From Hype Beast and Hype Radio, I am Jeff Staples, and this is the business of hype,

a show about creative entrepreneurs, brand builders, innovators, and the realities behind the dreams they've built. You know, almost all business of hype episodes are kind of trips down memory lane.

The start to someone's career, the key moments they experienced, and some of them are your favorite artist, and others are more obscure names.

Today's guess is interesting because it's not only a trip down his memory lane, but mine, and many others in the culture as well.

For those who are aware of today's sneaker culture, craze, phenomenon, boom, whatever you want to call it, it wasn't always like this.

Now, this isn't like an old head back in the day moment rant. This is a snapshot, a true account of what eventually led us to today.

I'm talking pre-instagram, pre-sponsored post pre-hyped drop.

So a cornerstone of the sneaker culture will always be Sneaker Freaker magazine,

a dedicated publication based out of Australia covering everything that has to do with sneakers

and the global industry as a whole.

Today, we have the pleasure of hearing from its founder and editor-in-chief, Simon Wood,

much better known as Woody.

Listen up as he takes us through the lifeline of print, the shift in sneakers over the past

20-plus years, and what he sees is next for the industry at large.

I'm sitting in right now Melbourne, Australia, pretty much, I think the furthest place you could

possibly be from New York City. And I'm sitting in the offices

of Sneaker Freaker, the headquarters right now. So tell me who I have in the room with me.

Oh, welcome, Jeff. Well, you've got Woody in the office early on a Saturday morning.

Yeah, we don't sleep, man. It's all good. So Woody from Sneaker Freaker, tellak, tell me, what's your, what's your title? What do you call yourself?

I think I've reluctantly accepted editor-in-chief because, I don't know, I feel like calling myself the president or the CEO or something is kind of corny. It's an Americanism, but editor-in-chief sounds kind of, you know, official.

It sounds like someone might have given you that know, official. It sounds official, yeah.

It sounds like someone might have given you that title, even though you could just

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