Broadly Speaking: Nothing Starts with No

today we're talking about ladies. Yeah, we're going like Beyonce just did Bacello. Well, we're going rides. So we're gonna have ari Wen Groff, publisher of Broadley, on the show. Broadley being the women's platform on Vice. So we wanted to have arian other than her being a total badass, she is a total bad super smart and super crazy smart.

To talk about publishing for female issues looks like today brands, how brands can get around it, and how brands maybe aren't getting around it, and also like, what is content for women actually look like? What does that actually mean? Or does it mean anything? Can we categorize it? And so we wanted or should we categorize it? And I think for us, one of the things that Laura and I have talked a lot about is that a lot of publishers have come out with kind of female adjacent

content to their general content. Being adjacent adjacent keyword. And I think that Vice was one of the first who actually created a female platform, right which was not influenced or informed by other topics that existed, but rather was hitting issues that went deeper than sort of surface pop culture that you can catch in any of the glossy

magazines or celebrity rags. Yeah, totally. I think you can go to school on culture through a female lens in some ways with broadly, so like the topics are, they're intense there in the intensely also educational right from the standpoint of what's happening in other parts of the world, and are He's going to talk a little bit about some of the the places she's gone, some of the people that she's talked to, and the growth that they're going to be seeing globally and that intensity just to touch

on it, because I think it's super important that intensity is now part of this woke American culture right. It is part of not the subconscious, it is a part of the conscious of young female audiences. And I think for as you were just alluding to, for brands to sort of miss the opportunity to not just get on the bandwagon, but truly find a purpose within that platform. Are He's going to talk to us about why that's

important now more than ever? So with that A hundred emoji A hundred are you GLF, We'll be right back. We're back in this studio at Lantia with a very special guest, ari Wen Groff, the publisher of Broadly Advice. Good to be here. So all right, we were just shooting the ship a bit about your background, and you've been at vice for about four years, right, But you

came from politics. I came from politics. I got my start working for Governor Shumlin, who ran for office in when all of the other Republicans one across the country. He was one of the few Democrats that one, and then worked for him as press secretary and worked for the party for a long time, did some consulting, and

then ended up switching over to media. And I love that you were just telling us like I knew that I could create socially responsible legislation potentially if you could get if you could get it past, and then you started thinking about media because you felt like you could do this in media, but at a broader, probably faster pace level of change. Yeah. I mean, if you're lucky, when you're working for a state house or on the hill,

you could get one two pieces of legislation done. And in Vermont there was a lot more pressure because there's like less than six hundred thousand people in the whole state. So someone calls you and says this is important to me, and you don't do it, You're going to see them at the fair and they're going to bring it up to you. Whereas if you wanted to do something larger and moved to d C, especially because it was Republican controlled Congress, there was a zero percent chance of getting

anything done. And so I wanted to move into a space where I could actually take the same issues that I cared about and have a larger impact. But you had no idea who vice was, Oh my god, none, like like the story, like a hundred percent zero clue.

Um I was. I was essentially doing all these informational interviews and got really connected by all of these amazing women, and it was Peggy Panosh connected me to Meglow connected me to Ellen East and who who said when I met with her, there's a small group of women who look out for each other. So if you need anything, let me know. But none of those meetings felt right.

And I got connected through a friend of mine to the general council at Vice and literally didn't even realize that he was a general counsel because if you look back at my cover letter, I called him the president CEO of a company, so clearly didn't even know who Shane was at the time and obviously didn't think about

it seriously enough to put in the research. And I got called in and from the time I went in for the first meeting to two weeks later, there was a new wall in the building and there were still two entrances into it at a time. But it was just crazy, like to me, it was so unlike anything

I've ever seen, and it was just attractive. Yeah, it was attractive to feel like I could walk in and make any stamp I wanted and that that would be supported and and very much the philosophy of ice at the time and still now is nothing starts with no like I could bring anything up, I could join any meeting, I could raise my hand. I had to raise my hand,

but I could participate. And to me, that was an incredible structure coming from the political world where I was always young and I could be on the fringe of the room, but no one ever thought that I necessarily should be in the room. And when you were working at Vice at the time, there were so few people. You were there because you were supposed to be there and everybody was just running up a hill. Did you

question yourself when you had to raise your hand? I think when you felt that eat, You're like, I have something to say or was it just so open? Yes, I definitely questioned myself, particularly because I didn't know anything about media. Like when I look back, I spent a long time listening first, Like, I definitely didn't put myself out there, but when I felt comfortable to, I did, and I started taking on side projects and working a lot more on synergy within the company. You know, at

the time, Viceland was an idea. We didn't even have a linear channel. But when I started to gain confidence in that, then I just went for it. And Shane was always supportive of me, and that I mean when Gloria first came to the office. We're talking about Gloria when she first came. UM, it was just supposed to be a meeting with Shane and Gloria and Amy Richards, who's her sort of advisor and confidant. And I said to him, you know, I like Gloria Steinam, Can I

be in that meeting? And so I joined him. By the end of it, Um he was like, Ari, I'll run this with you, and then I just took it. But it turned into a show that we made on Viceland called Women of Cloria Steinham, which was around international women's issues and how if we continue to silo them,

we won't move forward systemically. And that really came out of seeing that at the time there weren't stories that we're talking to women around in depth um international issues in the way that I felt there should be, and so this was kind of our view of doing that in the vice way. So fast forwards, it's certainly the year of the woman or women are just the whole

damn girl squad. And you find yourself as the publisher of Broadly, Can you talk about that journey and what the founding sort of principle principle yeah, was around the development of that project and now it turned into a full fledged platform. Yeah. When I was creating Women UM,

at the same time Vice was working on Broadly. And that started because we always knew that there was a home for women at Vice, but not enough women knew it, and we didn't want to take like ten years or however long it would take naturally to bring that in UM. And so we felt like creating broadly, which is what we believe is we don't undermine women's intelligence, we speak to it. And so in that we decided to take what device do better than anyone else, and that's video,

and let's take it for women. UM. And so when I was creating Woman, we were creating Broadly, and we actually had Unilever as our launch partner for that. And two and a half years later, it's still our most successful digital launch to date. It's our second youngest audience, most mobile UM. We've won a Lifestyle Webby for a website. We're up for it again. So we really feel like there's still nothing that quite compares to what we do UM. Of course, there are other really great sites out there

for women. But it's so interesting because you know, we call it the Year of the Woman, but some of the stuff that's coming up just like blows my mind. Like even the Pulitzer announcement today was by a woman, which is the first time, and it's hundred in two year history that that's happened woman headlining. Right when that in the morning, I had to watch it. Everyone was unbelievable.

It was incredible. So so I think what you're you're just bringing up is interesting that there's certainly a lot of women's content out there, but not many things, like Broadly Anti said, haven't been a female first platforms that have taken off quite in the way yours has. I think we can count on our hands a number of you know, female first. What do you think about the Lenny Letter of the World, the Lily from Washington Post, But that actually feels and I'll just I love the

Washington Post, love you, but it feels adjacent. It feels still to the side. And I think what what I always found it interesting about Broadly and about Lenny Lenny is all about females. Broadly was one of the first right that also to your point, didn't play Kate, but but actually intrigued. Yeah, well, and that's the core of what broadly is right, Like, we're not going to create something where every single headline has to remind you that

you're a woman. We're going to provide value in the content that we're making for you, and we want to make sure that we're providing value to our audience. I think, I mean, I actually do think that that is what teen Vogue as well is doing right now. You know, the truth is is right now we see for broadly women and LGBT content because truthfully, the younger generation doesn't

see gender as a huge part of their identity. You know, it's what we're talking about in terms of the year of the Woman, Like, the change of how we feel we're presented as women versus young sixteen year olds is so different. They don't see it like that. The idea that these things adjacent, I think is a great word

live adjacent to the male dominated content. Do you think are that that is a part of the issue, and then that it's not this integrated thing and that you went out and said we're going to remove female from even the headline. We're going to create content that speaks to a broad audience with a specific segment in mind

is a huge part of the problem. You know. One of the things that works about broadly is that when we grew its original Facebook audience, we did it based off of the vice Facebook when we would be sharing so broadly, audience isn't even percent female. It changes based on the topic that you're talking about, and we're therefore introducing content around and about women to men that therefore

wouldn't be seeing it otherwise. And I think that's a huge part of it, Like you're siloing out women's content to women who already know their women and they know what they want, and you're not telling these stories to the men that aren't taking the time to listen. And that's part of why they're not able to adjust. And women have such a huge spending power, they have such a huge consumption, right, and yet we're like these things are so surprising to us. I think it'll be a

long time. It's going to kill some sites because they're not adjusting fast enough. What is the conversation with advertisers. I mean, there's so many companies out there and so many brands who have taken on diversity, who have taken on um female issues and female content and marketing to females. But I'm not sure that there's systemic change, and you can see that in some of the kind of partnerships

and conversations around partnerships. Yes, we've been lucky at Vice that there's no compromising around the fact that we will work with a brand to tell the best story possible as opposed to trying to tell something that they already think their audience knows. So, for example, we did a partnership with Smyrnoff this year where they wanted to increase their relevance around women, and so we noticed that only of headliners for DJs were women, So why don't we

make a goal to double that? So we worked with them, we worked with Spotify to do that to double that number, and then we did a long form doc about it. Um it actually was voted with ad Age is the number one branded partnership this year and was nominated for

a Webby because we're telling a story. Like I always say when I'm in brand meetings that what Vice and what broadly does best is that in the same way that kids will remember a song that they like because more than like a homework assignment or a math problem because I actually like the song. We're going to tell a story that that kid or that young person is going to like, and therefore they're going to internalize it in a different way. So when we're talking to brands,

it's the same thing. It was a huge mission for me in broadly to not um work with just a beauty partner for our initial launch. Our initial brands, like the brands that we work with, we have a couple that I can't announce today but that are coming out soon that are traditionally male focused, but we're doing a program with them for women because they see the value

in that. But most of the time when I am talking to brand still they will first bring up beauty fashion, what is the broadly woman, who does she look like? And while that's important and what her style is is important, it's more important for us to talk about what she's interested in, listening to what she wants to watch, Like our auto and finance brands coming to you. Auto yeah, Finance no, But I actually think finance is still such

a missed opportunity in general. Like, you know, most of the stuff that they're doing and you'll still see it. Most of the things that people are interested in financing our lists. They don't really want to get into something that they feel subversive, and anything around women is subversive to them, right, let's be honest. And women don't want platitudes. They want to feel like there's action around them and

for us right now. I mean, that's why we started the Broadly Film Fund, and that actually gives brands an opportunity if they want to make content around the films, to actually feel like they're taking apart and empowering a young next generation of creators. But most of the time when you talk to them about it, everything is a little bit too scary. Look at these female adjacent brands around traditional or legacy media companies, Um, they've merchandized it

with the word woman or women in the headline. Can you talk a little bit about the fundamental difference in why you chose to go broadly um, and what sort of the development of that platform looked like when you were conceiving it, Like, what were the filters that you said, this can't look like this, because if we do this, we will just have ended up like everybody else who is badging our content with a female lens. When we were creating broadly, and we went through many iterations of

what the name could potentially be. We actually felt like it was important to reclaim that word, which had previously been seen in some ways as a negative connotation for what uh so when we were doing broadly because we felt like speaking to women's intelligence was at the core of what we wanted to do. We also felt like it had to be a journalism first sight, Like when I'm explaining broadly, I don't necessarily people always say to me,

what's your twenty nine rooms, right? And I really yes, And I have to say I compare Broadly much more often to something like a long form underground New Yorker or I want to find those not And it's nothing against refinery, but I think it's important that we speak to what the other pillars of interest are to that woman, and that's what we wanted to show. We wanted we didn't want to make a reactive site that was reacting

to news or pop culture. We wanted to make the news in the same way that Vice doesn't respond to breaking news, like kindergartener's playing soccer and everyone's running after the ball. They go and tell the story before, and they tell it after and we reflect that in our journalism. Um and so as as the site has evolved, we are trying to incorporate now more of an LGBT audience into that as well. So going back to Gloria, Gloria, Yes, she's amazing to work with it because she's a hundred

percent herself, which is why she fit with VICE. I mean, there's no other company still I think that would have screen lit a show with at the time, an eighty two year old woman that's focused on a millennial audience. Right now, she's eighty four. At the time she was eighty two. She's extraordinary and and in working on the show, she was just a great compass because we knew how to We knew how to put someone that was young

on the ground telling the story. And what we wanted to do was to allow someone who couldn't go there themselves to bear witness in order to create change, and then Gloria could provide the context for what we should be talking about. Did she feel like we've gotten further down the road in our crusade for equality and female rights?

I mean, listen, I can't speak for her, but I think if she were here, she would talk about the fact that you know, she's seen many decades of progress over time, right, and it gives you a little bit of perspective. So even if you're having a day where you're taking a step backward, you know that overall you've taken ten steps forward. I mean, in the seventies, women couldn't even have their own credit cards. So when you put it into the context of now, we've we've made

some strides. And I interviewed her after Trump was elected. I interviewed her at the Women's March. I said, what do you think about this? And she said, well, at least we're not looking upwards, We're looking at each other. And there's this level of social consciousness that he has brought out in all of the horrible things and conversations that have come from it, their conversations that we didn't think our nation had to have any more, and they do.

And Gloria has always been very present for those and continues to be in continuous to evolve and be creative. The conversations that you're having on broadly the social topics that you're covering, borrowing from what has happened during Gloria's heyday till now um how are you selecting those conversations

and how is the selection of those conversations. I won't use the word dictated because I know it's editorial, but in consideration with how brands are thinking about and weighing heavily in on purpose, yeah, how are you kind of converging those things right now? On the brand side, we've been very conscious of not trying to talk about things

that are commonly spoken about for women. So for example, for Vassiline, which is the power of healing, we created a piece that was in Haiti and we worked with a woman who used voodoo to bring in spirits to create healing after the floods, and so we wanted to tell that story and talk about the community and talk about an issue there through a lens that only Vice could with a brand that was focused in that way. So broadly has always tried to take a little bit

of a weirder, more magical lens in that approach. For woman, which is a bit more serious, every single pitch was around like sex trafficking and prostitution, and we just wanted to talk about stories that weren't being brought up every single day. So we did femicide in El Salvador. For the US, we did sexual assault in the U S Military. We did a piece with Vice President Biden at the time around sexual soul in college campuses, and then in

Canada about murdered and missing Indigenous women there. So it's not stuff that you're going to read on CNN every day, but stuff that is affecting large populations of people. Broadly likes to feel that our audience that is intelligent, they're curious, but they're very optimistic. You know, nine six percent of women and men on our audience feel that gender equality

is important. We're not going to preach to the choir around something, but we are going to talk about Danna Carome, who was one of the first transgender women to win a race this year in the US. We followed her story very intimately. And how are brands reacting? All right? Because those headlines that you just gave us are intense, they're controversial, um in the in the marketing world, right, So where's the balance and are you saying we're going

to print with this anyway? And brands are saying we're either getting on board and we're supporting that because we know that these are real and their important issues or that's one step too far. It's so funny because I got into publishing because I knew if I had the money, I could make the decisions, not because I was interested in sales. And now that I am interested in sales, I am interested in having brands be more open to

those headlines. There are brands that are and you know, you have like your Patagonias out there who are have such social driven There a lot of Patagonias, No there's not, but there's not a lot of brands that will survive in the same way that Patagonia will, you know. And every single brand now has to have some kind of identity tied to what they are and who they are, and we provide that, and we did that before a lot of others have come around to it. So some brands,

of course freak out about that. But at the same time, these are the issues that our audience cares about, and so therefore they're going to see they're going to have a very high stickiness rate, and we're not going to do it in a way where it's not going to work for the brand. There are many brand marketers who listen to our show. Um many don't often get the opportunity to sit with the publisher of a female first platform. What would you say to them? I mean you you

know your audience best. How would you make a case to them to say, these conversations are happening. How do your consumers or your readers want to engage with brands around it? I would remind the brand that two percent of our audience believes that the social platforms that they consume have to express their values and their belief system. And if these brands are not willing to step to the table, that doesn't mean go a hundred miles an hour. You can dip your toe in the pool and you

can still participate in the platform. You know, our horoscopes on Broadly actually has the highest returning and loyalty of any audience on Vice overall. And so we can be more playful. What are you guys doing around events? We're weird? Like,

for example, we're planning right now this Broadly maze. So the idea with the maze, I can't name the brand yet, but it's essentially a maze where you go in and it will have the brand designed throughout the maze, but then you get lost and there will be like a room with a phone that connects to another prone where you can talk to each other, and then in the

middle there's a party. We have something called Broadly Plays, which is concerts with up and coming female artists and then they curate playlists and then we do a gallery around them. Everything that we do with Broadly has to have mentorship at its core. So even for example, we're doing this new Artist in Residency series where we pick up and coming artists that have big social followings. They

make content for us that lives on the site. Ultimately they have it, but they're pushing us and we're pushing them. I would love to see Broadly do something in the corporate space, like corporate mentorship. I hate mentorship the term term, but coaching, yeah, well know for sure. I mean of men feel like they're ready for their next job and women do so. Can I tell you what an amazing anecdote?

So I went to go speak to a group of young women at a local high school around topics for women um relative to International Women's Day and the celebration of careers. And as a part of that, there was a group of panelists that included everything from doctors to lawyers to entrepreneurs in the sense of women who own barbershops went on a photography studio, and yours truly as somebody who was representing women in business, and as a

part of the discussion. At the very end, we were, you know, asking the young girls what do you want to be when you grow up? And it went from everything from chemical engineers and astronauts to music teachers and to public servants and everything in between. At the very end, when the young girls were invited to come up and you know, ask any final questions to pictures over the case was it was like the parting of the Red seay.

Half the group went over to the attorney and the other half went over to the doctors, and I was standing in the middle, part stroking my ego, part trying to figure out what has happened. It was very apparent to me, as I reflected back on a few minutes prior, that not one young woman in the audience said they wanted to be a CEO, they wanted to run a company, they wanted to be a badass in a boardroom. It's just it was very apparent that that wasn't a path

that they thought was available to them. And after speaking with a couple of the guidance counselors after it dawned on me that there is such a lack of acknowledgment or example setting in the market for young women to think about this as an opportunity for them. Oftentimes they're brought into that sphere of possibility in college and at that point it's too late. Well, I don't even think growing up, I knew what a CEO meant, Like, what

does it mean? You know? I think that is a big piece of it, Like the education of it is really in any job, what is finance? What would you do on a day to day basis? I think in our industry and media, That's why I'm so excited about the Broadley Film Program, because when you're looking at women who are in the film industry or TV, there's this fiscal cliff around what they can do. Only eight percent of top grossing directors were women. Most of the time.

They're coming in and they're directing TV shows which are paid substantially less, and then you've got one gig and not many people are going to see it, right, So there has to be actually a better relationship to get into the door where you have a lasting career with a mentor who's really been successful, and we put so much pressure on women's success in any category. Right now, it's a multigenerational plan. Would you guys do this with business? Yeah? Percent,

And we're actually offering and we're working. We're going to be working with a bunch of different brands actually around content that will be made with some of the directors. So I want for every single brand that wants to do anything around the Broadley Film Fund, they have to hire that emerging director to actually shoot the spot for it. These are the conversations that we're missing. There is no community,

there is no content. There is no brand that is standing up a platform that says, at the age of thirty in fourteen fifteen, sixteen years old, you can be a CEO. This is where the online offline thing gets interesting. Well then yes, then you start getting into like local community that I r L is broadly getting into business a thing. Yeah, I mean blisten Like, we're focusing so much of it around film right now. We actually have a course that was based on women that's at usc Annenberg.

It's called Creating Change through Media. We're going to show all of their videos and content that they make on the Broadly site and get them started in the two years old but Broadly business, Yeah for sure. I mean

I actually we start funding. Like I literally had a conversation last week on Friday with someone from another media company that I can't say right now, but we're actually going to be doing a jobs fair together because there are all of these young people, especially young women and young queer people, who make less money than everybody else.

But I also find it fascinating that most in real life events that happened with different publishers and media platforms are aimed towards older women, even when they're speaking to younger women. Therefore, people who can pay an ex urban an amount to get tickets, and there for sponsors who are sending ten people from that company to attend and

congrat generally congratulate each other for being there. It's very rare that you have someone that comes forward and says, I'd like to do something and provide an opportunity for these young people where they don't have to pay anything, but they can just come and learn. You know. I was meeting with Delaney tar who was one of the

Parkland survivors. It was a very strange, very short meeting in DVF studio like a few weeks ago, and I was chatting with her and she was talking about social media, and I was really taken aback by the fact that she found Twitter to be a safe space and was like, listen, I grew up at a time when social media was new and it was really seen as something that is for bullying and hate, and there's so much fear within that um and we still see that in conversations we

have all time and with brands, and she was talking about how no, it's a place where I can find my community and anybody that has anything negative to say to me, like fuck them, their haters. And this young generation that she's sixteen seventeen, they don't think even about platforms in the same way that we do, right in the same way that like the tribe, whereas the tribe, our audience that comes to broadly believes in body positivity

and sexual freedoms. Like we have a column called Our First Time and that's all about different things around sex and sexual education, and there's all of the stigma you know, actually when we talk about words that are brand safe and not brand safe, that's around sexual health and then and that's really like an underserved topic that we have our audience that comes to UM politics and then our

third largest one is actually around health. So what's next? Like, as you're kind of venturing into this film space as your event imagining your event world, you know what is the future broadly in the next twelve eighteen months look like to you, we'll be expanding more into product in merchandise, and on top of that, we'll be making some some m and a some march. I'll send it to you

when it's ready. I also think that the Middle East opening up is a fascinating commercial space and speaking there, I was just speaking in Riad and Saudi Arabia at the Women Economic Forum. I spoke about increasing women and content pipeline and and there was young young girls who are very excited to be creating stories. You know, young people in Saudi are the number one consumers of YouTube.

And that is happening because in the world, Yes, and that's happening because they are sitting there and they're hungry for good content. They have a high scripted is it news? Is everything just content? You have to think about the fact that Saudi right now has a really high unemployment rate, there's a lot of time, and they have their phones

open to snapchat constantly. I mean I literally was photo bombing as much as I could when I was at the conference for that um And there's one point two billion Muslim people in the world and there's not that

many commercial opportunities that are reaching them. So I actually, on top of that, we're going to be doing a summit that's going to be here in New York that's essentially going to take the Women's Economic Forum and bring all of the top women in the Middle East to New York and have it so that brands can actually meet and interact with them in top think lead there's here because most people aren't don't even know that they exist,

and they have more money than everybody else. I mean, if you look at what Dubai is doing, they're essentially making like a Noah's Ark of young smart people over there, and they're saying come here and no taxes, we'll take care of you and we'll find your projects. And they're

doing that with females. Yeah. Yeah. The UAE actually has more women in their cabinet than the United States does, and senior positions in our do do you see broadly getting into any form of like I don't know, like influencing legislation more directly, Yeah, broadly actually has We're going to be doing something this year for the mid terms which is called the Next Female President, and it's going around the country and actually talking to all of these

different young people and not in cities, in rural areas around what issues they care about and why they want to run or what they would want to see change. And so we're working with organizations like Emily's List and she should run to work with them on that. And then they're specific legislation that we cover in the same way that Vice Impact, which is our global response to the issues that our audience cares about. We'll focus different

campaigns we do that with broadly around certain legislation. Of course, for us, anything that's around abortion or access to reproductive rights is always our biggest is shoe interesting to see this young cohort, the fourteen to twenty two year old a dreams that you just talked about have gone from like Saturdays at the movies to like Saturdays of marching and like this active collective you know, migration around you know, to your point around Delaney tar like, I'm galvanizing my

community Monday through Friday, and then we're hitting the streets and we're advocating for change, and we will come out and vote you out, you know, and if and you see that immediate reaction. Now though a brand or a person. We were just talking before this about Starbucks what happened over the weekend, and the CEO is there in fl Philly right now, there is no tolerance. How are you leveraging the power of vice to scale this message? Now?

You talked about be ready for our audience to grow significantly. Um, given that you're on the heels of being in the room. How many countries vices? And yeah, I mean what well we have offices in thirty six. How are you leveraging that though, are because that, I think is that huge advantage for Broadly to go big for sure. I actually think that's one of the most exciting things about Vice and that's where the Broadly film's fun idea came from.

Is when when we're in other territories, particularly where they haven't had a strong history of gender equality, we have to make sure that they're not just franchises, they're fully part of our Vice ecosystem at home and that we're building a family wherever we go and in some of these places, like for what we're doing an a pack, like in Indonesia and India like these have some of the highest number of young people in the world, and they have not had access to great content, particularly because

it's been really hard to do it, and because VICE can be in other countries and actually come from a space where you're talking more about culture, and people don't realize, particularly the governments, that news is sliding underneath that always. So there's been a ton of change Advice in the last year. How has broadly or has broadly had more

of a voice even in your internal cultural change? Yeah, I mean, I think we have to recognize that VICE has had some challenges over the last few months and is committed to making our company the safest and most progressive workplace, not even just in the industry, but in the world, particularly because we are serving so many people around the world. You know, we have over five thousand employees and I think it's over over of those employees

have joined the company in the last two years. So it's been incredible growth um and we were doing some things like committing to pay parity in creating our d n I board from its inception broadly has had a zero tolerance for bullshit. So when there are issues that come to the forefront as a channel, it always covers them. It's done a lot of work around me too and sexual harassment and trying to create progressive legislation, and you know,

the list goes on and on. I think internally, we've had an incredible group of women, uh and allies at VICE that have come together and through this, actually, I think we've created a lot more structured internal communications and processes where they are having a say, are part of the conversation, They are aware of the day to day and they are committed to helping secure Vice's future, not only for themselves but for the next generation of talent

that are coming in. All right, now the time. Now you can do your damn d I y okay, uh, alright, Well, I hope this doesn't sound corny, but I would kill the idea to advertisers that women are a niche audience or need to be siloed as a community. I had someone tell me once that women were an underserved community. I was just horrified. Um, So I would kill that like so fast. Um, for By, I wouldn't buy anything

right now. I would wait six months and let the duopolya Facebook and Google play its hand, and then when media companies are cheaper, I would buy them. She's super savvy. May I should follow your your investment stress and for d I y what you were talking about earlier. I would do a version of Girls who Code, specifically around educating young women for finance and business skills. Oh, let's do it. I think that's something we would very much

like to particel. Let's do it listening. Yeah, we're ready to make, ready to fund it. Fund come on board. So if there was one thing you would want to leave the community with, whether it is about vice broadly or women in general, what is the biggest misnomer in your mind in that you plan to address on broadly? I would a dent say that nothing is off the table in terms of what you think is brand safe and not brand safe. Being a woman is a fully

encompassing thing. Women are challenging and difficult, but they are people, and therefore people are challenging it difficult and um our audience will only continue to grow, So should ride the wave with us. Thanks, If people want to reach you, where can they find you? They can email me Ari A r I at vice dot com or all my handles are just a when Groff. Thank you, Ari so much, so fun having you in this video. Big thanks to our new producer, Laura Morris. How fun is it to

have an all female cast? It's fun and kind of torturous for me that now they are to Laura's so thank you. To all of our friends and family, a panoply Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, Jacob Weisberg. We'll be back with an all new episode in two weeks. M H Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own