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Axios Re:Cap

Groupon Founder's Second Act

Axios Re:Cap

Axios

Daily News, News

4.5705 Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dan chats with Andrew Mason, former Groupon founder, about his latest startup, Descript, an audio word processing platform. Plus: CEOs vs. consumers and Airbnb makes a major announcement.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

0:12.5

Presented by Bridge Bank. Be bold. Venture wisely. I'm Danper Mack. On today's show, CEOs versus

0:18.3

consumers and Airbnb makes a major announcement.

0:21.6

But first, Andrew Mason's second act.

0:24.1

So Andrew Mason might not be a household name anymore, but he was earlier this decade by founding and leading Groupon, a one-time internet phenomenon that later kind of became a commodified coupon site, falling from around a $15 billion market cap to just

0:38.8

a billion and a half. Mason himself got fired back in 2013, after which he released an album of

0:44.4

motivational music and then created an audio tour guide app called Detour, which was later acquired

0:48.9

by Bose. But Mason didn't join Bose. Instead, he spun out a small podcasting business from Detour and called it the script.

0:56.3

The basic idea is to make podcast creation easier, not only the taping part, but also the editing part, basically using Google speech to transcribe the content and then apply time-tested word processing techniques.

1:09.4

In other words, you can basically read what you taped

1:12.1

on your podcast and then highlight, delete, and copy and paste, just like you would in a text document.

1:17.4

Oh, and you can also add words, words you didn't say. And that's the most interesting and

1:22.6

controversial part. It's a feature called Overdub, which lets you add words and phrases

1:27.2

in your own voice.

1:28.7

And the your own voice part is key because it would preclude you for making audio deepfakes

1:33.7

on the Descript platform. But obviously, there are lots of concerns the technology could be

1:38.8

hacked, thus unleashing a world in which people are heard saying things they never said.

1:43.7

In 15 seconds, we'll go

1:44.6

deeper with the script founder and CEO Andrew Mason. But first, this. The Equity Fund Resources

1:49.9

Group at Bridgebank is a central hub for the venture capital and private equity communities. Offering

1:55.2

banking services for funds, partners, and their portfolio companies, Bridge Bank's financial

1:59.5

solutions are designed for the entire innovation ecosystem and include creative credit solutions, robust treasury,

...

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