No Winners in the Long Lines

an interesting guest on the show. In fact, his tagline is stay interesting. We're excited to bring to CEO and founder of Azzy dot Com, Carlos Watson. We've known Carlos for I don't know a few years now, and he is truly one of those people that walks in the room and you just want to hang out with him. Enamored, infectious, his laugh, He's charismatic, and he's charming and smart um and what he's done with AZZI is a total reflection.

I think of him as a person and total So we're going to talk to him about AZZI, where they're going, what they're thinking, and how to be different in a world of news media where everybody is chasing the cliffs bait and the lowest common denominator, right, And and Carlos, I think has carved out his own niche and there's a tone that's reflective that you go, oh, that's Auzzy. So happy to have Carlos on later. Yeah, but first first,

what a week we went to the Twitter verse. We had so much fun talking with some of our loyal listeners. Thank you at Landia and thank you for staying up with us to have a little bit of a late night banter was Yeah, and one of our favorite followers at go Crisco or go Crisco or not Crisco, not c r I s c O. Yeah. He really engaged us in this interesting debate about influence, and it's something we've talked a bit about in different spheres. We've breached

political borders, we've gone into media and talent. But he was talking just a straight up question about influencers. What's happening marketers, Yeah, influencer marketing? Is it going away? What's the future of it? Can we talk about that? And Laura and I said, yeah, absolutely, we'll talk about it because it's actually something that I think is a really

um prevalent topic right now. What's happened with YouTube and a lot of the stars um talking about advertising and how important it is and the support and how important their voices are. I think marketers know instinctually that influencers command more of an audience and more audience stickiness, like they stay with you and they become fans better than any brand in some ways can do just you know,

by advertising. Yeah, and a go Chris go Um shared an article that he had read on Forbes which talks about our influencers the idea of personalities more effective than partnering. And this is for brands with media companies. And our answer is yes, that is absolutely something that is in most cases. I mean, I think it's yes, done correctly, correctly.

And you bring up an interesting point because one of the things that you know, we talk about being really important when you start dabbling in this space is oftentimes, and we said this on our our Twitter handle, it's not necessarily about um getting or aligning yourself with the influencer who has the most followers or who is the most popular. It's about getting with the right influencer who buys into And it was authentically reflective of your brand.

That is a huge difference. Well, it has to be someone who I think it goes back to like sharing values, like shares values with the brand, right shares what's episode one with Ben Cooley talking about you know, when a brand and a media company or influence or personality come together, where the magic happens is when they share a certain ethos ethos or a certain value or for certain perspective

and that it benefits the audience. Yeah. And one of the things for brands to pay attention to when they get into this space is not necessarily lining yourself up with somebody who's going to promote your product one day and then the next day they've got somebody else's clothes on. It's really understanding how do you cultivate a relationship where that influencer inherently believes in those values, promotes such values and I think in their social profile or in their

their brand ecosystem. Yeah. And I think that brands in a lot of ways could think of influencers and talent as people who they want to actually invest in for

the long haul or whatever the long haul is. Um you can do, you know, short term programs, but something where you say, I want to go in work with this influence er on these things in a really meaningful way, not just to do something that's maybe a little bit more ephemeral and just you know, leans into culture for culture's sake, but as something that could stand the test

of time. And I think what's interesting about that is when those two things come together, the earned value happens, right, and an influencer who believes in your brand is more likely to put more into and amplify on their own, on their own time or dollar or platform, in a way that brands could never set themselves up to do

with an actual transaction. I think if you have an influencer who is you know, working with lots of different people, and their values are changing based on whoever they're working with or who's paying them area, they're probably not going to survive very long, right Right, I've got an idea, tell us, what if we stop calling them influencers and we start buying perspectives that because when you can line up perspective, these questions don't become questions, they become givens.

Right there. There are things that if you know what that person stands for, like Arianna Huffington's Sleep, Sleep Well, Sleep and Balance, and I think there's no mistaking what you're going to get out of that conversation. And because she's so passionate, it's so authentic. That brings us to the next kind of topic that we've been talking about, and everyone's talking about it. And in fact, when when we talked about talking about this, I kind of rolled my eyes and I said, I'm so done with the

pepsi conversation. But it's an important conversation to have because we want to put our spin on it because we don't want to add to the noise. I think everybody's for points for why they shouldn't have done it, how tone deaf like, we agree it was a mistake. But the thing that we thought, there are a couple of things that we were like, oh but why, but why

are people saying this? So one of the things that really got under my skin, got my real panties in a bunch, so to speak, was around um people kept pointing at the in house agency and saying, well, if they hadn't used it in ouce agency, and as a marketer, I actually took total offense to that. When we were it was hilarious, Lauren, I were texting and I was like starting to text this and she was like, oh, I am, I can't even talk about it makes me

so frustrated. And so why does that frustrate us? One? I think that marketers in house should be totally responsible as much as their agency for making great work, actually more responsible, because they should be close with the brand and understand the brand values and making sure that those things are reflected. I think one of the things that we got frustrated with was why should a marketer in house be any less accountable than an agency than an agency would if at the end of the day, we're

all marketers accountable and capable. Right, those were the two things. It was like accountable and capable. Well, and what it was funny? I said to Laura, have we as marketers, like have we become expected to outsource our brain to agencies? That that kind of bothers me, So are we like brainless bodies and jobs? Saying sure, just show me the media flow, like what is that? What does that mean? And it and it actually reflects some of the things

that are happening in data, which was point number two. Right, That really kind of like got our goat, which was, well, I don't know, I'm Greek, we like goats, Yeah, I mean the interpretation of it right, And I to me, it wasn't necessarily that they were any less tone deaf. It was that everybody who is a part of culture at this moment in time, or has been for the last I don't know, six months, should have recognized many

red flags on the field. And so whether you're somebody who is sitting internally close to the brand, to me, that actually heightens the respond instability and accountability by saying I've got to protect this house. And if my brand ethos is meant to be joy in this case or you know something for another brand, that might mean X, how am I showing up in the world. And that litmus test should not be uh solely the responsibility of agencies. It should be the responsibility of the marketer, and it

should be the responsibility of partners, right. I mean, there were obviously a lot of people involved. There are always many people involved when making UM a cultural piece of

that magnitude. And this is also why I believe comm's planning, which quite frankly has been stripped away, automated, diluted, complements of things like data and algorithms, where you know, some person somewhere said this is a very um pervasive trend or or cultural moment, and this is an opportunity for us to seize an our way instead of really paying attention to cultural context and what audiences have to say.

And this is where the idea of I'm not so sure tests and learn is really at this day and age where we need to be starting. I think it's more about listening and building and like using your gut. But the thing that like, so I used to work for Pepsi. They were my client early in my career. It's actually the first client I ever had was Pepsi. I have a love for Pepsi. I actually have a love for Pepsi and coke. But Pepsi is totally built

on being a reflection of pop culture. Whether it was in Russia, whether it's with Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. They've been this amazing reflection of pop culture. And when I think we saw here, which made me really sad, was a brand not knowing where they fit in anymore, like pop culture, we're reflecting it. Hey, here it is, guys, this is what pop culture looks like and not doing

more evaluation. To your point around like, Okay, we understand that millennials want to stand for something, that they want to be involved, that they want to do good and yes this is a global as we can't be specific about anything, but we want to reflect those are universal

themes what you just went through. But there are many ways to show up in culture if you're paying attention to audience and your consumer has to say the brand to me was in an emergency of self identity, and that's what we're seeing is like this an emergency of self identity. But and to your point around comms planning, like data ain't a strategy, folks, And in this case, the strategy showed. I I love this line and I've heard a couple of people use it lately, like your

strategy is showing. I mean, their strategy was all out there for us strategy. But I think where this brand struggled the most in the last five eight years has been again there this mirror on pop culture. They've never been a Pepsi. You never look at Pepsi and be like, Pepsi's a leader of culture. No, Pepsi is a reflection of culture, and now I think that they've been in this like almost like you know, emergency of self right of who are we? What would have been the right tone?

I mean, what would have been to strike a balance to lean into millennial culture. How would we have done it differently? I mean, I think that I would have gone down maybe more of an influencer route. I would have if I really, if I really wanted to rally people around the idea and the zeitgeist of social unrest, but people coming together in social unrest to form new communities, um new dialogues, those types of things, and that PEPSI

somehow was like the universal connector. I would have probably gone down a route of going really local and doing it globally all over the world, and not probably with giant pop stars, but probably investing in up and coming talent that I wanted to have a longer term again

relationship with. So going back to what we were talking about earlier, so I think what we've talked a bit about over the course of our first few episodes is getting back to community and grassroots, and there were undertones of that reflect But if you extract the grassroots and you extract subcultures, and passion points, and you start to say, what are the things if I'm listening truly to the

millennial pepsi consumer, who are those subcultures? Not the generic ones we've come to expect, but who truly are they sneaker heads? Are they collaborative artists? Are they interpretive dancers? You know, you get the point, and then understand to your point, if I put a pepsi in their hand, which presumably stands for joy, what does that community galvanize around? And there's your content series because the product is reflective of an ocean and that emotion has been joy, but

put in the wrong context, here we are. Yeah, hey, can I ask a question? Sure, cam our producer, you can ask a question. The thing that you guys didn't bring up. But the thing that I thought of as a consumer was like the second a commercial is political at all, I'm extremely skeptical because they're using something really serious to sell something. And then in this case, they suggested that a can of pepsi can beat the solution

to police brutality, which which no one's gonna buy. But I mean, how do brands, even you know, touch on political topics if people like me kind of like are averse to that to begin with because they think they have to talk about it from like, so, okay, how do brands touch on political topics without being I think like they have. You have to go back to it's not funny, I say money because one of our Twitter followers asked us, you know, how do you think about

advising your clients around politics? And we talked a bit about it on our first episode with Ja and I'll go back to what the core theme of that show was, core values, core values, and like Bend talked a lot about um, if there's five things that are on your front wall when you walk in the door, like if the if the company actually, if the people do not feel like that is actually who the brand is, then you shouldn't even be talking about externally, I think is

what you're thinking. I doubt PEPSI has a big Black Lives Matter sign in their lobby. It shouldn't have been about politics. It should have been about people and the news, right, and that's what they were trying. And then you know, having some weird policeman basically, which was like the modern Tianamen Square thing right with PEPSI, Like I didn't really totally like, I don't know why they did that, and

it made it definitely more political. Yeah, I mean, I feel like they even and I don't know because I'm not part of the world, and you guys might disagree, but I feel like the ad would have been fairly successful if Pepsi hadn't even appeared in the commercial. Total totally agree with that, like banner at the end, because commercials do that all the time. You're like, what the

hell is this about? It's not about the product, and then you see the what if the flash and you're like, well, okay, yeah, what if they had said something like you know, now is the time where we need more joy? That commercial is completely different, right, So anyway, we could go on about every I mean everyone has and everyone's talked about it, and I think like the reason we decided to talk about it was because those things were kind of just

really rubbing us. So we did and we hope you enjoy and you'll always get that from us at Landia. So we'll be right back with Carlos Watson from Ozzie Stay with Welcome back, everybody. We are excited to have Carlos Watson from Azzi dot Com in the studio with us today Carlos Watson, co founder of Azzy dot Com, this breakout media company that we've been watching for a few years now. Carlos, thanks so much for joining us.

It is really fun to be with you guys. As we were saying before, when last I saw you, you were carrying a beautiful baby girl to be thank you, thank you very much. I'm slightly smaller, but I can't say all the way. Well, you know what, she she did her part, and I assume she's healthy and happy. She's very healthy, happy and a lot of fun. Good Thank you. She has Alex as many may so. Carlos,

thanks for coming to Atlantia. I mean we were talking a little bit before we came back on year, and I'm really excited to see the tremendous growth you've had in the last three years or so, breakout growth, you know,

it has been. It's funny because before we started, I was lucky enough to get to have some conversations with Arianna Huffington, and I got to talk to the folks that started Politico and the folks who started Slate, BuzzFeed, and the folks from Bleacher Report, and so we tried to do our homework even as we tried to prepare our plan, and we ended up coming to learn a

couple of things. One, we didn't realize how old a lot of the well known digital media companies were, and so Shane Smith made it clear to me that he wasn't a four to five year old company. Year old. We were just talking. We were literally just talking about right craziness early nineties and Vox there was various incarnations, is almost fourteen fifteen years old, buzz Feed twelve thirteen years old, Refinery twenty nine has been around twelve thirteen

years old. Thrillist. Ben was just telling me, I mean, they've passed a decade, and so we still relatively young Bucks. And what I really have come to appreciate is how long it often takes to get any kind of meaningful momentument. So I'm even more appreciative that in our first three years, I feel like we've offered something really good to our audience, whether it's our presidential daily brief for our daily features. And I feel really good about the kind of audience

that we built. There's a lot of what we call a and ees, addicts and evangelists, you know, and then there are a lot of new opportunities, like events and like television. One of the things that Alexa and I really have enjoyed watching, and maybe you've just studied the industry really well, is that when it seemed like everybody started to go right in chasing the lowest common denominator, looking for scale, in some instances almost replicating the model

in terms of coverage. In terms of format, Ozzie seemed to veer left. Ozzie was always actually built for people who think of the word different as a positive right, Because there are people whom you can say, hey, this food is gonna be a little bit different, and they actually get more excited. Or you have people say hey, it's kind of a different kind of dude and they go, okay, I actually will meet him that right. What about the

people who are scared of different food but love different people. Oh, you know what, we liked this type of left and right, but I'll hang out with you. Is that like an ambidexterous We like those because I think Alexa and I are that well, you know what, then come on down and spend some more time with uh. We from the very beginning wanted to be different. There's a thing on a sesame street. Some of these things are not like and we wanted to be different because there are no

winners in the long lines. You know, the short lines are where the winning is right. And so we were comfortable being in a different place. We were comfortable not going, as you said, for the lowest common denominator. We really admired what HBO didn't said. You know what, I'm not

going to do a million different shows. I'm gonna do a handful, but really really well, they're gonna be monsters and you're gonna be excited about and so and our mind was always Apple, HBO Tesla do a few things really well and and don't just have people like you have see if you could have people fall in love with you was at The impetus to be in the Valley was because you admire and want to exemplify certain

things that Apple Tesla have done. The biggest part of the reason was unfortunately my mom was really sick, and

so I moved out there. But I love the valley and I stayed because I think it's a place where people have seeing crazy things happen, and where they can indulge your idea and not immediately skeptically push it aside that no, they can see it actually come to light because enough of their neighbors went to go join some crazy sounding thing called Uber or Google or Snapchat and one, and so in New York they're always like, get the am I allowed to say something like the funk out

of here, and uh, I'll let lower do the Jersey access. But but but it was pretty good. But out in the Bay they'll say, like, tell me more. Now, they still may walk away from it, but they'll say tell me more. And so I thought there was power. And then the other piece of it is I wanted my

team even when we had the chance. We had investors who were pushing us, even after we started to move to New York, And I said, you know what, if my guys moved to New York, they will fundamentally compare themselves to the New York Times, to BuzzFeed interesting and no disrespect. I want my guys comparing themselves to Apple, to Uber, to Tesla. Why are media companies like Ozzie right, like some of the smaller players, but some of the

newer players on the scene. Why can't they be the ones who are creating technologies and architectures for new products in ways that we're not thinking about. So everyone looks at like the A, T and T s right, or the Googles or the Apples and says, oh, they're going to be the ones, right, Why why can't media companies be the disrupter? And even like media companies that are what I would say are more niche like in some ways because you're creating the a in the ease right

in audio things, dropping on our meetings last week? Do you know what's coming in queue? For to know what's coming around? This is why people come to at Landing Carlos. We have these conversations. Well, so, the only folks in media who have kind of used tech is BuzzFeed used it a little bit when they were kind of gaming social and obviously now they just pay for it. And The New York Times is kind of used tech from personalization to kind of a little bit of virtual reality

to other things. But there's not a media company yet. And obviously I realized that Facebook and Samchat and others would be offended would say we are media companies, right, but there's not a media company yet. In my mind that has clearly said a media and technology just riffing on that from the tech standpoint, it's interesting that you want your employees, your competitive set presumably to consider you

as let's just say media and tech. Yeah, when we were talking a little bit earlier about you going left, Alexa had this really great kind of synopsis and saying, AZZI is credibly human you when in bridge relationships, not with the Googles and the face if you went in bridge relationships with why they said and so well synchronized. Maybe because I have three sisters, I like partners, you realize you have to go along to get along. We always said that we were out to thrill our audience.

That doesn't sound like a special thing to say until you realize that most companies are looking to serve their audiences. And I don't mean any disrespect to a lot of the people we know, but you know, most of the companies you know, as much success as Dell has had, as much success as Delta have, they would probably say we do a good job of serving our customers with

jet Blue when they first started. What Apple has said, what others want to say, They want to Yeah, they want to thrill in delight, and that's what Ozzy has always been about. I met a few years ago a guy named David Neilman, who had founded Jet Blue. Helped found Jet Blue, and I love Jet Blue. When it first came out, I would switch flights. I would pass up business class or first class just to fly with them.

I love them. And I remember I met him at LaGuardia and when he finally realized I wasn't a stalker and stopped and talked and just that I was just a super fan. I was like, how in the world did you build something that I really like this much? Because you don't really have an emotional reaction to an airline, but I love that. He said, was that for all the analysis he did, in the end, he kind of followed his heart and his gut, and he wanted to

be happy and other people like him. And so a slightly tall guy tired of his knees getting banged, and so he created seats with more room, not just for himself but for everyone. You know, he was a guy who was flying often from the West coast, East coast. You taught to New York and he said, cause if I could have had anything in that time, I would

have had TV time. And so I don't know if you remember, they were the first to put a time on the back of He had like that's why I used to fly them and they had like yeah, it all kinds of So I say all that just to say that part of the reason why I hope you feel like we're different and we are human is it for all the studying we did in the end, we were willing to put our books down and kind of look in the mirror and kind of say what would make you fall love? And and that's what we tried

to do. You get that from experience. Because one of the things that Alex and I were poking at a little bit is what audience is the Aussie sweet spot. So we have a theory AZZI is actually super serving an audience that is not necessarily spot on millennial and not definitely in the older boomer but somewhere in the gen X millennial crowd, people who are maybe a little bit more seasoned in their career, more more yeah, more experienced seasoned consumers, and people who are looking for maybe

something slightly different. It's not the different take on the same story. It's giving a different story and put it in context. Two things that are happening culturally, politically, economically, from a business standpoint. I think you guys do that probably better than anybody else. So when Laura and I were talking about it, we're like, are they millennial? Not

from our field? It actually feels like you're super serving maybe a slightly older thirty six I'm thirty six, thirty six year old to forty five year old audience that are ravenous readers, curious, interested. Yeah, I think you were right that we've got a love affair with them, And I think with millennials. When we first started, people thought it was bullshit if I said it, But I used to say that our audience was like what I call

the change generation. They were people who weren't just okay with things being different, or they didn't just tolerate things

being different. Actually different had positive connotation, and different might mean different food, different clothing, different places to travel, different people to date and marry, but that fundamentally they weren't just open to it but like it, like had a positive connotation and not everything, but that more often than not they would say why not and give something a shot, and that that was our tribe and that while that might disproportionately skew millennial and gen xer. It really was

more about a mindset. And in fact, what was funny was that my mom makes you rest in peace, who was an eighty something year old teacher. I felt very strongly that Ozzy was for her, and she would literally put up her dukes with anyone who would try and tell her that it was just for my niece, who at the time was uh twenty and in college. And who say, you know, Grandma, this is for me, this is my thing. Why are you trying to read OUI? And she was like, because Ozzy is for me. Ozzy

is for whoever is curious, whoever open. I hope Azzy has a nice mix of seriousness and sexiness right over, both smart and sexy. Or someone told me, really well, Heidi Browning, if you're listening, I love it. She says smart is sexy and uh and I love that when she said that. And I think that that's hard because I think a lot of the sites that are known as millennial sites, if I'm honest and you're honest, they feel a little thin. Millennials have eclipsed as the highest

population in the world. How billions of people are we talking about there's not one thing that ticks them off. There are a million, and there's sometimes even different. I went to China a couple of years ago. I was pregnant and I went to China and I sat down with a bunch of like I don't know, taste makers, entrepreneurs, people in business, marketers and have these conversations about Chinese

quote unquote millennials, right. And the difference that everyone said, and this was in separate conversations, was they could like things that are actually at cross purposes. They could actually believe in brands as strongly that has one perspective and another one that has a completely opposite perspective. But somehow that works out. And I think that we're going into this place right in culture, in media, where you could be a conservative African American that totally loves kid rock.

From an advertising and marketing perspective, sometimes we under serve and under delight that full total set of interests, the idea that we're rallying around like minded communities that have nothing to do with where you're from, how you were raised, what's your ideology is. But we all gravitate to this thing, whether that leans into politics, whether that leans into the arts, whether you know, whatever it is that you may be covering. There's no barrier to entry. It's just you really need

to enjoy this thing. Yeah, you've leaned a lot into this idea of natural, authentic conversation and are building franchises around it. Can you talk to us a little bit about some of that original i P and some of the programming that you're going into, some of the events. I love when you tell me the best brands that are coming to the table, the ones who are asking for experiences, whether that's events or otherwise. You guys are doing fest Yeah, so, what's what's the premise for the

original i P? And where are you going with it? We started digitally with the idea, could we not just catch you up on the day's news, but help you vault ahead and be that place to help you discover not just original takes, but original stories. We started hearing pretty early, because we do fairly detailed surveys that people

were saying they use different words. They were saying, as much as I like ASSI online, I wish I could see Aussie in the real world, And so we started thinking about at it first, doing kind of small events in the way that fortune in the Atlantic have done. But then a very smart woman who was an Auzzi attic who works for the City of New York was like, guys, you're not thinking big enough. She said, south By Southwest used to be something really special. It's gotten a little sprawly.

Why don't you guys really commit yourselves not to playing small, but really to building the next south By Southwest. And so we've made a five year commitment to the City of New York to build something called Azzy Fest in Central Park. My favorite review called it Ted meets Coach Ella. It's actually perfect. With the success of that, we now began doing smaller events all around the country. So we've done them in d C, in Boston, and got one coming up here in New York, San Francisco, a variety

of other places. And we're now I'm excited, We're going to smaller towns and places and uh, is that inspired by everything that's going on? Part of that, But we always wanted to do that. There was a guy Gordon, Donnelly Gordon, if you're listening out there in Missouri, we still love you and remember you. Uh. But Gordon lived outside of Ferguson and kind of a relatively a rural, rural suburban area. Gordon was an azzy addict who saw some of our Auzzy t shirts online and he's like,

how do I get one of those? And we were like a sign up five of your friends, And about a week later, Gordon comes back and has signed up fifty bam and so we sent them with love. But I'd been lucky enough to get together with President Clinton before we launched Ozzy, and he really liked the idea and he said, cars, we have to promise me something. He says, you have to promise me that Ozzy's not e didnt use his words. Isn't just gonna be for yuppies, he said, because there are a lot of nurses who

worked the overnight shift. There are a lot of taxi drivers. Uh, there are a lot of people who are curious who want to know and whether or not they had the same education, opportunities are took the same route. Every bit is curious and so you gotta promise me that what you're doing is about curiosity and not about a degree.

And so we have always known and believe that our audience played all around the world and wasn't just in blue states in big cities, um, and wasn't just in the US, And so we're doing events in places that people might not immediately expect. It's gonna be fun and it's exciting. We're doing a fifty state tour in all fifty states, and we called States of the Nation. When are you kicking that off? We just kicked it off, So I'm getting ready. When are you coming to New Jersey?

You know that's actually a good question. I don't know what we're hitting the Jersey? Are you thinking up a Corey Booker? He's doing so much of this, this activism ground and you know, he was one of the stars of our first ASSI Fest. He was such a winner at our first ASSI Fest and it was so good. We were fortunate to have him, to have Karl Rove, to have Malcolm Gladwell, have the Broad City Girls, to have Ray, to have Alex Cornachelly, to have all kinds

of folks play in the sandbox and make it. In India they call it massala, you know, make it a really nice mix and yeah yeah, um, so what is next? Frasie like big big swings. When we met, like what two it was like two years ago. Now you came in and you talked about the valley, You talked about what people aren't thinking about. I think you've paid off on that in so many ways. But I know that

there's more. We know that there's more. Um. You know, not every media company or publisher has someone like you that's as charismatic and also approachable. You know, one of our investors, Ron Conway, has probably be the most successful angel investor in history. You know, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Uber, Snapchat, interest, on and on. Almost sounds made up, but he reminds me again last week he's like Carls investent over seven companies.

And while I've got arguably the greatest record for an angel investor ever at the garage stage, not once it's great it's gonna win, but when it's just a person or two or three people and an idea and a dream, he said, the reality is that nine out of ten don't win big. He's like, you gotta stay humble because the chances are just as easy that you're one of the nine as you are the one right at any time, By the way, at any time, at any time. And so Samir and I always say that we're in the

sweet sixteen right now. Like we used basketball, we said, like we've played our way into the sweet sixteen and we haven't cut down the nets and won the championship yet. But we're in the sweet six team, maybe the Elite eight. So what gets you to the final four? What? What are those? So? I think a couple of things have to be true. One is, I think our friends Advice very smartly led the way and said that if you're doing good work in one platform, it should be able

to live in other places. Were and the idea that high quality digital series can become television and film, I think makes complete sense. And you guys know, we were fortunate to sell our first show last year. We haven't announced that we just sold our second show. We've partnered with CIA, and we hope that we've got, you know, a couple more shows coming. And so we think that

that's a real meaningful part of us. And it's a meaningful part not only as a revenue driver and as a chance to partner with brands in ways that they really want, but it's also an opportunity, I think, to build our own brand. And for a lot of people, that's how they will discover Ozzie is through a show like The Contenders or a couple of the others that we have coming up that are gonna be awesome and great. But do you want to say, I wish I could,

but you'll come back and tell us. But when you watch Assi or listen AZZI read Ozzie, whether it's about Brazil's crazy hot dogs or the young foreign minister in Austria, or the crazy thing that's happening treating addiction these days, the idea of vaccinating my addictions. You're learning. We think over the long term, people may take courses and maybe even one day do even kind of more advanced kind

of education. And so you know, you think about Oprah starting as a talk show host and by the very end, you know, causing more people to read than anyone else, right, um, causing more people to change their lives anyway. So I think if Ozzy becomes the world's best teacher, I think that's one big opportunity that I actually think we'll speak again to what you were saying earlier, that there's kind of a deeper level of substance Dazzy than maybe there

are not only originality but substance um. And so I think that will end up um being something that people may not always articulate, but they will know. But I also think it's something that people will pay for, and I think there's gonna be a big opportunity there. The other thing is, and I have to give one of my sister's credit for this, she says, when I hear that a guy reads Ozzy, it tells me he's not

going to talk about himself all night. Interesting, and she said, she says, I immediately know that he's a curious person and that he's open, and I can tell him and then he's outward and he's outward, and so I actually think that Ozzy could end up going down one day. Is one of the greatest matchmakers in history. Swipe left, swipe left and right, you know, you remember right, I'm married.

I don't know. But I also think that there's a what you're kind of I think nicely nodding without telling us, is that there's totally new ways of building community that

you're looking at very much, very much. And I would say more than that, I would say that our audience is looking at and I would say honestly that they are driving us towards I mean, you know, part of what I'm telling about education because we have over a hundred thousand professors and teachers who have written in or at various points of let us know that they are Aussie readers and are using them in the classroom, from high schools in Melbourne, Florida, to Brown University, from the

military academy to community colleges in California. And the fact that people are are, you know, assigning our presidential Daily Brief to their students or or using what we call him honest Proposal to spark debates. You know, it's kind of pulled us into the education sphere more aggressively than we are, which ironically, you don't hear a lot of media companies talking about like I remember being in college

and it's like what was your source of reference? And I don't really remember it being like this broad reaching scope of like media companies like there were some traditional credible to their professors were bringing in and talking. I just don't remember like somebody saying, hey, did you see you on I mean been at home page of whatever, like, which I think is a really interesting white space for

for media companies to be leaning into. This is a really simple lesson for brands listen, just listen right like you're not saying we're going to create audiences where we think audiences need to be created. We're listening, and they're driving us there, and we're going there and we're building, and then we're building. That's that's it at home. So Carlos, leave our listeners at Landia. Last tweet of the show. What's interesting to you? You talk about staying interesting. What's

interesting to you? As a last tweet of the of

the show. I'm always interested and unlikely suspects and people who weren't supposed to have a podcast, or weren't supposed to start a company, or weren't supp was to be a writer, or weren't supposed to do a movie like Moonlight, and I want to know how that happens and what we all can take from it in order to be a little bolder, maybe a lot more bold, inspired by the David's yes, yes, well, Carlos, you inspire us and we always learned something new and interesting from you every

time we see you. So fun, We always have fun with you. You are welcome anytime, Carlos Watson. Everybody, thank you so much for stopping back. People want to find you like someone in Missouri. How do they find you? You could find me on Twitter, you can find me on Facebook. Lots of good ways. Also Carlos Watson at azzy dot com. Thank you, Carlo. Thank you, Carlos. Talk to you soon. Take care. Big thanks to Carlos Watson for coming down to Brooklyn to record with us. Um

all the way from California. Big fans of Ozzie check them out out Central Park, Ozzie Festa, Manhattan. It's gonna be awesome this summer. That said, we have a couple of people to thank, Cameron Drews who was active today. Cameron Drew's on the microphone. People, our producer, Laura Mayor, Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, all of our family at Panoply.

And we have one request to our listeners. If you're liking at Landia, review us on iTunes, Google Play, wherever you can review and also get into conversations with us. But we're having some fun banters back and forth on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Yeah, so go ahead and follow us on Twitter at Atlantia Podcast and we'll be back in two weeks with another show. We're out. Thanks at Landia Full disclosure, our opinions, our own