you?

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  That's a, that's such a hard question to answer because there's just so many conversations going on, so many things.

• 1:07:57Speaker 06

  And by the time we answer it, we will have iterated on it. You know, we're constantly, we're constantly evaluating all of the different, you know, opportunities and directions we can go. And then, you know, something happens with content or, you know.

• 1:08:10Speaker 04

  You're moving at the speed of content.

• 1:08:11Speaker 06

  We're moving at the speed of content.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  You heard it live.

• 1:08:14Speaker 04

  I'm going to take my, I'll see back for that one. This was really great. Thank you so much for joining Decoder.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:08:24Speaker 04

  I'd like to thank Raina and Ally for taking the time to speak with me and thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to let us know what you thought about this episode, or really anything else at all, drop us a line. You can email us at [email protected]. We really do read all the emails. Or we can have you up directly on Threads or Blue Sky. We're also on YouTube. You can watch full episodes at DecoderPod. We also have a TikTok and an Instagram, also at DecoderPod. They're a lot of fun. If you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Decoder is production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Show is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane at The Decoder. Music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. We'll see you next time.

• 1:09:00Speaker 11

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