This Week: Can we really mint a generation of creator CEOs with just a few days of instruction? Plus a fascinating study of 20,000 GenA and the return of the son of the bride of Vine!
TOP STORIES
Creator-led businesses have fully arrived, but we still haven’t figured out the best way to build them.
Two developments last week illustrate the depths of our quandary. Creators can build real businesses, but the path to prosperity is still sticky.
Andreesen Horowitz Discovers “New Media”
First up, a16z launched its “New Media” team and an eight-week fellowship for creators, founders and designers who sit “at the intersection of tech, media and culture” (apply here). It’s a clear recognition that storytelling and creators are essential to build a company today. The problem is that VCs tend to think in bootcamps and accelerators, not long-haul creative development.
Turning a founder into a creator is hard. When I first dabbled in video in my early 30s, my teleprompter chops were so bad I’m thankful that the outtakes vanished into the ether. Even today’s stars, Jimmy Donaldson included, spent years grinding before breaking out.
This also isn’t a16z’s first media fling. In 2021 they launched Future, a pro-tech site built to take on TechCrunch. It lasted just 16 months. Hopefully this new attempt sticks around a bit longer. (a16z, Future)
YouTube Throws a “Creator MBA” Party
YouTube held its own “Creator MBA” event in New York last week, bringing in creators and their exec teams to talk scaling, fundraising, market research and more. The “MBA for creators” idea isn’t new – Justin Moore, Jay Clouse, Changer Studios and even VidCon have done versions – but YouTube’s take sounded useful. And credit to Andrew Leonard and Kim Larson for making it a real creator/business dialogue. Expect the 2026 invite list to be long.
Where Creators and Businesses Intersect
But both efforts still gloss over a hard truth. You can’t become a strong operator via a three-day event, a single workshop, or an eight-week sprint. It takes years of hiring, firing and managing to build real business muscle. I learned far more from hiring (and firing) 200 people at TechTV than I did in my MBA. And until I brought on finance whiz @MG Thibault at Revision3, I understood numbers, but not the art of finance.
This is why @Dhar Mann teamed with @Sean Atkins, why Lunar-X and Electrify invest in creators, why Aphmau brought on @Timothy Salmon and why Crunchlabs has @Jim Lee. The most resilient models pair creators with seasoned operators, not teaching creators to do both at once – or execs to create content.
Both a16z and YouTube nod at the long-term by striving to build “community” and “connection.” But whether it’s three days or 8 weeks, you’re still not becoming an MBA, or the next Rhett and Link, overnight.
Which is why I like what @Jeff Frommer is building with OWM. Instead of forcing creators to become CEOs or expecting founders to morph into creators, OWM uses equity to tie the two together. Creators don’t need to master core values or board meetings. Founders don’t need to learn retention editing. They collaborate to go from good to great, instead of shape-shifting into Doc Jekyll and Captain Hyde.
A good CEO finds complementary skills and delegates. Equity lets both sides build together and stay in their lanes. Maybe the real answer isn’t cramming business and creator expertise into one brain but fusing MBAs and MCAs (Masters of Creator Arts) into something stronger.
VINE IS BACK
@Rabble and @Jack Dorsey (Rabble hired Jack at Twitter) are back with a reboot of Vine. I was hanging with Rabble and his co-worker @Alice Chan at Web Summit Thursday, when they unleashed the new DiVine on the world. It preserves much of the look and feel – and even better it includes a wide assortment of actual old Vine videos, as preserved on Archive.Org. It’s not even in the appstores yet, but it’s still blowing up! The story of Vine is one of hubris and neglect, perhaps this next chapter will be better. (Divine.video)
EPIC WEB SUMMIT
It was so great being at Web Summit last week for many reasons. Partly I saw DiVine launch, partly I got to host their New Media Summit, and partly because of the epic Creator Economy speakeasy party I co-hosted. The party was in a funky speakeasy, and I was joined by friends from Influencers.Club, Electrify and Epidemic Sound. We had over 200 RSVPs and we packed the place. This was my fourth annual get-together for Inside the Creator Economy – we started back in 2022 with just 25 people on a rainy rooftop. Next year will be even better! Stay tuned!
The Speakeasy had a secret room. I’m about to reveal the amazingly cool surprise inside (spoiler – it was an Epidemic Sound DJ!)
Hosting the New Media Summit for the 4th year in a row!
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PLATFORMS
YOUTUBE
Tall + Wide Streams: Smart for YouTube to release a simultaneous vertical crop for horizontal live streams. (Creator Insider)
Mouse Roars: Disney and YouTube settled their carriage agreement. Will this mean the end of the bundle? Was YouTube’s brand irreparably harmed? Probably no on both, but it wasn’t a great look for either party. (CNBC)
Huh? It wasn’t “Brandcast”. It wasn’t “Made on YouTube”. Last week it was something called “Creator Premieres”, where Big Red rolled out new creator-led series and documentaries. Maybe it’s just me, but with so many events, I might just need an explainer to explain all of them. (Variety)
TIKTOK
Study Confirms It: Baylor studies algorithmic addiction. No surprise that TikTok “won”. (Baylor) HT: @Lia Haberman
No News on TikTok Ban Resolution: WTF. 28 days and counting until the latest extension runs out. (TikTok Countdown Clock)
QUIBIS
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
Pop the Pods: Time to focus on real engagement, says LI PM Gyanda Sachdeva, as they build more tools targeting engagement pods. (LinkedIn)
Related: Now LinkedIn Search sucks less. (LinkedIn)
Busy Bees: Beehiiv wants to be a full-on creator economy company. As a Beehiiv customer I’m intrigued. Full report next week. (Net Influencer)
Blox Party: Now any IP rights holder can party down on Roblox. (Roblox)
Hygge Rules: Denmark will ban social media for anyone under 15. Let happiness bloom! (AP)
All Your Ad Dollars Are Belong to Us: Facebook and Amazon both want all your ad dollars. Amazon rolled out a bunch of new tools, including an AI ad-generator being tested by P&G. Recap from @Mike Shields (Next in Media)
Union Push: The WGA wants to unionize the Theorist YouTube studio, which was purchased a few years ago by LunarX. Given that Lunar is based mostly in Europe, would they just move the whole thing? (THR)
Setting Out: Congrats to @David Freeman for launching a new advisory platform for creators. He’s the real deal; this should be fun to watch grow! (THR)
Sky Shuts Halo: Always amazed when Big Media proves yet again it doesn’t get creator-first video. This experiment lasted only 3 days. (BBC)
Baby Shark Swarm: Pinkfong prices its South Korean IPO at a $375M valuation. (WSJ $)
Throw Me a Mouse-line: Webtoon hopes its Disney deal will translate into US success (Bloomberg $)
CREATOR TECH – AI, AR, VR, MORE
Productive Bubble? What history tells us about the AI bubble – and where we might go from here. (Project Syndicate)
Chat Ones: I love the concept of a group-based ChatGPT. I’ve been using the AI to plan travel and it would have been so great on my most recent Portugal trip. And I really can’t wait to see what creators do with it as they collab with this wacky AI. (Spyglass)
Don’t Clone Yourself: You’re better off building a virtual influencer as part of your “studio” than trying to clone yourself with a digital twin, according to new research from Billion Dollar Boy (that apparently hasn’t been released yet). (WARC)
Well, That Was Fast: Sorry everyone, looks like the 6-7 Meme is dead. That reminds me, why did 6 fear 7? (answer at the end). (DesignRush)
RESEARCH
Gen Alpha In Their Own Words
GWI talks with 20,000 Gen Alphas from 16 countries uncovered how this cohort is already reshaping the creator economy. They’re tuning out doom and choosing podcasting than traditional news. They’re also leaning more IRL, with physical toy wishlists up 16% and Roblox sessions transmogrifying into meatspace hangouts. They’re also posting a lot less, with only 1 in 10 sharing everything they do, and just 2 in 5 comfortable in posting their thoughts at all.
Key takeaway: This next generation isn’t looking for creators or brands who demand participation. They want creators worth saving, sharing and following. They aren’t eschewing community, but instead joining semi-private, low-pressure spaces built around deep and intentional fandom. GWI’s “Gen Alpha Unfiltered” is one of the better reports I’ve seen on what this cohort actually wants, not what we’re all projecting on them. (GWI) – HT @Abby Ho
Where’s Jim? Finally home!
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100% written by me. AI used very sparingly for edits.
I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including an MCN to Discovery and VidCon to Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.
Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.
(Answer: Because 7 8 (ate) 9)
