Ep: 208: Viral Trauma Release Exercises, Story Protocol Drama, Guest: Matt Rodbard on Jeni's Ice Cream v NY Times, Guest: Nicholas Russell on A24, Guest: Carly Ayres on consumer AI & Design, Soho House Goes Private

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:34] I'm excited about today's show. Really fun. I have had a lot of fun putting together. We have so much to cover and so much fun stuff to cover. [00:40] so much fun stuff to cover some great guests we'll get into it in a moment um but i guess like [00:48] Just house... [00:51] Life. We were talking before we started. Both of us are battling minor addiction to two substances minus [01:00] Logan Paul's prime hydration and yours is vitamin C packets. [01:06] And we are going to talk about like wellness addictions actually later in this episode. But my sister, who is really into alternative medicine of all kinds, had four babies naturally. Like she's kind of a. Mm hmm. [01:20] earth mama in that way um not like entirely but um and i actually i banned the word mama from ever ever ever you know i'm saying it like [01:31] We're going to leave it out. [01:33] And anyway, every time I go see her, I get sick because she has four children. And then I went and saw my parents last week and somehow she had... [01:46] These little packets. I have... Someone needs to tell me, honestly. Like... [01:51] honestly needs to tell me. What does it say? It's, it's vitamin C, biospheric vitamin C it. And, and just, if someone could let me know if I'm going to,

[02:04] perish. Yeah. Um, I think like where I'm at is, [02:09] We all know about my hand, foot, mouth. We've talked about it. It's been disclosed. Yes. [02:14] And then... [02:16] i like my immune system's just been low it's got rex it got really right and so i'm trying to build back better and totally [02:24] my mom had some of these who I know she got for my sister and there's like, they taste absolute, the way that you take them is like, you like suck on them. Like you like take the goop out of it and they taste disgusting, but in a way that I like, kind of like, do you know that? So how are they different from like a, an emergency packet? Not a clue, not a clue. I think maybe, Oh yeah, exactly. Definitely. Definitely. I've actually, this is my last one. [02:53] um there's also like one of the main ingredients is alcohol which is like [02:57] Okay. But just like as a bonding, in a bonding agent. Um, anyway, yeah, I have a low key. Um, I've been really enjoying them. Um, I've also like on my supplement game right now, like thinking a lot about, okay. So I was an athletic green girl. We have 30 seconds to talk about this, but I wasn't time check you. And I then stopped because $90 a month, that's, [03:27] And so I was like, that's gotta go. I'm just going to get a probiotic from, [03:32] Whole Foods. Got a probiotic from Whole Foods. Has replaced my... Refrigerated?

[03:37] refrigerated. Okay. So when I, when I travel, I can't take it, which is okay. Anyway, then I was like, okay, I have a little bit of an allocation of fund funds that could be allocated towards supplements. What am I going to do with it? Uh-huh. Started to chat with people, chat GPT. Okay. [03:51] And then of course ads just hitting me left and right in that game. So two things emerged. [03:58] Colostrium. [03:59] and creatine. [04:01] Okay. Colostrium. I have that word muted. So it's very hard for me to take this story in, but keep going. It's the worst. Okay. I got it. [04:09] started taking it, had insane, like was so bloated. I looked like I was in my first trimester and it's supposed to be for your gut health. Part of me thinks my gut health is so fucked that it was like, Whoa, we can't even work with this. The biosphere is not accepting it. Totally. So full rejection, absolutely. No. And so now it's creatine. I have not started yet because I've heard you bloat at first. And I'm like, [04:35] We got to get through the summer. I got to be in a sweater. Totally. So it's going to be sweater season. It's going to be creatine season. I'll report back. Great. I love that for you. Thank you. [04:48] Yeah, I have no words on creatine other than too many men talk about it all the time. All the time. And part of me is like... [04:57] Um, gender bending. I love it. I love that for you. Okay, let's get into the show. So this is the Boys Club live stream. Boys Club is I'm just going to take this one for the sake of time. Boys Club is a

[05:11] uh media company uh and we talk about tech and we talk about culture and how the twine meet and also community people around the world we hang out together at events and online as well and we love doing this uh [05:29] live stream and it is generously supported by our friends at Polygon. If you've touched crypto in any way, chances are you've already used Polygon. It's a chain quietly powering a bunch of stuff that actually works, that people actually use, like Stripe's crypto payments, betting on poly markets, prediction markets, and a bunch more. Polygon is just so incredible for sponsoring this live stream. And that brings us to the agenda. So we have a few minutes before our first guests [05:59] the viral trauma release story, the story protocol story. And then we have some hot takes coming in on Jenny's ice cream versus the New York Times with the guest, Matt Broadbard. Gonna talk about A24, gonna talk about some AI stuff. We have some quick hits on Soho House and some [06:17] weird TikToks that we've been seeing on this substance. So that's today's show. [06:24] Should we get into it? Anything you want to add? Yeah. No, I'm ready. Let's go. Okay. So, [06:29] uh the this post has been going viral [06:33] on Twitter. [06:34] 2 million views. This is the original post. And it's basically this person. And it's important to understand the context that this person comes from tech Twitter. Not even just tech Twitter, like a sub community of tech Twitter that's like,

[06:50] this like rationalist, like SF, AI, [06:54] type of what's called like teapot, this type of [06:57] that corner of Twitter, which is a very specific type of person. But this went viral. And it's [07:05] there's a thing called trauma release exercises [07:08] TRE. Okay. Uh, [07:10] has basically like healed this person that they had like, it's been like, they got one-shotted by it or whatever. Healed, healed, healed, uh, emotionally or healed physically. Um, well, the concept is that both, yeah. The concept is that you store trauma in your body and you do this exercise and it's very, very, very, very effective exercise to release the trauma. [07:31] The body keeps the score. [07:33] Totally. So this has gone viral and it's gone viral because basically a bunch of people have been trying it. There's a YouTube video and a bunch of people have been trying it and commenting on Twitter. This is like finding the hidden factory reset button, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Okay. There's a bunch of, there's a lot of people who are like, holy shit, this is like [07:54] cured me so i'm just gonna walk you through a little bit about what's what it is and then i invite us all perhaps try it we can't we don't have the time as i've learned about what this is we don't have the time to do it on the live stream together now [08:08] But after the show, maybe you could take it and do it. So basically it's this, it's this, [08:15] video. It's like a 25 minute video. You could skip the first six minutes. It's basically just her talking. She's this yoga instructor. She's earth mama. She's earth mama. She's like talking about all the things that you can expect. She's talking about her practice and her teacher and sort of how she came to whatever. And then she goes into TRE.

[08:34] this version of TRI. And basically, you have to get your muscles [08:40] both like stretched and exhausted before you can get into the state that makes it possible to [08:48] TRE. To TRE. So like there's a lot of like there's like 10 or 15 minutes of like you got to get your calves exhausted and then you have to like sit against the wall and get your quads exhausted and then. Is it exercise or is it exhausted stretching? Stretching exercise. Like you're you're you're planked against the wall like you know when you do that thing where you sit against the wall and your quads. Oh yeah okay. So you're trying to get your muscles like [09:10] exercised, I guess, and like tired, fatigued. And then you're also trying to stretch them out and like set the tone for the release. And then basically after you go through that, [09:21] There's [09:22] you lie down on the floor in this position and you like, [09:27] you you do a certain movement with your legs like kind of like flapping them back and forth and then you start to like get to a point where you're trembling [09:35] Okay. Um, involuntarily. Okay. A little bit of, um, what's it called? Um, [09:42] vaccine. You know, those videos that went viral. I do think though that she is, so yes, you're, you're trembling. And the idea is that you're sort of, what happens is your body kind of like takes over in its trembling and that within that there's some, [10:00] release that happens to the trauma that's stored in your body. Physical and emotional trauma. Yes. Okay. And I would say that what I suspect appealed to the tech Twitter community that really has hung their hat on this over the past 24, 48 hours is that it's like perfect for a

[10:18] like a biohacker type of guy. Totally. Yeah. It's adjacent to cold plunging, I would say. To me, it's like men will literally do trauma release exercises instead of going to therapy. However, I will say I'm going to try it. [10:33] And I think maybe you should try it too. Maybe I will. I think I am just like, I'm just a, I'm a big believer in exercise. I'm a big believer in exercise. [10:42] stretching. I think all of that, I do believe like you hold [10:47] you hold stuff in your physical body yeah i believe that but [10:52] This image is so like unappealing to me aesthetically that it's really hard for me to accept. But I do think like it's to me what it doesn't feel that different, I guess, to like Sabah Sabah Sanat or whatever you do a hot yoga class, you're tired after you lay down. [11:08] You're like... [11:10] Totally. I do think it's an escalation of that. Okay. Because it's like this, this trembling thing that happens. Okay. I would say I'm not going to judge a book by its cover. This is, this is an aesthetic that of course, of course, obviously it doesn't appeal to me and to most people I would say, but I think that. [11:27] Maybe. Why not? Low cost way to try to get some trauma out of the body. Okay. Really interesting. Send the link through. I will send the link. Okay. Quickly. On Story Protocol. So this went viral this week as well in a different part of Twitter, crypto Twitter. And basically one of the founders of Story Protocol, which is like a layer one blockchain, um, [11:48] He left and everyone was like, wow, you left like perhaps right after all of like your tokens vested and then you perhaps sold them and then left and then.

[12:00] what's that about? And you raised $130 million and now you're leaving. And I think my take on the story is that [12:10] there's like all this speculation that's happening around it. We wrote about it in the newsletter. We're continuing, we're adding to the speculation. But what the lesson is, [12:17] from me in the story and why so many people are mad it got viewed five million times his post like that's bigger than like any crypto story like that's so huge five million times so like there's it clearly hit [12:31] a nerve and i'm also like [12:33] But also like, [12:36] people in the tech community like ai people they're moving all the time different jobs so like yeah what's the difference between that someone at opening i moving to anthropic and [12:45] this dude [12:46] moving on after being at starting story protocol and raising a bunch of money. And I think what it is, is like the flip side of the coin of, [12:54] of this like [12:55] idea of like community liquidity. Like it doesn't, as soon as you have like a community, it's great because it can help bootstrap your network and like it can help bring funding to an ecosystem, but you don't have as much freedom. [13:05] as you do in other places where you're just raising private capital. And I think that that's really the lesson in this is that [13:15] that's kind of there if you have this like type of ecosystem play you [13:20] people are not going to give you as much leeway to do another thing because they feel like they're invested in it. And I think that that's like, that's a fair criticism, whether or not he left or he was fired or whatever. Like, I think that that's kind of the lesson for other founders. Really. I also think there's like a lesson that I feel like,

[13:38] or like just something to reflect on in crypto that's different from a traditional, not even consumer tech, just tech in general. Like there used to be this idea that you raise venture capital and like written in the guidebook of that is like, I'm going to work on, this is like a generational business. I'm going to work on this at least for the next 10 years. There's no, I'm not capitalizing on [14:01] the value that I'm putting into this business every single day for 10 years at least. And then there's some liquidity, there's an IPO, there's an acquisition, whatever. And like, that was sort of what you were signing up for as a founder and what you were [14:16] an unspoken or unspoken agreement with your investors. And then, [14:22] That really shifted with... [14:24] as you're talking about, like the liquidity that is available with tokens within crypto, and all this crop of young founders who came out and like did this thing. And [14:33] I just think, [14:34] There's sort of a resetting around that that I think is healthy and important around raising venture and, um, [14:41] what should be the expectation when you enter into that type of dynamic to be like, I'm going to work on this thing. [14:48] for the next 10 years and I think when people see something like this they're like what the fuck like totally and I think there's a righteous anger around it that is feels appropriate yeah fair but I don't know what happened with this guy specifically I'm just saying like generally that type of story um [15:04] Also, I think there was some... [15:07] Some people were upset because the story protocol did $23 in transaction fees the day before that. That's also part of the story. Totally. Okay, should we move on to our next guest? Let's move on.

[15:23] Next guest, let's bring Matt up here. [15:27] How are we sounding? [15:28] We sound great. Hi, Matt. So nice to meet you. So nice to meet you guys. I'm just going to do a quick little intro on you, Matt, because it's so impressive. And then we can get into the hot goss. So Matt Rodbard is a writer, editor, and author of food and culture books like Korea World, a cookbook nominated for a 2025 James Beard Award, a New York Times bestseller, founding editor of online food and culture magazine Taste, which is also the winner of three James Beard Awards. Matt, welcome to the show. So honored to be here. [15:58] Thank you. [15:58] We're very excited to have you. We are both very into food and food drama and content around food. So there's a lot we could talk about. But I want to start with... [16:12] ice cream gate and like the wars that are going on right now with recipe creation around ice cream um so [16:19] I will just give a very brief overview. There is a famous recipe developer and entrepreneur named Jenny. She is Jenny's ice cream. Many people know her and her work and have eaten her ice cream. And many years ago, she developed a new type of recipe around ice cream that didn't use egg yolks, but used eggs. [16:42] cream cheese and cornstarch, I think. And then very recently, the New York Times came out with a recipe that was very, very, very similar, did not credit her. And now there's a bit of back and forth on the internet about it. I'd love to hear your take. And saying also with the caveat of, I think Dean and I have little to no understanding around recipe ethics and how that part of the world works. So I'll pass it to you. A really, really great topic to talk about. I work,

[17:12] part of Crown Publishing Group. So I work at Penguin Random House. So we publish cookbooks and we think about these topics deeply, you know, in the work we do. And, and so your, your recap was totally accurate. And I think the big question is recipe recipe, meaning the measurements in on the recipe versus technique. [17:32] Because in reviewing, you know, Jenny Britton's original recipe and the recipe published in the Times, the key difference is this cream cheese element, which is different than a custard base, which is using egg yolks. And I think her original idea was to, you know, make it more accessible and not have that eggy flavor and make it very scoopable. The big topic, though, the key point is that the Times is doing four tablespoons and Jenny's is two tablespoons. [18:02] not like a copy of a recipe. So like, that's the first thing. The other thing is that legally, you cannot copyright a recipe. [18:09] So, and that's cited by Jenny in her response. And I think many have problems with that because obviously when you work in a world where you can't have protections from the legal side, it makes it very gray. And I'll say Jenny's response was great. I think she was very smart in just doing the video. [18:27] Like at the end of it, she's like, let's just make some ice cream. Like, let's keep the vibes good. Let's keep the vibes right. But, you know, she was hurt because it was definitely something that she had published well before in her James Beard Award winning cookbook. But the technique of using Philadelphia cream cheese in a base and using and popularizing it for the home kitchen. Now, that technique has been used before by professional ice cream makers, but she was one who made it popular.

[18:57] a gate is that you cannot copyright a recipe. The Times is not really at fault. And I think that there's definitely differences in the recipes and [19:09] I think the one thing they could have done or should have done, I'll say, at The Times is credit her. Something we think about in the book side of our in our publishing, you know, when we publish cookbooks and if it's an homage to a restaurant or a creator or a chef. [19:26] in the head note, it's like really, really key to the credit. Like give that credit. It doesn't take long. [19:32] It's not like the recipe is what it is. And I think the Times failed at that credit. [19:39] Hmm. Also feels like a very common and very easy thing to do. Like, I think I, I, I never even notice honestly when it happens. And then as soon as you see this whole, this whole situation, you're like, Oh, it could have just been in the little paragraph right before inspired by or whatever. Um, but Dean, I was, I interrupted you. Um, yeah, just one of the, one of the things I did not love, uh, from the New York times side was that they, and Jenny put this in her caption [20:09] said, part of his response to her was like, this quote is not how information works anymore. And I just felt like coming from a New York Times writer, that's like, I didn't feel like perhaps the right thing to say in that moment. But I'm curious if you feel like that's not the way that information works anymore. So that was a private DM that was aired, right? That response from the writer. And I'll just say he's a freelance writer to my belief and not a member of the Times food

[20:39] work with writers at Taste, you know, they're representing Taste, even though they're not on our staff. And vice versa, we're representing our team of writers. So we have a responsibility. That was a boneheaded move. Like, that was a really [20:51] um lazy response to uh being called out for something you should never say like nothing is protected like uh I felt that was probably done uh maybe he was like on the subway platform and he was firing it off he was firing it off catching heat and like maybe he was exhausted at the whole thing so like I think it's like a lesson like do not send a tweet a message to you controversies for anyone who's out there who's in the midst of a heat catching heat [21:21] a pause. Yeah. Good lesson for every, for everybody. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk about, there's [21:30] something Dina and I have talked about a bit, just casually in our lives. And Dina just went to Las Vegas and like sort of the evolution. - Ooh, mazel, nice. - The best, the best. - We love it. - Did you go to the Martha Stewart restaurant? - I didn't, but that ties in perfectly to-- - Perfectly. - What we're gonna do. - So sort of the idea that like, okay, [21:50] um, from our vantage point, the food industry, it used to be like, you're a restaurateur, you're a chef, you then end up sort of at the food network. Like that's sort of the arc of how, um, sort of content around food was, well, let's call it whatever 15 years ago. And now it's sort of flopped where it's like, okay, you have creators, they, uh, form an audience online around the food that they create and their aesthetic. And then that turns into sort of

[22:20] But the thing that I'm curious about is like, what is the Bobby Flay experience? Like, what is our generation of the Bobby Flay experience? Like, what is going to be, is it going to be like Wishbone Kitchens pop up in Las Vegas? Like, how does it become a brick and mortar? Do these creators then go into restaurant, being restauranteurs, like, [22:41] Do you know what I'm saying? I also think also like part of what I've been thinking and I'm dying to hear you answer but like just interrupt. Um, [22:48] part of what i was struck by at being in vegas and being in amongst the bobby flay and this and that it was like i also wonder like [22:56] how much of a business driver it is for them or if it is like a brand extension that helps with the marketing, the halo marketing of all their other properties, like given how much overhead I assume there to be with like a Las Vegas company. [23:11] the Gordon Ramsay experience in Las Vegas. But yeah, also like, [23:15] So there's a lot of questions in that. And then also, I don't know, does Alison Roman vague it? That doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Ooh. No, I mean, I'm friends with Alison and I feel like if anyone from the creative community and from the author community could do something fresh, it would be Alison. [23:32] just full of ideas. [23:33] I'll, Dina, I'll tap to your question first. [23:36] With these deals, and I just had Evan Funke on our show, this is our podcast, and we just recorded it. And he has a Vegas restaurant. So he's a big Los Angeles chef and has a mother wolf and funky. And, you know, the economics of Vegas are pretty simple. There are none.

[23:53] When you're a chef and courted by the Wynn or by the Bellagio or upstart casinos, you're often offered very, very desirable terms to open there. So it is a very savvy business move when offered Vegas to take it. Because what it does is it markets your brand to a wide audience of very different people. [24:23] really affects that. They still have obviously traffic all the time in an audience. A lot of restaurants struggle with foot traffic and real estate. I guess you don't necessarily have to work [24:34] That way, if you work in one of the premier casinos. So I think [24:38] They take these deals and they kind of sometimes bury them. So they're cashing the checks, but they're not really talking about their Vegas extensions. And I think that's smart because I just was there a couple of years. I've been there a couple of times in the past couple of years. And like, you know, mileage definitely may vary when it comes to the quality of the restaurants at these places. You know, I think of like Roy Choi's restaurants pretty good. I like that one. I went to Spago there and it was really quite bad. [25:08] I like, and like, I don't think Wolfgang is up in the restaurant that often. [25:12] But like still like Wolf going to Spago, you're going to Spago, you're getting the gram and it doesn't really matter. And that audience isn't really as discerning. I'm not trying to color the biggest. Totally. Yeah. Some people go there to dine. So I think they take these checks and they cash them and then they move on. And I don't think that the food writing community takes Vegas that seriously. And we've done work where we've gone off strip and gone to Chinatown there and there's some incredible food there.

[25:42] I think Sarah Thompson at the wind is doing incredible work at Casa Playa. She won a James Beard or she was nominated for James Beard award. She's a terrific chef doing coastal Mexican. And she's figured out how to dial like you literally walk in from the casino floor and it smells like cigarettes. And you walk in and you're like at the [25:58] you know, Kosune. [26:01] She worked at Cosme for years. It's this incredible modern Mexican restaurant. So you can do it right, but a lot of times the big boys, they don't really focus on the food quality. But do you think that there's a small... Do you think that that pipeline... [26:15] as it existed whatever 10 years ago it can exist now with more like creator-led [26:22] Yeah, totally. And yeah, that was I love that question too. And that was really smart. I think that it will take a long time to get like Pierce Abernathy and Wishbone Kitchen and, you know, I mean, even like Caroline Chambers, who's like number one on Substack and a really big influencer. She's not a restaurant chef, so maybe it's not. [26:42] the best example, but [26:44] I think that that audience is still so much smaller than the TV chefs who are like the name brand TV, the Flay, the Martha, the Emeril. [26:57] But, [26:58] there will be a moment right when [27:01] millennials are the ones who are spending the most money and it's not boomers yeah because now it's obviously boomers are spending the most money in vegas it's got to be that's got to be [27:10] the facts. That's who's there. So like 15 years from now, maybe there is an activation or some kind of market that Allison runs and

[27:20] It makes sense. And like, I think Vegas, I'll just close and say like, Vegas is really putting money into marketing it as a cool entertainment destination. They're really-- they're trying very hard to like, [27:33] make it not just about gambling, even though of course they only want gambling. That's the other money there, but they want people to go there. And like my experience in Vegas, maybe Dina, you had this. [27:43] I've been going to Vegas for 20 years. It is so fucking expensive now. Yeah. [27:48] Like, yeah. [27:48] astronomically expensive is not always that way. And I think they're getting like wind is I'm sorry on the new fountain blue. [27:55] bombing. [27:57] It's bombing. Yeah. If you read in the trades and like people covering Vegas, I was on like a weird Tik TOK journey with like some people covering the casino, like weekly grosses. It was pretty fascinating. And from my read, it's bombing. Two things I want to say really quick, huge fan of, well, first of all, what I want to see from Alison Roman is I want to see a ham party, like, [28:27] you know i'm going off i'm eating a hawaiian roll with some ham on it by alice and roman i would be there nightly like that's that's what i'm hoping to see uh maybe in 10 years that's that's what it'll be at the win or uh if the fountain blue is still available [28:41] um matt so nice to have you thank you for joining uh i hope to have you back and talk about all things um all things food and las vegas um sometime soon appreciate it thank you so much thanks matt um i saw a chart what a great guy um i saw a chart that was like actually

[29:01] Vegas is... [29:02] it's, uh, [29:04] Down. Bad. Oh my gosh. Like attendance is not the right word. We need to rally the troops. We need to get there. Okay. Let's bring our next guest up here. Nicholas. Hi. [29:18] Hi guys. Welcome. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? Can you hear me? [29:22] You do sound a little bit like you're in a box, but it is a little bit charming. I'm going to do your intro and then we can get started. So Nicholas Russell, a freelance writer who recently contributed a very fun piece to Dirt. Shout out to Dirt. We could not be... [29:39] bigger fans of the dirt empire. Your piece was called The Popular Alternative, The State of A24, which is what we're going to talk about today. [29:49] So welcome to the show. [29:51] Thanks so much. I'm going to speak louder, I guess. Great. Great. Okay. So your piece is really about this tension between A24 as a studio and A24 as a startup. [30:07] Can you give us sort of the big picture and maybe just start like what's A24 for folks who are maybe coming into this fresh? [30:14] Yeah, so A24 is a... [30:18] started out as a [30:20] distribution company, a film distribution company. [30:22] which is to say that they did not produce films, they acquired films, festivals and trade shows and stuff like that. [30:29] to be shown in theaters

[30:31] in the US. [30:33] And then they became a production company, like, you know, putting money into produce films. [30:38] And they're now sort of [30:41] synonymous with the kind of [30:44] very [30:47] viral and, like, I would argue sort of ubiquitous kind of, um, [30:54] indie filmmaking that's like both very mainstream and very like [30:59] Thank you. [31:00] The word aesthetic is often used to describe their whole thing and not just their films, [31:07] their social media presence and [31:11] They've grown from a very small company to a very large [31:15] company that has like a lot of um [31:17] sort of VC capital that is backing them. [31:21] But yeah, in the piece I talk about, you know, this idea that [31:26] Hollywood has obviously been [31:29] sort of [31:30] ravaged by a lot of changes in the last decade, COVID being foremost among them, but also the shift to streaming and [31:39] this idea that [31:41] the mid-budget Hollywood film is sort of dying off and [31:46] that it's hard for indie films to sort of break into the mainstream. [31:50] That was where A24 came in, is sort of like this cool new place. [31:54] that was founded by three guys who had [31:57] been in independent film for a long time and [32:01] they wanted to try to do something different.

[32:03] But [32:04] as time went on you know uh i think people who are unfamiliar like [32:09] arguably their most famous [32:12] film [32:13] or two phones, I would say, is Moonlight [32:15] directed by Barry Jenkins, which won them their first Oscar. It was also the first movie that A24 produced, so it was like [32:23] a huge hit like right out the gate in terms of like proving themselves to the industry [32:28] And then more recently, Everything Everywhere All at Once, which also won an Oscar. More than one, actually. But yeah. [32:35] They've been on this roll in the last... [32:37] several years of, you know, putting out more and more movies at like a higher profile, [32:43] bigger budgets. I think this year's arguably their biggest one is Materialists by Celine Song. [32:50] I think which is on track to become their like third highest grossing film. And so, yeah, they become sort of they're making themselves like [33:00] undeniable in terms of the Hollywood landscape. [33:03] Yeah, it's really interesting. I, um, [33:07] I think you talk about this in your piece, but I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about sort of the startupification of culture and how you raising a bunch of venture capital scaling really quickly. How do you continue to like execute on like a cool kid business? [33:27] aesthetic or vibe and like so much a part of that like we see that sort of in like the soho house rhetoric and like exclusivity verse um being something that's available to the masses and what you lose in that but what's required when you're raising this level of venture capital and like not just getting cultural cachet and winning oscars but being like you're

[33:46] big box office hits, which they are doing. But I'm curious, like, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that will continue to be possible as they're going to need to keep that clip up? [33:58] Yeah, it's a good question. It's sort of the tension I was trying to get at in the piece. And it's ultimately something I still haven't, like, [34:05] fully figured out yet because I think [34:06] part of the reason it's hard to get a grasp on A24. [34:10] not necessarily in their ethos, but in terms of like-- [34:14] their sort of future focused sort of mission is that [34:19] they are very tight-lipped about their plans. Like, they don't really speak, they don't give statements to the public, really. [34:27] There was a Bloomberg piece a couple of years ago that was sort of like the biggest [34:31] Thank you. [34:32] piece in terms of like people in A24 [34:35] like giving access and like actually saying things to a journalist. [34:40] And from that, from those statements, it's it just seems like they are trying to be bigger in every single way. [34:49] Bigger budgets is one thing, but also branching out into a lot of different things. So like they have their own little publishing imprint where they [34:57] do these really glossy hardcover sort of packages of screenplays for their films. [35:04] and also like, [35:06] non-824 related film books. [35:10] And also they have a music [35:13] division there. They're starting [35:15] They're not starting a label. They've had a label for their soundtracks, but they're now starting to

[35:20] branch out into producing [35:22] music or by musicians that have nothing to do with their films. So like, you know, they're trying to branch out that way. [35:29] And I think, you know, [35:30] Since the beginning, 824 has been really good about [35:33] fostering an audience [35:36] that is very loyal, [35:38] And [35:39] is [35:40] Um, [35:42] you know, interested in everything that they do. This is something that I talked about in the piece that I'm sort of skeptical of is like this all encompassing A24 fan who [35:52] unequivocally loves every single thing that they ever do. I think at this point, [35:56] you know to what you were saying they're growing so quickly releasing more and more moves every year [36:04] And TV shows. [36:06] um that it's like it's just impossible that they're gonna appeal to everyone and so i think [36:12] you've seen them sort of double down [36:15] in certain ways on [36:17] a few quote unquote auteurs. [36:19] like Sleet and Song, [36:21] or the Sathy brothers, [36:23] or like alex garland who have like been reliable through if not hit makers then like you know they [36:29] reliably [36:31] stir discourse or like drive a conversation about something even if people don't like their movies i think like [36:38] You're seeing that right now with materialists, I think. [36:40] the legs that this movie has had through the summer in terms of people still talking about it is kind of incredible. [36:49] I think A24 sort of thrives on it. Did you see The Materialist? Yes, I did. Okay, so I have not yet seen it. I really want to. I saw a very funny TikTok right when it came out. I was not in the US, so I was like, oh, I missed sort of the window when it first came out and everybody was going, but I saw a TikTok where this girl's in her car and she's so excited to see The Materialist, like can't wait, you know, like hyped up and she's like, but it was around the same time where

[37:19] War three. And she was like, I could go into this movie and I could come out and we could be in world war three. And like, but I still have to go. And she like goes, and then she comes back after she's seen it. And she's like giving a review. And she's like, I was sitting there and halfway through, I was hoping for world war three. Okay. That's a brutal review. But then at [37:38] Like she still kind of loved it and she was still like making a video about it. And so anyway, I'm curious what your... [37:44] thoughts are on the film. I think, you know, I, I'm not, here's something that I think will be, like, point to a larger sort of issue that's happening in Hollywood that I think [37:57] "It's 24" materials is a good microcosm of, is like this auteur thing that I was talking about. Selene Song has made two movies. [38:05] Mm-hmm. [38:05] And people still are talking about her as an auteur. [38:09] This is sort of like a brand, like a labeling thing that is being used. It's almost like a marketing term now. It's like, [38:15] This person is an auteur. You saw that when Robert Eggers came out with The Witch and like Ari Oster with Hereditary and Midsommar and recently with Eddington. [38:25] It's not to say that these filmmakers aren't talented or [38:28] you know very rigorous or like have a [38:30] strong vision or whatever. [38:32] But the label auteur sort of like... [38:35] grants authority [38:37] Evening. [38:38] that experience is not necessarily there. And materialist to me is like a good example of like, [38:45] The brand of Celine Song is very strong. [38:48] And

[38:49] You want to. [38:51] get all the people who didn't see her first film past lives into a theater. [38:56] It helps that Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans are in it. [39:00] But if you saw the marketing for the movie, it tells you a completely different movie than what it actually is. [39:08] And I think that's part of [39:10] the reason a lot of people who didn't outright love it were sort of confused including me because i was [39:16] I went in sort of expecting a rom-com [39:19] And I would argue it's not that at all. [39:23] I feel like [39:25] there's a tension there between what A24 wants people to [39:29] you know how to get asses and seats is like you know you want someone to buy the ticket to drive box office sales right [39:35] Ideally you want people to see the movie more than once but [39:39] Um, [39:40] I think they've been having an issue with certain films that [39:44] are potentially more complicated or maybe in my [39:49] opinion the case of materials less complicated than what is being offered and so you it's tricky you know you don't want to like dupe your audience [40:00] But you also want to maybe not tell them everything about the movie in the trailer so that they can have something surprising for 4.3. [40:08] In materialists, there's lots of surprises, but they're, I don't know, they're quite... [40:13] baffling to me but um i don't know that this hurts the slingsong like in any way honestly like box office is one thing but also you know she's so firmly ensconced in this like

[40:24] upper echelon of [40:26] Hollywood indie directors, like, she's going to have a very solid career. [40:32] And I think that's what A24 hopefully-- I think they hope to offer to filmmakers is like, [40:37] a ballast against [40:39] certain headwinds in Hollywood looks like. [40:41] they can become big enough [40:43] and sort of [40:45] a big enough authority that they can be like [40:48] No matter what, we're going to be able to usher in these people and make sure that they're successful. [40:54] uh really interesting also i thought you said paddington when you were talking about i was like oh eddington okay i would love to see um nicholas thank you so much for coming on um everyone who's watching should definitely check out his piece and we'll link it in the comments and we'll have to have you on again uh yeah please thank you guys so much thanks so much thanks um so fun also uh yeah the thing i kept thinking about [41:24] that [41:25] when people don't want to see musicals. So all the trailers for the musicals over the past few years have had no music in them. Like the reboot of Mean Girls wasn't musical. And like none of the trailers had music in it. And there was a lot of backlash because... [41:39] obviously people show up like me who hate musicals and they're like, [41:43] what is this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Should we pull up our next guest here? Let's do it. [41:50] Carly! Hi! [41:53] Can you hear me? Yes. You sound great.

[41:56] All I ever wanted. How's it going? Good. Thanks so much for joining. Thanks for having me. Let me do a quick intro and then we can get into it. Carly Ayers is a writer, designer, and currently program director at AIR, a New York City-based accelerator investing in teams building designer-first consumer AI products. Forked in editorial community and product at places like Figma and Google, welcome to the show. So happy to have you. Yeah. Yeah. [42:21] Glad to be here. [42:23] So first, tell us about Air. What are you up to there? Oh, fantastic. We're six months in. We're eight weeks into, we did like a prototype cohort. Now we're in our first cohort, but we've brought on a bunch of really awesome teams who are building design-led AI consumer products in Brooklyn, New York, the epicenter of culture. It's been a lot [42:53] - With each cohort, we've had one hardware project. We had, right now we have-- - A brave soul. - Yeah, a little bit of each. The hardware projects do just, they kind of expand. They take a lot of space, but we have a 3D printer now. So-- - Oh, cool. So is the whole cohort, is it all in person? [43:10] It is. Oh, that's awesome. We have a couple of folks in LA that they make their way out here. Okay. For most of it, but it's a 10 week program, I should say. So, okay. It's kind of a little summer camp vibe. So ideally you get the most out of it if you're here. [43:23] Yeah. So what's your what's your vision on consumer AI? Tell us a little bit about how you guys think about it, like what categories and like lanes that you guys are excited about and that you see promise in or like.

[43:36] themes or verticals or whatever yeah i'd say i mean [43:40] For us, it's really less about the verticals as much as it's about the founders and their domain expertise. I think when we did our first call for applications, we had like 225. And very quickly, you're like going through these. And it's if you didn't, if you're not from this background, if you're not thinking about AI less as like drizzling it on top and more as like, truly, like what is an AI native experience? And of course, like leading with design. So like starting [44:10] an actual [44:11] human problem, thinking about like your audience, ideally at this point too. Like if you don't have any form of traction, it's almost like inexcusable because you can get so far on your own now that ideally in 10 weeks, again, such a short period of time, like [44:26] we're going to help you move the needle and you want to be able to make the most of that time. So I'd say for us, the things that we're really excited to see, right, we have like a voice first, [44:39] mental wellness app, which is really just [44:43] these founders pillow talk, they're thinking a lot about [44:46] uh it's actually private you know with chat gpt it you might hear uh your transcripts in a courtroom but like what does it mean to build an experience that's really like people first thoughtful drilling down on uh doing that really well it is yeah trauma yeah oh wow so interesting um i i i i want to keep talking about the cohorts but i do want to leave some time to talk about some of your writing and some of your thinking on design um

[45:15] And you recently wrote a piece called Designers, Designers, Designers, Why Everyone is Hiring and Why No One Can Find Talent. And so I'd love to just give for people who haven't read it just like a few sentences on what your thesis is, what you wrote about in this piece. Yeah. So a lot of the stuff I write about is typically it's just like something's been needling in the back of my head. And in this case, it was. [45:43] I keep hearing from folks who are like, "I can't find a job. I just got laid off." Designer folks, [45:49] We just saw that article, I want to say it was New York Times, about like the entry level software developer who couldn't find a job. And then meanwhile, I also, I mean, I have an entire cohort of people who are hiring. I'm seeing, I saw Julie Zhu post this post about [46:05] how to hire designers. Everyone's looking for designers. How can you appeal to designers? And it really felt like there was a bit of a disconnect there. So digging into that, trying to figure out, [46:15] Why, if there's so many people looking for jobs, why are they so hard to find? Yet, it seems like everyone's hiring and talking to a few different folks, I just, and [46:25] I think most of it is you have to have the skills. You have to have the skills to build, again, these kind of AI-first experiences. You have to be experimenting with the tools. You have to build a prototype and share code with your developers and kind of [46:37] So sort of thinking about this super IC independent contributor designer is kind of like the designer of right now. That's okay for.

[46:46] So I see. So it's, it's less like people aren't replacing designers with AI necessarily. It's just that there's an expectation now that there's more, the designer becomes more cross-functional given like what tools are available to them. Is that what you're saying? And like also probably more. [47:05] experience like [47:06] To some extent. I mean, I definitely think like the bottom rungs of that ladder have just been chopped off. You know, if you're a junior designer, you're trying to get your footing, you're looking for an internship where you're going to be like, you know. [47:18] cropping assets or building certain things in Figma, like pushing pixels is not going to cut it. Those are things that are being outsourced overseas, [47:27] or automated in some capacity. I mean, we saw Shopify now has the mandate that if you want to hire someone, you have to prove it can't be done by AI first. So I think a lot of those roles are disappearing for sure. Yeah. [47:40] But the opportunity is for those who can prototype. [47:44] Yeah. Yeah. You say, I really loved this line in the piece. AI turns every software engineer into a software designer the same way the microwave turned everything into a chef. And that was a tweet by Mike Rundell. And then you say companies desperately seeking design talent, aren't looking for someone to reheat nachos. They need actual cooking. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that and like your experience as a designer and your experience, like working with

[48:14] where that's like, [48:16] There's a nuance to that, I think, that is a new phenomenon. And I'd love to sort of understand, like, what has been your experience and seeing where that needle is thread between reheating nachos and, like, actually doing the work and, like, creating something new, I think. Totally. I think... [48:32] there's a certain skill set that designers have always had. And it's like, you know, talking to people, figuring out what they need, optimizing, making the experience better for them, you know, solving problems. And I think those are skills that continue to be the domain of the designer. I think we see other people leaning into that as well. [48:50] But as far as, yeah, no one is bringing you in to regurgitate like what we've seen on Dribbble for the last decade or so. Like they want you to come in. They want you to be building something new and interesting in fresh ways. And especially with those bigger companies, you know, they're trying to move this like ginormous boat towards AI, which is a hard enough endeavor. [49:20] able to [49:21] you know, applying tools in new ways and being able to actually build their ideas. So yeah, no one wants you to be in there copy pasting around. [49:31] But at the same time, yeah, it's like you're not, they're tools, you know? I think AI has replaced some of these roles, but being able to use AI effectively is just going to help you get that much further. [49:41] We still need Oteros as our last.

[49:46] Okay. So thank you so much for coming on. What's the next cohort? Like, tell us about what's next for AIR and where people can find out more or apply and like when the timing for that looks like. Totally. Totally. Yeah. So we're wrapping up cohort one and the next [50:05] three or two weeks. And then we're going to do a little heads down, make things a little bit better, and then hopefully announce the applications, which are currently live, but not actively being reviewed at air.collabfund.com. So find me online. Let me know. Great. I have one last question for you. I sort of have this like working thesis that's rolling around in my head about like vibe [50:35] talking about in your piece around [50:36] Like there's an expectation of designers to sit across like strategy and design and engineering and like producing the thing that they have conceptualized in a way that those expectations, because of everything that has developed in AI over the last few years, has gotten much more comprehensive. Yeah. [50:57] I totally see that. And then I also feel this tension between like that and this other thing that I'm thinking about, which is I'm seeing a lot of people, um, [51:07] who are spending a lot of time [51:10] vibe coding, trying to learn these tools, but are moving further and further away from their area of expertise and what they're

[51:18] what they've trained in what they're good at what they've been hired for previously and i see this across many different fields um and [51:25] I sort of feel like there is... [51:29] this thing that happens with vibe coding where people sort of what Twitter was like 10 years ago, where you were, you could convince yourself that you were like being productive. You were like, I'm learning, like I'm on Twitter, like I'm reading about the news and like finding information that's gotten harder in like the era of Elon Musk's Twitter. But, um, I kind of feel that way about vibe coding where people are like, I'm producing, like I'm learning and producing. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe you're just like sitting at your computer all day. And like, is that, and moving away from a thing of like expertise that you're very good at. And so, [51:58] those so like I'm curious about as designers move more cross-functionally there's like a dilution in like being like excellent at a special and being specialized and AI and I don't know those are a lot of jumbled up thoughts that I had that I've been thinking about and then I read your piece and I was like so curious if you have any thoughts around that I love that so much um [52:20] Yeah, totally. I mean, I even trying to make the header for that article I wrote, I like, I got into an AI tool. I was generating imagery. I probably spent like hours, you know, whereas it was like, and then I was like, you know, we're just gonna, we're gonna reference Balmer. We're just gonna hit it with the designers, designers, designers. And that was instant and super fast. I don't know if it was great design, but yeah, I do think there is [52:46] There's like, yeah, there's a few things happening there. I think there's this like illusion of efficiency for sure. That is totally a trap and you will go, you'll like get to like,

[52:56] really you'll get somewhere and you'll be like oh i'm like almost done um but same with like ai writing it's like if you read the words next to each other you're like that just that just actually doesn't make any sense that doesn't make any sense and not only are you not getting better but you're getting like further into this yes uh this romance it's very good it generates so much stuff um and as as like a writer and editor and i'm sure you both have experienced this it's like [53:21] You'll be editing things. You're trying to like preserve words. But yeah, I agree. So I think, yeah, you have to, what are your values? What are your principles? What do you want to be good at? And how can these tools help you get there? Yeah. But yeah, don't fall for the trap. And not getting like lost. [53:38] So many different ways. You know, there's so many deep little rabbit holes as you all talked about last time too. Like you can go down. [53:45] yeah for sure um carly thank you so much um and so excited to see the companies that are coming out of air and we hope to have you back soon cool see you soon okay bye talk to you later [53:57] Thank you. [53:58] So cool. It's just a fun group of people we've had on today. Okay. We have four minutes left. Okay. Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly. So house. Okay. Have you been following the story? I have a following the story somewhat, but, and I have some thoughts, but take it away. So top line notes are, so house has agreed to go private. It's going private. It's going off the

[54:28] It is just like a couple figures, $2.7 billion enterprise value is what they've determined and shareholders get about $9 per share in cash. I'm going to talk a little bit about what that means relative to their stock price in a second. Okay. [54:47] A couple more details. Ashton Kutcher is in. He is one of the investors. He is on the board, Mr. Kutcher. Also, this MCR Hotels, which owns, I know you're a travel girly, so that might resonate with you. MCR Hotels, which owns the TWA Hotel, is part of the group that's going to be buying it. And part of the discourse around that is like, oh, maybe they'll get design-y. And I [55:17] new TWA hotel. So that felt like a part of a good news of the story. But the kind of bad news of the story is basically that the stock never really worked in the public markets. They IPO'd in 2021. It was priced at 14. It's peaked. [55:30] hit around $14. Um, but basically like the price was all over the place. Actually, I'll go to the [55:36] Slide here. This was, you know, obviously near where IPO'd 14 and then it's been sitting at around like basically up and down at around nine. Okay. So, um, [55:47] But basically, since it's been public, there's these quarterly earnings calls that have been, I think, putting, people would argue, putting a lot of undue pressure on a business that's experiential. And that is so determined by, yeah, just people, customer happiness, that that doesn't really translate. That's like a really soft KPI that doesn't translate in the earnings calls.

[56:17] So even if it's not [56:19] comparable to how the business is actually doing just because it's the category of business that it is. But in going public in 2021, they've had to do a big push on members and growth. So their member base is now up 16% year in year. And I would say since 2021 is probably considerably [56:49] around Soho House and I think related to their pressures on growth is that it sucks now. Everyone's like, it sucks. [56:55] It totally is cooked. Like you go in and honestly, I think my biggest concern, [57:00] I was a member. I'm no longer a member. And I think like part of it for me was like, man, I'm like going into the Soho house in Nashville. I could be like, [57:08] And you go into the Soha's in Barcelona, and you're like, it's so generic. You're like, I could be... [57:13] anywhere and there's nothing like special about [57:18] the experience in any of these places and it's a lot of people. And anyway, so they've like kind of lost their experience. [57:26] whatever secret sauce that they may have had previously in [57:30] in this push for growth. But also at the same time, they've been chasing something that maybe isn't fair for the type of business that they are with this earnings thing and that maybe going private will just be better for them as a business. So that's kind of the [57:43] TLGR. Well, interesting. I think Ashton Kutcher being involved is a perfect encapsulation of what has happened to Soho. Tired and cooked. Okay. I think that's our show.

[57:58] That's it. We did have one more story here, but maybe we can do it next week. [58:02] Okay. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Appreciate you. [58:06] Okay, that's our show this week. Join us live on Twitter every Wednesday at noon. Or here, I guess.