The startup boom failed to build a creator utopia

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before we get started: all the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! On today's episode, Alex had Eric Silver, Head of Creative at the podcast collective Multitude on the show to help us sort through: What the hell happened with Spotify's big podcast push, and its resulting layoffs. Why tech platforms have not yet found a way to make creative work lucrative enough to engender a new 'creator middle class.' The state of the ad market, and its impacts on creative work more generally. Towards the end we had a moment to comment on AI, but we kept that somewhat far from our central theme. Long-time Equity listeners will recall that we've covered the creator economy a few times on the show and the blog, including: Yeah, funding for creator-focused startups is drying up [blog] F*ck creator funds, we need a creator index fund [Equity] Not every creator economy startup is built for creators [blog] And if you need even more, this investor survey from 2021 on all things creator-economy is a great look-back in time! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack
0:16.4	the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines.
0:18.9	My name is Alex and this is our Wednesday show where we niche down to a single topic and we go deep.
0:24.3	Today we are digging into the state of the Creator Economy.
0:27.2	Recent headlines in this area do appear to be more than a little bleak.
0:30.9	We've seen Twitch fighting with its community, we've seen
0:32.9	layoffs at Spotify, Reddit in the midst of a civil war with its own community
0:36.7	over charging for API access, Creator-focused venture capital has slowed and the
0:40.9	ad market has gotten noticeably worse this year.
0:43.6	So to help us understand all of that and more, we are going to talk with Eric Silver.
0:47.3	He's the head of Creative at the Podcast Collective Multitude to better understand the state of making money
0:52.1	from creative work on the internet today.
0:54.0	Eric, hey, how you doing?
0:55.6	I'm doing all right. It's fun to come on. I think about this podcast stuff, like the
1:00.9	podcast business stuff all the time, and I get to do it on a podcast.
1:04.8	It's just it's recursive and I'm really excited to do it.
1:07.6	I also want to say, please.
1:09.1	Admarket is bouncing back because companies are more afraid of the threat of a recession than a recession or a not recession. So it is bouncing back.
1:17.6	I do want to say that I have about 35 pages of mental notes about the is recession coming is it not coming doom
1:24.0	forecasting we've had for the last three quarters but we have other stuff that I think
1:27.9	people want to hear more from you and I than our own economic theories so here's
1:31.8	the thing I've been podcasting for a very long time now. I've been
	...

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