In the 10 September episodes below you’ll find conversations about or even with some famous characters from the world of biz and tech, a couple of actionable tips, and a few episodes that will force you to think thought-provoking marketing-related thoughts.
A good soup?
Let’s go:
1. Jeffrey Katzenberg Talks About His Billion-Dollar Flop (35 mins)
Sway
The public failure of his start-up Quibi hasn’t stopped Jeffrey Katzenberg from doubling down on tech. A Hollywood power broker, he headed up Disney in the 1980s and ’90s and co-founded a rival studio, DreamWorks, before finding a puzzle he could not yet solve: getting people to pay for short-format content. Investors gave him and the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman $1.75 billion to build a video platform, but not enough customers opened up their wallets, at $4.99 a month, and Quibi folded within a year of its launch. Katzenberg says the problems were product-market fit and the Covid pandemic, not competition from TikTok or YouTube.
In this conversation, Kara Swisher and Katzenberg delve into Quibi’s demise, the shifting power dynamics in Hollywood and his pivot to Silicon Valley. They also discuss his influence in another sphere: politics. And the former Hollywood executive, who co-chaired a fund-raiser to help fend off California’s recent recall effort, offers some advice to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
2. We are supported by… Sheryl Sandberg (56 mins)
We Are Supported By
We Are Supported By, hosted by Kristen Bell and Monica Padman is a 10 episode limited series podcast. Each episode deep dives with a woman who has put a crack in the glass ceiling. Episode 10: Sheryl Sandberg
3. How to Make Social Media Work For You Part I (15 mins)
Founder’s Journal
The internet was one of the greatest inventions in human history. It shifted society from being geographically fragmented to globally connected. It led to the advent of social media and platform businesses. It made the supply of connection and knowledge effectively endless. But it also created a whole new set of challenges from social comparison to employee anxiety and procrastination. In this first of this two part series, I talk about how we can have the internet work for us vs. against us.
4. The Facebook Files, Part 5: The Push To Attract Younger Users (20 mins)
The Journal.
In the fifth part of our series looking deep inside Facebook, we examine the company’s efforts to win over young children. Reporter Georgia Wells discusses what Facebook’s internal documents reveal about the company’s years-long efforts to study and design products for kids. And we look ahead to tomorrow’s Senate hearing, where lawmakers are expected to question a Facebook executive about the company’s research into the effects of its products on teen mental health.
5. How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky (14 mins)
Ted Talks Daily
There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world — and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language — from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian — that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. “The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is,” Boroditsky says. “Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000.”
6. How to Create a TikTok Video That Connects (51 mins)
Social Media Marketing Podcast
Want to grow your TikTok reach? Wondering how to boost your organic content? To discover how to use the TikTok Promote ad feature to amplify your content and reach more people, I interview Giselle Ugarte.
7. Folderly Email Deliverability SaaS Hits $1.56m ARR In Under 9 Months, Bootstrapped (17 mins)
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
8. James B. Stewart and Tom Junod on Writing About 9/11 (1 hr 13 min)
The Press Box
Twenty years have passed since 9/11. Writers Tom Junod and James B. Stewart stop by to remember and reflect on the events of that day. Bryan talks with Stewart to discuss his 2002 New Yorker piece, “The Real Heroes Are Dead,” which follows Rick Rescorla—former soldier, officer, security specialist, and hero who helped save thousands of lives on 9/11—through his love story with his wife, Susan (0:53). Later, Tom Junod stops by to talk through his 2003 Esquire piece that focuses on the infamous picture of “The Falling Man.” They discuss how the story came about, why finding the identity of the man in the photo was important, and how the story is received years later (27:40).
9. Why a Hollywood #MeToo Organization Imploded (27 mins)
What Next
Time’s Up was founded in 2018 in the wake of the #MeToo movement to fight sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. How, then, was the organization felled by accusations of a toxic work environment and close associations with abusers?
Guest: Lili Loofbourow, staff writer at Slate.
10. Conan Talks About Norm Macdonald (68 mins)
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Conan, Andy Richter, and longtime show producer Frank Smiley sit down to pay tribute to and discuss the legacy of Norm Macdonald – from his first stand-up appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1993 to Norm’s infamous Moth joke and the story behind it. Conan wants to try and answer the question: who was this completely original genius and how was he so insanely funny?