Has Business Got the Creator Economy All Wrong?

Not letting you off the hook here. What company, which company, which types of companies are not speaking to Gen Z effectively? I'll be very frank with you. I think the massive majority of companies. The creator economy is booming and Bumble just flipped the script. You're watching Fortune Daily. I'm Ellie Austin. So Bumble is dropping the rule that built its brand. For 12 years, the dating app's pitch was simple. In hetero matches, women make the first move. But now, as my colleague Emma Hinchliffe reports, either person can message first. And the app is extending its reply window from 24 hours to 72. This is an example of a company choosing engagement over orthodoxy and acknowledging in the process that dating apps need to evolve to maintain relevance. It also poses a curious leadership quandary because when a feature that defines your brand starts creating too much friction for customers or becomes outdated, is holding on to the old idea riskier than changing it? Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Hurd seems to think it is. Next, a Fortune story that may be the most honest AI product of the year. A former Google employee built ChatTJB, a chatbot that looks like AI, but has no algorithm, no large language model, and no machine generating its responses. It's just one guy, Tucker Bryant, and a growing community of more than 10,000 volunteers typing back. The project has already received more than 100,000 prompts. Bryant calls it artisanal intelligence. It's a joke, of course, but it also makes a real point. As tech companies spend billions making machines sound more human, people may be discovering that actually, they prefer knowing there's an actual human on the other side of the interaction, not just tech. Next up, we are talking to Ziad Ahmed, the head of NextGen at the talent agency UTA, and he'll share what business gets right and what it gets wrong about Gen Z. Also, senior AI reporter Emily Folini joins me to share her reporting on OpenAI's back channel for internal friction, and business editor Nick Lichtenberg breaks down Kalshi's newest partnership. Ziad, hello. Hi. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. So as a teenager, you founded a Gen Z marketing company that a couple of years ago was acquired by the talent juggernaut UTA. Yes. I'm researching you for this chat. I saw that you said people like to talk about Gen Z, but they don't talk to us or build with us. Yeah. Give us an example of a brand or brands that have got that interaction wrong with Gen Z. Look, I'm going to start with who's doing it right. Okay. Right. I think often of this quote by Corey Marchesotto, who is the president of Elf Beauty and a dear friend, has been a client, mentor, role model to me, and she's this amazing quote, right, which is that one of the most key metrics of brand health is the distance between the C-suite and the consumer. And what she means by that and what she lives by is she spends a lot of time with me. She spends a lot of time with Gen Z consumers and with partners who help them understand cultures, conversations, communities, that sometimes are really far away from the boardroom. And so oftentimes a lot of decisions that are made around product, around marketing, around messaging, around culture, miss the mark entirely because the culture makers who are responsible for stewarding those trends into the zeitgeist are completely absent from the conversation. And so I draw a lot of inspiration from brands like in Elf Beauty and a coach who's one of our big clients, who when you look at June, who's their global CMO, she spends so much time traveling around the world talking to Gen Z consumers in the local markets, which are key focus areas for a coach, to really understand what are they going through? What's important to them? And so how does that show off in coaches' marketing? I think that we, any of us, right, are a reflection of the information that we consume, right? I am a big believer in this idea that we are each the sum average of the five people that we spend the most time with, or the 50, or the 500. And I think by virtue of spending more time with people who challenge your perspective, who make you aware and give you the perspective to have sensibilities and sensitivities to different lived experiences, you make different decisions, right? And that's everything from casting choices, to who you hire behind the camera, right? To what stories you think are worth telling, to which stories you think are worth integrating into. But I think a lot of this philosophically speaking is also about the frame of reference in regards to how marketing and advertising is constructed structurally. Historically, marketing has been built on this interruptive model of media. Let me interrupt someone's entertainment. I think the more you hear from young people, you hear how they're going on their phones, and how, whether it's Netflix, or whether it's YouTube, or whether it's the New York Times, or whatever it is, these are our fortune, right? These are artists, you know, apps or buttons we can click on our phone when we're bored. And it's not linear versus streaming versus social. It's one media ecosystem. And it's how do we tell stories that live porously across these borders? And how do we not interrupt entertainment? How do we integrate into entertainment? How do we become entertainment, right? Is the provocation. I think that the more that a brand spends time with a consumer, the more they realize that in today's marketplace, any brand that isn't thinking of themselves as a media company is losing market share present tense. So let's go back to the original question, which is, not letting you off the hook here. What company, which company, which types of companies are not speaking to Gen Z effectively? Look, I'll be very frank with you. I think the vast majority of companies are doing it poorly. I think, look, I'll give you an example of a brand of a contrast on this question. Sterling Point is a show that just came out on Prime Video that I'm obsessed with. And I think it's one of the best examples of what content ought to look like tailored to this generation that we've seen in the last decade. And so I was just in the car. Tell me why that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So on the way here, I was scrolling on TikTok, right? And as I do all day, every day, and not all day, maybe more hours than I should. And so much of the commentary from young people is like, this is the first show that I've seen in a while where the young people talking to each other sound like what young people actually talk to each other. It's not this chewy, forced, weird, contrived perception of what Gen Z talks like and is using all these buzzwords that are overkill. It sounds like teenagers wrote it. And did they? Like, were there Gen Z in the writers' room? So I think her name is Megan Park, who is the writer and creator of the show. I saw an interview that she was giving about the show and what I think that she said is that she left the actor to Adlib, right? She had, well, she was an actor on The Secret Life of an American Teenager, which was a big show when we were, when I was younger than I am now. And she said, my experiences as an actor informed my perspective as a director and as a showrunner now. And so giving creators, so Keane Ruffalo was giving an interview, I think on the Today Show or something, or Good Morning America, one of those, right? And was saying that so many of the scenes, he was just able to have the liberty to talk like he would talk, right? And I think that makes a huge difference. And that, I think we can translate to a lot of different mediums and modalities. I think the brands that give creators the most open briefs and say, hey, you know your audience. You know how to talk about these things. Go talk in your voice. I think that translates a lot better than the brands who give their creators really prescriptive briefs and say, hey, hold the bottle at this 45 degree angle and use these specific vocabulary in it. Then it looks and feels like advertising because it is, right? And it feels forced because it is forced. And I think authenticity is often this buzzword that we hyperfixate on in the marketing and advertising world. And my conviction is that authenticity isn't that hard. Things feel authentic when they are authentic, things feel forced when they are forced. I think a lot of brands ask me, how do I be authentic? But really what they're asking me is how do I seem authentic, which is inherently an oxymoron. You cannot seem authentic. And if you're only interested in the optics and aesthetics of authenticity, but not the structural integrity of authenticity, how do you make the thing true that you want to be true? Then you're missing the plot entirely. And I think Sterling Portman is an example where she made the thing true. Structurally, in terms of how she set up her set, in terms of how she told the story. And it wasn't this reboot of another thing, an IP. It was a brand new story. That's put brand new talent on the screen. Let's give them permission to be themselves. And I think it's the brands like a coach and like else that are also giving creators and new stories flight that are soaring. So playing devil's advocate for a second, I buy into everything you say about Sterling Point. Talent agencies like UTA are increasingly bringing more influencers onto that roster. And maybe less writers, less traditional actors, models say. Is that a wholly positive thing? Well, I would challenge that. Okay. Right? Jake Shane is talent that UTA is proud to represent. And of course, got his start as a creator. And now he just sold the show to Hulu, right? And will be writing and creating a show. And so I think so many of the creatives at the forefront of culture-making today, maybe got their start as a creator, but have now been able to become top-notch chefs and top-notch executives and top-notch creators. Because to me, being a creator for most people is they have this passion and creator becomes a distribution mechanism in which to talk about it. A which for folks to know about. I think of TikTok and social media today and often like Disney Channel when we were younger. It decides who we get to even see and therefore decides who will then become famous. But what's interesting about today is it's democratized the landscape that if you're really good at anything and make content about it, you can become known for that thing. And then that can leapfrog and jumpstart your career. And a lot of my provocation to my clients who are CMOs and otherwise is, we need to expand the aperture by which we think of creators. They're not just creators. They are creatives. They are co-conspirators. They are co-collaborators. They have so much more value to the marketplace than just advertising inventory. These people are the best at what they do in their respective fields. And I think so many of the stories, like you look at overcompensating another prime video hit, like Benito Skinner created. That was IP that he'd been developing in various formats through standup, through podcasts, through digital short form shows that then was expanded upon and created into this amazing scripted television series. And is he a comedian? Is he a showrunner? Is he a writer? Is he a creator? He's all of the above, right? And so I think this multi-hyphenate era is what UTA is really excited about, but also what I'm really excited about, right? As a young person who is tired of an ecosystem that has asked so many of us to reduce who we are into one box. And I don't think that has ever felt right as a human or as a professional to so many of us. You mentioned Jake Shane, which I think is really interesting because his therapist podcast is obviously, or his show has been a huge hit. But as a journalist, I'm very interested in, I've watched interviews with him where he says he will always edit out, for example, if an interviewee isn't happy with the answer they gave. I think that clip was fascinating. That clip was fascinating. And for me as a journalist, it is, there's an interesting tension around that. Because when talent has the opportunity to go on a show like Therapist with Jake Shane. Yeah. They're not gonna come and speak to us journalists who don't hand over editorial control. Yeah. And the audience don't know the difference necessarily. Sure. Between the two types of content. No question. So do you think about the impact of the creator economy on say traditional media and journalism and that truth-telling that's embedded in those industries? I think the answer is unquestionably yes. Of course, as an individual and as a citizen, I am deeply concerned about an era where so many people, this is not just specific to young people, are subject to tremendous amounts of misinformation and some tremendous amounts of complex realities of our modern media landscape that obscure a lot of the rigor that goes into traditional journalism, which is essential for a thriving democracy. And of course, I care about that. But I would also say that UGA cares deeply about that. UGA has a thriving news division, which represents many of the leading journalists that are responsible for a lot of the rigor that govern a lot of our understanding of geopolitics and current events. And that exists in tandem and to your point, in tension, often with other components of the media ecosystem. But I think that's what makes beautiful discourse and beautiful art. And I don't think that it is my ambition ever to shy away from that. I think that we have gained and we have lost in every innovation that has ever taken flight. And I think as we look at this explosion of creators, I am excited about the democratization of power, of microphone, and more people can make more art in their ecosystems, in their worlds, and make an honest living off of it than ever before. Ziad, thank you so much for coming in. There's so much here. We really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure and privilege. Next up, The Anatomy of a Deal with Nick Lichtenberg. What is hypergamblification? I'm not sure if I could totally define it, but the term comes to us from this source I interviewed named Loris Zemanski. And he created Blanket in partnership with Kalshi, which is this small business hedging risk tool. And he published an essay last August that I found on his x.com account about the age of hypergamblification. And when I asked him about it, he said it's not part of Blanket and his current work partnering with Kalshi. But he does think that there is a sort of lottery ticket economics that work in the modern age. I asked him if this was related to this thing called financial nihilism, where young people maybe have given up on hope in conventional financial success. So they've embraced things like crypto and things like prediction markets and even retail trading with the meme stocks that we saw five years ago. This whole theory around memes and games and gamification and this hypergamblification is what he calls it. I think it's a really interesting debate. And I asked Loris and the Kalshi people, Nicholas, I asked them, is Kalshi creating a new market or is it just a market that has always existed and a human impulse that has always existed that Kalshi and Polymarket and prediction markets of their sort are helping reveal for the first time? The blanket functions similarly to that, where small businesses, say like an ice cream shop, will be hedging for a cold day when no one wants ice cream and they can buy contracts on Kalshi with the help of this blanket tool, which surfaces these opportunities to try to hedge their business so that they are generating income and accounting for things like seasonality. The key data points with my conversations with Kalshi that stick out to me are that 75% of people who go there are not placing any kind of hyper-gamblification style wager. They're looking at the data and they're looking at what people are interested in. And so it's almost a source of news. Prediction markets like this might be getting into the news business. And I used to work at Bloomberg. It reminds me of how information was commodified by Bloomberg in a new way back in the 90s. And I'm open-minded about it. I think maybe prediction markets are a new form of news. They're certainly a new form of data. Emily, hello. So I wanted to bring you in to do an OpenAI check-in because as ever, there's a lot going on at the company. So this week, the longtime exec, former CEO until very recently, Brad Lightcap announced that he's leaving the company. The most recent in a long line of shuffles and departures at the top levels of OpenAI. What's behind his decision, do you think? Great. So this is a huge departure. Brad Lightcap joined in 2018. So that's four years before ChatGPT became a household name. So it was the early, early wave. He built so many teams at the company. He was most recently COO. And then in April, he actually shifted into a kind of a nebulous, like special projects role, still reporting to Sam Altman. And then now he's left. So we're not sure what he was working on during that time. But in his announcement, he said that his mind has kind of started to wander. He's thought about external blockers to maybe achieving AGI or OpenAI's mission. So he's starting to think bigger and wanting to, I guess, fight battles elsewhere, contribute to the future of AI outside the four walls of OpenAI. And very interesting. As I said, he is not the only person leaving the company right now. There's been departures at all levels. What is that telling us about the state of the company? Maybe the culture? What's your reporting? Finding out. Yeah, there's every month, it seems like there's a new high profile person leaving. As we know, there are massive talent wars in the AI industry. There was the meta poaching spree. There are companies like Thinking Machines started by former OpenAI employees where they poach people, then they go back to OpenAI. And so there's tons of shifts and movements in the industry. And what I'm hearing from talking to employees of these companies is that there's just this pressure to want to be at the foremost lab that you could be. They think this is a really important moment. They want to be doing the best work possible. And another thing that doesn't get a lot of light is just how much money that they're getting. So the pay packages are enormous. Someone like Brad Lightcap almost certainly participated in a recent huge tender offer, which is kind of like an internal, the company's buying back shares from employees. I talked with people that, you know, nobody would know. They've just been at OpenAI since 2022 or 2023, kind of like rank and file engineers working in different parts of the company. They cashed out $10 million in a recent tender offer. Not even leadership. They've just been there. And part of their pay structure was they were getting more and more shares. And as OpenAI's valuation has truly gone like this, it's just grown so much. And so they're basically retiring in their late 20s or early 30s. There's not much incentive to stay chained to your desk if you are taking home $10 million. Exactly. Fascinating. What do we know about what Brad Lightcap is going on to do next? Because he's hinted at a new venture. Yeah, he just said start something new, which I think is the classy way to do it. Usually when people say they're leaving, they don't say, oh, and I'm going to do this other thing I care about so much more than OpenAI. That it's competitive to the company I'm leaving. It'll be crazy if he does join another AI company. But he said he wants to start something new, which suggests, I don't know, maybe a new company. He talked about those challenges to achieving OpenAI's mission. So I don't know if that's political, if it's technological, if it's a social, kind of like cultural issue. I mean, there's so many challenges facing AI right now. And he says he wants to solve one of them. So we'll see. Okay, well, Brad, if you want to come on the show and tell us, open invite. Emily, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. That's it for Fortune Daily. I'm Ellie Austin. See you next time.