Viral AI Music, Content Ethics, Creator Monetization, and TikTok's Fate

it's just so interesting to me how far we've come with music generation this is kind of like a cheat code for any Creator out there 2 years ago none of the stuff existed and now it's like Central to my workflow and that's why I think AI is so magic the reason I mentioned it and wanted to bring it up with you is because you had the Kanye thing was there Backlash good feedback bad feedback mostly negativity for sure man I was getting lamb basted I think that was like one of the most viral things in AI that I that I saw oh yeah I knew it was going to go viral I studi this stuff really deeply like there was so many things in that script where I was like this is going to go nuclear hey welcome back to the next wave podcast my name is Matt wolf I'm here with my co-host Nathan L and with this show we bring you all the latest news and information in the AI world and have fascinating conversations with the people that are building this AI world and today we've got another really awesome conversation today we've got Roberto Nixon on the show Roberto is a Serial entrepreneur and he's one of the top creators on Instagram and Tik Tok in the AI world you may even know him from his viral Kanye West clone video that was all over the Internet about a year ago he also recently interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on Instagram all about what they're doing in the world of AI and uh we have some amazing conversations with him in this episode we talk about the crossover between content and AI we talk about the responsibility we have as content creators to keep keep people the best informed possible in the AI world and we also talked to him about how the heck did he manage to get Mark Zuckerberg on his show so many cool rabbit holes we go out in this one so excited to share it with you and let's Dive Right In with Roberto Nixon thank you so much Roberto for joining us how you doing today dude I'm pumped to be here man next wave first of all congrats on the podcast been listening to everything I've been a like religious follower of you guys uh for some time and um actually Matt I I I was introduced to you forget how it must have been about a year ago now and I think I've watched every single one of your videos it's like part of the reason how I keep updated on the space everybody always ask me how do I keep updated like you're one of the names that I always uh put out there as well as as as lore and Nathan's newsletter and everything so like I'm I'm pumped to be here man I'm excited to talk with you guys lot to lot to talk about yeah there's a lot to cover um you know I I think I first came across you um you had both Instagram reels and I think Tik Tok were sort of the domain you've been playing in right and uh I came across your Tik Tok about how you recreated like a Kanye sounding song and that video just went super viral and just I followed along to your journey ever since as well so it's um you know it's really cool and I think that's what we want to get into a little bit today let's start with your story a little bit too what how did you get into AI in the first place like what was what was the Catalyst for that for you dude I'll I'll it's it's a long story but I'm going to make it short so basically the last decade I was actually in product so my obsession was uh UI user interfaces and then I actually got into building iOS apps so for like the last eight years or I would say like 2013 to 2021 that's all I was doing I was just like obsessed with building creativity software for iOS we had something like 75 million downloads across our our suite of apps and then uh sold some of them 2017 2018 and then exited the rest of them in in 2021 and then I was like all right what do what do I want to do next right like I kind of had no idea I I found actually web 3 and it was super interesting so I kind of got into that um but then I I said you know what I want to I want to start making content personally because for so long I've been creating content but it's always been faceless it's always been for my apps or faceless media Brands some of which I still run today and I decided you know what I want to do this individually personally and I chose AI because at the time we were building this SAS platform it was called a Luna media generation so we're now pivoting in we're building this other platform called post coming out soon which I'm really excited about and initially when I started making content I was like I'm going to make content because I'm looking for customers for my SAS that's it nothing else I'm going to ride this AI Trend just because you know that's how we're going to do it but then few months into it I fell in love with the creative process man and I and like now I'm like doing stuff some of the stuff doesn't even have like an economic incentive behind it it's just like me exploring my creative Curiosities and I've I've really just fallen in love with the process and now it's like is just uh I wake up every day excited to to just create whether it be business focused or just uh creatively focused and and that's sort of where I'm at today man that's that's kind of like the long story cut short that's awesome I mean that's it's the the same bug I I feel the same way about video production as I feel about AI right like for me like that's where the like coming back to the sort of Ven diagram metaphor right that's where it sort of overlap for me was I loved production I love video I love all the toys and then I saw Ai and I'm like this is just another of that it's more like toys but more more digital more online more sasp dude I I play with so many of them like every I mean not as much as you like Future tools this must be like you must be tired of actually seeing AI tools but um yes I mean I bro there's probably like 15 tools that are part of my workflow I would say right now I'm like using so many and the thing about this space like you guys know is use it for like two weeks and then something better comes along and it's like things get outdated really really quickly in the AI space so that that's something that uh it can get exhausting Matt I I really don't know how you do it um curating Future tools it's like it's just too much I get sick of seeing the same damn tool over and over and over again that's the frustrating part for me right is the people that submit the tools now are mostly like okay we've already seen 15 other tools that do this exact same thing why do you need to go create another version of it and try to charge people for it it just doesn't make sense uh um that's the part I get frustrated with but when I see something new that I haven't seen before like you know that I I'm still just as nerdy and excited about it as you know any other thing that I've seen for the first time well a bit a bit on a tangent like I because I was kind of guilty of it like candidly with Al Luna we had this great idea stable diffusion is unbelievable but there's no good UI for it so we're like we're going to be the first to build this out but you know it was like 5,000 other entrepreneurs who kind of built the same thing that product went we we hit 25k Mr pretty quickly but it was we we understood very soon all right we don't feel like competing against mid journey and Google and Adobe uh so now we're building something that hopefully uh people haven't seen before uh I'll let I'll let you know when that comes out and you can be honest with me if it's not you know good enough for Future tools not a problem I'm sure it will be because you're probably approaching it from the same way you know someone like us would approach it as like all right let's let's actually do something that uh you haven't seen other people doing yet or you know at least put a Twist on it right do like put some sort of twist on it where it's like okay maybe it's art generation but it's niched to this specific industry or something right well let me let me ask you guys this because I actually think this is a really interesting question I'd love to get you your guys take it's like is are the incumbant just going to take all or is there I mean like right now people have had head starts like mid Journey came out and to me they're still best in class but I don't I don't know if you guys saw IM image in three from Google it's like right there you know and some of these other tools now even some of these stable diffusion models that we see on civi they're like very close to Mid Journey's output and some of these Head Starts have been kind of erased and I just feel like there is this possibility that the incumbents you know Google meta uh Microsoft they're just they're going to take the whole pie so HubSpot just put out this really cool checklist it's called the AI adoption checklist and if you're trying to implement AI into your business and any way whatsoever this checklist has you covered from security to privacy to to planning to training this has you covered click the link in the description below and grab the checklist today I don't know my my feeling is like you know like when's the last Google like new Google product that like people actually use I I can't name one I mean they own YouTube that's great you know they bought that uh but what have they built that people actually use that's new nothing basically so mid Journey has a lot of users who love the company and so even if like Google releases something that's like similar in quality I don't think that means everyone's just to jump ship to the new Google product I don't see it fair no 100% Fair yeah I I um you know this is actually a conversation we had with a mutual friend we had Greg Eisenberg on the show and we actually had this conversation with Greg um as as well and Greg's point was you know the tools that managed to build a community around them the tools that managed to build like a some sort of brand maybe even in a smaller Niche will probably still get some traction over the big incumbents I think the general population will probably migrate towards the big incumbents right the microsofts the Googles you know um I would say open AI but you know Microsoft is just building everything open AI does into it anyway um but I think you know the majority of the population will probably move to the big incumbent but the ones that manage to build community around them will still manage to get traction and build pretty solid businesses around them will they turn into multi-billion dollar unicorns probably not um and the ones that I think do things really unique that uh do a good job will probably just get scooped up and acquired by Google um you know Google has a a a They Don't Really create a lot of new stuff that gets people excited but they're really good at acquiring products that once people are excited about it then Google comes in and Scoops it up right um you know the the last big products that that Google made that are really really still popular to this day are pretty much Gmail and Android right everything else that's really popular was something that Google came in and acquired yeah I mean it's really tough even if like okay even if your model is a little bit better if you know I'm I'm used to Google search although that's even been disrupted I'm using perplexity a lot I'm using meta AI I'm I'm using chat GPT now on my Mac which has been awesome um but I think for most people it's like this behavior that they've it's like muscle memory over the last 20 years if if like they're probably still going to use Google search even if perplexity or even you know if the models like Benchmark a little bit higher the average person couldn't care less yeah right and so yeah man I mean it's interesting I like I'm not I'm not huge on predictions but I love just being on the play byplay like you guys and so it it'll be uh fascinating to watch it all play out I think it's fun to make predictions because the ones that I'm right all you know 6 months from now I'll turn around where I was right resurface them exctly and then the ones where I was wrong I just never mention them again dude this is so like in finance like all these stock market guys where they just every single day they predict the market is going to collapse and like the one day that it does they ride that wave forever and they just build a career off it totally get it I actually want to go back to something you mentioned you mentioned that you use uh like 15 different Tools in your your creative workflow let's let's dive into that a little bit i' I'd like to compare notes a little bit um because I use a lot of AI tools a lot of non- aai tools in my creative workflow so um yeah I'm I'm curious what are the tools that you find yourself using to actually put the content out well there was a video I made the other day it would be it was such a process it was actually the longest I've ever spent editing a video probably took like 12 hours over the course of a week and I was like what did I get myself into um but the process behind that video was first creating a lot of images on Mid Journey so I'd be like step one um Mid Journey's upscaler is decent it's not that great so then I'd use magnific uh shout out to Javi I know he's a mutual friend um I think that's probably the best in class upscaler uh so went mid journey and then upscaled and magnific then there was a lot of work in Photoshop to be done if if you saw the video you'd understand what I'm getting to but BAS basically was like these buildings uh with the windows changing like different colors and different things happening in the building as it was like zooming in and out but then I'd bring it into Photoshop and there was a lot of masking and like manual work in Photoshop but I also found myself using a lot of gener to fill like gener to fill is a huge part of my uh process um so mid Journey magnific generative fill and then I needed some elements animated so then I bring it in a Runway and then I like mask out the exact elements that I needed animated and I spent some time uh working there which by the way Runway man if they can like improve that product just a little bit like it it's my favorite UI and like my favorite product but I I feel like it's lagging behind a little bit and so that process alone it's like hopefully there'll be a tool that'll be able to automate all of this and I actually think this is why going back to the incumbent conversation I actually think Adobe Photoshop and Premiere will be able to do all this stuff and that's why I was asking maybe I won't need to use mid Journey magnific Etc but for now I'm using like those four tools um and then I put them together in Premiere and then I found myself editing my audio in the in the enhanced audio which is new to Premiere um and so that is an example of five tools being used right there to like output this one video and depending on what I'm doing I'm finding myself and and then before that even just research and ideating just conversationally brainstorming with an llm I mean like and and it's it's crazy man like two years ago none of the stuff existed and now it's like Central to my workflow allowing me to like tell stories that I previously wouldn't be able to tell and that's why I think AI is so magic yeah well generator Phil is one that I feel like doesn't get enough talk but I use it almost daily I love generative fill inside of Photoshop you know dude it's magic and it matches the color and like Contra it's actually it's the closest thing to Magic that I've seen in like the AI space it's like you said it's underappreciated and under talked about yes one one tool that I find myself using a lot more lately and um this kind of actually gets into a topic that we wanted to discuss too is is I've been using a lot because in videos it makes like the perfect music for videos like one of one thing I've started to experiment with is if I'm showing off a long process and there's like a montage going off I almost make like a a South Park like or um Team America like Montage song right like here's my Montage of me coding and it'll just be like lyrics that I typed into suo about what I'm doing on the screen and now there's music playing during the Montage explaining what I'm doing right I've been doing that a lot more in videos as well and um sunno is really really impressive but the the reason I mentioned it and and wanted to bring it up with you is because you had the the Kanye thing and it's just so interesting to me how far we've come with music generation because I'm assuming back when you did the Kanye thing you had to use like the like the sovit SVC and you probably had to like run it through like your terminal on your computer and it was a pretty complicated process I'm imagining I didn't I I don't remember the exact workflow but music generation has just come so damn far since then I mean that's how I first uh learned about Roberto is like I think that was like one of the most viral things in AI that I that I saw was like you doing this thing where you're singing like basically like training creating a new Kanye song where you sing the song and then it and then it goes and it sings it back to you with Kanye's voice and that was just such a magical that Roberto actually can kind of rap too like if I was to try to do the same thing it would not have come out like that kind of is generous um yeah I mean dude a couple thoughts there one is um yeah it was it was a pretty complicated process back then and and this is kind of like a cheat code for any Creator out there is like uh and and part of the process that we're trying to streamline with pulse is like I have 30 subreddits that in a folder and I have them sorted by rising and new right and so a lot of the magic is in the rising and new that people that never picks up and never makes it to like the hot or never makes it to the top of the feet and I saw this thing like some kid did this thing with Kanye he like deved this model uh and he put it on Google collab and I was like this Discord but I was I was searching through Twitter nobody was talking about it except for like this small subset of people in this like random ass Discord and I went in there and I tried it out I and I ran the Google collab and dude I was like mind blown I said H this is going to change everything and so I made the video I put it out there and it was really I think the first like mainstream introduction of this technology to the world and um it went Mega viral to the point where I always tell people I've had in the last 18 months like 70 videos do a million plus views on like short form you know I've had 5 10 20 million viewed videos but like that's the only video that I consider viral and the reason why because that was like every YouTuber covered it like even the big ones unbox therapy uh Penguins moist critical like every journalist was reaching out I talked to a lot of like label heads actually like really uh prominent label heads everybody wanted to understand the technology more you know like TV interviews everybody was like reaching out and I said whoa this is this is crazy and um and then like weeks later it it even went there was a kid named Ghost Rider yeah you guys might have remember that and he was making the dude like he had a Drake track with the weekend where I was like if this was a real song this would be like in in Drake's top 10 like it was just obur to me um and so yeah that that was a fun time probably definitely uh the video that that put me in a lot of people's Radars um and I I've been searching for like that Viral viral crazy moment ever since so that's why I have my ears and eyes always like the AI emerging Tech World it sucks that you know Drake started going after everyone after that too like that was one of my first big Twitter threads so I learned about you and I'm like oh this is amazing and then and then uh the Drake thing came out and then the Grimes AI song as well and and I did like two big Twitter threads where like I wrote my thoughts on all like what this means for the future of music and those you know they went pretty big and uh and then like everyone who was making the the Drake threads or sharing the song they started getting like takedown notices on Twitter but yeah one one Golden Nugget for that real quick is like definitely a lot of the crazy stuff happening like the tinkerers in the community they're on Reddit they're on Discord they're not so much on like Twitter Instagram YouTube like some of the some of the more mainstream platforms and so keeping your your ears and eyes to these little subsets and and weird little subcultures online is is uh is how you can find a lot of the stuff that's like starting to Bubble yeah there's been so many videos I've made that just kind of Spun up from like a cool like subreddit that I found or from like a random tweet that nobody else noticed and I'm like why anybody else talking about this 100% but I'm curious was there like Backlash good feedback bad feedback like what was the what was the general feeling from that video did you get more sort of negativity as a result of it more positivity like how did that land mostly negativity for sure man I was getting lamb basted I would say um I knew it was going to go viral all right because I'm like I'm I'm kind of a practitioner I'm like a I study this stuff really deeply like verality on the internet how to create content how the best and there was so many things in that script and so where I was like this is going to go nuclear I already knew I even uh I think I tweeted before I'm about to drop a video that's going to go super viral part of the reason why I didn't expect okay so like the woke mob came after me for digital blackface which was like CNN had published an article like right after and so everybody was like oh this is racist like um you know like a black dude's voice white dude singing it okay but then the other part was that part was not deliberate I didn't quite expect that the part that was deliberate like the way that I engineered the lyrics one part where I kind of like took a shot at Kanye for remember he did like the whole anti-Semitism thing and I took a shot at him like you know for for uh talking down an entire culture and I said it was ignorant this and that and then another one was I included a lyric and I didn't mean it for it to be disrespectful but I included a lyric about D like his late mother right that was supposed to be like endearing but somebody was like oh not only is he digal blackace he's also talking about his mom as him this is I think moist critical called it like diabolical so man I was getting like heat left and right which I kind of expected so it wasn't it wasn't too big a deal but yeah and and then from the artist Community oh here they come to to steal the virtue of artists and human artists this and that so it was just like negativity uh straight throughout but I think a lot of the technologist and stuff appreciated it but yeah certainly an interesting time man it was a it was an experience for sure did did that Linger on did that continue Or Nah it just and that's another thing with the internet like there's so much like blatant not to go on the super tangent but like so much blatant corruption in the world and they're just like people don't care anymore because what happens online man you you for 24 hours you get a bunch of people angry on Twitter and like writing mean threads or angry comments on Instagram then everybody forgets and then they're on to the next thing and so that's you know people are more fickle now than ever so how do you think the like the sentiment around AI music has changed because now you know you've got um like udio and puno and stuff like that and yudo actually has like common and um uh who else there's like a few musicians actually attached to that product now so it seems like more musicians are getting on board I was actually at the Google IO event and uh Lupe Fiasco was actually there at the event wandering around and um I got to talk to him for a minute but you know he's actually working with Google on text effects but now they have a a new one called music effects that they're uh that they were showing off at Google iio as well and that's where I actually bumped into Lupe was he was actually playing around with the music effects Tools in real life like mixing beats and generating AI music and he was like super Blown Away super impressed by it so like I mean it feels like the the sentiment among musicians is sort of starting to come around but I don't know what what are your thoughts in in general like I actually think about this a lot I think anything that's purely AI generated is actually really boring and I I don't think they'll ever be a market for it I just don't aside from the initial novelty like when we first started seeing mid Journey images you guys probably remember it was like it was mindblowing but now I see it an image from mid journey and maybe I don't know it's AI at first maybe it looks like an artist but once I learn that it's purely AI generated I just don't care like and I think as humans we all desire that human element and case in point like Sam Alman made this point it's like hey we love the we love chess as a game the strategy behind it all this robots can outperform humans in chess but we don't want to watch a robot playing a robot like so there there has to be that human element I think the very same in art and in music so if something's purely AI generated I actually don't think it'll ever hit I don't think there'll be a market for it now there is a caveat there may be a time where literally we don't know but but I do think there just has to be that human element like the story behind the art so I I look at AI as a tool specific to music I look it at you know like there's producers who sample old songs and like recreate them to make beats so I think people will use AI to like create samples to then sort of remix maybe create drums uh drum kits that kind of stuff but I do think there needs to be that human element otherwise I just don't think there's a lasting market for purely AI generated media yeah no I actually feel kind of the same way I feel like I'll hear stuff be really impressed by it but same thing when you realize it was made by Ai and it wasn't like a human doing something awesome you kind of it it kind of lose something a little bit there I feel like AI is the best sort of uh helpful tool out there both for art and music and you know all of the creative forms when it comes to writing almost all of us now can spot chat GPT right you can read an article and almost immediately go okay I feel like chat GPT wrote this article now right but if you have chat GPT write you an article and then you go back and sort of see that as a rough draft and clean it up and add your own voice and add your own comments and opinions now you have something that people actually want to read read same with like music right like the the stuff that Lupe Fiasco is doing for instance with text effects he's helping they built an AI to help you come up with lyrics and alliterations and rhyming words and synonyms and all that kind of stuff to help with the creative process but then the musician still gets involved and creates the music you know the stuff that Google was showing off with their music effects it wasn't actually doing any lyrics that sounded like a musician but it was creating really good beats by taking styles from this musician and this musician blending them together creating something novel and then a rapper or a you know a singer can go and then put the lyrics over the top of it that's where I feel like AI really shines is like that sort of co-pilot that that tool to help you do the Creative thing you're trying to do I don't know I think we'll see like if it keeps improving right like I do see it becoming maybe its own genre of music in the future right cuz like yeah we're talking about like AI music now but like okay 3 years from now 5 years from now maybe it's produced [ __ ] that just like blows our minds it's beyond any human's ability to create right um and so at that point I don't know we'll see well here's here's an interesting question that I'd be curious both of your answers on if let's say um Drake for instance really got on board the AI train and let's I don't know if you guys are Drake fans or not but let's assume you guys are Drake fans let's say he trained his voice into the algorithm and he has like over sight but he's making AI Drake songs and it's Drake Drake's oversight he's sort of um you know deciding the beats that go underneath it he's helping steer the lyrics but the song itself is fully AI generated would that change how you feel about this song so so that's the tricky part like if we knew so a lot of people once they find out Drake has an army of ghost writers and this and that like their affinity for him just goes down a little bit as an artist because like oh he didn't even write the lyrics right but yeah that's the part that's the big caveat if we know so I do you guys know Veron Maya uh he's a he's a Creator I think he's mostly on Instagram but all all of his Instagram uh uh content all the shorts are AI generated meaning it's like his model and then he just goes and writes the script and it's AI voiced AI generated the script may even be and but people don't know that but because he's a real human that had like this affinity and this audience and stuff people don't really mind I don't think now if that was a pure AI generate creation like if that human actually didn't exist I don't think it would work but because of was a human and a story and a body of work behind it it sort of does and I think it could be the same for music where it's like if Drake's if he has like seven shows coming up in the next 10 days but he's got to get a song out for whatever reason there may be a chance like just get get my model to do it nobody will know it's IND it'll be if it's not now it'll be indistinguishable very soon and that's kind of The Uncanny Valley behind it where it's like if we know we're not going to like it but we probably will never know now from like from here on out if like something is wrapped by an artist or just generated by their model and that that to me is the part where it's a little little Eerie I think in the future too when like you know some of these great artists start to pass away there's going to be more demand there too right technology gets very good Drake is no longer around they're still Drake fans and now like maybe he sold his rights before he passed away and you can still have him in songs yeah right I mean I wouldn't be surprised if musicians actually start writing that kind of stuff into their will like what happens to my my voice IP once I'm gone but but like to me it's it's it's still like we can make great Tupac songs right now with his I will just NE and he's my favorite art hip-hop artist of all time I will still never love them like I love the because it's just not there's something lacking there there's like that you could attach a human to it though right you could do like a collaboration song right where it's like I'm the new Tupac and now I brought in an AI Tupac into my song like well Drake just did that right and got sued but but even then even then I think like the novelty is cool but once that wears off there's no market for it and so my thing is Will and will there be regulation or what will happen here but like if I were a label and I wanted it to Max like say I'm I'm representing Drake and he died like do you then just say this was these were unreleased vocals from when he was alive because that will hit a lot and so then it becomes like an ethical and a moral question maybe legal maybe regulatory so yeah man there's so many it's it's so fun to be at the Forefront of all this stuff cuz there's so many questions and it's and it's all being sort of written in real time but oh yeah we found a new Beatles album it just was hidden in a storage somewhere right right and and that would be more impactful than we just generated John Lennon's voice nobody's you know this so that that's where I feel it's like we need the human element there won't be a market for purely AI generated stuff but the big question will we even know yeah yeah well I mean a lot of the vocals from these musicians too are from their own personal experiences their life experiences right you you know talking about Tupac right he's he lived a pretty crazy life so his songs are all about the life that he lived so songs that came out now wouldn't represent his thoughts his feelings his life story at all um and and I think there's that element to it that people just know that this isn't really him and that just diminishes it quite by quite a bit I think yeah I mean in in art Theory it's a concept called the aura so it's like hey there's artists today that can replicate the Mona Lisa to exact Perfection but we never it'll never hit the same because of that aura like this was this was a piece of cardboard or whatever it was that Leonardo da Vinci himself sculpted this was in different fires and award almost broke down it it passed the hands of different monarchs through history and like that's what makes it compelling it's not like the actual art or the design or the way that the colors are thrown together it's it's the story behind it and I think it's with all media all art it's like we're drawn to the story behind something he's a art a piece of media not so much like the actual construction of the whatever it is and so I think we'll we'll see that play out with AI where it's like yeah again to our earlier example a purely AI generated mid Journey it's just not interesting that I don't care how cool it is or how impressive it's like it's not interesting I need a story behind the art the human element I'm going to shift gears here for a minute too I want to talk about a little bit about like the ethics of content creation because this is something that I mean battle with it a little bit it's not too big of a battle because I know who I'm making the content for but there's this this sort of battle between um you know creating the content for the audience and making them aware of what's out there and what's not out there but then you also have the the creators the the the creators of the products right the software companies um you know in my case lately it's been the Googles and the microsofts of the world who will actually like pay me to fly out to their events so that I'll talk about them in videos and then I have this sort of uh dilemma do I if if I'm not impressed with what they're showing me but they paid me to be there to talk about what they're showing me am I tailoring to the audience am I tailoring to Google um Did you do that with Google if you've watched my Google videos you know I don't but um but you know this is something that I wanted to talk to with you about because it's something that I I've struggled with a little more recently because I've had companies come to me and offer offer me like Equity to be an adviser in the company or um who you know may have reached out because they want they want me to be an investor in their company or something like that and for the most part I've said no to almost all of them because I worry about if I've got skin in the game for some of these companies is it going to you know taint how the audience sees me talking about that product um and so it's something that's always kind of on the top of my mind of um you know how do I how do I strike this balance between the thing that's going to make me money as an entrepreneur but also being true to the audience and making the best piece of content for my audience I think it's super important then and then I definitely want to hear your guys thoughts because it's something I struggle with a lot I actually have two recent examples so one was I I was doing some work for rabbit obviously you know disclose paid promo um before the product actually came out so I did two I think sponsored posts for them and I actually actually liked what they were building I thought it was like Whimsical it was Charming it was $200 no subscription I was like there's a there's a market for this and then I had a paid post uh sponsorship deal lined up I got the product I was going to review it and you know make a glowing little uh not so much a review but like almost a commercial online like a short form video Tik Tok Instagram Twitter Etc and it was just not something that I was comfortable recommending to my audience not that it's a bad product I think there could be a future for it I think there could be a market for it Etc like look so so I didn't want to like knock rabbit or knock the team but I canceled the deal I was like this is not something comfortable and by the way it was like I'm not like this super rich dude where I can just cancel deals not a big deal like right now in my Creator business sponsorships and and AD and brand deals and stuff probably represents 50 to 60% of my revenue and so and it was like a pretty well-paid thing so it wasn't like easy to do but I do feel like as creators we got to take those short-term hits if we're playing in decades for that long-term trust because I I I do think that especially in the age of AI trust is going to be the commodity like everything else can be replicated another example was Google like I was in invited to to the dinner you went too Mt I couldn't make it because I had something to do in LA but I love Google I love the relationship I have with the Deep Mind team Etc but I didn't really love the presentation I thought it was lackluster not the technology that they were presenting but the way that they presented it and so I went on threads and I I wrote this was really boring Google has some work to do on productizing and on uh you know Showmanship and uh presentation all that kind of stuff like I worry that will probably hurt me like they'll probably pull back some potential future deals because it's like well this guys talking negatively about us online but it's like those are my honest and true thoughts I don't want to hold them back just because I may get paid by them in the future and and it's really tricky man I mean like MKBHD obviously has been like super big news over the last month on this topic itself and So my answer would be protect the long long-term trust with your audience at all costs even if you know there's some short-term money that you got to leave on the table yeah in the early days of my newsletter lore you know I had this uh sponsor there was this Korean startup uh was doing like AI uh pictures kind of stuff early on and uh they sponsored the newsletter for like a month paid very well and then they just like disappeared and then didn't say anything like didn't notify me like I think I may even put up an ad like right when their website went down and then uh and then some users like you know emailed me like hey I like paid for like a monthly subscription or whatever and like now the website's just like gone and so that was like a first experience for me like oh like you got to be careful like which sponsors you take you know it wasn't huge money at the time but it was still it was like God that's a a horrible experience and then for and obviously you lose a lot of trust by by doing that right and actually for a while I stopped taking sponsors for that reason yeah no I I'm on the same page I think I think in what we're doing The credibility and the trust is everything that is our biggest currency that's what matters more than anything and you know when it comes to companies like Google right I've made a lot of videos that were critical of Google um you know back when they put out their Gemini promo video I was very very critical of them kind of hiding the fact that this wasn't real time and um I put out a whole video about how disappointed I was in Google and I've worked with Google in the past and I'm working with Google again so the fact that I'm working with Google again now shows that they get over it right at the end of the day if you build a the brand that has an audience and people are paying attention to what you say these companies are going to get over the fact that you were negative about them once because they know that you have the audience you're you're the trusted voice that people are checking in on and so you know I would say for every one sponsor that I have on my channel in my newsletter there was probably 10 that I said no to I say no like I leave so much money on the table because I look at their product and go I don't want to promote this like I can already do this inside of chat GPT you just like put a rapper around it and are charging the same amount as chat GPT why' I pay 20 dollars a month to do this thing when I can do it in chat GPT plus everything else chat GPT does like it just doesn't make sense to me I'm not going to talk about it it feels like I'd be pointing my audience to something that I don't think is valuable to them um so I've just had that philosophy of like the trust and The credibility is 100% what we need to live by as content creators and as soon as you lose that and they start to think of you as like a sellout then you know it's all downhill from there and again these companies if you've got the audience they'll forgive you they'll come back first of all respect to you um and I think that's why you're so respected in space and respect to Google Now I think it's important for companies to take that criticism you know if they they got to take the bad with the good um because some companies do weaponize it I don't know if you guys follow like Dr disrespect he's one of my favorite create I think he's like one of the greatest entertainers in the world but like very famously Call of Duty has blacklisted him he's not invited to any events he's not you know every other Creator gets a deal from Call of Duty he doesn't because he like got also and and he like insults the game and he's like these developers are lazy and this and that and he's like he's given his honest thoughts and but I think long term that works out even better for Dr disrespect because he's way more trusted than these other creators who may just be looked at as like a a NASCAR with 40 logos on them they don't like you don't really what they have to say just because you know they're just up for sale to the highest bidder I I I just think it's so important especially as uh being in an industry that's so sort of Uncertain feeling like I I don't know if you guys feel this way at all but when I started making content around AI This was um you know somewhere mid 2021 was when I really started to make content about Ai and then I really ramped it up in 2022 but when I was making content about AI in the early days I had zero zero inclination that this was a controversial topic like this was just me going this is a really fun tool everybody should know about this why don't more people go play with this mid Journey thing why is nobody talking about this or like this gpt3 thing like I you can go play with it on Open AI playground this is prior to chat GPT you can go play with this on open AI playground and have it write copy for you and have it uh and have conversations with this thing why aren't more people talking about this this is so much fun that was like my Approach when I started creating content around AI was just like this is just fun stuff I had no clue that this was going to be so controversial and as you know more and more I don't really want to say hate but more and more like anti- AI dorismar to Bubble Up and I started to get more of that kind of stuff on my comments and my feed it actually made me go okay I want to understand why people are so scared of this why like what what is the big deal with this what are the fears and so I've always tried to take this like very empathetic approach of like I really really think this stuff is cool and fun and I see a lot of use cases for it but I also understand that a lot of people are scared of this now and I need to like sort of lean into that and I need to talk about that narrative as well and I need to you know help people that have those fears kind of get over those fears um and even to some degree talk a little bit about the fears that are in my opinion like actual worthy fears to to think about you know things like the the Deep fake scams of like the The Voice cloning where people are calling other people using cloned voices and scamming them out of money or um you know we talked about a story on the show about somebody in I think it was Hong Kong that got scammed out of $25 million over a deep fake Zoom call right um like and so there are like these genuinely scary things and I think it's important to be very holistic with what we talk about um because there is that fear and not building that trust with people in this time where everybody feels so uncertain just seems like a very very shortsighted approach to content creation yeah I mean look some of the fears are warranted right like there are voice actors on Fiverr for example they're probably going to get wiped out um and and um so I I understand it I and so but another thing that I often say is like the more that we talk about this stuff the more people understand what's going on and I do think that knowledge is power and you know the more we talk about it and the more other creators and other people talk about it the less chance it has to be used maliciously because now we're oh wait a second I just got call from my aunt demanding money I saw this on Twitter I saw Matt talking about this on on YouTube like this could be a scam you're a little bit more aware and so the impact the negative impact that it could have is going to diminish um so I actually just think it's it's first of all forget the comments man like this is one thing I've learned about being a Creator on the on the Internet is like when once you have like a really intimate uh understanding of human psychology you begin to understand why different comments are happening okay this this comes from Fear this is a comment that's rooted in insecurity oh I see this guy and so like all of a sudden you have like this shield and invincibility surrounding you once you understand like kind of the psychology behind it um because I think talking about this stuff is not a negative I think it's definitely a net positive because of that like people have to understand what's going on this is technology that's going to impact everybody's life um and so you know kudos to you guys for staying on top of it and like covering like Matt like your YouTube channel is dude it's like an encyclopedia it's like you can go it's like a historical time capsule it's amazing I really appreciate that and you are as well too I I love following you on Instagram your the videos you put out on Instagram are amazing I believe you're on Tik Tok as well but uh I mostly see on Instagram I'm not really on Tik Tok I don't even know if Tik tok's going to exist in nine months or not that's a whole different Rabbit Hole hey real quick though prediction na Nathan uh what is Tik tok's fate like quick quick prediction oh what's uh okay so I'm uh you know I don't if you know this I I studied Mandarin in Taiwan so I'm probably biased against China so um so uh I'm definitely very uh you know I'm concerned about China that's actually one of the big Reasons I'm like a you know I don't I don't if I'd call myself a member of eak but you know I do want to for for America to win at AI I think it's very important and so um I don't think China should win a I think that'd be very bad for the world and for Freedom um and so I'm I don't think we should have a company that has any connection to the Chinese government having uh influence on young people in America and and and so I I so my prediction is it will be divested and I think that they like yeah sure they're saying that they won't do that and and the reason they're saying they won't is because they they definitely are they definitely do indirectly have connections to the Chinese government like every like like China like most people don't realize this but like I think it was like maybe four years ago something like this you know I had I have a friend in the Chinese government I actually used to spend time out there they Tred to get me to move out there and set up an office for Me Maybe maybe 10 years ago and so I got a lot behind the scenes and you know uh probably 5 years ago uh the Chinese government like put a uh member of the government on every single Board of every major tech company and and almost nobody reported on it but like everybody who like knows people in China they all know this it's like holy crap that happened and it it like happened overnight where all of a sudden there's a board member on every single major tech company in China and and that board member even if they're just one board member they basically have control of the companies now um and so uh yeah I I don't think we should have a company that has any connection to the Chinese government having uh influence on young people in America and and so I I so my prediction is it will be divested and and I think that's a good thing I I I do think that probably some company in the US will buy them but they're really hesitant about giving another company access to their algorithm right so I feel like if that does happen it'll end up being a watered down version of Tik Tok and um yeah I I don't really know because I'm not somebody that uses Tik Tok much um I've posted like three videos ever that have never gotten any traction and I've maybe scrolled the Tik Tok feed twice my entire life so I don't know a whole lot about Tik Tok just other than what I hear in the news um but I do think they'll end up working with some American company to you know get it sold but then there'll be some sort of weird thing where they don't actually get access to the algorithm and then I think reals will end up just taking over and replacing Tik Tock anyway but again that is a you know it's not a very hot take cuz I don't really know what I'm talking about in that realm well we made an interesting point about reals like I'm so bullish on reals actually the real business already uh generates more Revenue than Tik tok's entire business and I think we're going to continue to see that as creators you know sort of start spreading their eggs across different baskets because I do think it's going to get I think it's going to get banned like may maybe just China sort of using that is leverage saying that divesture is not an option this and that but it is funny man it's like the one thing that legislators in the United States from the left and the right can agree on and so it's like they're very determined to to take Tik Tok out I do think it eventually happens and and you know just six months ago I would have told you no that's another reason why I’m very bullish on meta I think they're the biggest beneficiaries of uh and YouTube Google of course but I think they're the biggest beneficiaries of of Tik tok's potential demise yeah it's it's you mentioned that as soon as meta started open sourcing like their llama models and stuff like that I started buying up stock in meta because I was like all right meta's actually uh meta's Redemption Arc just started and I I feel not Financial advice not Financial advice I'm not telling anybody to go buy meta stock but I went and bought meta stock as soon as they started open sourcing because I went all right meta I think meta's doing the right thing here I think I think their the direction they're taking meta in is the right direction with with the open source and the really putting the focus on AI and um you know I’m personally still bullish on like VR and The Meta Quest and stuff I have a meta Quest it is really really fun when you get in there and play with groups um so yeah I I’m I'm a fan of meta I think the Zuckerberg Arc has been hilarious like you know just to see his transition so I I did I got to say hi to him one time but he has no idea who I am he was like at a party at a game industry party way back in the day and but just seeing how he's changed he looks dramatically different now and and there was a while you know there was a period where he was like learning Mandarin he was trying to get Facebook into China I mean Facebook being banned in China that's another reason it's like hey the the reciprocity here is is another reason why I’m not super against Tik Tok being banned but yeah come comeing to dude i' I've been buying a lot of meta stock and definitely not Financial advice because if you follow my trade you're going to go bankrupt I'm just letting you know um but but I think if I had to I do think Facebook's on the way to a$ trillion dollar market cap I think it'll happen in the next three years and I think Mark Zuckerberg is going to be the richest person in the world I just I mean four billion people using their products I think again like I think people still highly undervalue the the power of Instagram WhatsApp um Facebook the reality labs and all that stuff is is still yet to to be seen but I think the the biggest reason that I'm bullish on meta and I just interviewed Mark Zuckerberg so obviously like there there's a bias there but I think it's him like he's a Founder he's been there for 20 plus years now he's the maybe the most com like he's a killer he's a like he's the most competitive person I think in entrepreneurship like he he wants it all he's coming for it all he actually just wore a shirt for his 40th birthday post that says uh I think death to Carthage which is basically it's it's a it's a modern day sort of rallying war cry and to me it represented I don't have any Insider information but to me it represented like he wants to win he wants all the smoke he's coming like the guy is kind of like Sam Alman just absurdly competitive and I that's one guy that I you know much like Tom Brady much like Kobe back in the it's like one guy that I could just never bet against yeah yeah did you watch the roast by the way I love the roast and by the way I have dude I have an idea like everybody okay like Zuckerberg's Arc has been incredible like he's been you know and by the way uh working with his PR and Communications teams I get it like these people are sharp like they are so tuned into the culture they're brilliant I I love the whole experience um but I think him or Elon or Sam wman or Sundar or one of these guys should have a roast because if you want to like humanize and and endear people to a Founder like there's no better way to be humanized and endear than self-deprecation and getting [ __ ] on for two hours by famous Comm so if anybody's out there from Zuck Elon whoever's team like get one of these guys on a roast man I I think it's a good move that's such a great idea but speaking of Zuck is there any like what's the story behind how you got him I don't know if that's something you're open to sharing or not but is there a story there like how did you actually land Zuck for an interview yeah man I mean the the first thing I'll say is a lot of luck involved but then I also say that um kind of just a PSA to anybody listening you can create your own luck you know and um and so basically what what I think happened I I don't know I haven't asked his team why me but I've been um I've been creating content now about emerging Tech on Instagram for over two years now uh not necessarily in my page but on my media pages one is called metaverse second e is a three the other one Aluna doai and I've put a lot of work into that man like a lot a lot of work especially earlier in the day I'd have like these long you know 10 post carousels so much information data Rich really welld designed and it obviously caught the eye of a lot of people um at meta and I've befriendeddude I've I have this is another reason why I bought so much stock like I've I have so many friends at meta now and the teams there are just so talented man across like all of their Endeavors and I'm doing a lot of work with meta over uh this year like we're going to can and in the month and like got a lot of stuff going on but I've befriendedd a lot of people in meta and I've just like developed this really great relationship with them and they always hit me up and it's like hey we got some news drop and you mind like covering it maybe making a video putting on metaverse or whatever and I'm like always happy to do it just because I love this stuff you know and I'm and I've never asked for anything in return so like my intuition says that because I'm like an Instagram first Creator and I've been like doing so much for them for two years now without ever asking for anything in return I think it's almost like this Karma that that was just put out there and they sort of honored me and and rewarded me with it for that that's my guess I don't I don't know for sure um but I just tell people yeah uh luck but you can create your own luck and I think the the last two two and a half years creating on Instagram has has kind of proven that you know that actually leads me something that I I wasn't planning on asking you but now I'm curious because you brought it up like how how does like the the monetization on Instagram work is it mostly like sponsors sponsoring your content or does meta actually pay you similar to like how YouTube and Twitter does now no definitely not off off platform and like that's another fascinating conversation that that we can get into um the economics of of why it's even though Tik Tok with the creativity program is doing it but I think they're subsidizing a lot I don't think that's a long-term thing but you know YouTube The Magic of YouTube is like hey you have pre-roll you have intial you have like all these ad placements and because it's an eight plus minute video 20 minute in your case sometimes 30 40 minute video it's like they can attribute that direct ad Revenue to the Creator bringing in these people on Instagram it doesn't Instagram and Tik Tok like what I say a lot people are more fans of the platform than they are the Creator and on YouTube people are more fans of the Creator than they are necessarily the platform so like Tik Tok Instagram is doing the heavy lifting getting the discovery getting people to use making their app sticky getting people to use it and like you're a beneficiary of that but it's hard to pinpoint and attribute you know where the revenue should be directed so like I understand why they don't pay directors or sorry creators directly but yeah all of my revenue on Instagram I just use that as discoverability and then the revenue happens third party whether it be sponsors ads paid communities whatever it might be um but yeah they don’t PID creators direct well they do but it’s not a lot like I think one month I had like 30 million views and I got paid like $32 so um yeah Twitter actually pays better than that oh dude dude everything pays better than that um but yeah that’s what I say like Instagram is a discovery platform with relationship components built in but if you’re looking to get paid direct from platform um you I mean YouTube’s the place to be 100 per. well I I think you know I think I think we could probably have like another hourong conversation but I think we’ll have to have you back on you know as one of our our more regular guests because I feel like we can probably nerd out frequently about whatever is going on but you know I do want to be respectful of your time dude I could go on for hours and hours so anytime you got guys need like a third even like co-host or whatever you just want to riff I’m I’m always available and um but I do want to leave with a question uh what do you guys think WWDC I think this episode will go out before then so all all lies on Apple just we don’t have to get into it super but from one to 10 like how big of an impact or how yeah how impactful is that event going to be you guys think from 1 to 10 three so they just now Inked the deal with open the ey so that tells two things like if they’re partnering with open AI that means I I mean I think they’re going to be quite reliant on open AI and so I doubt that we’re going to see a major Siri update because they’re probably relying on open AI for that so I think a month is so soon for them to have something amazing new you know with Siri by then but but who knows maybe they in the works and unless we saw a sneak peek of what Siri is going to be on Monday with the open AI uh gp40 demo yeah that Siri is yeah that could be um that’s yeah that’d be like a huge alliance between open AI Microsoft and Apple and then I guess you’ll have you know Amazon will’ll be uh you know partner Microsoft’s really gonna be a piece of that deal I don’t think Microsoft and Apple still have much love for each other but um I don’t know it’ll be interesting because it it feels like Microsoft and open AI are starting to make moves to sort of separate from each other a little bit right yeah but structurally that’s very hard like unless open AI comes out with AGI which you know and they deter determine what AGI is so that’s a whole another like I said we’ll do another episode for all this but yeah mat Matt one to 10 out out of curiosity you like where are your expectation levels for WWDC I not as great the expectation was a lot bigger last year because we knew Vision Pro was coming this year I feel like the big thing they’re going to be talking about is you know whatever updates they make to Siri um and I think it’s going to be stuff that we’ve already seen before right it’ll be new to Apple but those of us that are in the AI World paying attention um you know that have seen a few things already yeah GNA feel like nothing new to us that’s that’s kind of what I’m expecting so so my prediction is is like you just said it’s um what we saw uh with open AI GPT 40 and with Google’s Project Astra I think that was a sneak peek sort of a preview of what we’re going to see with iOS where it’s like Siri is going to be revamped it’s going to be powered by you know some sort of omn modal llm that that takes it you know that that uses a lot of the hardware on the device um and I think it’s basically going to power the entire like ecosystem of Apple devices but the difference is they’re going to present it in such a spectacular way like I made this point where Google it’s like they’re presenting this incredible technology but they don’t make us excited about it where Apple sometimes presents like a feature that nobody ever uses or nobody ever will use but we’re like oh my God it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and so even if they just announced sort of we already expect and what we already have seen the way that they will announce it is going to get people psyched so I’m like I’m more interested in the presentation the cinematography the visuals the so I’m really excited man I have a lot of I have a high expectation so I’m just setting myself up to be let down but we we’ll see I think behind the scenes some really big things are probably happening because like open AI partnering with apple and that Apple’s been saying that they’re building all these new chips are getting better and better for AI um you know and you combine that with Sam Alman saying that the big limitation on AI right now is chips and having more chips and not just relying on Nvidia you know I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some huge Alliance going on there where like open Ai and and apple are going to collaborate on uh new AI chips or something in the future.