Why Does Everyone Have a Podcast? Nayeema & Sammi Cohen

24:10Yeah. Because we all had oodles of time. We wanted to multitask. It's such an intimate format. I was saying in 2022, everything's going to be video. But now I think there's actually a role for audio only. Like I think sometimes like what's hot is not and what's not becomes hot again. It's the cyclical nature of the world. Do you think with the rate that video is increasing and just even you see YouTube, obviously YouTube is video first. It's the number one podcast platform. Audio is not going to overtake video. You're just saying it's having like there is an opportunity for audio to get more. I think I'm very curious about what people want to see in a podcast.

24:48Benny Blanco and Lil Dicky and Lil Dicky's awesome wife, who has no social media presence, they are doing this Friends Keep Secrets where it's shot in a house. They're moving around. And I'm so curious because if you look at the data around what people want to see, they're not glued to their screen. They're multitasking it. And they want to see something when it becomes tense. It becomes expressive. Like they want to check it out. So it's kind of like a low friction medium, I think. And if you start adding a ton of production value to it, if you start adding a ton of visuals to it and you expect it to be an hour, hour and a half, I think it's going to be hard.

25:21I have to say I haven't cracked it on YouTube. So my show is like it's big on Spotify. It's bigger on Apple. You know, there are certain episodes that really pop on YouTube. But I haven't yet cracked the YouTube of it all. Yeah. I think it's hard to like crack in that space. Yeah. And they say it takes a certain number of episodes. I'm in my late 30s in podcasting years. And you have 90 episodes. 90. But to be fair, I do two a week. And I took a summer off and we'll get to that. Like I thought about like, should I keep making this show? Yeah, I want to hear about that too. We're going to get into that.

25:52Talk first a little bit more about like the world of media. So there's been so much coverage of podcasting. Everyone's watching podcasts. I think it's like a half a billion people worldwide are watching podcasts. But the question is, is it saturated? Is it saturated? And like, where are we going? And so I think the stats are there's something like 4 million podcasts out there in the world. half a million of them are being updated actively, meaning like there's a new episode at least every month or so. And there were something like 200 ,000 new podcasts that were created last year alone in 2025.

26:23So are we saturated? My hot take is absolutely not. No. I think this is my POV on it. Yes. The numbers at a high level, it's wild how many new podcasts are coming out. But if you actually look at the stats of who sticks with it. Number one, I'll answer this with multiple facets. Facet number one of just the number of people who are actually committed to being consistent. I read something. If you publish 21 podcast episodes, you are in the top 1%. 21. So let's say you do a normal. But top 1 % by publishing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But publishing, it's still a stat. And I think it speaks to how few people stick with the consistency.

27:06And going back to what we talked about earlier, I think so few people understand that this is television production now. Even though you're saying that audio might have a moment, I believe if audio has a moment, it's going to be a very small moment. I think video is the future. I'm not a betting woman, but I would put a lot of money on that if I was. I think that with podcasting, if you are consistent and if you stick with it. And the most important aspect by far is having a strong point of view. Not saying to go into the manosphere, but having a strong point of view on your topic that you love, that you're covering, that your podcast is about.

27:42I actually think that there's a chance for many people to actually develop a brand that's recognized in the space. But it really is something that takes consistency. And I saw another stat, something along the lines of, it takes around 100 episode for interview format podcast to actually get traction. Now, the get traction, I think that can mean different things to different people. But you think about the people who would have that consistency when week after week, they're paying money because most likely you're going to have some production support or an editor. And it will most of the time feel like you're screaming into a void.

28:21And the vast majority of people will just give up. Yeah. And something like, I think it's like the average new podcast gets like 140 downloads per episode a week in its first few episodes at least, which is very low. Yeah. Yeah. And you hear those numbers and no wonder people feel like they need to give up because also very few podcasts, if you look at the asymmetric outcomes of how these podcasts are actually doing financially too, not everyone's going to be an Alex Cooper or Joe Rogan. And most people are going to be – The$100 million deals. So most people are barely making ends meet or breaking even rather.

28:58And most people are losing money. I have a take here, which is that if you want to make it in media, it's not about being in a single format. It's about ubiquity. Because at the end of the day, it used to be a world where like build and they will come. You will make a really great fucking film and everyone will go line up to see it in the theaters. Yeah. Now I think that era has passed and it's like, you know, build, put it out there everywhere and maybe people are going to find it in the place that they are. Meet audiences where they are. And so I have for a while thought like every story is going to be like the Elizabeth Holmes story that was like written by James Carew as a great book.

29:34And then it was made into a podcast by Victoria Thompson and the team at ABC, which is a fantastic podcast. Then it was a documentary by Alec Gibney. It's going to be a film. I think Will Ferrell is producing a film called Bad Blood based on the book. And then it also was a TV series starring Amanda Seyfried. And so this is a story that exists in every incarnation. There's probably tons of blog posts, tons of audience kind of content around it. And I think we live in a world where everything is going to exist in that many different formats. And you got to make your stuff so that it fills all those formats.

30:05And the boom in video podcasting to me is about the fact that that is the most all bells and whistles form of production. But if you do it in video, you can clip it for social. It can become a transcript that people can read. It can exist on YouTube, Spotify, et cetera. It can be an audio-only product. And so the video layer is to create the content that everyone can consume from wherever they are. Totally. Totally. And that's why the business is pushing this way. And it's not like everyone's going to be watching podcasts. I see in my show the science ones or the ones with kids really pop off on YouTube in a way.

30:38The more female ones, like one where I asked Tamsin Fidel, what's a woman's prime, et cetera. read those do well in audio format. Like it's just, it's kind of all over the map, you know, like the music focused ones do really well on Spotify. Oh yeah. You know, cause they're, so you're meeting people where they are. Totally. And I think what is required now to be someone who excels in podcasting, but really any media format is looking at your distribution through the lens of more of a business person versus a creative. So you see the people who do really well, they, of course, they're not doing it themselves.

31:11They hire the teams, but they understand that the distribution, and I like how you said it, meeting people where they are is essential. You can't just be. There's no world in which even YouTube people, you're not just going to be a YouTube person anymore. You have to be all across. And I think that's the future. We're never going back to a world where you can really exist on one platform. You have to be really comfortable cutting and sharing all of your content across every platform. Is podcasting overhyped? Okay, so this is my take on it. If you want to make a lot of money in podcasting and you were starting from ground zero, it is a little overhyped.

31:45It is a little frothy. And the reason why I say that is I'll be really honest about my situation. So I started on the social media journey four years ago. I've built my following to now half a million people across channels, and that's primarily short form. With that being said, I launched the podcast in May of 2025. I signed with a network and I thought that this was going to be off to the races. And I make a very comfortable living through my social channels and expectations that I had from multiple people were that, you know, you should be able to get this off the ground and have revenue that's closer to in line with what your short form content is.

32:23And at least from my time doing this for 10 or so months, that has not been the case. So, okay, I think it's good to be specific. Yeah. And we should talk about how much we make from this. Yeah, yeah. So I'm happy to be honest about those numbers as well. Like last year, the show, which was, you know, nine months in at that point, was in like a comfortable six figures of revenue from the show and through sponsorships largely. And then also like it helps feed a speaking business, which is bigger than that. So like I can go do events, I can go do et cetera. And that's where I got the bulk of my money.

32:56I make more than I was making as a journalist. Yep. Because I own the content fully. I don't have a network. I don't pay 30 % to anyone. So, of course, I have costs, et cetera, to look into. But I felt like the revenue is like a healthy kind of mid-six figures revenue. And this year, I hope it hits seven. Yep. And it's largely going to be driven by podcasting. Yep. How does that compare to like where you are sitting? So, for my social business, I'm in seven-figure territory. Yeah. For podcasting, it's around 10 % of that. It's significantly smaller. But your social business is seven figures in revenue?

33:34Yeah, top line revenue. Top line revenue. And your podcast business is six figures in profit, right? In profit, yeah. So with my network, and this is the case with many networks, you usually do some kind of distribution split. And so I can share mine. Mine's 30 % goes to my network, 70 % goes to me. When I was getting started, to be fair, I did not know jack shit about podcasting. All I knew is that you have a conversation. Because I filmed everything on short form with my phone, I didn't know the camera setup. I didn't know the lighting, all this stuff. So it was really nice to have a producer on the network side who is amazing, shout out Morgan, to just help me understand how to set it up.

34:16and I was supposed to film at all these studios for various reasons. None of the studios ended up working out. So very early on into my journey, I decided to bite the bullet and actually build a studio from the ground up in L.A. where I live. And that was really scary because I was putting in this capital investment. How much was it? To build it, it was – but when I say build, obviously it wasn't building walls. It's probably a room that is a grand total of 350 square feet. and everything from the equipment to the lighting to soundproofing, all of that. It ended up coming around 15 grand. My mentality was I was taking a leap of faith.

34:54I knew obviously I would make that money back, but I didn't know what I didn't know as well. And there were a lot of technical issues early on, like even what happened when I was interviewing someone, which was literally my worst nightmare. But I took a leap of faith. I didn't realize that the economic side of podcasting would be as hard as it is. However, what I will say, going back to what you just spoke about, the keynotes and speaking and all of that stuff, there is absolutely an intangible value that comes, especially if you're doing an interview style and you get to speak with guests that have a large following of themselves or are associated with a business that is really well-known, you do get additional opportunities.

35:39Like I am certain because of the people that have come on my podcast, I speak with a lot of CEOs and I've had even deals that have then developed into social posts that have come from speaking to a CEO who said, oh, I love that conversation with Sammy. We're doing this, you know, yeah, keynote or we're just launching a campaign and we would love her to talk about my business. Yeah. So that's very interesting because for me, like that gets into all kinds of editorial questions. I think that how you build a business in this thing is complicated for journalists because in journalism, there's a real wall up between the business side and the editorial side.

36:16And I own this company fully. And so therefore, you know, the sponsorships that I had to help launch this podcast were like relationships that people who had followed my work, believed in me, thought I could do something. You know, those were where I signed those. Now I had to keep the editorial, the episode, separate from what I call the sponsor dumb question, which is my big ad unit. And I'm very thoughtful about which brands I want to be in business with. And I'm very thoughtful about which speaking opportunities I'll take. You know, I did Infosys. I went and did a bunch of stuff with them because I don't cover that company.

36:47And I'm happy to go and do an interview. And I also still don't pre-vet my questions, don't get scripted by clients. And I have all these kind of editorial lines. Do you get pushback on the question piece on not sending the questions ahead of time? Yeah, I send topics. But I also like I never send questions to any guest on this show. And I would never agree to doing an interview where I like off topic. Yeah. I just wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. It's not interesting to me. I don't think it's interesting for the person coming. Yeah. Because it's like you want to come on a show and show that you gave a real interview.

37:16If you want to go have like a little like massage, like go to a footspa. Don't come to a podcast with a journalist. So you're saying that if a tier A celebrity came to you or rather maybe, I don't know, you were connected to a tier A celebrity, you would turn them down if it was a requirement that you had to send over the questions in advance and get. Oh, 100%. Okay. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I've done that. Why? I mean, also, it's going to make a less good conversation because they're going to have the questions. And then you're going to have the whole questions scripted. I mean, we're doing this with like no notes, basically.

37:47Like the most interesting conversations I've had are when they go places that are unexpected. Yeah. And the whole premise of my show is that I can ask anything I want. Uh-huh. Like nothing's too dumb. Nothing's too small. Nothing's too big. I've been to conferences and done things with like principals, billionaires, et cetera, where like their team has told me you cannot ask about this. Yeah. It cannot get political. It cannot go wherever. And then I'll get to the event and I'll say, let me have five minutes with that person before I get on stage with them. And I say, your team told me all this stuff.

38:14And they invariably say, you can ask me whatever the hell you want. Really? Yeah. And I'm like, your team told me this, but I know you can put on your big boy pants or your big girl pants and do the conversation. And they told me, yeah. Wow. It's often people protecting the person. Yeah. It's not the principal who wants that. Yep. And I think about Smart Girl Dump Questions as having three types of guests. They're like big name people you've heard of already. You've seen them elsewhere. And why am I having them on the show? Not just for their big names, but because I think I can get a different kind of conversation with them.

38:42I can talk to Mark Cuban in a more different, more even way than like you might hear him elsewhere. Yep. Diplo. etc. It's unhinged, that one. Two, people you never think to ask questions to, but you can learn something from, like doormen as cultural anthropologists, 11-year-olds on like what's actually happening in the anxious generation as members of it, or so-called anxious generation. And the third is like real experts whose content is so dry where I can, through levity, like make it candied broccoli and they can, or broccoli candy, you know? And it can be kind of fun. So that's the three kinds of conversations I'm trying to have on the show.

39:13Do you find that, and I guess this is more of a double-click question for me, I find that when I interview CEOs of public companies, I have to go through so many rounds. And I, full disclosure, I do send topics and, like, high-level questions. I always say to the team, there's a good chance that we're going to get into follow-up questions that are not listed and, like, you'll just have to roll with it. But for a conversation with – I have one on Wednesday with a CEO of a very well-known company that's public. So what? They're public. I mean I think that's the whole point. Yeah. It's like they're supposed to be able to provide information.

39:50It's all the – for me, it's all the more important as a publicly traded company, a CEO who has like a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders who are, by the way, the public, who consume information through the media, through podcasts like ours, that they have access to information. Now, of course, like around earnings period, there's always a bit of a wall when you deal with public company CEOs. And I'm very cognizant of like kind of not wanting to do an interview during that time. But it's also okay to like have someone on and they say something and you say, well, you're kind of talking your book.

40:16And I do that. Like I think it's important. And what I have learned from making stuff, from reading every single comment that has come in to any of the, you know, films I've made, podcasts I've made, produced or hosted, is that like people are really actually quite intelligent and astute. And so what they want you to do as a host is that when you're in this chair, you are asking questions for them. They don't get the opportunity to sit down with, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson or Reid Hoffman, who you're going to have on. So they want you to ask the questions that they have for that individual.

40:52And also know what is interesting to ask. You know, long segue. But I think that sometimes I do question. Like when I was watching the Manosphere documentary that we were talking about earlier, one moment where I felt like really validated in what I do is when there was this clip on Myron's show where they show a clip of somebody who says that every single man a woman has slept with has left DNA of that man inside of her. And that's why your baby might look like her ex's baby. And I was like, this is such a wild shit. And Louie calls it out in the documentary as like, this is misinformation. And I think part of what I really appreciate about my journalistic training is that like I can weed out misinformation very quickly and I can be protective in that sense.

41:35But also ask questions. Like during the pandemic, there was this misopportunity in media where people had questions about the efficacy, the safety of particularly the vaccine that we didn't address in a real away. And people then drove to outlets that would answer those questions, maybe without the same fact basis or science that traditional journalism would require before we can publish or print something. And so I've interviewed Dr. Fauci. I've interviewed Jay Bhattacharya, who's the now head of the NIH. I myself, when I was going to get the vaccine, pulled over on the side of the street and was like, is this going to screw up my ability to have a kid?

42:08Because mRNA sounds like DNA and DNA is like... And I was a person who had interviewed the BioNTech founders, produced an interview with the BioNTech founders for the Times. And I was having this question. So why, like, I want to create a space where people can ask questions, but also where I can do the journalism of like being, you know, an objective, good journalist, fact-based journalist who can push back and find the answers. And that's what I'm trying to do. I also wonder if it's like a distinction without a difference in today's media environment. What do you think? Well, I actually, I have a follow-up question for you because I've actually been meaning to ask a journalist, like a truly trained journalist this question, and you're the perfect person to ask this.

42:46Do you find with today's media landscape, and I actually maybe I'm guilty of this because just let the record show I'm not a trained journalist. I get called journalists sometimes. And for me, that's actually a little bit of a trigger because I have never claimed to be a journalist. I have not had that professional training that you really need to, I believe, call yourself a journalist. We've seen all of the stats that say that legacy news sources are dying out. People get most of their news, at least younger generations get most of their news from social media now. How do you feel as a journalist with this rise of people who may not be credentialed journalists sharing news?

43:29And I'm asking this actually as someone who I kind of feel like I fall in, not kind of, I do fall into that camp of reporting, and I say that also in air quotes, on stuff that's happening in the news. I think it's very funny. I remember having a conversation with Colin and Samir where like I was like we're kind of like journalists and they balked and they were like offended at the title. Right. So it's like there is a huge distrust in media. That is a real thing. Like I think it's now a third of Americans have some or much trust in media, which means like two thirds of people do not have trust, even some trust in media right now.

44:01So, or a fair amount, I think, is the Gallup requirement for that question. But I think about it a lot in the sense of like what's filling that space. Look, I didn't go to journalism school, but I worked at the Times. I know how to fact check something, how to source something, how to file a FOIA, how to make sure that I'm allowing everyone comment time, et cetera. Like all the kind of principles and protocols and ethics of journalism. But I remember having a conversation with Jason Calcanis and Olin, and he said something like, well, the media doesn't fact check anymore. It doesn't fact check.

44:31And I was like, what are you talking about? Like the New York Times fact checks, the Wall Street Journal fact checks, like everyone's fact checking. Like, do you fact check all in? And he's like, well, our audience fact checks us. I'm like, what does that mean? You know, so I think what Joe Rogan does very well is that Joe Rogan is very curious about everyone he speaks to. Is he sometimes like curious to a fault where like he's not confronting one piece of information with another? Like, I mean, that could be a critique you have in him. But I think in general, Joe Rogan is like asking questions.

44:56He's not people want to cast him as a man as fear. People want to cast him on the right. I think it's kind of unfair. Actually, I think he's not a journalist and he wouldn't say he's a journalist, but he's definitely, there's interesting reporting coming out of his interviews every time he's with a newsmaker. Yeah. I don't know if that answers. No, no, it does. It does. I think that the lines are getting increasingly even more blurried now that you have Wall Street Journal, New York Times that are doing video reporting. And that's showing up in your feed just alongside these other people who are reporting on the news.

45:26So the lines are getting blurrier than ever. I think like it will be a tension and we'll see like what wins. But I think it's smart that journalistic organizations are updating their distribution to not just have everyone on their platform and as subscribers, but like be everywhere the audiences are to our earlier point. And I think that the value of the thing will prove to be true or not. In an AI world, I think actually like human reporting will be important to a certain extent. And I also think that AI neutrality will also have a value. Now, of course, you have to wonder if that data is self-biased.

46:04So what was the scariest thing about starting the podcast? For me, I think it's like, is anyone going to watch and listen? And because I was doing it without an audience, unlike you, I didn't have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. What I did have was like, and this is the people I really wanted to thank in my iHeart speech as well. When I was on air with Kara Swisher, I would get notes from people being like, you should have your own show or like, you should do this. I love hearing you. And I got that kind of feedback from some CEOs and some guests on the show. But I also got it from a lot of listeners who would write in.

46:36And so that gave me a lot of confidence. But I was scared that the scale was not there because there are not barriers to starting a podcast, really. Like anyone can do it with a microphone and a camera. But there are barriers to scaling. And so I was scared about that and falling flat on my face. that was the scariest part of it for me. And a year in, I feel like I've crossed that cliff. I also had this big privacy concern of someone who's like covered tech and putting my voice and face out there in such a big way in a time where we live in a world of like deep fakes and like revenge porn and everything else that comes out of that.

47:08It was scary actually for me to put myself out there. What about you? So I was able to get over that fear of putting myself out there because I had already been doing it for a while. But I think for me, it was this fear, in a different lens. It was the fear of putting so much time and effort into something where I see everything as a potential time allocator, right? And I felt like there was an opportunity cost to doing this and putting time into it when that time could go towards putting an extra one, two, three episodes, or not episodes, but short form videos out per week. And so I was worried about that.

47:46I think going back to where I feel about it today, 10 months in, going back to your also what you said around doing something that you love. I think it was in regards to a co-founder of would you want to do this for a thousand times over? I found out very early on to podcasting. I think it may have even been the first episode where I was like, I love this. I love every element of it because I, even though I'm not a journalist, I love the research element. I love thinking through how to structure it, the conversation that's had, getting new insights out of a person. So I knew I loved the format.

48:19I think where I'm at today is I'm still trying to get to a point of saturation in the podcast world that I feel good about. But I also see that the conversations that I'm having have led to other opportunities. and getting familiar also with the back end of really owning a production has also opened my eyes to other opportunities that I'm going to be getting into soon that I'm really excited about. So I think, well, it's going to be essentially like a live streamed show. And so, and going full circle with the Manosphere, right? I think I saw that and I was like, okay, this is additional validation that what I'm going to do is the right move.

48:55But yeah, I think it was a really good confidence booster in being able to own a vision and execution and distribution all on my own. That has been the hardest part for me is like thinking about the ad side of the business, because like for me, I really love it. But I feel I've been lucky. And like, that's kind of the values I got from my parents, like do something that you feel is meaningful and that you really want to do, because everything else is like not going to like leave this world with you. You know, I'm not independently wealthy or like a trustafarian. So it's not that, but I do feel like every job I've had, I would like have paid a museum ticket to have it.

49:29Like to work in the opinion section of the New York Times, I would have like paid an admission ticket to go to work every day because of the stuff I learned and how fascinating it was. Like to go make documentaries with like Bill Gutentag, a double cut me award-winning filmmaker with Richard Linklater, like, you know, with Dick Wolf. Like it's like all that. I would have like paid a ticket to get into those doors and do a thing. And I feel the same way about like this show. Like I would do it if no one was paying me to do it. And actually I did do that because Because about 16 episodes in to my first season, so this is in summer last year, I really thought about like, what am I doing?

50:02It was hard. I hadn't found the right production outfit to do this with. I felt I cared so much more than anyone working on the show. I was like in the nitty gritty of it in like a micro way that I didn't want to be as talent. But I was still producing it because I couldn't find people to care about it as much as I cared about it. And I was paying a lot of money for people to make it who I didn't think cared about it the same way. so in the summer I really was like okay I'm and I had and it was profitable actually significantly but like it wasn't giving me joy and so in the summer I kind of pulled back I did a few episodes one was with Eric Adams and that one was became newsy like I happened to ask him about something about sanctuary cities and Donald Trump potentially filing a lawsuit and Donald Trump filed a lawsuit while we were sitting in the room and that like got picked up by CNN then it was in New Yorker So it got a lot of play and then the clips went super viral because Mayor Adams, may he rest in peace, he's still alive, don't worry.

50:56But he's just like a person that says things. He's a good guest in that way. And so it went super viral. The clips did. And that gave me the kind of confidence of like, oh, this is what I know how to do. I know how to have a really good conversation with someone that is going to draw people in, that is going to cut through the noise, that is going to create new important information. They're going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. The audience is going to learn something. It's going to ask the hard questions and get through. So I was like, I can actually do this. And so I just focused when I relaunched my season two in September was like, I'm just going to focus on conversations I really want to have that I would have for free.

51:34Yep. And I'm going to put away all the ad side of it. And I didn't even have like a sponsorship conversation again until the end of that year. And I just focused on the editorial and the show grew. And that to me is like where the real, like my real passion is, is in the long form conversations. But that was a really like crazy time for me because I was like I left. You give up all this identity when you leave a thing. Like there's a certain value people give you because like you work at the New York Times, all these things. So giving away those parts of your identity to try to do something new is scary.

52:08It's hard. I almost quit. And I'm glad I didn't because I beat a Kardashian. did you find that when you were coming back in the summer did you feel like you had anything to prove no in the sense that i felt like i had gotten the break in the thinking of making it i mean i do feel the need to like really deliver because i'm asking you know people like neil degrasse tyson or like two doormen to like take an hour out of their day to like come sit with me or like two hours out of their day to come sit with me. And that takes, it's like, I want to respect that person's time. I'm asking people to listen and watch that.

52:48So I feel like I need to do something good every single time. Yeah. Yeah. Like every, it's like you're kind of in the process of making something different, something new, something that feels good. And I think if someone is listening this far into the episode, that means that they have some inherent interest in the podcasting world or media more broadly. So I think one thing that I want to just share with the listeners is that as I'm hearing you talk about how you really are doing this out of a place of, number one, you're really proud of all the conversations that you're having. You have a strong point of view.

53:19A lot of that has been cultivated with your journalistic lens, your time at the New York Times, your time spent with Kara Swisher. But I think the reason why people sit down to talk to you, of course, you have the pedigree, but they know that they're going to get a really, the word authentic is overused, but they're going to get an authentic conversation that is smart girl dumb questions caliber. And so I think so many people have this question around, how do I break through? I want to have these really interesting conversations on a podcast. My advice to them is, I think the best thing that you can do, if you don't have the pedigree and you can't say you came from the New York Times or you've done a podcast with some notable person.

53:58Or you have hundreds of thousands of people on social that follow you. Yeah. It's really getting hyper-focused on what your distinction will be or your point of view. I think very clearly being able to articulate that because, I mean, I get pitched. I'm sure you get pitched all of the time to go on other people's podcasts. Everyone and their mom has a podcast. So just being really clear about it, that's one thing I'm taking away from this conversation with you too is just how very defined you are in what you're doing and the types of conversations that you have. And I respect that so much, the fact that you'll say no to someone, you know, if they're not going to be okay with you really calling the shots in the interview and asking the questions that you want to ask.

54:39Yeah, that people want to hear. Yeah, exactly. It's not even like from my perspective. But yeah, I think that is like my thing. And I believe that there is a value in this media ecosystem for people to feel that they're having that authentic conversation. I also think it's like what's your craft? You know, like you, I think, Sammy, are like really good at just like looking at a business and doing like a business case study of it. Like you're like doing an HBR acquired. Like let me tell you what it is and distill it to its core point and make it interesting and to do that especially in the consumer space.

55:10And so you figured out like what your secret sauce is. And I think my thing is like I think I'm a very good interviewer who has an ability to talk across different subjects. It's like well-read and well-read enough in different topics to know what I don't know and therefore to ask those questions. That is like what I'm trying to do. Like do what you're good at. Yes. It's like looking back, like do you feel like you've made it in podcasting? Do you feel I've made it in podcasting? Have we made it? Not yet for me. I think you've made it. I think you've made it because there's this point of traction that you get.

55:41And I've certainly felt it on social media. and it's almost like the thing that you're known for or it's the strongest pull that really connects you to an audience. My pull is stronger on social for sure. For me, and it's such a subjective question because everyone's gonna have a different definition of making it. But I feel like the only time I will have made it in podcasting is when the pull that I have with an audience is as strong as my social media following. So I have a long way to go. When did you feel like you had made it in social? Was there a moment where you're like, oh, this thing is working?

56:13and how quickly it grew? Because it sounds like you were saying that's like growing in a multiplying kind of like rate versus podcasting as a slower burn. I think there wasn't a turning point. I can't say it was X number of followers, but I think I had enough different types of content and videos over maybe I'd say a year. And maybe if I'm going to get hyper specific, I think 2024 four in the first part of 2025 before I launched the podcast were like the really big sprintiers for me on social. And that's when I grew the fastest. And then of course, since launching the podcast, I've had to kind of split my time up a lot more.

56:51So it's kind of like you're two to four. Yeah. Is that when you really felt like it would hit the ground and it was taking off? Yeah. And it was, I think just the little things, like I would go to an event or I would be walking around in New York City and I'd have people say, oh, Sammy, hi. And those were moments where I was like, whoa, okay, this is getting somewhere and I'm having reach. Because it's so easy to forget when you're just, I mean, you feel it too. When you're doing a podcast, there's no one else in this room with us right now. You forget that people are actually consuming it. For me, I feel like the point at which I felt, there were a couple of moments early on that sometimes it's like a guest agreeing to do your show makes you feel good.

57:31The first conversation with Mark Cuban did really well. The Neil deGrasse Tyson like did well, but I did this conversation with two 11 year olds and Jonathan Haidt shared a clip from it because I asked them like, do you know who Jonathan Haidt is who wrote the book? And they're like, is he a YouTuber? And that got clipped and kind of went and that took off a little bit more on YouTube or it got like maybe 60 ,000 views or something like, so that was interesting to see that kind of conversation that wasn't from somebody famous where like my bringing a spotlight onto that conversation was working that I felt like, oh, this could have legs.

58:03And then the Eric Adams interview, which went all kinds of crazy, but there was a particular moment where I asked him, outside of the news stuff, I asked him a fuck, marry, kill question, which is like a classic question on Smart Girl Dumb Questions made it PG. And he's like, I don't want to make it PG. We're going to play that clip. I don't want PG. I don't think you want to marry or kill or... We're going to do tap, trade, and toss. Huomo Mamdani or Sliwa. Who of your opponents would you tap to be part of your administration? Oh, man. Who would you trade to another city? You got to send him to Chicago.

58:33And who would you toss out of the race entirely? Good Lord. I'm not going to be able to tap. I tell you that right now. I would definitely send Madani to Chicago. Cuomo needs to just get out of the race altogether. And I don't sure won't tap Curtis. I would have to find maybe one of the cats in his house. I'll tap. Who would you rather be stuck in an elevator with? Probably Madani. But that moment actually was referenced in Mayor Madani's inaugural speech. in January. And then NBC like sourced it and put a clip of the mayor saying that he and I have had our share of disagreements, but I will always be touched that he chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator.

59:15Like that clip has like millions of likes, like tens of millions of views. Like, and then I started getting recognized for the clips. Oh, there's a sense of like things going viral. But then I'm so curious because everyone's in the clips game and you know this, do you feel like short form audiences go to long form? Follow you? Yes, to an extent. I think it's the people who are the really locked in followers on short form. The super fans. And what percentage of your audience would you say are super fans? Like, you can probably do that conversion pretty quickly of like how many people tune into every episode of the pod.

59:48I'd say a good... It's always like one to five percent, right, is what people say. It's definitely higher than that. But I'd say like 10 to 20 percent were initially out of the gate and it's grown not hockey stick. It's grown like slowly, incrementally since then. But I do believe that clips nowadays are really that ultimate chance to like spike this viral moment, get mass awareness of what you're doing. And then obviously the hope. I'm sure you saw this. the people who saw the clip, they recognize the show, they recognize you. And then maybe they're like, oh, well, that was really interesting conversation.

1:00:23I'm going to stick around for more. Yeah, though. I think a lot of people just like replace the podcast with the clips. I think there's people who are like, I watch your podcast on Instagram, on TikTok, whatever it is. And like, that is like increasingly a thing. And as we think about the world of attention spans, like that's something that keeps me up at night a little bit. I think that the industry, the media industry will have to catch up with how to monetize those clips. Totally. How much do you make on a grid post versus a podcast episode? Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Significantly higher on short form grid.

1:00:50Like how much? Low range. I think this is me being super transparent. This year, I think the lowest one I took on was, and this is how you do it too. You sign brands on for multiple. So you don't just do a one off. So like the lowest that I'll sign on for is like 14k. Okay. And then I've done ones that are, you know, tens of thousands for one. And it's like a couple of minutes of content. It's no, it's 45 seconds to like 100. You don't even do really more than 120. I'm like, why would you then go into the podcast world? Because how much are you making per episode of your podcast? Definitely not that much.

1:01:26Yeah, I would have to do the math on it, but significantly less. But it goes back to like maybe a zero less. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes back to the fact that I still believe, especially as someone who was building my reputation, I think, in different types of circles. CEOs, executives, well-known people do listen to my short-form content, but I still felt like there was a difference in establishing myself in longer-form content. I felt like there is something that is even stronger reputationally if you're able to have longer-form conversations and really explain yourself and share longer-form content in that way.

1:02:04And I believe also a huge part of why I did this is my mentality on everything that I'm doing in my business right now is you just have to do the thing to learn how it works. And when I started, it sounds like you started similarly. It was like, here goes nothing. I'm going to hope for the best. But like one year in, I've been producing two episodes a week. Very soon I'm going to be shifting to one episode a week. I think that's really smart. I'm really glad you're doing that. Yeah. Word to the wise, if you want to do a two-episode show a week, that is nuts. And I think also just speaking really frankly about it, I want to focus on having the same caliber of conversations, but I feel like because the monetization side for me isn't quite as strong, there is an opportunity cost.

1:02:49And I do see the value in continuing to grow my social channels. I believe that growing my social channels is the top of funnel awareness. And that will inevitably trickle down to the podcast, because that's what I've been seeing. But I do believe there is a world in which two episodes a week make sense. It does, if you're getting the steam and you're like throwing fire on it. So maybe for anyone out there who's considering doing a podcast, who's listening, I wonder if we do a little bit of a lightning round of like what makes sense. So like question one, does it make sense to have a network? You answer then me.

1:03:21Yes, because I think if you're starting from the ground zero, like I was when I was launching my podcast, it is really helpful to have someone who knows the industry, who can hold your hand through the process. It is possible to do it alone, but I think it just is helpful. I'm going to say it depends on your knowledge base, but like I chose not to have a network. And part of my thinking was that I knew how to make a podcast. I didn't know how to grow a podcast. I didn't have built an audience. And the network can really help you supposedly grow that. That said, I was like, it's better to be everyone's girlfriend than someone's wife in your first years of doing a show, which is that I knew a lot of people in the industry.

1:03:57And I was like, I can get more like feed drops or trades and I can negotiate myself. and I'm going to care more and I want to have all the creative freedom that comes from owning your own product. So I'm going to say like, no, actually go independent because it's easier to do a deal when you own your own RSS feed and your own IP and then you're licensing it versus someone else owns it and builds it with you and they own it in perpetuity. With that being said though, I will say like I'm signed with a network. They don't own my RSS feed. Okay. What about agents? I signed with an agency in December, CAA.

1:04:26Yes. And I just signed with Made by All, which is a digital first agency. I fought this for four years. I did not want to sign for a while. And then I thought that eventually I got to a point where I realized that there are synergies and opportunities that really do come with having a team behind you. And jury's still out because I'm still new to it. But I do think that for where I am in my career, it was the right move. What about you? I feel like I'm excited because I wanted a thought partner in the process. And I have a great team at CAA who is doing that. I joke that when you first sign on, it's like you're just 10 % poorer.

1:05:03People are congratulating you. But I think over time, the opportunities that come from doing this, the opportunity to do a book, the opportunity to do more speaking, the opportunity to maybe do TV and news deals, all those were incoming. And I didn't have good counsel on how to do it. And these agencies have seen hundreds of these deals, know what the term should look like. So I think there is actually value to doing an agency deal. Definitely. What about co-founders? Co-founders is in co-founders for the media business. I like the idea. I don't personally have one. I think no to start, but that could change.

1:05:39And when I say that could change, I think that that's if you are building out multiple media verticals, it's really helpful to have a thought partner on the business side. But initially, you definitely don't need one. I think if you're creative, you're savvy, you're able to understand the landscape, you don't need to give up, I would imagine, 50 % of the equity in what you're building right out of the gate. But I think for the right person, perhaps. I think my answer to this is like the number one piece of advice I give to anyone who's starting a podcast is do something you want to do a thousand times and do it with someone you want to do it a thousand times with.

1:06:14And if you don't have that person, then do it yourself. Yeah. I think that is really important because it is a grind. You want to love the format. You're not going to pretend to be someone you're not a thousand times. You're not going to pretend to love a topic that you don't love a thousand times. And so for me, the co-founder is the same thing. Like if you have that person that exists, like great. And if not, go on your own. I really, after years of producing, writing questions for other people, et cetera, like I was like, I was just excited to do it for myself in my own voice fully. and felt that it had resonance as a result of that.

1:06:47Yeah. So I want to end this with like, where is this all heading? And so artificial intelligence. Yes. I just heard a fascinating episode on the Colin and Samir show about one of the first like really breakout hit AI generated podcasts. And there is a person who has done, I think it's now over a hundred episodes of the Epstein files, an AI generated podcast that basically takes all of the information and uses kind of Claude's opus 4.6 newest models to generate. And then like within boundaries, fact check, et cetera. I don't know. He was describing his process. But like the entire thing is plug and play to the point of upload.

1:07:24Even like quality checks itself with certain parameters that it needs a certain score to get up to be able to publish. The AI shift, I'm curious how you think about it. And I'm going to tell you how I think about it a little bit. I think all of a sudden in-person, live, and interviews, which have been taken down a notch because like everyone's like, oh, everybody has an interview podcast. But that chemistry you get between two people can be very hard to replace. 100%. So that's my thing, live in-person chemistry. Yep. With your guests. I agree. I think, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this all the time of how there's this spectrum that's continuing to widen and both sides of the spectrum are what people are going to be doubling down into.

1:08:03AI and mass-generated content is one of them. And that's inescapable, right? Because it's like the water's already flowing down the mountain. You can't fight that. But on the other side is how do you lean into the human element? And I agree with you. I think chemistry between humans in whatever way possible is going to be what I'm the most bullish on. If you look at like a notebook LM, right? And you just see how it interacts. It's still not the same as a human. And I think there will be a premium for human content that's made by humans. Someone told me like the real secret sauce of morning television is will they or will they not fuck what if what if it's the view i mean i don't know but like that was like the origin theory and this came from like a very this came from like a really like old tv exec who kind of knew the world and i don't think it it's like that in the hoda days or you know like that has gone away yeah but what brought people in was like this kind of kinetic quality of the relationship between the two people that they're watching yeah and so i think there's something that will still exist.

1:09:06And I mean, I'm not into watching bots. There's probably a YouTube channel for that, for people who are into watching bots, you know, get it on. But it's that for me, like the intellectual chemistry between two people is what kind of keeps you there. But then you hear of the other side of how people are predicting that individuals are going to be marrying AI and relationships with AI. Yeah. So do you think that there's a world in which people do really want the AI and maybe there's a smaller cohort that wants the human connection? Yeah, I think that people are still like fascinated by the human connection, the impossibility of it.

1:09:39Like someone was telling me the other day they love watching live anything because they know it hasn't happened yet. I thought it was such a pretty way to talk about a thing. The beauty of like that possibility in a world where so much feels like canned and cooked and like presented to you and polished, something's beautiful about live. I think there will be value of AI in particularly like, again, like the objectification of news presentation. Like you'll think that this thing is more objective because it's not a person. So like we're seeing a pull towards, I trust this person. I think you're also going to see a pull towards, I trust this model, right?

1:10:14Trust this entity. You'll have to prove its trust to you, but that will be a reality of like what we're pushing up against. I'm curious about it. I don't know enough. I have a ton of dumb questions about it, but I was speaking to a super like successful exited tech founder the other day. And I asked him how long until my job is replaced. And he said, your job is okay for the next five, 10 years because it has that chemistry quality and you have audience. So this guy's like, should I start a podcast? By the way, I get like at least 10 people telling me a week that they want to start a podcast, like friends.

1:10:43Yeah. Do you? All the time. And what do you do? Do you want to do take all their calls and give them all advice? No, I can't. Now we'll send them to this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally. I'm just going to have like it linked to episodes meta but like an ai you know how you can like on meta you can have it like plugged for keywords again automatically send out messages that's what i'll do speaking of dumb questions i had every episode of smart girl dumb questions asking what my guest is dumb about a dumb question you have that you haven't been able to figure out the answer to what you got so my dumb question is about ai because we were just talking about that when will we reach the point of knowing that we've hit agi artificial general intelligence yeah and then super intelligence and super intelligence beyond that well you know sammy i can answer this question for you i can direct you to an episode of the podcast uh smart girl dumb questions which jeffrey hinton answers this question and does like a four-layer thing of how ai actually works jeffrey hinton won the nobel prize but he was part of the team that built like the neural network that ai is based upon so he explains how it actually like ingests information and in the process actually explains how your mind works all right i need to listen to that episode you You've got to listen to that episode.

1:11:51Anyways, that's it for this week. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you, Sammy, so much for being with me. This is so much fun. Thank you. This is great.

1:12:02I entered that conversation smart about podcasting, and I entered really dumb about social media. And I think Sammy just schooled me on it. And it was so interesting to talk to her about her experience of having built a kind of empire on social media and translating that into podcasts versus what I'm trying to do, which is build a bit of an empire in podcasting. and translate that into social. So I don't know. I learned a lot in that conversation. I hope you did too. I hope if you're thinking about starting a podcast, if you are wondering how the media ecosystem is going to change, if you think you're going to be the next member of the Manosphere and you're somehow still listening to this podcast, hopefully it was useful to you.

1:12:35I want to hear what you think. You can write me at naeemaraza101 at gmail.com. You can call us 1-855-MY-DUM-Q or you can slide into our DMs because we have to grow that social audience so we can be anything like Sammy. It's at smartgirldumquestions wherever you social. And please, please check out Sammy's podcast. It's called Social Currency. It's so good. I really recommend it. I love the interviews she has. And even more, I love these one-on-one conversations she has. You, the audience, are the other one. And she breaks down industries, ideas, like the kind of consumerism of our current world.

1:13:05And I think she's so sharp at it. So definitely check that out. This episode was produced with Desta Wunderad, Melissa Lee Gibson. It was edited by the wonderful Darlena Chiem. It was mixed and engineered by Johnny Simon. Thank you to Spotify Studios for having us in your space in New York and Millie and Chloe and the team here. See you guys next week for an all new Smart Girl Dumb Questions.

1:13:49Thank you.