We're in this big data era and easily flip on Facebook ads or YouTube ads to be able to reach their people. But with all that data, it can be easy to fool yourself into thinking that this narrow profile of the people that you think that you want to be able to reach can be replaced by actually having true conversations with people actually going out into the field. What's up, what's up, what's up? I'm Brandon Shawn. And I'm Corey. And we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Pie Cache. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you stream your podcast here at the intersection of currency and art. I usually say currency and creativity, but you know, I flipped it a little bit this time. This is No Labels Necessary Podcast.  They're doing something differently. And Dan Runtsey, who we have here today, is the founder of Trappado, the home of business, media and culture.  But when I say different, the way his commentary and perspective impacts even my way of viewing thing is completely different, right? The value of an artist is their point of view. The value of a writer or just a thought leader is their point of view as well. And Dan for Dan's show has a great point of view that's different and worth listening to. So Dan, appreciate you hopping on today. I got a lot of dope subjects that I want to talk about with you, brand, money, and just a commentary on the culture as a whole. So welcome, welcome Dan, what up? God Corey, it is a pleasure to be here. Appreciate you all. We're honored to be a guest on this. Been watching you all do your thing. You talk about so many topics that are top of mind for me. So the thought's mutual. You all are tapped into this space and it's an honor to be here. I appreciate it, man, I appreciate it. Definitely appreciate it, man. And I don't want to waste any time because I miss fit as much getting into the details of some of these thoughts that always, you know, always see stuff that you talk about where it's like, yo, I wonder what Dan like thinks in depth beyond the newsletter, right? That might be like a segment you create one day beyond the newsletter. But you had one write up about mistaking information for intimacy, right? And we talk to artists again and again and again about data, right? You need to capture your data to understand your customers, et cetera, et cetera. But is an artist having a listener's data enough? If so, what's the difference between information and intimacy? This is a great quote that I got from Dr. Marcus Collins, who is a friend. He teaches at University of Michigan. He's an award-winning marketer himself. He was a guest on my podcast and he had shared this insight with me with the work that he does with the brands that he works with. He works with a lot of companies, whether they're Fortune 500 or even smaller, that are trying to ingratiate themselves with culture. They're trying to ingratiate themselves with consumers. And one of their mistakes is they have so much access to data. We're in this big data era and companies can easily flip on Facebook ads or YouTube ads to be able to reach their people. But with all that data, it can be easy to fool yourself into thinking that this narrow profile of the people that you think that you wanna be able to reach can be replaced by actually having true conversations with people, actually going out into the field. And a lot of this unfortunately accelerated itself in the pandemic because so many companies saw record growth and record profits without needing to be there in person. So companies started to mistake having information for that true intimacy because as I mentioned, we're nuanced people. We have complex thoughts and the way that we relate to brands and the way that we understand things can't necessarily be captured based on the behaviors that you see us exhibit on social media that you think matches to a certain pattern. So if you're truly trying to understand the decisions that drive consumer behavior to help your brand get to that next level with how you speak to the people, then you need to get to that intimate level, really understand your customer. This is where phrases like doing things that don't scale really resonate. This is what it means, getting in touch with the customer, whether you're a small company or you're doing things at a great level. Man, man, that's really dope to think about because I feel like after a certain point of time, at first, where we say it like this, first getting information feels like doing the extra work, right? But then it becomes a lazy thing because people think that's the end all be all, right? But now you have to decipher that data and prove out the assumptions that you then got from the data, right? So I like the fact that you talk about the behavior and not necessarily indicating some of your assumptions. Let's say that in a great way that you summarized it where as you said, people are nuanced. Someone may wear Patagonia, but that doesn't mean they all ascribe to the same conservation values that the brand carries. Can you go a little bit deeper in that? Right, because I think that that thought process can be very aligned with how a Facebook or Instagram ad would work where there's a certain profile of person and you assume everything that you may think about this person, okay, if this person wears Patagonia, then you could assume that they may live in one of the major cities in the country. You can assume that they may do something during their weekends, that's some type of leisure activity. You may even assume how they may vote in the next presidential election, but we know enough about these brands to know that that may not always line itself up. And I think this applies to music because you can think about the clothes that someone wears and have different assumptions about what type of artists they may like. We see this as well with whether it's a streaming service that has their recommendations. They may say, okay, well, you listen to so-and-so artists, we think you may like so-and-so. Sure, you may understand why they may be recommending that artist, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to listen to that artist. Sure, there's a subset of people that do, but that doesn't necessarily reflect the whole picture. And the companies that can get beyond that initial surface level baseline filtering or putting people in buckets can have a true advantage. So I think that's where that Patagonia example makes sense. And then it can also extend to other artists or other brands in music that are trying to leverage that same culture as well to find where those pattern matches actually are in art and then naturally being able to make decisions based on that. Yeah, Matt, the other example that you use was Drake. You're like, just because I like Drake doesn't mean I want to hear other artists that sound like Drake. And- Exactly. Interesting part about that is, especially music, it tends to be that way. It's like, if I hear another artist like Drake, I just feel like you're a copycat. Like I don't want to hear another Drake. I actually want to hear somebody who's different, right?  Yeah, I mean, with that being said, how do you think artists can utilize that type of insight for themselves? What does that look like? Well, I think it's a few things. You, as an artist, assuming that you're tapped in enough and you're not necessarily solely relying on other companies to do this for you, you can have things at a baseline where you can see where you're listening patterns in particular areas, or you can leverage some of that, map that with whether it's social data, or if you have a newsletter or things like that, you can see where these things are and where these things all line up. That can help give you insights on where it may make sense to do the next tour stop or it may make sense to have things. And of course, at a certain level, you do have booking agents and other partners that you can rely on for this stuff, but they're also looking at you as a thought partner to help make these decisions. So that can be helpful there, but I think it also is helpful from a brand partnerships perspective as well. You know that a lot of artists, especially as they're thinking about their own funnel of who are the business partners I have in particular areas, if there is a brand partner they have, sure, everyone may see the type of partnerships that the A-list artists do, but maybe there's a niche brand that is perfectly aligned for where you're at because those brands probably can't get Jay-Z or Beyonce or Drake because they might wanna be able to do that, but they may be a better fit for where you are. So how can you find those opportunities are the ones that make sense? And because the data may not be able to get that granular, actually having those conversations with those fans can be the most helpful in ways that you can have them whether those are folks that are buying hard tickets to your shows, whether you're doing meetups and you're able to have conversations with them.  What are the commonalities with the conversations I'm having when I'm doing VIP sessions or meet and greets across the country? And then if there's something you're seeing whether it's in how they are caring themselves, how they dress, how they communicate, could that inform decisions that you can then make with partners you have? It's hard to do that just looking at data alone. Yeah, we were just having a conversation with artists about that, right? Like the live events give you a chance to see where how much the audience values you, right? Like you kind of have these ideas to your point to data could kind of point you in the right direction, but you really don't know how to value until you give them a way to kind of verify it in person, right? And then you can kind of compare that to the data and what you might be seeing on that end. Like, I don't know, it's interesting to kind of look at it that way. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's easier when they're going to your actual show, these things become harder with music festivals, just given the nature of how many people are at these festivals and people just wanting to go for the show, go for the vibes, go for the headliner, the further you are from that list, even though there's people in front of you that are listening to your set, it may be harder to find those same parallels to be able to draw those insights, which makes the in-person piece even more valuable. Yeah.  If you buy an expensive Drake meet and greet, and I just listened to Drake, right? What you have to say is far more valuable than what I have to say, right? And I think that's a great way to filter. And then you even touch on that nuance of festivals versus your actual show, right?  You can't improve what you can't measure, right? So that conversation right there, it reminds me of the conversation you had with Consequence. Can you speak on some of the insights you personally thought that you got? Because I remember he was pretty, you know, adamant about having his own shows versus festivals. Oh, you mean currency, right? Currency, yeah. You're right, my bad, not Consequence currency. Yeah, he was the one that stuck this out to me because I asked him this question specifically because he was starting to talk about the interview in a way where I could get a sense that this is where he was at. And I said, well, how do you feel about festivals? And then he was like, eh, you know, but then Musa, his manager, started sharing insights. And their take is that festivals can be good for a few things. One, they do offer a large upfront check a lot of times. So several artists, Cardi B and others have shown how large those advances can be, especially when you're going in Europe and other markets. But you're less likely to reach the hardcore fans that you have that are willing to see you at a house of blues or even smaller venue. And it may take time and there's less vanity to be able to share with performing in front of a small audience, as opposed to this broad festival grounds where there's just thousands of thousands of people that never end. But that's where you actually build that true fan base. You may lose money on that first tour, especially now just given the rising costs for everything associated with you and your teams getting out there. That's just the reality. But that's the only way to truly be able to get to that next level of being able to have people come to your own show. So as great as it is to see the days in Vegas and rolling loud at some of these events, how can it be done in companion with your own shows? You being able to have those opportunities for your fans to come and see you, that's how you get the best mix of it because then you have your diehard fans that may see you. Some of those may show up for the festival too, but then you can really use the festival as an opportunity to spread awareness and reach people that may have been coming for the headliner, but then they're like, oh, I didn't realize that so-and-so gravitated towards me. I thought I was just going to buy some time before the headliner comes, but they have me as a new fan. And now I've done that. So I think they both have use, but I do have hesitation for the artists that solely rely on festivals because of the fear of just performing to a small audience and then additionally, not necessarily wanting to sacrifice any of the upfront money. Yeah, and it kind of speaks to your point too about the difference in that broad data set versus the specific, right? Like a festival can be looked at like a broad data set, right? There's enough people here that kinda maybe like the same type of music as you make, but may not be 100% here for you. And we can now compare, we can compare your 300 solo show ticket sales to your $30,000 festival, you know what I'm saying?  Like I'm seeing the parallel between what you were, what you were saying earlier. So I guess even to that point, like, you know, like when you're talking to artists and their teams, like what, how you kind of advise them on maintaining that balance between making decisions off of like what your data is saying and off a ton of intangibles that they might have to go out in the real world and try to fill out for themselves. Like what does that balance look like? Yeah, it's an ongoing balance, right? It's almost like a company themselves that's trying to balance long-term decision-making versus serving the needs of their shareholders, talking specifically about public companies in this stage. And I think artists, there's a little bit of a dynamic with that, similar dynamic with that, right? Following the data and making some of those harder decisions does line up more with the long-term thinking because you may not realize those benefits. Now you may not realize those benefits like two years from now, but you often do reach this inflection point and just because of the way so many careers have gone, especially now, I do feel like the arbitrage is inconsistency and the arbitrage is in longevity. So you have that career where it feels like, okay, this isn't going anywhere, this isn't going anywhere, but then it slowly starts to creep up and then that's the ideal for so many artists it doesn't always happen that way, but the only way to get there is to keep going after you've got to that point and then you can hopefully reach that. So it takes a lot of push and pull and it also takes a lot of patience that may not always exist with the business partners you have depending on their goals, but that's why it's so important for the artists to be able to have that clear goal, have that clear vision setting and not just rely on their own business partners who have their own agendas and their own goals that they're trying to reach that may not always line up directly with yours. Man, man, that makes me think of an unfair advantage, right? Like seeing, for example, Ola Russell as of late or we just guy had a conversation with him and saw what he's building and there's been other artists like that that have been building something, right? That's real in some sense of community and relationship with their fan base and it doesn't completely show just yet, right? The people who are really watching might catch it on, catch on to it a little bit earlier, but the world at large don't quite understand how real it is because there's an undercurrent happening, right?  And everybody's like, how did this happen? And how do we stop this? How do we do something like this? And you can't do something like that overnight, right? So now they have that unfair advantage because they built something so real and, but it had to be nurtured before it could get to the point where it could scale without being ruined, right? You can't just any scale for day one, that connection doesn't. It doesn't have the opportunity to, you know, like, I don't know, grow, mature to a point that your platform is differentiated, so differentiated where people are like, why does this person support them like that, right? Or how did they build this thing, this movement? What's this inside language? Where is all this coming from? So everything that you made me think about is something that I feel like is the ideal situation for an artist, but you also alluded to the difficulty and the wherewithal it takes to go through that period of, yo, I'm not gonna see the monetary gain. I'm not gonna see a certain level of clout even, you know, for a period of time. So some artists and managers are just waiting for lucky moments when the ones who are killing it have systems to consistently take artists to another level over and over again. And if you wanna see what that looks like, we just did a collab where we not only show the system that we use that's resulted in Billboard hit, some of the biggest viral moments on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but also we got J.R. McKee to break down how he took an artist from zero to one of the biggest hit songs of 2022 and getting a Grammy in January of 2023. This is recent stuff, not old tactics. If you wanna check it out, go to www.brandmennetwork.com slash Grammy. Don't forget the www or it won't work because J.R. gets into the details of looking at the data, decisions that got made, how much content got created and how they adjusted the content over time for different parts of the campaign. This is real behind the curtains type of stuff. So again, go to www.brandmennetwork.com slash Grammy. If you wanna check this out and apply it to yourself. Back to the video. Have you seen any artists that you personally have done a good job at that or maybe even missed an opportunity because they might've leaned into early when they had something good going for them? I think an example is someone that's done a good job of this recently has been Tyler the creator because I think if we look at his career past 15 years just getting back to being a high schooler with odd future, that trajectory is exactly what we're talking about. And he's talked about this himself where he's like, you go back to 2012 and people that were the hottest of the business where are they at right now? And I'm the one that's still been here. And part of that is a bit of his own, I think he does have a bit of a chip out of shoulder from a lot of the people that did ignore him and thought that he was weird and a bit of an outcast from that perspective. But all that worked to his advantage because he kept going and he kept doing his thing.  And then I feel like once he put out Flower Boy and everything that's happened since then then people started to catch on and then he started to evolve his own sound as artists naturally do. And he's probably in one of the strongest positions right now for a hip hop artist that's under the age of 35 just a way to weed out, you know the Kendricks and the Drinks and the Jay Coles. But if you look at that tier he's in such a good position to be able to continue to do what he's doing. And I think it's because people have been with him for that get go from the jump to being able to see how he's built his career like that. Yeah, to your point is that we really got to see firsthand what a 10, 12 year community building process looks like. Cause he's been hitting his community from a couple different angles over a whole decade. You know? Yeah, I mean it's been clear what he stands for in one way or another as well. Like he's been open about the things he doesn't stand for which I feel like is probably even more important than the stuff that you stand for in terms of voicing it to your community.   Like Tupac was very vocal about the things he didn't like. Right? I could go down the list, right? But many of those same characters made it clear on what their values were. Not just, hey, I like this, but I'm not for that. Whatever that looks like for their particular category. Definitely. Yeah, he's another one, right? I think that especially in the social media era we've seen there's so much power in how people react to the thing or create community around being against something. And there is a ton of frustration with that just in terms of how society's run. But it's also reflecting how it is. Even look at how people decide what sports team they like or who they think is the goat in basketball or who this. It's always driven by cons against the other thing as opposed to the true support they have for the core thing itself. That may not always be 100% true in all cases but there is some natural part of that. And I do think Tyler is one of those that has positioned himself over the years both with his own doing but also because of being blocked out by others as someone that has been in this quarter to say, hey, this is who I am. This is how I do my things. These are the people I speak to. And there's a large percentage of the audience over there that doesn't necessarily respect what I do to the same level. That's okay, they may eventually come around. He spoke about this recently in that rap caviar interview series that he had put out as well that I thought was an even more fascinating look into his mind space. It's fascinating and a lot of this aligns as well with how people leverage the power and the tools of the internet and how those can work to their favor and how you can just continue to adapt to the new technology and new platforms that come over time. Yeah, yeah, like Tyler is definitely one of our favorite examples. I think we used him on our recent episode. What's up, I'm doing another bait. Yeah, the, well, I'm not even talking about that one. I'm talking about the anti-fans strategy, right? Because even what you alluded to, right? Hate building an audience in many ways. So I always use the word now anti-fragile, right? The concept is the more something is attacked, the stronger it gets, right? And Drake was in that same bucket for a period of time where people hated him coming in because he didn't represent the old hip hop. He was soft, da, da, da, da, right? And they emboldened people to love him more because they had to pick a side, right? And once you decide that I'm on this person's side and I have to battle against others on your behalf, now it forces me to say, why do I love this person so much, right? I have to figure out ways to validate why I am right, you know? Right, I think Lizzo's another example of someone that fell into this category in a lot of ways. When she was first rising up, there were so many people that had opinions about her and her size and how she looked and how people felt like a woman of her size should be able to dress, should be able to carry yourself. What type of confidence she should or shouldn't have? Not only did she buck and challenge a lot of those trends, but a lot of the people that wanted to have a bit of that anti-fam mentality rallied towards her as well as a continued way to push back against the type of people who would point fingers at her and people like her. And she's obviously been very open about not only her position, but also her struggles with things like that when especially a lot of the combativeness with fans and from other critics can become too much. But that vulnerability just continues to bolster the fan base she has in. Obviously she is still extremely talented even regardless of any of this anti-fan narrative. But she's one of the few artists that has really risen in the past few years that is now selling out arenas and doing multiple shows in some of these cities. That's a very hard thing to do, especially for someone that really blew up 2018, 2019 and had been making music for several years before that. It's one of the rarer and more unique use cases that we've seen of an artist to have that type of trajectory. And I don't think it's a coincidence that some of these other elements we're talking about played in and aligned with her rise as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's definitely an interesting case study. And what I've seen her, because she's extended her brain into different spaces and places. It actually goes back to even the currency conversation of understanding your fan base and being able to monetize it in different ways. I want to get your thoughts on artists monetizing outside of their art, right? Because you spoke on this recently, I think you titled it Bankable Business, but for me as a memory thing, I thought about bankable formats, right? So formats that you can monetize as an artist. And the concept, let me know if I'm wrong, was well, you might make money from music, but that doesn't mean that you can have a box office movie. You might have a box office career, but that doesn't mean people like your music or clothing, et cetera. What are, one, did I get that concept right? And two, how do you break down, how artists can navigate that? Yeah, one of the themes that I've touched on with Trappital, and it was one of the key themes of the culture report that we put out last year, is that artists have often become millionaires selling music, but the artists that become billionaires get there by selling product. Millionaires selling music, billionaires selling product. And part of that is structured around the type of business they've put around them. Whether you look at artists like, you have extreme examples like Jay-Z, Rihanna, yay up to a couple of months ago, or even Dr. Dre, you've seen how they've been able to have natural tie-ins with the type of work that they do, the way they built their companies and where they've been able to then generate most of their businesses from. They couldn't have got to where they were if it wasn't for the music. But even so, the music wasn't in 100% slim dunk to make sure they get that. It was just a platform to allow them to do this, but there's still plenty of success, things that work in their favor that need to line up. They still need to find product market fit like any other business in order to reach that scale. So I think for a lot of artists, even if they don't necessarily want to sell computer or consumer products, there still can be something that is just a bit thought of from a holistic level about how they want to sell and monetize their business that isn't just reliant on either A, the streams that they're hoping to get from the checks that come in from what they monetize from their music, from the digital streaming platforms and an extension of the major record label deals they sign or doing deals until they can get the next big advance and hoping that they recoup enough money to then earn royalties beyond recouping the advance. These are all the things that they can do, but that can work in their favor, but it also acknowledges where things are. We also see it at that non-superstar level as well. I look at artists like Griselda and how they've been able to sell high-end merch to their audience, whether those are unique vitals or Benny the butcher sell the butcher knife and things like that. They don't need to sell Fenty Beauty level of products to do that, but they can still have a very sound business that works for them. They can still tour and reach their people and they're less concerned with charting at the top of the billboard charts than they are with being able to serve. And I think we mentioned Russell a few times. I think he probably thinks similarly with this. Russell isn't a name that is topping the billboard charts, but he also probably could care less about that because he has built his business up in a way to be able to reach the people. He's actually owning the underlying asset of what he's doing. So there are plenty of ways to continue to make money off of the streams itself. He's touring, he's been able to do that. And then just how he's, I mean, you all understand the business better than I do, just given some of the conversations you've had there. But that's what this is about. And that's where I think the real bankable business comes from. There's so much focus from the outside on the vanity metrics, whether that's how many followers you may have on social media, how many millions of monthly listeners you may have on Spotify or what place did your album have when it came out on the top 200 or any of the gold plaques that may highlight how many streams your album has gotten or your single has gotten. But profit and revenue are the things at the end of the day driven by having a bankable business. And those aren't the things that are reported. And there's plenty of successful artists that have been able to do that in ways that are much more successful than people that actually do dominate on many of those vanity metrics. How do you think artists should go about choosing the next extension that they introduced to their audience? This goes back to that beginning part of the conversation, right? If you have that intimate understanding of who the audience is, you also understand more broadly trends in business to understand what is helpful for my audience, what is helpful for the people that I'm reaching out to but then how does that extend more broadly to trends that are happening right now in society or with how people are interacting with things and am I in the best position to do that? Can I partner with others that can help me do that in a way that makes sense? That's ultimately how they're able to get there. So it does bring a full circle nature of understanding your audience at an intimate level inside and out and seeing where the trends are, where the opportunity's in, whether or not you fall in line with, I feel like that's a step one. And if that is done well, that could hopefully have some opportunities rise to the top that could be good fits. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You can't just say, hey, this other artist is doing this, so I'm gonna do that, right? There's a few core things where you might be able to check a box like, hey, I'm gonna drop music. I could put it on Spotify, but I want to, I could tour and do shows. Those are very general, but once you leave that world and start to introduce whether it's with your knives or clothing or video games, you have to have a deeper insight into your own audience, right? And we've seen this struggle time and time again. I look at the boom of fashion brands in the 90s and the 2000s as an example of this. You have a brand like Fubu that I think was very timely. It had the right type of partnerships and it was able to hit the right cultural themes for where people were at. Several years later, you have a company like Sean John that matches very well with where Diddy had positioned himself. He's been selling a lifestyle with his music. Now he wants to sell you that same type of lifestyle with the type of clothes that he now has that he's putting out. But then I think we saw a lot of fashion brands as well do more of that copycat nature that was less tied into this broader underlying theme that they had that tapped into a lifestyle that they were pushing. It was more so pushing the next thing. And then four years later, every artist that is trying to sell their own sneaker, those sneakers are now on the clearance rack at Marshalls and TJ Maxx because we flooded the market and now there just isn't as much demand for these things. And that's part of the trap that can happen. And that trap can also happen as well now 20 years later with some of the people in the game now that may be copying some of the trends that they've seen from the successful artists that have more intentionality behind what they're doing. Yeah, and it's important to realize it could happen to the best of them because citing Beyonce's Adidas deal not necessarily ever materializing like you would have expected, she has an unequivocal impact on culture, right? We know that she has a real fan. So you can't say, oh, this is an influencer with two million followers and they couldn't sell 26 shirts, right? No, this is a legitimate influencer to sell her tickets. This is Beyonce, right? Yeah, she still couldn't translate over into clothing. I have my thoughts on it, but I would love to hear why you think that didn't go too well. This was one that I had started to see the potential tealies of this happening even before it really went through. This was back around the time that Rihanna was starting to have things really take off with Savage Fennie and Fennie Beauty. And I started to have some friends that were close to me that had started to make the comparisons about we still haven't seen Beyonce quite get there with Ivy Park. And for a while I hesitated with chiming in there because I know that there could be problematic issues with just the constant comparison of not just those two but then two black women and then saying, okay, why can't these two entertainers do their own thing, right? Then you start, because if you do that too much and you sound like Steven A. Smith being asked about Rihanna's Super Bowl halftime show but then he's like, oh, well, she's no Beyonce. So I avoided the topic even though it was something that I was thinking for a while. But what I think ended up happening is there were a few things. One, Beyonce herself wasn't necessarily seen as this brand and fashion icon in the same way that she was seen as this once in a generation performer. She's obviously this once in a generation performer. People are taking destination trips, getting their passports stamped to go see this Renaissance tour. That's how much impact she's had and she's had it with the last album she did. There's not many people that have been in the game since there were teenagers that are now at this stage selling out football stadiums, but she is and she's continuing to do it. But the skills and not even the skills but the ability to then translate that into selling a brand are very different. And I think that Ivy Park also expanded in a few different areas of categories that are all pretty unique if you look at it, whether it was footwear or apparel, whether it's tops or bottoms, those are all different things that have different cultures around them, different approaches. And you think about other of these brands, Savage, Fennie, lingerie, Yeezy, footwear, not even just broad footwear, mostly sneakers for the most part, but then you see how over time they can expand to different things. And I think that Ivy Park had a bit of a broad focus there and there wasn't as much of the tie in there where I felt like Yeezy, there was this natural piece where Yee would randomly show you a picture of him in the lab with all of these tens of thousands or prototypes of Yeezy's just laying around. And yeah, sure, some of them look ridiculous, but it gives you at least some purview into, okay, he's probably doing this during his sleep or thinking about this stuff all the time. It ties to that broader connection with someone like him. And you know that he interned at Fendi, he did all these other things that lined up. And even though Beyonce herself may be still spending, you know, her team may still be spending just as much time on doing similar types of things, we didn't necessarily see that as much in how she presented herself. She isn't necessarily that someone that's out on social media. In that way, we see more so curated images or an annual interview with Vogue that is print and highly curated, but not as extemporaneous to put it lightly as someone like Yee or even others. So I think some of those things also played into some of the challenges there and how even the most influential performer when it comes to being able to get people to buy their tickets, that doesn't always necessarily line up to people also wanting to buy the clothing products or the products that she has, even when she's partnered with the same company that is partnered with other artists that are she's arguably even bigger than. Yeah, man, I think this is an example of being authentic versus feeling authentic because I can't speak to if she's being authentic in terms of the fashion, right? But what I can say, it doesn't feel authentic probably because she doesn't show, like you said, right? We've never really seen her in that space as a fashion person, not because she's never fashionable, but because she hasn't positioned herself that way. She hasn't really expressed much opinion in that category that I'm aware of, right? I'm sure it's the people in the beehive might have like really, really deep, digging through the creaks type of insights into that, but in terms of somebody who's a lot more service level in terms of how I look at her, how I follow her, but we're very much so appreciative of her, that's just not a category where Rihanna, I remember covering her like early on a channel, one of my first probably 10 videos, I found an interview of her in like 2006, how she talked about, or maybe it was 2008 or whatever, she wanted to do this fashion thing back then and she said it in a way where it was very clear that I don't wanna just like create merch, right? Or do another brand, I really wanna take this thing serious and make a career out of it, right? And we know what Ye has done and some others. So I feel like there's a lesson there and you still have to communicate, right? The values in that category, although you might have your values in the other categories of like how I perform, I really am about the hard work and just all out performance, writing the details of the music, but what do you look like and what are your values and what are your thoughts when it comes to how you dress? We need to see that before we can even decide whether we opt in, you know? And the other thing is the timeliness aspect, what is the trend that this new brand is hitting that is important even beyond the Celebrity Association? This is one good thing that Reed did because she launches this Fenty Beauty brand that is reaching women of 40 different shades, especially women with darker skin tones in an industry historically that did not put dollars behind that. And then similarly with Savage Fenty as well on the lingerie side, making sure that her lingerie has many more options than you may see from a standard line as well. So women's of all shades and all shapes had a home there. It spoke to inclusivity, it spoke to things that she wanted to be able to push and she also had the collaboration with Kendo which was that internal consulting group at Sephora that had already had this idea baked in to some extent but just wanted someone like Reed to be able to help amplify and push it forward. It was the perfect combination to help make this happen in a way where I don't know if Ivy Park, independent of Beyonce was necessarily solving a key need or gap in that type of way. How do you think about Kanye in that category? What trends do you feel like he might have tapped into? Well, because his started earlier if we're dating back to like graduation era, yay with Red Octobers and those Yeezys there, street wear was really coming to another level, especially in the internet era. And I do think that he was able to tap into that, especially street wear driven that was less driven less by the people that are waiting in line at Foot Locker for a peer of shortness but more so for the click races to be able to get the nearest thing on the app when it dropped. So he was able to lean into that. And I think that helped him along the way. Yeah, and I will add to that too, Sean. I want to say like a large part of his early Yeezy narrative was I want to make high-end sneakers affordable to everybody eventually, right? So he was kind of running away for like, hey, I'm kind of here where I am now. But the goal of the time was to make these $600 sneakers be $50 for everybody, right? So to the point about there was an end game for the support of the audience, right? We can help him build this narrative and build his product. Eventually high-end sneakers everywhere might be $50, you know what I'm saying? So I never thought about like the debt before until you brought up, but it's like even with, I think Beyonce missed the opportunity with the fitness apparel. That probably been like the best place for her to hop in and create a narrative, you know what I'm saying? At least that's what I can think of. Because of the entertainment and the activity. Yeah, exactly. I think it's to me the closest thing from what she lessens know about her that could have been flipped into a narrative. Like to your point, like Yeezy has been building his narrative since college graduation, you know what I'm saying? Rihanna, like you said, has been building her narrative since early days. She even, you know, curated her real life to reflect it. But I went and, you know, married arguably the most fashionable person in rep, you know what I'm saying? Like, and they made him a part of my campaigns and made sure it spoke to males. And you know, it's a dance point about inclusivity. Then you get a herd and it's like, you know what I'm saying? I can't. I think that's actually a pretty full point that fitness could be there because of the obvious, you know, working out and activity for moving around, right, movement, right? And then also if you add, remember she was early on the vegan wave or her baby, right? So it was like, I do care about health. That could have been something they leaned into. Even like maybe it could have been food, but even if merch, like bringing it, not merch, but like a clothing line, bringing in that fitness narrative that might have been the space that she could have leaned in. That's actually good. Look, the only direction I think of is you. That would have felt authentic to dance point. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, well, so let me ask you this then Dan, because I kind of was thinking about this one you mentioned earlier, right? We talked about how, you know, pandemic kind of forced us to think about, you know, groups of people in these broad terms, which I never thought about before until you said it, but it makes sense. It's like, hey, I can't really go out and connect with people on the individual level. So let me be, let me, we all kind of got trained to do people like a service level, like groups and boxes, right? So now we see post pandemic fans want a lot more intimacy with the artists, right? Artists are rushing to figure out how to put infrastructure together to go after that. And I think that ties back into something that you said a little bit after what you said, that the old game that Artists are used to playing is the typical industry numbers game, right? How many views did you get? I mean, streams did you get? How many followers do you have? Whereas like now, I think we're starting to see that, you know, the true measure success is going to be about like how big of a community that you build and how much money that you make. I think those eventually would be the two indicators of success. But just to play devil's advocate, you know, the industry is the industry. The game is the game and a lot of artists have to play the game until they get to the point to where they can do those things. So, you know, what advice would you give to artists in their space, right? To where maybe they don't have the community built yet to where they can completely hop out the industry games and they have to navigate both of those sides of the space. Yeah, it's a struggle that I think a lot of artists naturally navigate, right? And it's something that you can find yourself in. In some ways, there's plenty of artists that have pushed the independent narrative only because the industry has pushed them out in a lot of ways. So, this is now where they've decided to invest their resources. At least now you do have the ability to use different platforms and see what your reach does look like. Whether it's obviously Sean, you and I have talked about TikTok in past episodes. I know that you, when you came out to travel a couple months back, you have all the data and the metrics there. And whether you are independent or if you do want to become signed or if you are signed, those numbers do matter. They at least give you some insight into where things are. But you do reach a point where I think you naturally will have to make a decision one way or another. And I think it's similar to a startup that may be trying to bootstrap the business or they want to be able to take venture-back funding. And a lot of it stems back to where your goals are. In music, if your goal is to try to become a superstar, as you want to perform at the Super Bowl, you want your name to ring out across the world. You want to have the billboards up in all of the huge places in the country. It's going to be a lot harder to get there unless you're a unicorn independent artist, but it'll be much more straightforward to get there if you want to work with a label. And I do think there's plenty of success to be had working with labels as well. I definitely don't consider myself anyone that's anti-label or I don't consider myself an anti-label person. I think there's still plenty of success for artists that want to be able to grow that path. And as you said, the game is still the game and those companies are evaluating themselves on market share that they have relative to each other and how that changes year over year. And you as an artist, are you additive to that or are you not? And then that dictates your journey in that way with a lot of respect. So I think it's going with that path if you understand that that's the narrative you want to take. But if you have the awareness and interest earlier on to be able to then say, okay, I know that's the game and I want to go a different route whether that's based on what your interests are or what may serve you, then that's great. But knowing that naturally, you are going to have to find a way to be able to get it. I think when it comes to it, a lot of artists, especially in the early days, do end up signing deals or other things because it may not even be as fully thought through the way I put it, it may just be from a financial perspective. We all know how tough it could be. I'm sure it's easy for folks to be able to talk offline about why would you ever sign a deal? But when you're actually in it and that label is putting it in front of you, $500,000, $1 million, $2 million check, you never see that kind of money before. It does bring a different level of psyche to the narrative. And if you don't have another ways to get that, you may at least start thinking about it no different than a struggling founder may get a check for their company and then you do at least start thinking through the options. I do think that now there are more flexible nature of options than ever before, whether those are platforms that are willing to offer you, whether it's some type of advance or some type of investment in exchange for the revenue that you may make from your streaming or from other things. There are other non-dilutive opportunities to be able to, whether it's get financing, there's other channels to be able to get marketing. They may not be that same package that you may get at a label, but there's so many options out there. Artists do have the opportunity to really craft what's for them. So it does lead itself more on honestly platforms like this where they can hear you all break down the many different options they have and figure out like what stack works best for them. But knowing that it's gonna look different for everyone. Yeah, I like that the way as you just said that, right the stack, just like a marketing or tech stack in a company, I might want this distributor, I want this type of deal or I don't want this type of deal, like just figuring out how to, looking at the game almost as a buffet, right? And you pick the parts of the game that you want, right? And the fortunate part of the game that we're in right now is you have the ability to actually try, right? At low risk, right? Just like a buffet. I don't really have to pay that much extra. I could just get a couple of carrots and see if these carrots are good. Oh no, I don't like this distribution deal. And I did it. It was only 10 months, right? It was only 12 months. I didn't give away my masters, right? Or I did a singles deal, right? And I kind of want to back away. I don't like how that system felt, right? So the ability to try in a way that's unprecedented today and have this leverage to be able to build within your own does put artists at a significant advantage. And I think that's why people who are from a certain era of the game, who look at it from a business opportunity standpoint, that's why you hear them talk about today as this renaissance, right? This amazing moment, right? Although there are some artists who, from a legacy standpoint, just purely looking at the money from music who are like, ah, this is horrible, right? So it's definitely interesting you see that you said that. But I got one thing I got to go back to because it alludes to taking your brand and trying to make money off of an extension. In one of your newsletters, you, well, I think the bankable business of newsletter, you cited celebrity podcasts as another thing in this category that has basically reflected, hey, just because you have a name doesn't mean it's gonna win because there's been so many failures, right, in terms of celebrity podcasts. Joe Budden has been very vocal, hey, all y'all who think y'all can create a podcast, go ahead and create a podcast, you probably won't be around, right?  And I had a firsthand experience with this early on and I summarized it as not understanding these formats that you get into as well, not just does your name make sense or is it authentic for you to be in this category? But do you even understand this category to do it well? And what I mean by that is the Obamas, right? They had a podcast and I hated it, right? And my wife wanted me to check it out. She thought I was being way too critical. Problem is my wife doesn't listen to podcasts like that. So she doesn't understand why I hated it. It was like overly produced, it didn't feel authentic and a huge part of the podcast format is to be more long-form, less interrupted, you know, these random commercials and edits and adding music and thing that felt like, oh yeah, they weren't really being authentic right there or they had to cut the conversation off because it got a little too real, right? It was all these things that made it not feel like a podcast where at first it's enticing, oh shit, I'm about to hear Michelle and Barack like really talk, right? And it was the opposite of that. So understanding a format, right? And being true to the format, whatever that looked like because it doesn't just have to be a content format, but being true to that format when you enter it, I feel like it can be a huge part of success and failures. I agree. Podcasting has been one of these lightning rod areas and we especially saw this given Spotify and their strategy. Their strategy was heavily influenced by getting celebrities and big names on board. It was ran by someone who had done this type of work in other digital formats and other companies and given Spotify's goals and audio, it was understandable to see how they arrived at that point. But podcasting itself was just so early and the more and more gets mature, the more people really understand why certain people in podcasting have the followings they do and why others just don't gravitate to it. And for so much of the focus, celebrities, their main job that they do is primarily focused on whether it's acting or modeling or things like that. So podcasting is something that can seem quite secondary and they can seem like you have the pull to be able to pull in your other celebrity friends who can have unique conversations where there's a certain level of clicks or intrigue that you may get just based on the names. But once you get beyond that, what are people actually going after? And that's where it started to feel a bit flatter because people don't necessarily need to listen to a podcast to hear an audio version of you going on one of the late night shows with the jimmies and going to promote your new book or whatever it is. It's the shows that are like Joe Budden where he was able to gain traction because he wanted to share his insights. He's someone that many people know had some big singles in the beginning of his career. Well, one big single and a few smaller ones beginning of his career became more known as a lyricist may not have gotten the mainstream love that he saw but he had seen every angle of this industry and is able to then share that in a unique way and not hold back his opinions. That's why he's able to gain traction and have a regular cast of people despite any of the turmoil with past people that have been regulars on his show to be able to maintain that. And that may resonate in a way where he understands the podcast and he's willing to do that because he's been doing this for at least a decade now if I'm just thinking back to whenever he had that first I'll name this podcast later. And similar replies to Rogan or to Bill Simmons or to some of these other podcasters that have been doing it for some time. And that isn't necessarily as analogous to the celebrity because for most of these people their main number one job is I'm a podcaster and this is what I do. And there's something that comes with that where it is hard to just come in and adapt and try to make the format work in that way that doesn't necessarily always line up with people who are trained in acting and they act in section or in sectors where there's also a producer, there's also a director there's other people that have their hands in things that it doesn't necessarily always lend itself in that same way. Yeah man I think it's on one end a conflict with some people's brand to be as transparent because they might trip up and reveal whoa that side of them that either what they're rejecting but then on the other side I think there's a lack of acknowledgement of the talent it actually is to podcast like those guys podcast and converse like those guys converse. Everybody's not that interesting for that long where it can't hold up conversations. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, there's a huge gap there. And I think now we're starting to see some of it mature more but still it's tough. I can speak for this myself June will be the fourth year that I've been podcasting and I want to continue doing this as long as I can as well. But I think one of the reasons that it worked is because we're reaching and talking to a specific audience on a specific topic and it's not for everyone but the people that it is for really do resonate with it and that is the beauty of the platform in a lot of ways. Yeah, man. Don't you think that people should have learned the lesson this whole view from the top floor of thinking hey I'm just gonna hire a bunch of celebrities and faces and build this brand especially things that are like tech and an unstrongly media-based. Like I talked to Jacore about this all the time and like that strategy really doesn't work. I even saw episode of Shark Tank. I was telling him like where Kevin Hart was talking with somebody and they tried to invest.  You be a part of this and then we're gonna hire all these people and Kevin was like man I lost so much money on that strategy. He thought I was just gonna bring my friends over. I know all these people were gonna blow it up and then the business doesn't work out. Like those you think people would have learned by now that is not that simple. Right, exactly. Like this stuff is hard and it takes time. Yeah, it takes time. Even TikTok, right? Them as many other platforms have done they did have a strategy where they did like pay people like celebrities to come over but the reality is that's not what they want, right? That was something that helped win as a part of the scale phase, right? But already something there, a culture that took hold that was rooted in like the youth, right? People who didn't have those names. It's the people who don't have that name especially on like the tech-driven platform type brands are those are the ones who mold the culture. Celebrities can only scale the culture. Celebrities don't have enough energy to even create the culture, right? That's a good distinction. They can't create the culture but they can scale it. That's a good distinction. Yeah, it's interesting man that I don't know you keep seeing this strategy watch but it can work for clothing brands, right? It can work in spaces and places. I just, I don't know if you have any specific thoughts on that like at least categories where you do see it work relatively consistently or maybe a way it can be done to work more versus others. I haven't really. I think that in every category unless you're reaching a category where there's just no base of content or no base of focus on it it's hard to be able to break through without something that's unique has enough pull but then on the other side if you are reaching something that is just so super specific or there's no audience that can be built around it to help sustain then it isn't necessarily going to resonate in the same way. For instance, it's not a surprise that some of the most successful podcasts out there are people that are doing business podcasts. It's the most popular category of podcasting. It has the most valuable audience. They can then charge the sponsors who want to reach that audience larger amounts of money than let's say a podcast that is focused on stamp collecting or just something or pets or something that is just a bit more niche where yes, there could be some high net worth individuals in there but it's still a relatively inexpensive consumer product. So because of that, you may not be able to monetize. So there may be less competition there but there's less competition there for that reason. So even if you may be able to have some type of traction is there some type of play that you can see beyond that? I think a rolled up version of this to some extent is what we're seeing now happen in music streaming because outside of Spotify, the companies that are succeeding in music streaming are all sitting under the largest tech companies in the world and because of that those companies don't necessarily need to be independently profitable but they need to serve the company in some other way whether that's through customer acquisition or something like that. That's the topic I know we could go on and talk about for quite a bit but that is the reality of where things are and it's not a coincidence that that's the landscape and that there is only one non-Apple music, Amazon music company that's in the space that is doing this and even Spotify itself in this post podcast strategy reckoning is trying to figure out how best it continues to grow. Of course it's customer acquisition numbers and it's LTV continue to be strong but can it get to that further level of becoming a profitable company is still where there's great opportunity and so I think we even see this when we scale it up to the larger levels too. Yeah man I think that touches on something I saw pretty early on being in tech I kind of observed that in the platform era there's only really one truly dominant after the dust settles, right? There's gonna be one dominant there might be a second dominant, right? Like a sub as an anti to like a Uber and Lyft, right? But there's like a huge divide between Uber and Lyft as successful as Lyft is but that marketplace is so huge, right? And then after that, it doesn't mean you can't have a successful business but then when we think about venture scale and things like that becomes exceedingly less attractive, right? And Spotify being as dominant yet also as small and the secondaries being as small at the same time kind of speaks to how niche like music is in its own way and how it's hard to really convert and how it's hard to make some money in music, right? Even the companies as much as artists and we complain about the companies even the companies do have trouble making money. And I mean, I like Spotify's product in a lot of ways. I also know that a lot of people have frustrations with Spotify's product but I also do believe that the dynamics of this industry even broader than Spotify are why that company is in the position that it is in today. Yeah, as a fact. Well, I have one quick thing I wanna ask you while we're in this category and then I have the last thing because you mentioned it earlier but I want your thoughts in detail. One, do you have an opinion on Rumble? I don't, I don't. That is fair, that is fair. I just wanted to see if you thought it might grow and get to a certain size or maybe it's just gonna hear overnight. But okay, with that being said, let's see if the, man, I had it up. I wanted to speak on your culture report and you spoke about artists who are selling music and then the billionaires are selling product but you had levels in between that, right? Do you recall those levels or should I pull it up for you and remind you? Yeah, I could bring up the levels here. But yeah, were there any in particular? Because I know of course streaming was the baseline but then we have like product sales, investing. There was also multimedia as well. Highest leverage and lowest leverage, it's this diagram that we had put together showing how the culture's wealthiest artists use their music influence to build companies that sell products that consumers want to buy time and time again. At the top we see product sales, whether you see Rihanna, Diddy, Jay-Z, Dr. Dreyer, they've all not only hit that billionaire status but they've largely done it because they've sold consumer products. We've talked about a few of those already. The next level, which I do think a lot of these levels are similar but we've also seen the people that aren't largely known for investing. Yes, investing can give you a large swath. I do think that a lot of investors, especially hip hop artists and investors have been more likely to invest in earlier stages which of course can lead to high returns but it can be harder to maintain your equity stake or your pro rata that you have in those companies without getting diluted. So they do still rely on investors at later stages but still folks like Nas who do invest alongside Andres and Horowitz in a lot of deals, Snoop Dogg, a millionaire, others that are quite active and then you have the artists who are making great money from live performances as well. We talked about Beyonce and why she might be at this particular area just given that Ivy Park didn't necessarily get there but she's still on a tour that will likely make at least half a million dollars if not more once the Renaissance tour is completed. We have Drake Kendrick Lamar just completed the most highest grossing hip hop tour that we've ever seen and then Travis Scott has also done numbers but then we have TV and film, we have brand partnerships and then we have a music revenue from streaming. So we do continue to see those and it's not even necessarily a high level of where the most money can be made or not be made, there is play of nuance there. Obviously Birdman has been on the record and said that the cash money masters generate 20 to $30 million a year easily and we all know he owns that and him and his brother own that. So, but there's plenty of leverage to be able to build off of that if he chooses to but then there's obviously younger artists like NBA Young Boy or from Polo G more so Young Boy recently but they put out so much frequently but because of the sheer number of output they have they're able to monetize the streams from that. So it was a helpful framework for us internally as we think about things. So we want to share it with others and the response we've got is that it's been helpful from their perspective as well. Yeah, that's a dope. Yeah, man, I love it. I think it's really important for artists to see as they build their career and early on so you can just begin to roadmap and understand that even if I'm not here yet this is the step that's going to get me to this level versus another level because a big part of the game and I feel like in any category of career is understanding which moves matter and not having an expectation of move number one when you're doing move number three. So I love the leverage aspect of it as well just using that word I feel like especially as artists have to become more entrepreneurial leverage is a concept that people should be familiar with and very familiar with not just that surface level but understanding thing to thing where the leverage is. So the things at the bottom, the music, your actual music that's the lowest leverage on this chart and product sales is the highest. The part I want your thoughts on especially product sales versus investing. I feel like we often hear investing as the hierarchy, right? I'm like, oh, now I'm an investor, right? People almost use it for like cloud these days, right? Now I'm investing in something. I have a part, a piece of a startup or whatever yet product sales are not only the highest leverage on this chart. If you look at the people that you have listed there it is very clear, Breanna, Diddy, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, yay that those are the people who are making the most specifically in hip hop. So I would love you to clarify why product sales is a higher leverage activity than investing. I think it's a good distinction. I think there's a few things here. So with investing itself, most of the hip hop artists that are involved with investing, they're mostly doing it at the early stages and because of that they don't necessarily have the money to be able to continue investing in that company at follow on stages the same way that a institutional venture capital firm would. So even though someone like Nas had done quite well from his initial Coinbase investment the people that do even better than the investors in the Coinbase investment are, is the Brian Armstrong, the guy that is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase. So that's an example of why when you're the actual person leading the company when they do exit it does work out in your favor. But there's also a bit of a juxtaposition here because obviously as we know the richest black man in America is there from his investing. Robert Smith owns a private equity firm but again, private equity is late stage investing. He's buying companies, he's flipping them, finding a way to be able to leverage and use those assets and doing it at scale. So especially with product sales and investing the goal and the key thing that we always hear people talk about is ownership and be able to have ownership. Well, those are the two areas in this chart where ownership actually does exist. Of course, there's nuance there. I mean, Ice Cube and 50 Cent obviously do own a lot of the assets that they're creating a multimedia. Birdman does own the cash money, sound recordings and musical assets there but in terms of these actual companies, we do see that. So I could see it flip over time and I think it would be amazing one day if we did see an investor, especially an investor that comes from music that ends up becoming a billionaire based off of their investments. I think we've seen people become tens of millionaires and maybe hundreds of millionaires from their investments but at least from what we've seen on a public perspective we haven't seen that in the same type of way with that. Sure, you can maybe call what Jay-Z has done with some of these alcohol brands that he's bought and sold as an investment but it's also a company that he owned a pretty big stake and then did it as a sale. So there is a private equity nature to that as well. So there's definitely nuance. All right, so the ability to not just invest but to continue to invest so your shares don't get diluted or I guess to stave off dilution, right? Right, and then to be able to invest larger chunks down the road as well, right? A big amount of money to invest. Because yeah, if Robert Smith's firm Vista is making large investments, tens of millions of dollars to then buy companies and then flip it, that's very different than NAS cutting a $50,000 check. You know what I mean? So it's like, so it's that type of thing. There's just more revenue to share when you're playing at that level. Got it, got it. Well, man, that's definitely a conversation I would love to get deeper into another time. Just I feel like, you know, I'm really passionate about that category, artist understanding money, artist thinking about money. That's why we say, you know, creative currency to realize your creativity is a currency that gets translated into, you know, the typical currencies that we monetize but also understanding, yo, you can be about this money too, France was about that money as much as we look at him as an artist. Michael was about that money, right? We see many other artists like Kanye is about that money, although he didn't quite, you know, he's had his struggles around it more and more and more. You see him emphasize the need of money along with ownership and control and all of those aspects of it. And I would, I think a huge part of it is people who are in this space, whether it's being an artist, being an executive or manager or just being people who care about this space actually being open to have these conversations. Cause there's a lot of artists doing some cool shit and making good money outside of music, but they don't talk about that at all. And I want to make that happen. Definitely, definitely. You're a huge part of that charge and I appreciate it. So everybody, if you are listening, right? For first and foremost, much love, right? Anybody who listens to the end, y'all are special, y'all are the people we love the most, we love y'all all, we love y'all the most. Make sure y'all follow Dan at Trapiddle. He has the best hip hop newsletter in the game. And for my opinion, I learned so much from his newsletter and he sends them out consistently. Great thoughts consistently. Is it weekly? It's only weekly, right? Yeah, so we're doing weekly. We'll do twice a week once in a while, but it's weekly at a minimum for sure. So we'll put a link to the site at the bottom. Of course, we'll have all the socials and everything's pop up, but thank you again, Dan, for being on. This is yet another episode of No Labels, Necessary Podcast. I'm Brandon Shawn. And I'm Kory. And we out. Peace. Appreciate you both. Thank you.


By cultivating muscle meat directly without associated organs like intestines, the incidence of foodborne diseases could be significantly reduced, as well as exposure to any antibiotics, pesticides, arsenic, dioxins, and hormones associated with conventionally grown meat. Currently seven hormone drugs are approved by the FDA to bulk up the production of milk and meat in the European Union. There exists a total ban on such use, but even without injected hormones, animal products naturally have hormones because they come from animals. Eggs, for example, contribute more to the dietary intake of astrogens than beef, whether the animal is treated with extra hormones or not. After all, eggs come straight from the hen's ovaries, or of course they're swimming with hormones. But if you're just growing the muscle meat or egg white protein directly, you don't need to include reproductive organs or adrenal glands or any of the associated hormones. Chemical safety is another concern for meat produced under current production systems. There are chemical toxicants in industrial pollutants that build up in the food chain, such as pesticides, PCBs, heavy metals, flame retardants, but with cultivated meat there is no food chain. You could grow all the tuna you wanted with zero mercury. When the World Health Organization determined that processed meat was a known human carcinogen and unprocessed meat, a probable human carcinogen, they weren't even talking about the carcinogenic environmental pollutants. When researchers tested retail meat for the presence of 33 chemicals with calculated carcinogenic potential like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or organochlorine pesticides like DDT and dioxin-like PCBs, they concluded that in order to reduce the risk of cancer, it was suggested limiting ingestion of beef, pork, or chicken to a maximum of five servings a month. Why cultivate meat from scratch when you can just buy organic? Because surprisingly, the consumption of organic meat does not diminish the carcinogenic potential associated with the intake of these industrial pollutants. In recent years, a number of surprising studies have compared the presence of environmental contaminants in organic versus conventional meat in organic was sometimes more contaminated, and not just beef. Higher levels found in pork and poultry, too. If you look at the micro pollutants and chemical residues in organic and conventional meat, several environmental contaminants, dioxins, PCBs, lead, arsenic were measured at significantly higher levels in the organic samples. The green is organic, the blue conventional.  Seafood seems to be the exception, though, with steaming, for example, generally increasing contaminant levels, increasing contaminant exposure, concentrating mercury levels as much as 47%, so better to not have toxic buildup in the first place. Yes, over 95% of human exposure to industrial pollutants like dioxins and PCBs comes from foods like meat, fatty fish, and dairy. But it doesn't just appear there magically. The only way that chicken, fish, and other meat leads to human exposure is because they build up a lifetime of exposure in our polluted world from incinerators and power plants and sewer sludge and on and on. Unlike conventional meat production, a slaughter-free harvest would not just mean no infected animals, but no contaminated animals, pollutant-wise. It would be like taking a time machine back before the Industrial Revolution.


Is an actuarial science or actuarial mathematics degree or major worth it? That's what we're going to be talking about in this video, but before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about college degrees, personal finance, careers and opportunities that are going to lead you to success. And we also go over avoiding some of the common financial traps that so many people fall for. If that sounds like something that interests you and you're new and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. So with that out of the way, let's jump right into it. This one is sometimes referred to as actuarial science, also referred to as actuarial mathematics. For the purposes of this video, these two are basically the same thing. And so I'm just going to go ahead and call it actuarial science. And actuarial science is basically the use of mathematics and statistics to assess risk. Now, generally this risk will be assessed in the finance industry. So one really good example would be insurance. When you take out an insurance policy, there is a lot of uncertainty and risk on the half of the company. And they need to basically figure out using calculations, how much they should be charging you every single month, so that both parties benefit from the arrangement. Now actuarial science is basically a very specialized type of mathematics where only about 1300 people graduate with this degree every year. Now, there are a number of different career paths that you can go down with this degree, you could become an actuary, of course, you could become an accountant, a financial analyst, a cost estimator, you could work in finance.  So first, let's go ahead and talk about salary. With an actuarial science degree, you can expect to make around $64,000 a year in the first five years after graduating and 128,000 in mid-career pay, which is 10 years after graduating and on. Now, if you became an actuary according to BLS, you would expect to make around $108,000 a year, and that's just with a bachelor level degree. That's higher than the median for all math-related careers, and it's much, much higher than the median for all careers in general. Now, like I mentioned before, there are a series of very difficult tests that you have to take, and usually these tests have a passing rate of less than 50%. With each test that you passed, you're going to have more certification and therefore you'll likely end up earning more money. Overall, this is one of the best paying degrees out there. It is kind of a rare degree. You know, there's only 1,300 per year, but it pays extremely well. I'm going to go ahead and give this one a salary score of 9.5 out of 10. Next on the list, we're going to talk about satisfaction. Now, when it comes to satisfaction, I always like to talk about meaning as well as job satisfaction.   For different people, it's going to be completely different which one matters more to you, and this is a very subjective section, so take it with a grain of salt. But the meaning score here was about 42%, which is a little bit below average. Now, of course, if you're somebody who doesn't like doing math, you probably should not go into this degree. There's going to be a lot of math and a lot of number crunching, and specifically, you're going to be working quite a bit with statistics.  However, pay scale does say that actuaries have an 80% job satisfaction score, which means 80% of people are satisfied with their job. That's actually pretty good. Now, I will say that when it comes to job satisfaction, I think flexibility definitely plays a role as well. Flexibility is basically the fact that if you decide for whatever reason that you don't want to do your career anymore, would it be very easy for you to use those skills that you've learned to transition into a different career? Now, the skills that you learn as an actuary, math, and statistics are going to be very valuable in general. However, other math-related degrees, in my opinion, are going to have much more flexibility because of the fact that they kind of just teach you general math, whereas actuary teaches you a very specific type of math that you're going to use in a very specific career. So, if you do go on to become an actuary, that's probably going to be a very good thing. And if that's what you want to do with your life, then it's going to be great.  I'm not saying that it's completely inflexible, but I would say out of the math-related degrees, it's one of the least flexible. Overall, I'm going to go ahead and give this one an eight for satisfaction. Now, according to BLS, math-related occupations are growing at about 27% over the next 10 years, which is much faster than average. To put that in perspective, the other occupations, just general occupations, are growing at about 4%. So, 27% is amazing. Now, on top of that, according to BLS, if you become an actuary, there's 27,000 jobs available. It's growing at 18%, which is much faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be about 4,900 jobs that pop up. Now, you definitely can go down other career paths with an actuary degree, like I mentioned before, but it's probably not as easy as if you just got a mathematics degree. So, this is one of those situations where there's multiple degrees where you could potentially become an actuary, whereas if you've got an actuarial science degree, there's pretty much only one normal career path that you would go down. Again, you could go into something else, but for the most part, what you're going to be learning is going to be tailored towards actuarial science. And for that reason, I think this one is a little bit too niche and a little bit too specific. If you absolutely 100% know that you want to become an actuary, then this is a great choice for you. However, if you're not 100% sure, you might want to consider just getting a math degree or a statistics degree instead. Overall, I'm going to give this one a 7.5 out of 10 for demand. Now, next on the list, we're going to be talking about X factors, and X factors are very subjective as well. Now, X factors involve anything from the risk of automation in the next 10 or 20 years to the hard skills and the soft skills that you're going to learn with this degree, to how well respected the degree is in general, or how the skills that you learn when getting this degree can translate to a bunch of different industries or careers. Now, in terms of automation, I think there's a relatively low chance that this one gets automated. According to willrobotstakemyjob.com, it has about a 21% chance of being automated, which is on the lower side. And about 34% of the people who took the poll thought it might be automated one day. I tend to think that even if the job itself that they're doing right now gets automated, the skills that you learn within the job are going to be able to be transferred to all kinds of different industries and careers.  Now, in terms of the skills, ZipRecruiter has a skills index where they rate the value of all kinds of different skills that you might learn in the workforce and at college. And two of the higher rated skills on this list are going to have to do with financial statements as well as statistics, which are two things that you'll definitely have to learn about if you become an actuary. And when it comes to assessing uncertainty and risk, a large part of the uncertainty is going to be the human element in any market. And humans, for the most part, are relatively unpredictable. And so even if they were able to come up with a computer program that could assess the risk for you, humans are going to change in the future. And so the computer program would have to change with it. And there would, of course, have to be somebody probably an actuarial science person right there next to the computer programmer telling them what they need to change. And when you look at skills in general, there's so many careers out there that are moving towards having people who are really good at math, not that many people like math. Let's just be honest. And the people that are good at math are going to be able to do jobs that a lot of the people that aren't good at math simply cannot do a lot of careers out there that traditionally didn't have very much math involved in them, like marketing, for instance, are now moving towards more of a data driven mathematics and statistical approach. And so people who can do the math side of things are going to have a huge advantage, even in careers that you might not think math is involved in. So overall, I'm going to give this one an 8.5 out of 10 for X factor. So some of the pros here are actuarial science degrees have very, very high pay. If you do want to go down this path, become an actuary, they are paid extremely well. And even if you end up not becoming an actuary, there's a lot of other math related careers that also pay really well. And that's because you learn a lot of valuable skills. And that's the next pro on the list, you're going to be learning a lot of valuable math related skills that just not that many people are either able to do, or they might be able to do it, but they just don't want to because they don't like math. And the third thing is that this is just a very practical degree. Some of the other math related degrees can be a little bit too theoretical. So although you learn a lot of, you know, really valuable math skills, it can be hard for you to see how you can translate those math skills to teaching you something that is going to be valuable to an employer in real life. This is why you might see people that graduate with math degrees have a little bit of trouble getting their first job right out of school. Now, once you get a couple years of experience under your belt, of course, you're going to be good to go. Now, some of the cons of this degree is that it's just a little bit too niche, a little bit too specific. And what I mean by this is if you got a mathematics degree and then just took extra classes in actuarial science, you could pretty easily become an actuary. And you could also get into a ton of other career paths as well. Whereas if you get an actuarial science degree, it's pretty much completely geared and completely tailored to becoming an actuary. Now, of course, you could end up going down a different career path, but it wouldn't be quite as smooth as if you just got a math degree. And if you're not 100% sure that you want to become an actuary, it's probably a better bet for you to just get a math degree and take extra classes in actuarial science.   These are some very smart people that are taking these exams and the passing rate is still below 50%. A lot of the time they'll study for an exam for months and months and they'll still end up not passing it. Now, if you're somebody who loves taking exams, you like that college environment where you're taking exams all the time, maybe this is going to be great for you, but for a lot of people, that might be a little bit off-putting.  A lot of people don't like math. So if you don't like math, don't get into actuarial science.  All right, so my overall ranking for this degree is going to be 8.375 out of 10. That is very, very good. If you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap the like button. Hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, share the video, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. that you have on the video. And before you leave, make sure to check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.


Hi, and welcome to this week's Wednesday webinar entitled Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite. My name is Jill Bates, and I'm eager to share information with you on this topic. This webinar will utilize resources from Dr. Jody Green, UNL Extension Educator and Urban Entomologist. Dr. Green has given me permission to include slides from her presentation, Getting Schooled Battle of the Bedbugs, that she presented at the annual School Health Conference in June 2017. In addition, I'll be referencing information included in the publications, dealing with bedbugs, and Got Bedbugs, Don't Panic, There Are Steps You Can Take. So let's get started. Well, we all know that bedbugs have been around for a long, long time. Why? They even made the lyrics of this song, which dates back to the late 19th century. Bedbugs were common up until World War II, but they weren't really seen the next 30 years due to the introduction of DDT. When I was growing up, my parents would frequently say, Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. Although it was a cute little bedtime saying, I truly had no idea what it meant because I had never seen a bedbug. Well, after the EPA banned DDT in the 1980s, bedbugs became much more prevalent. Since the year 2000, bedbug problems have just increased in the US. Why? Well, human bedbugs are found around the world and are spread when people travel. One possible reason for the resurgence is that today's bedbugs are hard to control. They have changed physiologically to survive chemical treatments with a thicker exoskeleton and increased enzyme levels that detoxify insecticides. A survey conducted by Bugs Without Borders indicated that bedbugs occur in all 50 states year-round in all areas. They're still on the rise and they're very difficult to control. If you look at the graph over to the side, you'll notice that among the top 13 places for bedbug infestations are hotels, motels, college dorms, and nursing homes. Places where lots of people sleep. So how do you identify a bedbug? Well, bedbugs are reddish brown and they don't have wings so they can't fly or jump. They are usually very flat except after they've just eaten and are filled with blood. And you can see that here. You can see the shape changed from the flatness to the full shape. They like human blood the best, but they can also feed on blood from dogs, cats, and other pets. Bedbugs can consume three times their body weight in a single feeding and this engorgement only takes from 3 to 12 minutes. During the day, bedbugs hide in tight places near sleeping locations like near beds or sofas. They come out at night to feed and find people by sensing the warmth of their bodies. Bedbugs usually bite on exposed skin of the neck, arm, and shoulders, but sometimes they also bite the legs and the ankles. Now some people are really bothered by this itchy red bite, but about 20 to 25% of individuals don't react at all. A female bedbug lays eggs individually and lays between 200 and 500 eggs in her lifespan. Now these eggs are glued to surfaces and they hatch after about 7 to 12 days. I think a really interesting fact about bedbugs is that they can live for months or even up to a year without food. So they can live in empty hotel rooms or empty apartments until people move in. So where do they live? Well bedbugs usually live in gaps, cracks, and other openings around the bed, usually within about 15 feet. However, they can crawl 20 feet during the night looking for a meal and then go back to their hiding spot in the mattress, the box springs, or on upholstered furniture. Bedbugs are also expert hitchhikers. They travel from one place to another in backpacks, clothing, luggage, books, and other items. Before we go any further, let's differentiate between a bedbug infestation and a bedbug introduction. Now an infestation is where there's a large number of bedbugs, usually in a place where people sleep almost every night and there's an unlimited food source which means that there are always people present. A bedbug introduction on the other hand is just a single bedbug or a small number, maybe just a few bedbugs that are dropped by a person who spent time in an infested place and then traveled to a location where no one sleeps, like a library or a school or possibly an office building. So in schools, infestations are very, very uncommon, however we might have a bedbug introduction because a bedbug may hitchhike to school from an infested home of a student or a teacher or some other school employee. And one thing to keep in mind is that bedbugs that hitch a ride into the school could be carried home by another person making the school a potential hub for the spread of bedbugs. So what do you do if a bedbug is found at school? Well, keep calm and communicate. If a bedbug is found on a student or someone else, it may indicate the bedbug came from their home. However, since bedbugs can crawl, it's also possible the bedbug was brought to school by someone else. So what are our next steps? If you see bugs or bites on a child or another person, discreetly remove the individual from the classroom so the school nurse or another qualified individual can examine the student's clothing and other belongings. Any bugs found should be removed and collected for identification. If a confirmed bedbug is found, contact the parents or guardian and consider sending home educational materials related to bedbug inspection and treatment. Students shouldn't be excluded from school and schools should not be closed. It's also important to remember the following. Don't overreact.  Don't allow untrained staff to apply pesticides on school property. Don't use over-the-counter pesticides and never use outdoor pesticides inside a building. And again, don't close the school and don't exclude students who you suspect may have brought bedbugs. So what are you going to tell parents? Well if you have a positive bedbug ID, tell the parents about the sighting and provide information on bedbug control. Although bedbugs have nothing to do with cleanliness or socioeconomic status, there is still a stigma that can come with having bedbugs. Reassure the parents that having a bedbug infestation does not mean that their home isn't clean. However, students should limit the items they bring to school and store school supplies in protective boxes or ziplock bags at home. Backpacks, lunchboxes and other items that travel back and forth to school can be inspected daily, both at home and at school. We know that bedbugs don't discriminate based on age, gender, race, socioeconomic status or cleanliness. However, clutter does increase areas for bedbugs to hide, makes it difficult to do an inspection and it may be also more difficult to treat. So encourage people to regularly decrease the clutter in their homes and we're also going to want to reduce classroom clutter, possibly storing teaching materials in clear-litted boxes. We need to focus on regular cleaning of areas in school like lost and found areas, areas where kids may sleep, upholstered furniture and even wall-mounted items like pictures, clocks, mirrors and signs and be sure to vacuum regularly. There are a few tips that you can give to parents if an infestation seems to be a problem. They can be instructed to use a lint roller on upholstered furniture, car seats or the interior of their vehicles. They can vacuum up the bedbugs from carpet, mattresses, car seats and again upholstered furniture remembering to clean the vacuum and dispose of the vacuum bag or wash the container with soapy water. A trick to use recommended by Dr. Green is to cover the vacuum attachment with pantyhose so that the bedbugs will be trapped on the exterior of the attachment. They can also put clothing and bedding in a hot dryer for at least 30 minutes. We know that regular sanitation and periodic inspections will help keep bedbugs away. I also wanted to mention that bedbugs can hit your ride on books. So if you notice dark, fecal spots, bugs or exoskeletons on a book, notify your librarian immediately. The book will need to be placed in a Ziploc bag and isolated from other books on the shelves.  Well, when traveling and staying away from home it's important to check your room for bedbugs. When you arrive, place your suitcase and bags on a hard surface like the desk or in the bathroom and then start your inspection. This is what you're looking for. Fecal spots, those dark spots that we mentioned before, shed skins or exoskeletons, blood stains. You may see bugs, either dead or alive, eggs or even bites. So look at the mattress as this is the most common area for bedbugs to live. You may also wish to check the box spring behind the headboard and any upholstered furniture that may be in the room. Don't forget to check the luggage holder. It's also a good idea to travel with a large plastic bag. You can put your dirty clothes in the bag as bedbugs are often attracted to the smell that we leave behind on our clothing. You can take simple precautions at home too. Reduce the number of items that you're transporting between locations. Keep your coats and your shoes and boots in a separate area. Use your home dryer regularly. Store your suitcases and other luggage away from your sleeping areas. Rest in plastic totes for storage. Regularly inspect your beds and your bed frames and talk to your house guests because we all know that bedbugs occasionally hitchhike. Finally don't even think about picking up used furniture even if it's free and sitting right on the curbside. So I hope you never ever have to join the Bedbug Club or need to call the Bedbug King. Hopefully the only contact you'll have with a bedbug will be as a hazard on the miniature golf course. Remember if you have further questions please check out the resources on the Nebraska Extension and Lancaster County website or contact me at ESU8JBates at ESU8.org. Thanks for watching and don't let the Bedbugs bite.