The Real Reason Platforms Don’t Pay Creators and Why A-Listers Don’t Want Creators On The Red Carpet

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters.

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1:21Jasmine Enberg: Can Facebook and LinkedIn become creator hubs? Do creators belong on the red carpet? And what do the WME layoffs tell us about creators' place in Hollywood? Today, we break down these stories and give you context. We'll also dig into the business of a new food media company, Caper, with its co-founder, Max Cheyenne. He gives us the inside scoop on how they launched the company and what's behind the name.

1:47Jasmine Enberg: Hi, Jasmine. Hey, Kaya. We are kicking off this episode with some exciting news because we are announcing our title sponsor for our Scalable Summit, Agentio. Agentio is a startup that uses AI to enable brands to partner with creators at scale. We're so excited to have Agentio on as a partner. The company and its founder and CEO, Arthur Leopold, has been such a big supporter of the creator economy and of us at Scalable. So it'll be great to work with him on our first ever summit. As a reminder, you can still grab your early bird tickets before the end of the month. That's when the prices go up.

2:23You can check out our website, scalablepod.com slash summit for more information and for tickets. But now on to today's news. There was a flurry of creator monetization programs released last week, including from LinkedIn, from Facebook, as well as from creator commerce company LTK. As part of its announcement, Facebook said it paid out$3 billion to creators in 2025. That is up by 35 % from 2024, and it's the most that Facebook has ever paid to creators. And that might seem like a really big number, but not when you start to break it down, and that's, of course, what we're here for. So$3 billion is less than 2 % of Meta's 2025 revenue, which came primarily from ads and surpassed$200 billion for the very first time.

3:12It is also less than 3 % of what Meta expects to spend on AI this year. So if anybody was wondering where Meta's priorities lie, I think that makes it pretty clear. And when we talked to Facebook, they wouldn't give us an exact number of creators who they made these payments to, but they did say that there were millions of creators in the content monetization program, which is how they made these payments. What that means, of course, is that individual creators probably aren't making all that much money from Facebook. And the company certainly anticipated getting this criticism because in the announcement, it also said that the number of creators earning more than$10 ,000 annually grew by 30 % between 2024 and 2025.

3:55That's nice. But I think that's hardly enough to convince the big creators that Facebook is now going after to try to make Facebook their new quote unquote home. Just for a little bit of context before we dive deeper into all of this. In case you missed it, the announcement that Facebook made last week was really about its new creator monetization program called Creator Fast Track. And so basically for three months, what Facebook is going to do is pay top creators on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube a guaranteed bonus for posting original reels on the platform. Those payouts will depend on follower counts.

4:32So a creator with 100 ,000 followers, for example, will get about$1 ,000 a month for three months. Facebook says it's also going to boost that creator's content and add those creators to the content monetization program so they can start making money that way too. So Kaya, thoughts? Because you and I have both been following kind of the ebbs and flows of social platforms, creator monetization tools over the years. What do you make of all this? Yeah, I mean, it's like kind of bringing creator

5:01Jasmine Enberg: funds back but not and we're going to take a little walk down memory lane in a moment with the exception of YouTube platforms have not been great about paying creators directly I mean Instagram has really never paid creators in a meaningful way besides these kind of spot bonus programs that come and go like this one but to kind of look back at some of the boom of the creator funds I mean this really all started in 2020 when TikTok launched a billion dollar creator fund, which would be paid out over three years. And it really kicked off this race for all the platforms to then compete and kind of have to prove they were doing something.

5:36Jasmine Enberg: So do you remember Snapchat's announcement that it was going to give away a million dollars a day to the best spotlight videos? I mean, at least eight people became millionaires as a result. So good for them. And others earned, you know, tens of thousands of dollars from just one video. So I think in those moments, you can take advantage of kind of the short term gain. But we even saw social audio app Clubhouse, RIP, launch their own creator fund, they were paying$5 ,000 per month to some individual creators. And even YouTube, which arguably, you know, has the best monetization for creators, also launched a fund for sure, it's$100 million.

6:15Jasmine Enberg: So you can really see the pressure these platforms were feeling. And then Meta was sort of last to launch its billion dollar fund for both Instagram and Facebook creators. I mean, these days did not last for long. I think in the beginning, you know, a lot of the bigger creators could make some easy money from this and saw good payments. But then over time, as the pool got bigger, and more creators got involved in the program, the payouts went down. And it just was never consistent or predictable income. I mean, maybe for the eight people who got those, you know, Snapchat million dollar earnings, they're like, okay, well, that was worth it.

6:50Jasmine Enberg: But I think for many of these programs, It just didn't really move the needle for most creators. Yeah, I remember back when TikTok launched one of its creator funds because it's had several iterations of it. And I remember reading a quote from one of the executives at the time who said something along the lines of, we had to do this to remain competitive. I couldn't find the exact quote now because this was a couple of years ago. But I think that speaks to your point of, you know, these platforms really just kind of rolling them out because one does it. And so the others have to in order to kind of keep up.

7:23And I think it also tells you everything that you need to know about these creator funds. They never really were about ensuring a sustainable income. They really were a lot more about optics. And, you know, it's not just creator funds that have been problematic, though. I mean, the platforms have long been criticized for inconsistent payments, vague or opaque payment policies, as well as really restrictive, but also pretty murky eligibility requirements. Like if you look at Facebook's new program, for example, it says that the minimum follower requirement to be part of creator fast track is 100 ,000 followers on other platforms.

7:59But then when we talked to Facebook, they said that they would consider creators who had down to 20 ,000 followers. So it's really hard to know exactly who qualifies for this or not. And we've already seen, you know, some criticism online from, you know, people who follow this industry. And Jim Lauterbeck, who runs a creator economy insider newsletter, is a really good example. And he was talking about LinkedIn's new program, LinkedIn 360, which we covered on a previous episode. Just a little background in case you didn't see that. Basically, LinkedIn 360 builds on the brand link program, which pays publishers a share of ad revenue for videos that they post on the platform.

8:38Creators are now going to be producing exclusive shows for LinkedIn, and they will get a cut of ad revenue from brands who sponsor those shows. And LinkedIn is also helping creators score bigger deals across content and events. But anyway, back to what Jim said, because he posted on LinkedIn and as part of his newsletter, why does a company with 1 billion members need to publicly sort its creators into first class and coach? You're already an algorithm. We already know your biases. Announcing it with a branded name, a geometry theme, and a fast track to direct brand revenue is just a lot. So some harsh words there from Jim Lauterbeck.

9:17Jasmine Enberg: I know, Jim. Love you, Jim. You're the best. Really, really not sugarcoating it. I was going to say no sugarcoating it. But it does feel like these platforms kind of over time have been learning and trying to address kind of some of the problems. So last week, we broke all this down in a chart for our newsletter. So you can check that out. But we looked at kind of the most prominent monetization programs from the social platforms. Six out of 10 of them are ad revenue sharing programs. So you have YouTube AdSense, or Snapchat's unified monetization program, which eventually evolved from the million dollar pool a day.

9:50Jasmine Enberg: And then the other two are performance based, meaning that the platforms pay based on things like qualified views, though, what constitutes a qualified view depends on the platform. Yeah, and they don't always share or ever share how that's exactly calculated. But I think overall, we've seen that ad revenue sharing and performance based programs tend to be kind of more stable and transparent than creator funds or other bonus programs. I mean, even if you think about metas, like, okay, you know, you know, the maximum you can earn per month, but it's still like, how do you get there? You don't totally know.

10:22Jasmine Enberg: And I think in general, right, like YouTube is seen as this kind of crown jewel of creator monetization. Most recently, it said that it's paid out$100 billion to creators, publishers and artists over the past four years. Though I have some beef with this because often people simplify this to say$100 billion paid to creators, and that's just not accurate. And I would love to know the breakdown because I have to imagine that a big portion of this goes to music as well as publishers. So I want to know how much is actually paid to the creators. But they're not going to tell us. No, they're not going to tell us.

10:56I have a lot of beef with that too. And back when I was at estimate for how much is going to creators. And so last year, what we calculated was that the social platforms combined paid out about$5 billion to creators in the US. The majority of that came from YouTube's absence. And of course, the$100 billion figure that we're getting from YouTube is over four years, like you said, it's also global. So this is not a perfect comparison. But it does start to give you a little bit more of a sense of what's actually going into creators pockets. And it may not be as much as you might think, even from YouTube, which really is sort of best in class in terms of creator monetization.

11:35Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, for some creators, these programs are also their primary or only source of income. I mean, look at Dar Mann, right? Like he only recently started bringing on brand partners and most of his income was coming from direct platform payments from Facebook and YouTube. But a lot of the biggest kind of YouTubers I've spoken to over time said that, you know, they've really tried to diversify their income. And, you know, AdSense used to make up 75 % or 50%. And now it's 25%. They really want to be diversifying, even if they're making, you know, good money on AdSense. And I think that goes back to the question of whether you can actually make consistent revenue, right?

12:10I mean, there was a report from Patreon, which you should take with a little bit of a grain of salt, because it's Patreon, which directly competes with these platforms is trying to get creators to come on to its own service. But it showed that only 20 to 30 % of creators felt that their income was predictable across TikTok, across YouTube, and across Instagram. So it really, you know, is a challenge. So it makes sense that these big creators are diversifying. And, you know, to your point, I mean, there are some creators that really, you know, only rely on AdSense, but they're few and far between, right?

12:41I mean, most big creators will certainly take brand deals. And a lot of smaller creators, of course, aren't even making money from any of these creator monetization programs at all. So they are far from perfect. But one thing that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, because after some of my conversations in recent years with creators, what I realized is they don't always understand that the platform's ability to share ad revenue with creators also depends on their ability to bring in ad revenue in the first place. Now, this is not a problem for Facebook or for Instagram, right? I mean, their ad business has been on a tear.

13:18They have plenty of money and can afford to pay creators. But it can be complicated for some other platforms like Snapchat, for example, which I'll talk about in a little bit. And the other thing that makes this challenging is that the platforms also have to be able to attribute that revenue to a specific creator. And that can be problematic depending on the format of the content. Again, this is by no means an excuse for the platforms, but it is an explanation in terms of how all of this works. So if you think about Snapchat, for example, I actually asked them about this when they rolled out their unified monetization program, because the company has been so inconsistent in generating ad revenue over the years.

13:57And basically, you know, they kind of dodged my question and just said that they were confident that they would be able to do it. And Kaya, as you mentioned, at least anecdotally, it has been really lucrative for some of the biggest creators. Snap also paid out half a billion dollars to publishers, which includes creators in 2024. We don't know exactly how many creators that went to. And of course, it includes other media properties as well. But it still seems like it could be better than most of the other social platforms. It amounts to close to 10 % of snaps revenue in 2024. So I think that says a little bit more about snaps ad business.

14:34And of course, that's going to be very difficult for the company to sustain, especially if its ad business contracts. But then to the point about, you know, this being complicated depending on the ad format, it's also why you see a different payment split for YouTube's long form versus YouTube shorts. So shorts ads appear between videos and that makes them easier to skip, which also makes them less valuable to advertisers. It's also then harder for, you know, YouTube to determine what specific creator to allocate that ad revenue to and to make that split. And so to their credit, they got creative, right?

15:11And they made a pool of ad revenue and creators get a cut of that. They did, however, lower the revenue split from 55 % on long form to 45 % on short form.

15:23Jasmine Enberg: And it's also coming from a pool of revenue, because I think what also makes it difficult is that you have multiple videos. Like when you think about a YouTube video, you're watching the ad on a specific channel on a specific video. So it's easy to attribute that to that creator. So they've finagled a whole a whole thing there. But good for them because other short form platforms have not but Schwartz actually didn't even start sharing ad revenue with creators until 2023. So that's three years after it launched. And a lot of creators were really frustrated, you know, even though they had the Schwartz fund, Schwartz has also really struggled to find its footing.

15:57Jasmine Enberg: And I would argue is still, you know, behind TikTok and Instagram, you know, Instagram in particular with Reels has gotten much better, its algorithm is much better, as we have recently reported. But you know, at the time, TikTok's algorithm, you know, was superior. And if we look back at the early days of shorts, I mean, YouTube had to do even more to get creators to post there in the first place. I mean, on top of the$100 million fund, they also offered additional money for video production, as well as other incentives, you know, including giving videos prominent placement on the YouTube mobile app, which was from some reporting my colleagues at The Information did at the time.

16:33Jasmine Enberg: And they also gave lump cash payments. So for example, creators who agreed to make 100 original videos within four to six months received a$50 ,000 payment from YouTube. So if you think back on those days, I mean, YouTube was really, really going after these TikTok creators. And that kind of takes us to what's happening now. I mean, Facebook wants to be a creator hub. So does LinkedIn, You know, neither is typically associated with the creator economy, but they know that helping creators make money is the best way to get them on the platforms, even if it's just for the short term. It does get them there.

17:06Yeah. And I think that hits the nail on the head here, right? There has to be something in it for the social platforms to get them to start paying creators. But, you know, back to the kind of the new programs, the approaches from Facebook and LinkedIn are very different, but they do have a couple of things in common. And we outlined some of this in our newsletter last week. Both are geared toward established rather than emerging creators, which, you know, is the crux of Jim Lauterbach's argument there. They also both emphasize original or exclusive content. So creators in LinkedIn's Top Voices 360 program, for example, can't post the videos they create for the shows on other platforms for a full year.

17:45And for the platforms, I think, you know, focusing on big creators makes a ton of sense. They want to work with creators who have a proven track record of developing high quality content as well as engagement because that ultimately translates to more ad dollars for the platforms. And again, that's the end goal here. The platforms want creators on their apps because it helps boost their own businesses. And that's true whether we're talking about YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn or Facebook.

18:12Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and LinkedIn's approach is obviously more targeted and premium. That makes sense for its audience, which is business professionals. Facebook, meanwhile, is casting a much wider net, betting that its massive audience of billions of people will make it attractive for creators to come. These platforms are also both betting that creators will help bring in more Gen Zers. And when we were talking about this episode, I was like, wait, what happened to Zuckerberg's big goal of doing that in 2025? I mean, he made this big proclamation in early 2025 on an earnings call, which kind of felt like it was out of left field.

18:47Jasmine Enberg: and he said he wants to get back to the OG Facebook. Whatever that means. Well, I think what he was meaning was like the early days of Facebook, where it was a place for college students and young people to connect. And he said that he sees an opportunity to make Facebook much more culturally influential than it is today. I dug much deeper into that last year, and that involved Meta, as I reported, calling up the teams of big YouTubers and creators, including Mr. Beast and Mark Rober for advice. Jasmine, I actually quoted you in the article, which is so funny. What did I say? Oh, my God. You said, no, I was like looking up today and I was like, oh, there's Jasmine.

19:25Jasmine Enberg: Okay. You said that Meta is still very much a social media advertising business, even as it works to pivot into artificial intelligence and the metaverse, and that it needs to maintain the strength there in order to justify all the other investments that it's making. Okay. I stand by that. Weird to hear myself quoted back to me, though. I'm glad you stand by it. It was only a year ago. I will get to the metaverse in a second, because that's a perfect segue. But Zuckerberg said last year that this work to revitalize Facebook might take the product development in some interesting directions. I'm not sure that we've seen that play out over the past year.

20:03Jasmine Enberg: I mean, we haven't heard much about this effort to revive the OG Facebook. And even in my story, I talked about kind of how they were rolling out more bonus programs. And once again, we're seeing this approach this year. One thing on why I was confused about the OG Facebook, because I took it the way that you did, right? That he wants to go back to the early days when it was really geared toward college students. And that's where we would all post like photo dumps from our weekends and connect and find out new things, right? But then he starts to focus on creators and creators were not a part of that world.

20:35So it felt like, you know, he was kind of taking all of the best hits from Facebook over the years and trying to mash it up into this, you know, what he was calling the OG Facebook, but there was never really like a full strategy behind it. And you're right, to your point, we really haven't seen that many interesting product developments except for the local feed that Facebook rolled out. And I think that was, you know, a move in the direction to try to get sort of more Gen Zers and go back to Facebook's roots. But yeah, it's kind of disappeared after to that big proclamation.

21:07Jasmine Enberg: There was never any follow up. Hopefully, no street analyst asks him on the next call, like, wait, what are you focused on AI these days? Yeah, fair. But I want someone to ask for me. Okay. But I think the local feed makes sense because they've seen such success with marketplace. And especially with Gen Z on marketplace. So that all makes sense. And TikTok and everyone else is doing local feeds. So obviously, they're going to do it too. And maps. Yes. But maybe this OG Facebook effort has more hope than the metaverse, which now seems to be officially toast. We've seen kind of a slow decline. There was layoffs recently, and a pivot and focus from immersive worlds.

21:44Jasmine Enberg: And as the New York Times put it, it's had a long farewell. Yeah, I have so many thoughts about this. I mean, I think the pivot to the metaverse, first of all, was very ill-timed. If you think back to when this happened in the end of 2021, it was right before the ad slump in 2022 when Meta's ad business contracted for the very first time. It was also very ill-defined. I mean, I still can't tell you what the metaverse actually is. I don't know if you have a better definition, Kaya, but it kind of feels like it's this, you know, thing out there that nobody has a clear, real understanding of. But mostly, nobody was asking for this, right?

22:23And it felt like it just kind of came out of left field. And all of a sudden, Facebook rebranded its whole company to Meta. It started pouring money into Reality Labs, which is its Metaverse division. And it spent almost$80 billion there, right? And I think people are right to question where that money went, because it doesn't feel like there's all that much to show for it. And I remember a joke at one point when they had released the characters in Horizon Worlds. Do you remember? I think it was Mark Zuckerberg, right? Like an animated version of him or whatever you call it. And he didn't have any legs.

23:00And I remember some stupid pun like, you know, the metaverse has no legs because it premiered these legless characters. But anyway, I digress. For me, though, my read on it was that the metaverse was never really about immersive experiences, Horizon Worlds, which is what's really being shut down here, it was much more about devices. And so Zuckerberg has always had this chip on his shoulder for missing the smartphone boom. Like, do you remember back in 2010, 2012, there were all these reports about Facebook supposedly launching a mobile phone? Of course, that never materialized for a lot of reasons.

23:35But I think he really feels like he's missed the train on that one. And he's not willing to do that Again, luckily, though, they did pivot from desktops to mobile apps because that was touch and go for a while, too. But that's another story for another time. And, of course, there is no guarantee that Meta is going to succeed in, you know, the headsets and the smart glasses that it's developing. But it is certainly not giving up, even as it's shutting down Horizon Worlds and other parts of its metaverse ambitions. It's doubling down on that. It's actually gearing up to launch new AI-powered smart glasses soon.

24:12And in the latest earnings call and in question to an analyst, Zuckerberg said something along the lines of, actually, no, this is a direct quote. It's hard to imagine a world in several years where most glasses that people wear aren't AI glasses. To be fair, he said very similar things about the metaverse back in 2021. He said something like 1 billion people would use it in the next decade for everything from work to socializing and whatever else you can do in the metaverse. and that obviously didn't happen. So who knows how all this is going to play out. But Facebook meta is certainly not giving up on the wearable side of its business.

24:47Jasmine Enberg: One thing I would add is they're also, I don't know if you saw this headline, but they're opening a flagship meta store on Fifth Avenue. So to the point of like really wanting to make these glasses a hit. And I will say, I think the Ray-Ban strategy is very smart because I do see people wearing them in the wild. Have you tried them on? I have, and I'm very impressed with the sound. Like when you put music on, the person next to you cannot hear you. And it's crazy. Like that, that kind of blew my mind. But no, I'm not wearing them on a regular basis. They're stylish, right? Yeah. I mean, I was impressed by that because, you know, Snaps, for example, are not stylish.

25:21And I know that it's still a developer product that they have right now, but they're very clunky. They're very heavy. And, you know, Meta has kind of figured out how to make them fashionable and interesting. I do think they're still pricey, which is, you know, something that needs to be solved. but let's just say I think these smart glasses have more legs than the metaverse does.

25:41Sorry.

25:42Jasmine Enberg: That's a perfect way to end that segment. Love it. Okay, moving on to our next story. So do creators belong on the red carpet? The internet is divided right now. Kaya, tell us why. Okay, so mostly what I'm seeing is backlash to Jake Shane's performance interviewing celebrities on the red carpet at the Oscars. To be clear, this was at the vanity fair party this was not during the primetime broadcast here's a clip of what happened especially the kid was annoying no i can't yeah you know that kid was so damn annoying but she had a shoe can i tell you something it's it's it's not that it's the mother's fault or the child's it's society's fault it sets mothers up to fail okay so if you're a regular listener you know that we are jake shane stands over here a year ago at south by southwest we went to his live show in Austin.

26:33Jasmine Enberg: He was on tour last year and one of his stops was in Austin. And do you remember how windy it was? It was crazy windy. It was cold. I just remember brushing my hair in the auditorium waiting for Jake Shane to come on stage. And I'm like, I don't know if the hairbrush is going to like break as I'm pulling it through. It was like 50 mile an hour winds. It was crazy. And if you saw our clip, the wind came back. But it was very, very, it was very, very strong. And I don't know what it is about that time of year, but the winds are strong and awesome. Anyway, the lines were wrapping around and around the block.

27:06Jasmine Enberg: I mean, the fans were crazy to see him. Some were wearing like octopus costumes, which was an ode to his podcast named Therapist. And he was so funny on stage. And that was a live format. Yeah, I became a fan of his from the show. I know you were before and I knew of him, but I didn't really follow him. But I loved every minute of it. I thought he was great. No, it was so funny. And we weren't sure if like, you know, I'm not like an avid, I wasn't an avid consumer of his podcast. I was like, am I gonna like get the jokes? But it was just it was very funny. Plus, also, we're millennials. And I thought some of the things might like go over my head, not being a Gen Z.

27:42But it was no, it was super relevant and funny. I loved it.

27:46Jasmine Enberg: It was very funny. But of course, like with his live tour, he was in control. He obviously planned it out. Like, it didn't feel scripted. But like, he had slides, he was showing funny emails, he was really good on stage. I mean, he even said at the beginning that he was nervous. I mean, it was a huge, huge auditorium of his fans. But it was a very forgiving audience. Yes, it was just him. Okay, but back to the Oscars. So obviously, it's really hard to do this in a live setting. There are also so many spontaneous moments that you have to kind of like react to in real time. And I was thinking like just the sheer volume of celebrities must be so overwhelming and intimidating.

28:22Jasmine Enberg: I mean, Jake does have a lot of famous friends. I mean, Sofia Richie is a great example. And he's interviewed a lot of famous people on his podcast and now on Netflix. But like it's still on his terms in his studio pre-recorded. And I think like the sheer number of celebrities at the Oscars is just a different ballgame. To recap some of the criticism, I mean, some people faulted him for making the same joke back to back. Some people said he just didn't look like he was having fun. I think probably the most awkward moment was with Julia Fox. She was nominated for her first Oscar and she starred in a drama where she plays a mother caring for her terminally ill daughter.

29:00Jasmine Enberg: And Jake Shane asked whether she found the sick child, quote, so annoying. He asked the same question to another actor, too. Which, like, that really did not go over well online. But I think to back up, as I said at the top, like it's important to remember that this was a red carpet of the Vanity Fair party and it was purely a digital live stream. So it makes sense to tap someone from the digital world for that. It's not like he was on primetime TV. And I love what Kevin Clancy, who if you don't know him, he's known as the one minute man on Barstool Sports said about this. And he kind of said, like, look, Barstool also got a lot of criticism from traditional media in the early days saying, you know, their personalities aren't informed enough and they're cursing and so on and so on.

29:44Jasmine Enberg: So he said, you know, he has a soft spot for Jake Shane, even if he could have done a better job. But his quote was, you know, people like the relatability and the normal people talking about the things they like. I think also, like, you know, for people that have followed him, he's been big online for a while. But like this year, he's been on Broadway. He has this Netflix deal like that. his like public persona has, you know, grown immediately this year. And he just hasn't, you know, he hasn't had that experience before, you know, but as as Kevin Clancy pointed out, are you supposed to turn the gig down?

30:15Jasmine Enberg: Like, oh, sorry, not ready. Not gonna do it, right? Like, of course, you're gonna say yes to that. And some people including his red carpet co host, who's a fellow creator, Quinlan Blackwell are coming to his defense. And she sort of said, like the same thing for athletes, like you have to start somewhere the first time you kick the ball is not going to be great. I was like deep in the comments. So when people are like, yeah, but like, why don't they cast, you know, someone else to do so there was just like a lot of a lot of back and forth a lot a lot of messiness around that. Yeah, I mean, I get that for a digital live stream, you want to tap somebody from the digital world.

30:44But I do not buy the argument that I've been seeing that the digital live stream is less important or matters less than the Oscars red carpet on traditional TV. I mean, he came off as rude and disrespectful and at times unprepared, right? And I think a digital live stream is just as, if not more important than, you know, the Oscars that are airing on traditional TV. So if you kind of just look at the viewership numbers, I mean, the Oscars had 17.9 million viewers that night. There are several videos I've seen of Jake fumbling on the red carpet that have millions of views, including one I saw this morning that has about 7 million views on Instagram.

31:22So this has easily been seen by more people than who watched the Oscars. So to me, the stakes really are just as high, if not higher. That said, I also feel for Jake. I think that's a lesson more for traditional media than anything else. I mean, creators are not trained journalists. They do not have the interview skills. They do not have the expertise. And it's not just about what happens on camera. Like, you're right, Kaya, it's a live setting. It can be nerve wracking and anything can happen. It's also about what happens before. Like you need to do your research so that you're prepared. And you also need to practice because again, you know, you have very little control over what happens when, when you're live on a red carpet.

32:02And Shane just seemed like he wasn't fully prepared, but is that entirely his fault? I don't think so. I mean, when he was asked how he got the job by none other than the it was Kris Jenner. His response was, I don't know, honestly. How did you get this gig? I love it.

32:21Jasmine Enberg: I don't know, honestly. And I think that tells you kind of everything you need to know about how all of this came about. I agree. You're not going to turn down this gig, right? If you're Jake Shane, if you're offered to go on the red carpet to interview celebrities at the Vanity Fair party, you are saying yes. But I find it really hard to imagine that, you know, Vanity Fair gave gave him the same resources and training and support that they would have given, you know, other journalists or reporters that are on the red carpet. And the bigger picture for me is this, right? I mean, I get that these companies want to modernize the red carpet, they want to reach a new audience.

32:57But there's something that gets kind of lost in translation that just because you are good on short video, or even good in a live scripted performance on your own, like Jake was at South by does not mean that that means that you're a good live interviewer on the red carpet. There's no editing. It's not pre-recorded. There's no retakes. You get one shot. And look, there are ways to mitigate some of these risks. And going back to the panel I had a couple of weeks ago at South by with Julian Shapiro Barnum, who's the host of recess therapy and does tons of red carpet interviews, including with stars like Margot Robbie and Dua Lipa, right?

33:34One of the things that he said to me is that he never does these live. Like, yes, they're live on the red carpet, but they're pre-recorded. And that editing is a huge part of how these clips are then presented. And that makes everybody feel more comfortable, right? Including the celebrities, as well as the kids who are there interviewing the celebrities with him. And he also told me that he has a saying for, you know, how he approaches these conversations. Because I asked him. I'm like, how do you prepare to talk to a celebrity or, you know, another powerful person? And he said he goes with disarm, but not disrespect.

34:09And anyway, maybe somebody should have told Jake Shane that.

34:12Jasmine Enberg: I love how much insight came out of that panel. Like I learned so much from that South by panel. It was great. It can be hard at these big conferences because people stick to their to their talking points. Okay, now moving on to one more story before we get into our interview with Max, who will tell us about CAPER. WME is laying off 30 employees or about 3 % of staff. The layoffs come a year after WME went private. A disclosure of Scalable is repped by CAA. What stood out to you, Jasmine, from the internal announcement? There was one quote from the memo that was sent by the co-chiefs that stood out to me, and I'll read it to you.

34:46Our industry is undergoing profound change from consolidation and shifting economics to new technology and evolving client needs. At the same time, new platforms are creating more opportunities than ever for talent and creators to reach audiences around the world. So assuming they're talking about social media creators here, which is what I think that most of the people I saw on social media took it as, basically, it's good that they're acknowledging creators and how much they've shifted the entertainment landscape, which is what a lot of the posts that I've seen have been focused on. It's also probably exactly why WME included it here.

35:23But what caught my eye, and again, assuming that they're talking about social creators, was a clear delineation between quote unquote talent and creators. They're treating them as two separate things. And again, I think that tells you everything that you need to know about how traditional Hollywood still tends to view creators, right? Like even as they're scoring Netflix deals or having blockbuster hits, they're still kind of treated as another and maybe not in the same level as quote unquote, real talent. And they also led with things like shifting economics and involving client needs. And to me, that reads that production is down, there's just not that much money coming in.

36:00And WME is not the only talent agency that has had layoffs. CAA had layoffs recently as well. And a lot of that, yes, has to do with creators as well as new platforms like social media capturing more of our attention. But it's also much bigger than that. I think there's a lot of systemic issues within the entertainment industry, and especially within Hollywood, that these new technologies, including AI as well, are really now bringing to the surface.

36:25Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and I think it's important what you said is like, we assume they're talking about social media creators. And why we say that is because for years, so many agents from across the industry would tell us that, you know, they thought, you know, upper management to take creators seriously. And I think the show is like they're finally listening. But the word creator in Hollywood has meant show creator. So like the creator of Stranger Things or, you know, the creator of XYZ show. Like you said, you know, Hollywood, including talent agencies need to adapt to the new reality we're in. Like, yes, it's the growth of the creator economy, but it's also people not going to the movies anymore.

37:00Jasmine Enberg: Attention splintering across so many streaming platforms, the rise of I mean, the list goes on and on. And I think we're starting to see that change internally, you know, at the rival talent agencies, UTA and CAA, both created official creators divisions. So there's CAA creators, there's UTA creators. And it may sort of feel like this kind of insignificant announcement from the outside, but it actually is quite significant because they are reorganizing their businesses this way. And it's an acknowledgement of how central creators are to the future of entertainment, and the future of where talent agencies own businesses could be going too.

37:34And the fact that lines are blurring between traditional Hollywood celebrities and social media creators, right? I mean, some of the biggest stars on social media are traditional celebrities too, right? And many of them are creating and distributing content across the social platform. So even if they meant, you know, Hollywood creators in the sense of filmmakers, for example, it's still the point is still valid. I mean, these platforms really have given creators of shows as well as social media creators and celebrities new avenues to distribute their content and engage with people in different ways than before like do you remember way back when when celebrities just kind of felt like they were completely on another planet and totally unreachable and the only times that you would ever really get to see anything about them was like in those gossip magazines where it would be like celebrities they're just like us and they would have these usually pretty terrible pictures of them caught in like their absolute worst moments.

38:31And now we see all of that on our social feeds all the time.

38:36Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, I remember when Jennifer Aniston joined Instagram, and it was to promote her hair care line. Yeah, but it was like a big moment, because a lot of them like haven't wanted to share publicly. But then others like Selena Gomez, like some of the biggest name actors are the most followed people on Instagram, because there is such an appetite to kind of see the behind the scenes content. And I think some of it is a response to that of like them being able to take back the narrative and like, not, you know, have to just, you know, have what's out there in the tabloid be what's out there about them.

39:06Jasmine Enberg: More to come will obviously be following all of this this closely. I mean, this is not not the end of the story of kind of the future of Hollywood. Next up, we have our interview with Max, the co founder of caper. Before launching this new food media business, He helped grow Bleacher Report and The Athletic, and he also co-founded Puck. Hi, Max. Welcome to Scalable. Hey, Kaya. Hey, Jasmine. Thanks for having me. Hey, Max. Thanks so much for being here. So picking a name for our business was one of the hardest decisions that we had to make before launching. We had this whole running list of names and words that we kept building on for quite some time until we ultimately landed on Scalable.

39:43How did you land on Caper? Yeah, it wasn't where we started. And actually, maybe when we first spoke, we were talking about another name. And I was reading and I read this line, a book, and it was a caper-like atmosphere. And it kind of just jumped off a page, jumped off the page at me. And this was really over the holidays, kind of began to workshop it. I must have had a list of about 80-something names. And that one kind of just kept winning out. And it just offered us a way to be a little bit more creative and less on the nose with what we were calling this. And certainly the double entendre is a fun part of it.

40:22Yeah, tell us what the double entendre is, because I'm not sure that everybody knows. Well, a caper, you know, obviously the ingredient, and as the son of a Northern Italian woman, you know, that was sort of a sacred ingredient in our household growing up. And you can go and read about the lore of the caper bush, you know, growing through cracks and the resilience there. But then also, you know, the caper as really an adventure. Sometimes it can be illicit. And I think that kind of escapade component of it to me is like and I've never started a restaurant, but I imagine there's like part of that.

41:04You know, like when you're starting a restaurant, there's sort of a lot of that and a lot of that in the business and sort of the adventure of it. So it just started to fit, I think, really nicely with our mission.

41:14Jasmine Enberg: And someone told me this when I told them the name Scalable. They were like, my mind goes blank and that's good, right? Like there's and same thing for caper, right? Like there's nothing else that you're kind of competing with, which is hard because there's pretty much every name is used for either a podcast or a newsletter or something. So the focus of Caper, of course, is food. But we were looking at some of your recent stories that you've published, and they include things like scoops about restaurant openings. But you also published a story about ICE and what restaurants were being rated. So when you think about the big picture of Caper, what is your vision for the company?

41:48I mean, I think the opportunity that we saw was that there's this incredible world of restaurants and hospitality and incredible stories and characters involved. And there just wasn't really a consistent place where those great stories were being told by a brand. And so I think as we started thinking about where we wanted to build and what we wanted to build, that became very apparent. And, you know, I worked in restaurants growing up and had some exposure to the space. And when I was looking really at the consumer side, it did feel like a lot of the sort of lists, rankings, service journalism that I was seeing looked a lot like sports media did in 2016 when we were launching The Athletic.

42:38And by that, I mean, again, there wasn't necessarily a ton of smart coverage. Things had kind of devolved into this list and rankings world. It felt like there wasn't really something like what we had done at Puck either, where speaking to this professional class in an interesting way and not really in a utility way either. Our goal is to tell stories around the industry and around the people that are operating in this industry. So, you know, thinking about sort of where we've published so far, it's a lot about anchoring in these different categories that are, you know, truthfully are not totally about the food.

43:18It's kind of everything else that brings these establishments to life. You know, I think the coverage is, you know, really gives us a lot to play with in terms of the white space by taking that approach and not talking about what's on the plate. Again, you won't really find reviews. You won't find criticism. And it's much more so about the people and the stories that are behind what bring these places to life.

43:44Jasmine Enberg: Tell us a little more about the audience. So is it a business professional audience? Like, who is the reader? I think Puck really established itself with kind of a clear, you know, audience and market. So what do you see for Caper? We do think about this prosumer audience in a similar way to Puck. If we serve the professionals in the space well, and that's people that are navigating a career in hospitality, people that work in the space, chefs, operators, creators. If we serve them well, there will be a consumer that will just be absolutely fascinated with that type of coverage and their reporting.

44:18And that consumer just naturally wants to gain more intimacy with the places that they're dining out at. And so ultimately, it does feel like this should be very professionally focused. and that is the audience that we want to speak to more so, more than anything, and really offer them an edge and an insider angle. So you mentioned some of the reporters who are writing for Caper, including Chris Crowley, who's formerly from New York Magazine. How are you thinking about hiring for these roles? Because it sounds like it's not just traditional food critics that you're looking for. And what are some of the most important roles that you're hiring for early on?

44:54We knew we needed connectivity in the space, first and foremost. And I think Chris certainly gives us that. Emma gives us that. They've both been in food media for quite some time. We've got a contributor base around them as well that comes from food media. But we also wanted to make a point with our journalists of finding talented writers who are not previously from the food media space.

45:20Jasmine Enberg: So you've raised more than$2 million in funding to launch the company. So talk about that process, especially raising, you know, funding for a media company at a time when media is in a bit of disarray, I would say, as someone who spent the last 10 years in traditional newsrooms. This thesis has really resonated. I mean, it's resonated with the investor class, certainly, but I think also with journalists and with talent. You know, I think a lot of people felt this is something that doesn't exist consistently in the space. And then naturally, you know, food is such a shared and lived experience that we all can relate to it and get excited about it.

45:58So I think that category was definitely incredibly advantageous as we went to market and part of the fundraising. And, you know, fortunately, I've had a good track record in media and been part of some incredible companies and helping them grow them and start them with Bleacher Report and The Athletic and then Puck. Then I think I really did bring expertise to the table around how we were going to go about this and how we're going to launch it.

46:24Jasmine Enberg: There's hope out there for media founders, which is great to hear. Where's most of the money going for? Is it for hiring or what's kind of the plan for the funds? It's the team right now and the design work that we completed. We worked with Thank You Studios out of Copenhagen, who we did with Puck. Orn and Anders over there are phenomenal. And I think From a design standpoint, I really appreciated how they worked with us alongside it. A lot of times you kind of get two rounds and then like see you later from a design shop. So another one of the big decisions that we had to make before launching Scalable was coming up with a logo and colors and a design for our brand.

47:05Tell us, you know, how you brought the logo and the design to life. It did start in a very different place. You know, we had this element of hand-drawn illustrations that were chipped in. And so now you'll see the logo is actually a hand-drawn signature. We actually did a fun exercise where everybody signed, you know, caper kind of over and over and over again just to see what would come out of it. And I think we posted sort of what that rotator looks like. And, you know, in a lot of ways, that's also significant because we are all signing this thing. And, you know, it really is a partnership in that way.

47:42And I think we also wanted to elicit the feeling of when you're at a restaurant or in these spaces and you're drawing on napkins and drawing on the menus or, you know, the paper tablecloth. Like, I think that's really what we wanted to come across and be unique with so that you're feeling that kind of come through on the site and in the newsletters. So yeah, a big part of it was just making sure that we elevated that human component through the illustrations. We were very lucky to have design support from our business partner, The Lighthouse, because neither of us are designers. I've been trying to learn a little bit in Canva, but it is not my strongest skill for sure.

48:24Why did you decide to go with Beehive, say, over Substack or building something custom like you did with Puck? We thought just that the out-of-the-box tools were enough at the start just to get us to where we wanted, just from a newsletter publishing standpoint. But then knowing we could work closely with them to really customize this was a compelling way to partner and bring this to light. I also felt like there was Substack, I think it's a phenomenal platform, no shade there for sure. I thought like just a little bit more of independence with our goals and wanting to sort of not be in the app necessarily and in the sub-sec app and kind of being a little bit more separate.

49:10You know, definitely the percentage take from subscription was also a factor in consideration. This will be a subscription first product. We're going to have advertising as well. And then, you know, I certainly just respect how Tyler and the team have been building and iterating and knowing that we were going to get a custom site and work with them very closely was definitely a factor.

49:33Jasmine Enberg: Events have been a big part of Puck's success, I think, as well. But how do you also think about, you know, podcasts, social media strategy, video, right? Like newsletters are not just newsletters anymore. I think we've seen even individual creators on Substack or Beehive really evolve and go beyond newsletters too. Yeah, events will be a big part of this. The category lends quite well to it, certainly. And the subscription is at its core. The advertising layer, the events layer, I think these can all be meaningful revenue streams. We also think about the downstream IP potential of what we're doing.

50:12And I think some of the stories that have already kind of shown up to me could be developed in really interesting ways for food, for television, for podcasts, short and long form. We will have a podcast that I think will really begin to develop a little bit later this year. And then like a video component, lastly. lastly.

50:32Jasmine Enberg: One factor that wasn't really a factor in the days of The Athletic and Puck is obviously the rise of AI, which is wreaking all sorts of havoc, I think, for traditional media publishers. It's changing how people are finding, searching information. How does that impact CAPER's strategy? And as you're launching, how much have you thought about AI and the changes and moment that we're in? Yeah, you can't not think about it. I keep going back to feeling like this is a a space that remains authentic and remains human in a lot of ways. So much of what we wanted to speak to is the theater of going out to eat at a restaurant and what has happened behind the scenes that has made these spaces for us that we all have some relationship with.

51:23So in that regard, we sort of feel excited that that's an area that we can cover quite intimately and feel like, you know, AI maybe can't touch as well, though I'm sure it will find a way to, you know, and then are there tools for us maybe really with some of these professional products that we're able to use AI to develop and scale? So, you know, I'd say that's kind of the extent of the strategy right now. And again, like sort of leaning on the category in some ways is defensible. And then the fact that we're not really, you know, we're not going to be doing recipes necessarily or at scale and sort of the service journalism and criticism that I think is more easily replicated through AI or more easily developed.

52:16Jasmine Enberg: You've obviously, you know, helped to grow all of these media businesses over the years from Bleacher Report to The Athletic to Puck. What kind of learnings and takeaways from those businesses are you taking with you to Kaper? I think a lot of it did develop out of The Athletic, you know, in terms of business model and the way that we partner with journalists. You know, The Athletic, now it's got an advertising component with The Times, but initially it was subscription only. And that was certainly, you know, we knew that we wanted that to be core to this product. And then the way we partnered with journalists also started there in terms of, you know, certainly competitive salary, but equity in the business, which I think is still, you know, fairly novel in the world of journalism.

53:03Jasmine Enberg: It sure is. Yeah. And then, you know, figuring out how to bonus off of subscription was another component. And then we took that from The Athletic and we evolved it at Puck, where, again, it was a dual revenue stream from the start, but another version of sort of those journalist partnerships. And now we've even, I think, taken it a step further with the journalists in terms of how we share on IP development downstream, also having sort of a company-wide goal. So it's not just sort of the individual goal that subscription bonus will exist. There's also a company wide as well. So it is a lot of just continuing to take this business model that I think I think is foundational for building really healthy media businesses and just like tweak it a little bit for the category and for the audience and for the partners that are involved.

54:00Jasmine Enberg: Just kind of zooming out, like what is your pulse on the media landscape right now? You know, you have news creators, you have, you know, the capers of the world, you have the pucks, you have the informations, you have the New York Times. Like, what do you make of kind of the media moment that we're in and like where media is headed? I know that's a big question, but just as you've been on the forefront of so many of these new businesses, right? Like as kind of the traditional model has been under so much strain, like what happens next? Well, I mean, a lot of the trends that we pitched, you know, on The Athletic and then for Puck and now for Caper, I think really remain the same.

54:37I mean, we were really, you know, even five, six years ago, Raising for Fuck, we were talking about this barbelling of the media ecosystem where you've got these, you know, one person, independent creator companies springing up. And then obviously the institutional brands that are the leaders and I don't think are going away at all. And we think of, you know, The Times and Bloomberg and The Atlantic and a few others. And then you're starting to see some M &A activity between the two, even. And so, one, it's a very fun space to build in. I've just always felt, and it's very fast moving. I think it's maybe a little bit ahead of some trends in general.

55:19And two, I think that middle space is an interesting place to build, right? Where, again, if you have the right business model and sort of the right way to partner with talent, you can get a little bit of the best of both worlds. Where, again, you're getting sort of support like you would at an institutional shop, obviously not with the same type of resources, but some level of that. And then also getting the upside of being independent and the editorial freedom of actually being independent. So, you know, to me, it still feels like, and I'm just inherently just an optimistic person, but just a really fun place to build.

56:04And, you know, all these changes to me just signal opportunity. So a lot of the work that you've been doing so far seems like it's focused on New York. Are you planning on expanding to other cities as well? Yes, definitely. And I'd say we are New York-centric. The whole team is here. That's definitely been the focus. But we do have contributors really all over the place. And if you think about the different food capitals, I think that those are some obvious choices about where you'll find coverage. But it actually goes back to not anchoring in the city, but anchoring in the category. So rather than say, hey, we're coming to LA or we're coming to San Francisco or London and signaling to the audience that way, It's more like, hey, here's a great real estate story as it pertains to the restaurant world.

56:57And anchoring that way then allows us to spoke out to really anywhere. And so if you're interested in restaurants and you're interested in real estate, that's how we want to grab your interest. And then that story could actually take you to lots of different places. Well, I very much hope you do come to LA because I'm always looking for good restaurant recommendations. And for me, it's not just about the food. I like the story behind the restaurant, the atmosphere, all of that stuff is really important. So hopefully we'll see some coverage from here soon. But thank you. We will have coverage soon.

57:28Thank you, Max.

57:29Jasmine Enberg: Okay, we'll end with a little rapid fire. What is your vision for Kaper? Vision for Kaper is to make a lasting media company in this category. What's the best city for food? It's New York. Favorite restaurant? I'm a creature of habit and Vinegar Hill House is right around the corner from me. And that's that's tops. What's your biggest win as a founder? Honestly, I think that the fact that I keep doing this over and over again is sort of to me, just the signal that I just I really enjoy it. I want to keep getting better at it. And I just love the zero to one phase more than anything. Certainly, like the exits have been great and exciting.

58:14But I think I just I just love building this this stuff. What does traditional media not get about the current news landscape or the creator economy? I don't know if they don't get anything. I think it's maybe that they just don't have the flexibility to really serve this new environment as well. They've got just big ships and they've got process. But I will say that I truly do believe in incentivizing and partnering and working with journalists in new and unique ways. And I think that's what's fun about building new media companies.

58:48Jasmine Enberg: What's the most important skill for a journalist? I think it's sourcing. I think just having that elite sourcing, just you can see it show up on the page in really unique ways and then allows them to connect dots in really different ways than someone else might be able to. One piece of advice for someone looking to break into the media business today. Start writing. Start Substack, Beehive, wherever. And then really think about trying to answer who is this for every single time you put words on a page. Amazing. Thank you so much, Max, for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you, Max. Thanks, Jasmine.

59:30Thanks, Kaya. This was great. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you here next week.

59:40you