Focus on the D(evelopment)

full ten. And because we're on episode ten, and because we have such a killer guest today, we are actually going to do are in the feed with our friend Jared Dicker, who is the head of innovation and research and development at the Washington Post. Just about everything. He wears many hats and coming off a cam. We just

have so much to talk about. Jared and I spent quite a bit of time floating around um the French riviera, so to speak, kind of chatting about the future of the business, and we thought, hey, let's bring him in. Let's bring him in and have a conversation and then like also talk about what's the value of on there are people big contingent who didn't go to CAN. I didn't go to CAN. Lots of agencies. Actually it was

like you were there. I was walking with you and we were talking yet about three in the morning and CAN. But you know, the big question of are these awards shows um, should they live continue to live on people being participants? What does that look like? Who are the participants that should be there? And then I love something that I think you're going to get into, which is how do we get CAN to have a bigger impact in the industry, but also how do you start democratizing it?

So so we hear that. Yeah, we'll be right back with Jared Dicker from the Washington Post. What's up at Landia. We're back with the one and only Jared Dicker. Jared Dicker, who is currently at the Washington Post, a good friend of ours. So we were just talking about this. You have, you know, your standard title, but what do you really do at the Washington Post, because it's much more than your title says, Yeah, so many many hats, which is

a horrible analogy analogy to say. But the fun part of my job at the Washington Post is that I found our R and D group read which basically allows me to focus on engineering and building new technologies that we could then sell commercially in the Space Agency's clients partners. And we basically treat the Washington Post like a playground to see what works consumer and commercial side, um other than that oversea all business product engineering, operations strategy. And

you're like the man about town. Really, I like to have a good time, that's for sure. Jared and I are just back from CAN. I know we missed you. I know I was the one that didn't go. There's so many people who didn't go this year. It was very interesting. Did you guys feel that when you were a Can it was definitely lighter this year. I only know that because there were no lines at the yachts. Yeah.

I feel like people before they go to and book their calendars, show their bosses by their tickets, and then as soon as they land they cancel every single meeting. So outside of so, it was lighter this year. What were if you had like two things to take away from Ken, what would you say those two big things and different things than they have been in the past. Because I've heard a lot from a lot of folks

who have said it was actually different this year. Yeah, I mean I would say I feel like ken is a place where people identify issues but cannot solve them or don't have a lot of positioning or power to solve. Someone said to me that, you know, publishers go out there to meet with agencies and a lot of like publisher where the clients they're oftentimes because of the ad technology companies, And that's totally changed. Yeah, so that's become interesting.

But what's really interesting is they get the right people. They're having great conversations. I don't know what comes out of it. I think you hear a lot of you mean, like all the panels, great conversations, great panels, great you know, great people conversation talked on the show and Jar and I were talking about it out there, and I think this speaks to what you're saying in terms of solving is like do we need to turn can into like the G eight of media and marketing and like actually

have people coming with the outcome. Nobody was really, in my opinion, pushing the envelope in terms of Holy sh it, that was a real provocative conversation and that's going to change the way we think about this industry moving forward. What do you think about Joe Marquis's announcement that they're going to start making like six second ads. Yeah. I think what's really special about Joe, and he's a friend, is that he's one of the few ad chiefs at

this point. He wasn't always an achieve. Now is an achief, accidental ad chief UM that can make things happen. So he often says, you know, your attention is the number one commodity, and we all recognize that, but it's very hard to convince every single layer of advertising and media to get on board with that and oversee something like Fox and make those announcements, and also oversee a company like True Acts that builds the actual ad products. He

has power to help instill these things. So it's interesting because that's what happened with New York Times. I mean, obviously, no, Meredith was just on the show, and Um since then has been promoted to CEO. And some of the conversations that we're having out in Can were around the fact that for the first time you're starting to see product and marketing sitting in the same department, so to speak, starting to get tighter. There wasn't like a data conversation

happening over here. More people were saying like, Okay, now do we make this applicable to creative? Did you catch that while you were there or yes? So I've tried to make my career out of that because everyone always hated working on advertising or the commercial side of the business. But I really believe that this silo mentality of really breaking up your organization to focus on consumer and commercial

and so forth is is old. You know, it really doesn't help you move forward where where if you have this no silo. Everyone wants to grow audiences. Right for the Post, it's about growing audiences for the Times, it's

about growing audiences subscriptions. Every single person in that organization should be working towards that, Like creative and data are the two stuff advertising, And everyone's full of shit if they say that they've been marrying them together and that native advertising does that and so forth, like like, it's very bullshit in that sense. So to that point, I agree, I think I think you really have to convince everyone on board, from the newsroom to the engineers to sales like,

this is our mission. This is how we'll get there if we all do it. Correctly will all benefit? So here's my last question. I can there are a ton of agencies and ton of executives talking about how they're backing out of award shows, the award shows are not shouldn't be the focus anymore, and that they're focusing on talent and they're focusing on real creative What do you guys think about that? Like, do you think that can

is worth it anymore? Do you think from an award show standpoint, like are they actually finding um and mining the best kind of creative and talent and putting it up as an industry standard? Well, it's hard. I think with can UM the categories and the nominees are so broad that you have companies like in Post competing with Google VR for Welcome to the World, right right, But but like that's where I think you see, like is

it worth it or not? Right? And with this sort of investment, I think I think there is something about can it exists for a reason. Um all of the top creative lists and things that come out a week later, you know, the notoriety and things of that are great. I think I think there needs to be some sort of focus. Like what I saw is that there's there's the media side of CAN, and then there's you know, the ad side of CAN. I have two questions in

the industry. One, what is the value of a can lion? Yeah? I want to know how we're equating that in the industry because in pitch decks and when you're out obviously um going after clients, it's wonderful to say I've won a CAN line. But in the world of marketing and the fragmentation that exists currently and the idea that creativity is pervasive through literally everything, what is the value of a CAN line? That is? That is an honest question.

I'd love to solve question number two, or rather a statement and you being there, Jared, I mean, feel free to weigh. And every year we're constantly asking ourselves as an industry are what are the standards? When we come to CAN we get to see presumably the best of what the industry has to offer as a gold standard and work. Yet we're not applying this to what the standards are? Two different standards to scalable, two scalable standards, right,

So I B is all about scalable standards. Does this give us an opportunity to do one or two things either suggest that this is the way in which those standards can be applied, or does it give us an opportunity to say, actually, I b this is why this guideline is broken. So that I think is very true. The other thing I'd say is that as we try to differentiate ourselves and and as marketers have to make tougher decisions on who to work with and narrow that scope, a can line is kind of like the end of

the road of your creative process. Like you did this, it's launched, it's live, and now it's over. So like, okay, we could draw inspiration from this, but I can't leverage this technology. I can't leverage this idea. It's already been done.

So huge thing. That's an interesting point. Yeah, and like a big thing, and like a big thing that I pushed internally is like don't buy with us, or don't buy our tech that has like an expiration date or a shelf life, like work with us, because you could take this, we could do something and then we could evolve it. So I think with award shows to go

all the way back to like the beginning of the conversation. Um, it's kind of like an end road like here it is here was the best of last year, so what's next year? And maybe Can's positioning just has to be like, Okay, this is where we're going, and let's start to like acknowledge the companies that are helping us push in that sort of way. I love the idea of some sort

of like and like. So there's a tech conference called source com that's out of Portland from the Mozilla teams, and basically, if you go and present, you have to actually bring something that's hands on, and whoever goes and attends your thing or session or workshop, um, you actually have an angle to build something at the end. So maybe cannas some applicable component where people calm and present

ideas and you kind of hackathon through these things. So then you leave and CAN could get excited about something like that because they could say, well, this was built at CAN, so this is I was just you brought me back to the point that I wanted to make, is that I feel that CAN actually needs to find

a way to become democratized. It is so exclusive, it is so expensive, um that it is very limited in terms of what past you need to have to get into the pel a to see the work um, when actually that work should be shown off to the world so that the you know, media planner who is just getting started but might be the most creative kids sitting in you know, insert holding company X has the opportunity to be inspired by the simplicity of what I saw

in the pel A this year. And so the conversation and we're gonna take it to the Washington Post and what you're doing at the Washington Post because you've done in the what last two years pretty much Washington Post has gotten a ton of notoriety and awards right around. Um, new advertising technology and new models. How have you balance creativity and the tech side at the Washington Post? Yeah, so um one our founders Jeff Bezos, which I don't think we say enough. Well, I think people can we

stop there? Sorry, so people, And we were just talking about this earlier to like people get confused sometimes they're like, oh, the Washington Post is owned by Amazon. No, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, right, And there's a big difference. They're huge difference. And the inspiration that we get through Jeff and his time that he dedicates to

the Post um is amazing. Because it's very particular. It's not how can we work with Amazon, It's not distracted with his other holding companies, you know, one of which is soon to be Whole Foods, right, so, um, but we get actual attention, you know, when it comes to what's going to best benefit journalism and how we could grow our brand and how we can be noticed in this um, you know, very congested marketplace. So we balance

creativity and tech in in a variety of ways. I think you mentioned earlier the operational side of things, getting engineers in the news room. I mean when I was at hof Post, we did that. Our CTO did sit next orator in chief. But on the advertising side, we did not have engineers on the sales floor, you know, we did not have engineers within marketing. And here we do.

And I think that's very crucial when it comes to being created from a tech perspective and not just being task oriented of saying, hey build this, this didn't work

and so forth. You know, Um, we pushed this big idea and Paul Berry, you know, who were very much close with from Rebel Moss huff Post days and an amazing collaborator, always said, like the journey should always start once you press publish, And that's how we bring creativity and tech to everything that we do at the Post as well, like, don't prepare for something, let it go live, whether that's content, whether that's advertising, whether it's branded content,

and so forth, have technology and mechanisms that help that content fly. Especially with all the data and understanding of what we have now, how can we structurally make this easy year? And what I think is key, especially when it comes to the newsroom is editors and writers and journalists should never change their strategy. Right. What they've been doing for the past hundred years works from its important is extremely important that we don't want to change that.

How do we build technologies that allow them to make their job easier and also allow their content to fly farther. I'm gonna go left for a second because I know we want to get really deep into the tech and and the products that you're creating. But there's an elephant in the room that I am so curious to get your perspective on, and that's and someone who sits in the far corner of the Washington Post working on all of this great tech and development people in the marketplace.

In my opinion. Vast majority still have the perception that the Washington Post is a bureau for d C and

its content is focused on the Beltway. And granted, this past election cycle has um done wonders, I know, But how is somebody who sits in the innovation arm of a company who from the other side of the table can be perceived as Washingtonian battle with that internally to say, hey, we need to spend this on our head, We need to get our tech and innovation at the forefront of industry conversations, UM at the right balance with what's happening in the newsroom to change perceptions about what it is

we're doing here. Yeah. So um, I say this often, but it takes a company to really believe in something for it to actually happen. So in the sense of the Washington Post. When I was at the Huffton in Post, I never looked at the Washington Post as a competitor, to be completely frank like, in terms of the journalism, for sure, I mean, there are many, many, many, many politics ahead. But we were a tech company that also did media. At the Uffington Post, we were blowing everyone

away at that time. And I think what happened, and of course the Jeff acquisition or the buy of the Washington Post allowed them to say, Okay, we don't need to be extremely conservative with our risks anymore. We could actually all move forward and promoting that and the Post and our leadership, and that decision has really allowed us to grow. You know, seven cent of our u S audiences in the DC area, so like nine is outside

our largest audiences in California. I was going to say everyone reads the Washington Post now, especially post election, right, like everyone? And then you have all these other news organizations that are referring people to the Washington Post, one of which I love. And we've talked about news and guts with Dan, right. So I have a question, though it pisces me off when I go on to the Washington Post dot com and I go on to New York Times dot com. I am looking at newspapers digitized.

Why do they look the same. So I think there's a long standing conversation about aggregation versus personalization, right, like having editors decide what's on the home page and so forth. Now I'm not an editor, so I don't want to speak for it, and um, I only want to manage what I could control. Now that being said, we had that conversation and I agree, and I think when you think about how much data we have on users, Emilio Garcia Ruez would actually say, you know what, I agree,

Why does it look the same? I'm putting words in his mouth totally. So we so we um. We actually did this on the branded content side to test things like what's really cool at the post is that because we have a commercial tech arm, we can actually test these things with our advertisers, who, like you, are willing

to do new different things we want. We actually right and then and and then we're able to test that see if it works, and then we can actually bring it to the court team and say, hey, is this interesting for you? Like we launched a product called postcards because of that mentality of saying, why should we deliver content the same exact way that we delivered it fifty

years ago, right through print? And if we have all this data that Laura consumes video and I consume image or long form and so forth, why don't we deliver that content type to the user directly where they are, wherever they are? So can we go into your sandbox for a second, because I'm really curious to know. Um, I have two questions. One, what's the product tech that

you're most excited about right now? One? And number two, do you see what the Red Group is doing as a potential way for The Washington Post to diversify revenue? Because in this day and age, and one of the things that I said that was very pervasive and can is media companies and agencies are coming together to figure out new ways to collaborate that don't necessarily include advice, but still monetizing monetize her ble. Yes, yeah, I mean

it's actually interesting. I've had conversations with multiple brands lately where I realized that they brought me in and don't want to be pitched. They just want to learn what we've done. And you're talking about but like I'm like, wow, we have a whole new like consultation revenue model and it comes outartnerships, right. So so, yes, I mean the Red Group was built to um differentiate the Post. When we launched it, we announced a NAweek or in that

age two years ago. When I joined, it was just myself, you know. Now now it's an actual team of ten engineers and product leads that are building these things, understanding what's happening in the marketplace. I think a great basos is um that helps. Uh. I want the book the innovation. I think Joey Joey Marburger has a deck of them. But but um, but like one big one is like what can we do that can't be done elsewhere? Like everyone when they focus on innovation is like what are

we sucky at? And how do we get better at that? Where it's like, well, actually, what are we really good at? And how do we double down and get better there? Right? Like forget about what we're not good at. Will never be Facebook, right, We'll never be Twitter, will never be like all of these companies. But we are the Post, right, and we are a tech company now as well as a media company, and how can we get better there?

So the investment you've seen in the Red group is clearly aligned with the revenue that we've seen from that, and it's twofold. It's like, what is being done that could be better? When everyone said the banner is dead, I said, like, the banner is not dead, but like we can make the banners somewhat better and understand that you're advertising with the Post because you want to be on the post, and our users are on the post

because they want to read the post. So let's take all the hard work that you're doing and display and video and make it more applicable to our consumers. And that's through tech. So we'll build technologies that allow you to do that. Put no pressure on your side that you could go back to the CMO and say, hey, look, this is our creative that we've done. But we leverage this post technology to make it more applicable to users.

And that doesn't necessarily require a media by to have access. No. I mean I often say too, is like if you want to leverage the technology, we have a SAS model, right, So like, if you don't want to run on the Washington Post, I love you too, But we're here to help you build better branding, to leverage better technology. And if you prefer to run programmatically or you prefer to run on site, that's where I think that the industry

has to pivot. This is Alex and I talked about this all the time, like the ad model and the Washington Post dot com revenue stream to me and Alexa is one avenue now within the post media company that

presents opportunity for brands. Well, you just talked about access to your engineers, your sas model, all of these sorts of things actually for brands who want to develop content on their own O and O as you just said, brands who are looking for ways to diversify with their own clients and business partners, these are things that they need access to because presumably maybe they don't want to

develop an in house engineering team to do that. So I mean you're selling in white labeling, yeah, right, And the argument, lord, your point of view is like if everyone's about platforms, right, and if our consumers are going to consume our content on Snapchat, uh, Facebook, Google, whatever the next big thing is, then like we're not selling on our audience in five to ten years, So what's

going to differentiate us? Right? And and if you could buy washpost content through Facebook cheaper, right or through Google and so forth cheaper than like, what is going to be our value play? And so us it's we're gonna build technologies. We're not gonna leverage the same third party technology that all our partners are leveraging but calling different names, like we're actually gonna build some proprietary ship that's never been done before and then go out to market and

be a game changer. I think we should go a little deeper here because for folks listening, I'm not sure it totally comes through. What does this mean. It means that The Washington Post starts becoming like an agnostic tech platform that you could sell. Yeah, period, right, and a

lot of and a lot of um. A lot of critics will say, well, that will distract from the core mission, like like we are one a journalism media company, we always will be the benefit of what we've done again structurally, which is like the key topic here is like operations and structure, is that we built separate teams, so are publishing you know, under Shylash Prakash our CTO is a complete different team, right that focuses on building technologies that

we white label that we are currently white labeling to trunk to Globe and mail to info by and the Red Group. Those technologies go into that as well, so that they could be set up in white labels. But that does not distract our core mission. So I think it probably helps your core mission, right because you're also using those as like well, when you're using those as

like test Labs. I think it's interesting, right because if you can lay to Alex what Alex is saying your use cases in all of these different ways, when you can just keep calm to me and say that you know, actually, the same technology that's powering your experience on the Washington Post is also powering what happens on the daily Email, that's immediate validation to me as a buyer to say, hey, not only can I solve for my media amplification needs here, but if I'm a company that needs to create a

quick ad tech product for something has nothing to do with the Washington Post, who am I coming to a third party or somebody who's powering an entire mods room with it? And I wonder also, then if and this is you're going to be like roll eye roll when I say this, but a w S, Amazon right Web Services has become the platform right for cloud for pretty much everyone, pretty much everyone. I don't see modern day railroads,

So why couldn't the Post be that? From a publishing standpoint, and I mean publishing for brands, publishing for publishers, right, all of a sudden, it becomes something that is much much bigger. I think the strength of what we're doing at the Post that and like saying how I've done this in the past, and what we're doing here is that the power of the post is key. You can just say that that's the vision. No comment, um, but

that's um. That's what's very interesting. That's what makes me most excited right about being here is like, um, the fact that the power of the Post in selling our technologies is such a secret sauce when it comes to our differentiator in the marketplace. And I work on attack. I hate when people are like he leads attack and like makes me want to throw up in my mouth because because the word, the word is like so dirty now, right,

it's like fraud, viewability blocking. It's like I don't want to be anywhere near that, right, Like I like to be like out in the st right Martex. But I think a lot of that is because, like those things have gotten so bad because publishers who care about users

and consumers never invested in building those things. So it's always been these outside technologies coming in and solving our problems and they have no idea what the problem my got and sticking the straw in near milkshake and and like taking money, and we realize, wait, if we just look like all of these companies were built in a garage by two people, Like is that all we need

to people? Right, right, but to like build these technologies, and then all of a sudden, we're not just saving money on third parties, but we're actually different in the marketplace. So yes, I mean that's the vision. We're actually doing it. That's my vision on the commercial side. But but what I think is what I think is the coolest is that it's no bullshit, right, Like everyone talks about this. We have post polst re engage, flex play, zeus in context.

That's it to me though, when you start talking about I know we have to name things because they become identifiers. But the minute we start doing this, because everyone though has a version of a name, right, And so then you get in the marketplace as a as a media marketing person, you're like, well, what's different from the Washington Post Zeus and voxes blah, right, because bank Off talks about his what is it? Chorus? Chorus, chorus and concert

what like we're going from the gods. But what's interesting? But I think an alex and I always say this, it's like lead with the idea that you are a tech focused media company that is developing and building proprietary technology where the others, as we all know, And this is where I think the Washington Post stands to go

after it aggressively. Are wit labeling and outsourcing that And like I'm back to your earlier point talking about that conference out in Oregon, I am a believe it when I see it, when I see that you have the ability to go there, when I actually see that I could. And one thing that I love about you specifically is that you've never been a tech person. So when Lauren I went to years ago to build out a new media product, You're like, this is totally different. This is

totally new. You are so creative that you're able to take the technology and actually flip at ninety degrees to create something that's totally different. We were two girls and a guy in a garage on that part. But what's interesting, I think, would you hit on it and forget all

the other jargon that I just said earlier. But like the idea of home grown proprietary tech, and there are very few I can aim on one hand who can actually go out in the marketplace right now leading media companies and say we've developed everything from scratch, no totally, and um, look, it's very risky for media companies to do that because again, that distraction factor is key. But we made that choice. That's what attracted me to come here.

I mean to be honest, like, I like building technologies.

I like being creative with those technologies. So as much as I love everything that's happening at the post, the investment in that was very real to your point, like the fact that we actually build products and could show them and they're tangible and other publishers are coming to you to buy them and they're coming up by them, and like what I hate about R and D And Bezos said this very early on when we presented the Red Team to him is like focus on the D right,

Like develop those products like right, Like so many people in R and D forcused on the research, like oh, here's what's happening, and and the web is fast, but we're slow, so we need to be faster. And then it's like three years later. I like that focus on the day definitely the name of this episode. How do we? How do we? It's like straight off. I also like put a straw in your milkshake, So you didn't answer my other question, what is the martek our marketing tech

that you were most excited about right now? So a lot of the marketing tech that we're building. That's so again I kind of got into it earlier, like how do we make everyone's life easier, like sympathizing with the client agency relationship, but also like what's new ship that's

never been done before? So like while Zeus while the name and Mario, I want to name it Thorpe, but it made no I'm Greek, I have no problem with so like Zeus was faster, but like what I love about Zeus is like when we came out and said we were the fastest mobile website, everyone said, well, advertising

technology is going to slow it down. And I even had conversations with Google um and like it wasn't anything on their end that was an issue, but they could and take responsibility for how other third party integrations worked

and so no one had to solved. So basically the whole idea was like, Okay, your content could be fast, but ads are going to be slow, until we came in and said, let's blow this ship up right and let's pretend that we could like redo how everything works while not getting rid of technologies but keeping existing technologies and can it be faster? And three weeks of work

allowed us to be fast. So that gets cool when you start talking about on demand content, right, and some of the things you guys are doing in the audio space and you're doing it separately, let's just be clear than Amazon and the Alexa that right, but talk talk about um like audio articles and things like that that you're doing. Yeah, So again going back to that educational verse operational approach. Uh, we just leverage Polly on some of our articles we're doing testing right now, which is

an Amazon got it. So Amazon has a technology called Polly which basically could take content, read it, and then give you audio of those articles. So so what we realized the post again is like people are everywhere, to your point, they consume content differently. Some people like video, people are obsessed with audio. You're on the subway, you want to download a podcast. You know, we're on a podcast right now, right, So like there's all these different mediums.

So so we're actually leveraging audio technology on our site for our articles in the test basically meaning some articles when you go to them, you could click to play and it'll read the article to you. So think about you're in the shower, I mean, like barely have time in the morning, right, you're walking dogs. I was thinking about it trying to read the Obama Russia article that

came out like free days ago. That was so killer, but it's so long, and I was had like a million other things to do, and I'm literally running out of my house finish. I'm like, I'm running out of my house and I'm thinking, all i want to say is Washington Post read it to me. Why can't I do that? Yeah? So Polly is that? So Polly is the top I don't want to go to Washington most dot com. I just want to be able to say,

Washington Post read it to me on your phone. Yea, we have to call Apple, but like probably, but yes, I mean those are the investments right that we're looking to do. Like, no, to your point earlier, the way that content is delivered to you is very similar to the way it was delivered to you fifty years I mean, apps, can I just go back? Sorry? Apple News should be all over that, and they should be a feature that they offer publishers, why wouldn't they do that now? Right?

A lot of that so like to go really underneath the covers, Like it's not easy for platforms broker these relationships with the publishers, Like the post is the easiest, I would argue, because we love taking risks and we love testing, like the idea is like we'll test anything, like of course if it's going to damage our reputation

or our company. We would never be like me, you'll test anything that you have like a clear value prop for right, You're like, okay, this could be valuable, right, But so many publishers are like again going back to that operational thing, it's like, well, how much money is it gonna make me tomorrow? And is this worth it? And should we take the time. So you think about Apple News when they first came out, Um, they were saying, hey, look your sales team could sell the yea and like

do all these things. But it's like, so now I have to teach my sales team something new. The ad sizes at that point we're different. It's too confusing, and then publishers give up. So I think for Apple a lot of it is not just hey, let's build audio technology to read articles. It's how do we convince these publishers that it's worth their time to ingest it and

that they're going to actually see value in dollars? No bineriner to me, Well, it sounds like a brand could put this together and propose it now, So that's how I'm gonna go do it so like so like my whole bread and butter is that it's like, I rather not wait for all of these rules and how a hundred people at the Washington Post want to broker relationship. When we do it through the ad side, it's like, Okay, there's dollars, we could do this. It could live anywhere,

here's the resources, and let's build it. So like for me, and it's not bullshit, it's like a lot of the innovation I firmly believe that happens in media happens because of relationships with brands. And I just want to go back to that flood. Can't rewind what replay that A lot of the innovation I firmly believe that happens in media happens because of relationships with brands, because that is so true, and no one ever says that, yes, I mean, we'll dropped to Mike, So I have one quick question.

Who is a brand that you are dying to work with and you haven't worked with yet that I'm dying to work with and haven't worked with it. Oh man, that's tough. Um, take your time, all right. I love, No, it's fine, I love. I feel like entertainment brands are so hard to work with when it comes to like diving deep in being able to collaborate because everything needs

to be done in five days. So like I remember at HuffPo, we we used to do branded content early, like in two thousand ten um, which by the way, we created brand of content. Let's make sure we know you want to put that, you want to put that in there, but anyway, on the record, on the record, all of that branded content, right was like supplied content

because they had to create it so quickly. And I think the Sony's right, and those brands, like, while we work with them, it's never like fully immersive because we don't have the time right given to us because the movie is launching and they need to get it out

there and they have the assets to do so. So for me, what I think would be really fun is like in the entertainment category, especially when it comes to publishers in the tech that we're building and what we could really see there that would be an exciting one for us. Let's bring let's bring him into our standbox and all new killed by hill by d I. Y, you've done this before? Yeah, I forgot. What would you kill? Well, don't say it again. What would you kill? What would

you buy? And what would you do yourself? Oh? Yes, and I remember this, I remember anything. So, like, ideally I would kill all reliance on outside technology. I mean, we've made a key investment in building these things at

Rebel Mouse everywhere else. I'm like, I love my friends that work at those companies, but they know that I'm the hardest person to work with when it comes to that because if they come in along like they come in and present to me, it's like they better be careful because if it looks too good, I'm gonna copy it, right, So like so like that, so you want to make everyone a technologist? Yes, okay, check all right? What I

would buy is Gawker. Oh yes, we talked about that last right and and like I still believe it, And I watched Nobody Speaks on Netflix have you watched. It's amazing and it just really shows you, like that fine line and what Gawker was able to do and how they were literally like undercut and attacked and and what basically happened. But the value of that brand, I mean even for me as a New Yorker when Gawker was like the New York to like becoming you know, this

massive skilled operation. To also how they I mean they were the first to e commerce, right, it was like GisMo and inventing a tremendous tech stack in their last tremendous a few weeks. Yeah, I mean they're still doing Kinja. I mean Kinja is their tech stack and it's amazing. So like I would one buy them, Um, so you'd buy you buy Gawker, right, I buy Gawker and then

do it yourself. Every kind of like that was kind of your dear first one instead of kill is kind of your d I Y. I think everything so like something that's interesting for d I Y. I think you see brands publishers taking different approaches where they're like buying things to help be relevant in the space. And I think that's key. I mean, I think the New York Times buying wire Cutter was genius because it's very hard for The New York Times to build their own e

commerce value when that's not critical to their mission. But they just bought one of the bigger ones. So like, for someone who does everything d I Y, I'd say tread carefully with D I Y because I think what you often find is that with D I Y, whether like we could build tech because we had the investment, I wouldn't encourage every publisher to do it, while I think it's crucial for them to survive to do it,

to differentiate themselves and may kill them in the process. Right, So like presumably by foods, yeah, I mean those that was and the stock one up that never happens. So like so like, I mean everything Bezos does is absolutely um amazing. He hits gold right now. Yeah, So I'll leave you with that. So if people want to develop with you, where can they find you? They can find me a Jared dot Dicker outwatch Bow. They can find me on LinkedIn, they can find me on Twitter, Jared Dicker,

Jared Dicker, I'm Jared Dicker across the board. If they want to see my twins. I was just gonna say the ticker dudes, and they want to see my twins and my dogs. They could follow Jared Dicker on Instagram Dick dud dudes, congratulations on. Thank you so much. They rock, Are you rock? And thank you so much for coming by. We always love when you're here. It's always the work, flash of ideas and excitement and we appreciate everything that

you do to make us better. So thank you, thank you, Thanks Jared Dicker, everyone special thanks to Cameron Drew's our producer, Andy Bowers, Matt Sirk. This is our episode ten, so thanks for being big listeners, big fans talking to us on Twitter, face Book, Instagram. At Atlantia Podcast, keep doing it, great emails, great reviews. Really appreciate everyone who's listening and giving us a lot of feedback. We'll see out there. We'll be back in two weeks within all New Atlandia

m H Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own