The Best One Yet - BONUS #1 🔥 The Inventor of Virality: Jonah Peretti, Buzzfeed Founder & CEO

Episode Date: October 8, 2022

In our first TBOY interview, we chat with the Founder and CEO of Buzzfeed, Jonah Peretti. Buzzfeed was the first media company built on virality, harnessing the power of the internet to scale humor, joy, news… and a listicle on which Disney princess you are. But before Buzzfeed went public for $1.5B in 2021, Buzzfeed really began when Jonah was a student and turned a sneaker email with Nike into the 1st viral sensation. So we’re whipping up the Takeaways with Jonah on why something goes viral, what it says about our own psychology, the meaning of humor, Millennials vs Gen Z, what would surprise us about Buzzfeed, how the media industry is like a musical concert — and how he’d host a dinner sitting between Mark Zuckerberg and Rupert Murdoch.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonah, if we had to get a uncut gems moment, what's that uncut gems moment be with you for this. We need this episode to go viral. If we want this podcast and this episode to go viral, how do we pull it off? It's too late now, but you should have asked me some really controversial question got me to slip up and say something that would, you know, get me canceled or fired or some, you know, in some way. Well, we do love your slamming salmon shirt. We got a sad.

All right. Thank you. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast, in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an notice. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea boy city on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show. Yetis, our guest today invented virality. Besties, he mastered the meme before gifts were a thing. He co-founded two industry-changing startups. And he turned down an acquisition offer from Disney. A guy who can pull off a

cardigan and a hoodie on the same day. A guy who was born on New Year's Day. This entrepreneur's first job was teaching in New Orleans. His sister is a comedian actress on Brooklyn Nine-N-N-N-N-A. He turned a side hustle into a billion-dollar brand. And then he turned that unicorn public in the middle of the pandemic. Jack, he'll ask you ten questions and then he'll tell you which Disney princess you are. But he'll also send a hard-hitting journalist to the halls of Congress. Yeties, our guest today is the and CEO of BuzzFeed. Our guest today is Jonah Peretti. This is Nick.

This is Jack. And today's interview is the best one yet. It's a T-Boy. Yetis, we are recording from our T-Boy studios at Shack 15 in the ferry building of San Francisco overlooking the beautiful bay. Jonah, your two companies change the media industry and we followed your career closely. We're very excited to ask you questions. Thank you for coming.

And so what Jack and I want to do is we want to figure out. what the takeaway is on you and BuzzFeed. But to start, we really want to know as the creator of BuzzFeed, how do you describe the company? First of all, it's very weird hearing your voice in real time instead of at 1.2 speed. It's like everything is in slow motion now. BuzzFeed is a company I started over 15 years ago where we were just trying to understand early on what was going to happen when the media industry was completely defined by what people share with each other, how people engage with content and not by what an executive decides to put on the front page of a newspaper or a TV show. So the internet just completely changed the way the media industry works.

What year was BuzzFeed founded? A long time ago. A long time ago. Well, we've actually heard your story and our favorite part of the founding story goes back to 2001. It does. It involves kind of a prank really, a customized Nike shoe and something that Nike really hated. It began with a prank in Nike is how BuzzPeed began in many ways. Do you mind telling us the fantastic shoe story? Sure. So I was in grad school at the MIT Media Lab, and like most grad students, I was procrastinating writing my master's thesis.

And so I was sitting there looking for something to entertain myself. And Nike had just launched something called Nike ID, where you could customize your shoes with a word or a phrase. And so I was kind of interested in it. So first I tried a four-letter word and it wouldn't accept it. And then I put in the word sweatshop and it accepted it. The S word. Yes.

So I got this confirmation that they were going to send me a pair of Nike shoes with the word sweatshop under the swoosh. And so I was waiting. And then the next day I got an email from a Nike customer service rep who said the word sweatshop is inappropriate slang. And they wouldn't send me the shoes. So I wrote back and I said, no sweatshop means a factory where workers toil under unhealthy conditions. It's in the dictionary. Yeah. And then they wrote back another excuse.

And so this was perfect for me procrastinating because I was just spending the day writing back and forth with this Nike executive. Nike customer service rep. Probably executive. They were concerned. And so at the end of it, they just said, we reserve the right to not send you shoes with the word sweatshop on it. And I said, fine, I understand, but can you at least send me a picture of the 10-year-old Vietnamese girl who stitches the shoes together?

And then they didn't write back after that. Yeah, that's a tough. And so this was January of 2001, before YouTube, before Facebook, before things went viral on the internet. And so nobody really thought about making something go viral. Now any weird thing happens. You're like, oh, put it on the internet. Maybe it'll go viral.

And so there were these things called email forwards. Back in the early days of viral media, where people would forward something to their entire address book. My aunt Dot still does that today. So I sent it to about 12 friends. And then they passed it on to their friends. And they passed it on to their friends. And I started getting thousands of emails back from strangers,

which in those days was weird. Now people interact with strangers on the internet all the time. But in those days, a stranger is writing you. You're like, whoa, what's going on? And then reporters started calling me. I ended up on the Today Show with Nike's head of global PR and Katie Couric interviewing us about sweatshop labor, which I knew nothing about. I was just doing this prank. You're a grad student at the time.

And I was a grad student. I had never been on TV. I was wearing this like poorly tailored blazer just like, you know, nervously going through an interview with a communications pro from Nike. With your webcam, like strapped on your computer. No, they flew me to New York. What? Very nice. Yeah, they put me up in a hotel.

That's how media used to work. It wasn't just upper body. Oh, yeah. I was sitting on the couch with Katie. After this experience, I'm sitting there thinking, why am I here? I met all these people who are fighting for human rights and knew all about this issue. And yet, because I made something viral on the internet,

I end up, you know, on the number one morning show and with articles in the New York Times. And I started to think about how media was changing, where people sharing with other people and concepts like six degrees of separation and small world actually matter when the internet connects everyone together and it's possible to reach millions of people just by telling a few people about something that they think is worth passing on to others. Okay, so most people would have been satisfied with like the 15 seconds of fame, but then you start honing in on what is virality and this idea of like people as distribution, not just the networks. If you can understand the psychology and the social psychology of why someone shares something,

you can reach millions of people across the world. Even if you're a grad student, without any connections in media, without any resources. And so we built BuzzFeed with this insight that media was going to be defined by people sharing with each other. And we grew along with, you know, Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and other platforms that benefited from this major shift of media becoming more democratized and people sharing with other people, a more peer-to-peer kind of model. So after grad school, you graduate, and then you go on to co-found the Huffington Post, and then you start BuzzFeed as a side hustle, but it eventually becomes a full hustle. So we think of you as the inventor of virality based on that story and then the trajectory of the rest of your career. What do you think of

that? I think that there were so many people that I met in those early days who accidentally made something go viral. But there were a few of us who tried to really understand it and to not just say, oh, I'm going to have this weird accident happen where I posted a bunch of audio clips of my ex-girlfriend yelling at me and went viral or I made the dancing baby. So you believe that it's not just pure luck or in some cases it may be, but you can really kind of tailor a formula and crack the code of virality. Like the way Jack and I were framing this before, we were wondering, is virality a science or is it serendipity? Like can virality? Like, can virality? be engineered or must it be organic? Where does it fit? I think it's an art and a science,

and you definitely can increase your chances of making something spread. We also, with my science advisor, Duncan Watts, we published this paper on Big Seed marketing, which is that even if you don't make something go viral, if you make people share it a little bit, that still gives you extra and gives you extra value. So if you're an advertiser, one of the reasons that advertisers like working with us is if you make something good, you might pay, you know, a million dollars to reach a certain size audience. And then you get another 500,000 for free as people start to share the, you know, the content. It doesn't have to even be super viral for it to give you extra, extra benefit. It's frustrating to hear that you can crack the code because I know what you're

thinking. I know you're going to share it. Well, we had our best TikTok ever a couple weeks ago. And we got 200,000 views. We celebrated the wins. Huge win for us. You know, we're early in our TikTok journey. We looked at all the characteristics of that video and reproduced it, like, in a perfect format for the next day. But with a different story, we tried to engineer the virality a second time. We pushed publish. We got seven views. It was a difference.

And it was kind of depressing because it seemed like TikTok forgot to push the, like, viral button or something. Yeah, it's hard to reproduce things. And part of the reason it's hard is because novelty is one of the things that causes something to go viral. And so if you copy the thing you did previously, that can actually hurt the chances of going viral because it's not new. And so there's this weird interplay of what's new and different and what is the abstract underlying principles that could sort of help something. We have seen some. Those are the TikTok stars. Right.

And that's kind of the category we're in is kind of this creator category. Is it the same for brands? Is there a difference between the virality of brands versus humans? Well, I think a lot of it, depends on the medium and the type of content you're making. So podcasts, for example, are a very good medium to build loyalty and deeper connection. So usually less viral because it's, you know, a TikTok you can watch in 40 seconds, 20 seconds, pass it on to your friend. It's not a big commitment. Listening to a podcast, it's a bigger commitment. It's harder to share. Yeah, it's harder to share.

But the people who listen, if they're listening every day or they're listening frequently, they start getting much more invested. And so you can build a lot more loyalty. So a lot of what we learned over the years is that as the market evolved and the industry evolved, is that you have to continually update and change your models for how you think about how something goes viral and what your goals are. It might be, in some cases, you want something to go viral. In other cases, you want more loyalty and people to get more invested and you want the same people to get a better experience and be more deeply connected. But in all of it, it's really this two-way connection with the audience that the internet enables that you just didn't have in traditional media.

I suppose without the internet, we could have launched a radio show. That's true. It would have been radio. We'd have had to pick a local city, though. And we would have had to have more sound effects. And get sponsored by a local car dealership. It would have been a different experience. We actually believe with our show that humor is something that transcends gender and races and can bring people together, kind of like food can bring to people together. And so much of what does go viral and what gets clicks and what my wife shares with me that she found on BuzzFeed is the funny stuff.

You must understand humor. Can you tell us like, why is humor and vice? virality so often linked together. If you think about what matters to people, it hasn't changed much in the last few thousand years. You know, technology has changed a lot every decade. There's so many new technologies. But people still want to hang out with their friends.

They want to laugh with their friends. They want to be informed. They want to, you know, cook a nice meal for someone they love. So we look at these deeper human needs. And then we say, okay, all this technology is changing. gene. So we have to adapt the way we make our content and the way we do it. But the thing that doesn't change is people in human behavior. And I think laughter is a fundamental thing that brings people together. Kind of like food, which is also another category. You see a lot of content

on the internet viral content. Like cute kittens and animals and children doing funny things. It's like these things that bring out our humanity and our deeper connection with each other. Jack and I were looking back on early BuzzFeed days. And we've seen virality change over time. because it did kind of begin with those cat videos you're describing. Well, of course, of course, virality can be problematic. I mean, when you remove the editor or the executive, as you said, who decides what's on the front page of the newspaper, then it's possible that facts get thrown by the wayside

and misinformation spreads. What's to be done about this? Yeah, I think a lot of the early viral content was done by pretty idealistic people who were making, wanting to make people laugh, wanted to, you know, spread heartwarming content. And more recently, it's really become part of the larger culture war where you have people are trying to create a fascist state spreading or white nationalists, you know, are trying to figure out how to go viral, right?

So I think the attempt to try to understand this, the power of making things on the internet that deeply connect with audiences that people share that can reach big audiences and influence people in their lives has become a battleground. And so the platforms are now all really struggling with this challenge where they want to have an algorithm that shows people the most engaging content. But sometimes the most engaging content is, you know, the wrong content. Yeah, factually incorrect or racist or harassing someone or using, you know, taking the majority group's perspective to attack a minority and people are sharing it. And the platforms are trying to make an environment where all these different types of people can live together in harmony and peace. And instead it's become this battleground.

And that's a huge part of our mission of spreading truth and joy on the internet, where you can use the power of the internet and the two-way connection with the audience and the fact that people can share content with each other and engage more deeply. But you can do it with quality journalism, accurate facts, things that have a positive message, things that make people laugh in a way that is not about attacking a weak group or kicking down or things like that. You must have been in, you know, conversations with the executives of the social media companies. Did they know back then that they would have this content policing responsibility in the future? Did they have any idea the responsibilities they would have as content moderators?

For the most part, no. Either there was a naive view that they were making the world a better place, no matter what, and that more people sharing, more voices would lead inherently to a better, more democratic world. and that view turned out to be myopic. There's a lot of bad actors who can make a lot of noise and do a lot of damage if they start to understand these viral mechanisms. And then I think some of them thought, well, that will be government or that will be other people's problem. We're just a platform. We're just the internet and people can do whatever they want and bad things happen in the real world and bad things happen on the internet. That's just sort of how it is.

You know, we mentioned you're the inventor of virality, or at least we think that. Like, what's your favorite listical BuzzFeeds ever published? Yeah, I mean, there was an old school one called 13 things to get you through a rough day. And that one I really liked because, you know, it would be like, look at this ostrich chasing this guy, you know, or look at this cute, you know, kitten. Or it was like a combination of someone having a worse day than you and then cute heartwarming things. And I liked it because it was a good example of how we thought about. content, especially in the early days, where it's not always about the information. It's about

how it makes you feel and the role that it plays in your social life. And so making content that is designed to share with your friend who's having a bad day to cheer that person up is doing a job in someone's life that is different than just putting information in their head. And so that was something the social web really opened up. What's something about BuzzFeed, the company, that may surprise our listeners? I mean, I think the biggest thing that surprises people is they think of BuzzFeed and maybe they think of whatever piece of the company they've touched. Like they might think of the lists or, you know, quizzes if they've been to our website. They might think of some of our videos if they, you know, subscribe to our YouTube

channel. But BuzzFeed Inc. is a much bigger company. And so people sometimes are surprised that we, that tasty is part of BuzzFeed and that we have this food brand. People sometimes don't know that Huff Post is part of BuzzFeed Inc. or that Complex, you know, and ComplexCon, the big festival every year in Long Beach for sneakers and music and food, that that's part of BuzzFeed Inc. Or that the Hot Ones show, you know, or Pizza Wars or some of these other, you know, amazing shows and series are part of what we do. So you're naming now like a real variety of media products. So how do you guys go about creating these shows? Is there a room? Is there a place for like all the brains get together?

What's the content process like to create something like this? Is there a writer's room? I think one of the things that we've learned is that small groups of people are often the best at coming up with new ideas. Not by committee. Yeah, one person, one person is maybe a little lonely. Two people, you know, you rip off each other and you come up with a lot of ideas that way. But a small group of people, you know, two to seven people in a room, brainstorming, talking about ideas, also looking at other things and getting sources of inspiration.

like what video was created by some other company or creator that you're jealous of where you look at it and you're like, oh, that was really creative. And then it's not like you want to copy that, but you want to think like, how could we do something that cool or how can we do something that pushes the envelope or, you know, goes in a new direction? And so it's a combination of, you know, consuming stuff and brainstorming with people and not trying to have, you know, a massive meeting with half the company trying to come up with things. And then we see a lot from the audience and that inspires. I think of it almost like live music performance where a musician performs and the crowd is giving them energy on the internet. You make content and the crowd gives you energy and sometimes they're booing and throwing tomatoes and sometimes they're cheering and they sometimes will ask for something like, oh, I love this. Could you, you know, like with hot ones, there's constant requests for guests where

people are commenting like, oh, could I have this guest or with the BuzzFeed famous puppy interviews where we have, you know, huge stars coming and getting interviewed while they're petting puppies. the audience is always like, I want Chris Evans. Could Chris Evans like do it? You know, and then he does do it because he sees the audience wants him and and then it becomes, you know, a moment on the internet. When you're describing the creation of these shows, at what point do you know you have it? That's a franchise. We've got something here because some of these shows, you've tried them and they failed and they haven't worked. So what, where do you like figure out, you know what? We're really onto something here. And like you want to expand it. Yeah. I mean, that's what.

why you need to have conviction and not just follow data because sometimes you have a good idea and then it just fails in the execution or it doesn't get made quite the right way or it doesn't get pushed to the right place for distribution and you have to not say okay now we're just giving up on it and it was a bad idea it's always this combination of creativity and conviction as as well as like looking at data looking at audiences and I think it varies by which group within our company. You know, I think Complex goes more on gut, because Complex is a lot about what's about to be big,

not what's big right now. There's BuzzFeed's more pop culture. What's trending right now? What's getting big at this exact moment? I'd like to ask to get back to the puppy question. I knew you were going to go back to the puppy. What is BuzzFeed's a profit puppy? Yes.

The thing that makes you the most money. I would say our commerce business. Oh, yeah? Affiliate links. So it's a smaller business and a newer emerging business, but it's very high margin. So people love to shop on BuzzFeed. So if you Google BuzzFeed shopping,

you'll see there's all kinds of great articles and posts and lists about things you might want to bri. And people... Best Father's Day gifts kind of thing. Yeah, stuff like that. You know, 23 genius inventions you never knew existed. You know, you just... It's more like shopping in a mall or a promenade

or a cool shopping district where you discover new things you didn't even know you wanted. And so that's part of it. on the Tasty app, you can do grocery shopping. So if you, you can just click a button and it'll put all the ingredients for the recipe into your shopable recipes. And then you're getting a commission from a like a doverie app. And we get a commission when people shop off Buzzbee.

And then at ComplexCon, people are buying drops and sneakers and fashion and shopping there. Oh, and then back to Tasty, we have, we have a hundred plus skew line of cookware at every Walmart, North America in the bright, tasty colors. And so when people are watching Tasty videos, they see our pots and hands and then when they're a Walmart, they're like, oh, I can buy that and use it in my own kitchen. I love the one pot recipes. You've mentioned before in one of your interviews that media companies, in your opinion, don't do a great job kind of getting credit for the value that they're producing

and the value that's received by the consumer of the content. It actually sounds like you're doing a great job with your commerce business, sort of getting a little credit or getting a little commission for brilliant shopping ideas that you inspire. But can you tell us about media companies that are missing opportunities to monetize. Yeah, so in our commerce business, we know we're driving hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions, and we're getting a percentage commission on that. But we may be driving another several hundred million dollars in transactions

that we're not getting credit for. Because there's no link there? Well, so think about this way. You go to BuzzFeed, and it's like 12 bucket list destinations you should travel to, you know, and you get inspired to go to the Grand Canyon, and then you buy a ticket and you do this and you do that. You know, we don't get a cut of that. but the airline makes money, the car rental company makes money.

You're trying to get a cut of that? It's hard. Like media companies inspire people by showing them cool things they should do and things they should try. And then these other companies profit off of it. And so if media companies could get a small, small little sliver of the activity they're inspiring, that could fund way more entertainment, news, journalism, all kinds of great content.

It's almost like physics. The trip would not have happened if it were not for that BuzzFeed article inspiring the trip to the Grand Canyon. That actually sounds like a GMAC question. Exactly. And then BuzzFeed makes it happen, but yet gets a disproportionately smaller percentage of what you end up spending to go on that trip. Yes. Then if I'm an investor in BuzzFeed and I'm wondering, okay, how can you capture more of that value? What would be your groundwork, your plan?

It's really working on the attribution where you would inspire people. and in the moment they click through and transact. So getting good at really building. Frictionless. So that they don't say, oh, okay, now I want to go do this transact. I want to go to the Grand Canyon. And oh, look, I can click here and get a discount travel voucher that I could use on a provider. Like, we've done some experiments with that.

And I think there's a lot of opportunity. I bet you there's a BuzzFeed travel folder on this computer somewhere somewhere. Somewhere. So much one has got it. Now, speaking of like, missed monetization operations. I want to just talk about TikTok generally because Nick and I are creators, the podcast being the primary creation. And so much TikTok creation goes unmonetized. We looked at your latest earnings call and we control FD it and we found short form vertical video mentioned nine times.

Short form vertical video mentioned nine times. The old SFVV. And is BuzzFeed making money on its robust TikTok ventures? We're making some money on it. We have a product called Upshots that allows an advertiser to get a branded version of a vertical video that can run on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts. YouTube just announced a new program where they're going to start sharing revenue on shorts. Do you think TikTok will do that? I know TikTok has in China in some of their apps there. And so, you know, and they've done some experiments with these creator funds and things like that. I think TikTok is very focused on just trying to kill. all the other social media companies and take share and get as big as possible. And now they're starting

to focus on monetization along with YouTube and Facebook focusing on monetizing these new vertical formats. Nick and I are in the business of news and we love kind of packaging our news into a fun, digestible once a day, first thing in the morning, 15 minute package. It is a passion of ours to inform people in a fun and entertaining way. Is BuzzFeed News a passion project for you? We started out with virality as being the way to reach everyone in the world. But once you've reached a big audience, then the question is, well, who are you going to build a deeper relationship with that you can have, consuming your content every day? You're radiating joy to me. I just sense that you love creating things and putting them on the internet.

And when someone reads an article and shares it with their buddy because it's funny, I could tell that brings you great satisfaction. And it's because you've ignited joy in someone. And I think that's the mission statement of BuzzFeed, right? BuzzFeed News is less about joy and more about just like informing, right? Well, I think one of the challenges that every media company faces is that the world changes and you have to change along with the world. We all remember the bright, shiny Obama era millennial period of joy and puppies and avocado toasts and, you know. They were great times. It's still joyous.

We're getting great feelings right now. It's fantastic. And then it's kind of like, wait, we're all trapped inside and the air is not breathable, at least in California with the wildfires. There's like very different kind of president, you know, who, you know, whatever you think of Trump, the feeling of kind of utopian, peaceful, happy, smile friendly was like really disrupted both, you know, politically and socially and with various things in the world, right? And so I think people do come to us for joy and for escape.

But they also come to us because they want to know what fucked up thing just happened in the world. And how is it going to affect them? BuzzFeed News won a Pulitzer, right? Yes, we did. Did that boost like NPS rankings or BuzzFeed's reputation and it's love out there in the world? Did you get credit for that from a business sense? And do you want credit for that? Like, do you want public affirmation on these efforts?

Or do you, it's not necessary? I mean, I think it's great for reporters to know that they can come to BuzzFeed and do Pulitzer level work. And so from a talent standpoint, I think it's really powerful that serve as an employment brand. Then how do you get credibility with the users, not just within the industry? Yeah, I mean, BuzzFeed News looks, you know, is really the leading news source that women read, young women read, and writing about things that matter to them and that they care about. I mean, it's not, certainly it's not a brand only focused on. serving women, but it is, the audience is skewed in that direction. And we write about things that

really matter, you know, reproductive rights and sexual assault on campuses and things that the audience really cares about. So I think the way you build brands today is less about talking up your brand and saying, we won this award or buying ads to explain why your brand is great. And it's more about showing up and providing service to the reader where they see, wow, this news organization cares about me, understands me, is on my side, is fighting for me and is doing, you know, really great work that speaks to me. You know, really BuzzFeed created the sponsored, the native ad, the sponsored post. How did BuzzFeed strike the balance with its native? I mean, I just feel a little uncomfortable having paid $20,000 for this interview. And now you're saying, you're just lying to the audience

saying that this is like a normal. I thought we are on the same page on this. No, I get what you're saying. When we started BuzzFeed, you couldn't really make money making popular content on the Facebook platform. Facebook didn't have an ad model and they didn't really share anything. And so we would try to find alignment with brands. Like an early example was when Game of Thrones was coming out, HBO wanted us to help launch Game of Thrones. And so we did a quiz, How Will You Die at Game of Thrones? And it was like, I love the die part.

That's the native ad. So you'd answer these questions and it's like, he'll be ripped to shreds by a dire wolf or you'll be beheaded, you know, by a whitewalker or whatever. I don't think they had white walkers at that point. But, but, you know, and then the byline was HBO. Brilliant. So, it was like, it was clear that it was HBO. But that actually made the content better because a quiz by HBO about Game of Thrones is kind of cool. So sometimes it can be a good alignment and I think you just label it clearly and people understand it. You know, had we had a model like early, you know, or like cable television with affiliate and advertising, we probably wouldn't have

messed around with that because you'd have this built-in monetization, that'd be great. Early social content didn't really have it, just like early content. So I think native advertising is really powerful when a platform is new. So you're saying the balance is almost, you've created an ad, but it's actually a cool ad. Like, I would like to know if it's going to be a White Walker that kills me, or is it going to be John Snow? Well, but also it's communicated clearly. And if he did with the key, the BuzzFeed News Division, it'd be a lot harder, a balance to strike. Right.

Yeah, we never did it with news. So we did it with our entertainment division because the stakes there are about creative freedom and not about journalistic integrity. We covered BuzzFeed going public as a SPAC. Now the stock is down 85% from that opening price. What's the hardest thing about being a public company now versus private? How does it feel differently being, you know, when you were a startup, when you were a private company and then now you got public investors in the public markets? I mean, as you know better than anyone, the public market. have been pretty crazy over the last few years. It's different.

It's like very... Any company that went public in 2021 is just down, horrible shame. Yeah, and the SPAC market was red hot when we started our process and then was ice cold when we finished. So we essentially put our deal together and then we're like, oh, this, the SPAC market is terrible right now. But we got to the other side of it and we got public. I think for any company, you know, you really can't judge yourself by your stock price.

If you look at most of the companies I really admire in the last three years, their stock has varied, you know, in many cases from, you know, single digits to, you know, $80 a share or whatever. You mean, these huge, huge swings. But you can focus on the long term in building a company. I think digital media is out of favor right now. Spacks are out of favor. But the strong brands we have, the strong audience engagement we have, the diversified revenue we have, from my perspective, it's a matter of time before that, you know, we get credit for the value that we're building. I would say the only real downside of going public is that it was a distraction. And I say it in the past tense because most of the hard stuff we are on the other side of now.

One thing we saw you say was you've called Millennials and Gen Z. The most diverse, most online and most socially engaged generation in the world has ever seen. We'd love to hear more about that because as the founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, you may know more about millennials than anyone else in the world, but we click on, what we share. Everything. Everything about us. Are we ruining everything? Is that, that's what we're getting at. Not just jacking me specifically, which may be the case.

As a generation. Less a you thing, more than us think. We do see a lot, I mean, we do see a lot by reaching so many people. So, you know, when the pandemic started, there was a massive interest in our news coverage of the pandemic. And then there was a period where people were like, oh, we don't want to read any more news about this. It's too depressing.

And we saw lists and quizzes and entertainment. know, surge. And then, you know, you remember there was a period where everyone wanted to learn how to bake bread and all the tasty contents, you know, do well. We are able to track a lot of the sort of trends that are happening in real time. Or when, you know, when people got their stimulus checks, we saw, you know, immediate increase in our commerce sales and in. So millennials are buying things. They're baking bread. They're looking for delight when they're at home. Pretty proud of this generation, Jack is what I'm going to throw out there. We're very proud of it. They're fighting with the Gen Z, but it's actually not, not, that's like kind of a fake, fake, you know.

When you say we're the most socially engaged generation, is that a reference to the commenting and online metrics engagement or social activism kind of? I mean more social activism and, you know, on lots of different issues and really caring about so many different issues. And I think the way that algorithmic media allows people to cluster around interests has also caused people. to cluster around, you know, like anime fandoms or celebrity fandums or music genres, but also around activist causes that they believe in. And so the algorithmic structure of media has created this new kind of microclustering of people that has influenced politics and activism in a big way. Jonah, looking ahead to BuzzFeed's future, we've said that good companies create great products,

but great companies evolve. So how has BuzzFeed evolved in the last couple of years that have been totally unprecedented for media? And then where should it evolve going forward? Yeah, so one way we evolved was we realized that digital media companies needed to get bigger. And so we acquired HuffPost and Complex because there's just a lot of benefit of having a bigger platform. So some of the things I talked about this interview, our commerce business, that took a lot

to build it out, but now HuffPosts can just inherit that because we bought them, you know, and there's a lot of examples of that from our ad platform to the back office finance type, you know, an admin. My Econ 101 professor would call this economies of scale. Yes, there you go, there you go. You built a factory, which is your commerce division, and that thing better be running 100%. And so you got to get HuffPost content in there, complex in there as well. So, yeah, so that's one change.

And that was because digital media got tougher in the past. few years. And so you needed more efficiency, you needed to be able to operate better. You need, you know, so that was, you know, and you needed more diversified revenue, which favors bigger companies. So that was one. And then the other piece is the explosion of the creator economy. And that's a part of our business that's growing very quickly. And we're really solving this problem, which is independent creators, if you actually meet them in the real world and not just read about them. They, they often are lonely, burnt out, working really hard, you know. And sometimes if they complain about being burnt out, their fans, you know, are like, but you, you know, how can you

cancel them for saying they're burned out when they're obvious, they're fabulous and like, they can also get canceled for achieving great success because they're no longer like the relatable. Yeah, exactly. It's something that really brings the best of both worlds from being an independent creator to having the benefit of a large media network and a brand. So some, some brilliant chef who makes unbelievable one pot recipes instead of posting on their own TikTok, they can post on BuzzFeed's TikTok? They can do both. Or they can come and do a show with us, which they never could make on their own because they don't have studios. They don't have, you know, the resources to do it. Or they can come and collaborate with other creators and make things that,

you know, you don't do if you're just hanging out in your apartment, you know, trying to crank out a video every day. But three years ago, we thought Quibi was going to be everything. Two years ago, TikTok wasn't kind of nothing. Now it's everything. The media change is wicked fast. What excites you about that and what scares you about that? I mean, we love change. It's what makes the job so fun. If everything stay the same, this would be not a very fun job. So you love the evolution. Yeah, like cracking new models, trying to figure out new formats, trying to figure out the new ways that media is going to work, media is going to evolve, and how do you reach people and have a big impact?

That's the constant puzzle and energy to what we do. I mean, that's what excites us about media, too, is we started out doing newsletters and we were like, yeah, newsletter. That's always our thing. We're also investing right now in a TikTok production and TikTok could get bad. Yeah. So things shift all the time. We ever knew we would be podcast hosts five years ago, didn't really know that was a career option. And like now, this is our full life and we can't. We always want to. It's our everything. Now, you talk in podcast voice at all time. Yeah, we're 110% of ourselves. Even with your family. Even with your. We did green. We did greet Jonah with a couple microphones when you were on.

Jonah, so, you know, we talked before about how your day looks different as a, you know, a CEO of a public company versus a private one. Could you walk us through it like what a morning looks like for you right now? Who writes your presidential news briefing? And honestly, if it is simply making pancakes, we're totally satisfied with that answer to do. And do you limit the presidential news briefing to one page with bullet points. You know what I'm talking about. I do a lot of meeting with my team, which I think, you'll give it is not a very interesting answer.

But I also try to spend time using our products, using, you know, consuming media, trying to get a sense, you know, talking to people who are doing interesting things that are maybe 20 degrees off of what we're doing to try to, you know, understand it. A lot of things that have opened up new possibilities for us have been at that frontline level, like developing the tasty format or the quiz format or cracking the BuzzFeed shopping model. it's like all those things start with a small format that works or a piece of content that people love and engage with in a deeper way. And so I think the key to being at least an entrepreneurial CEO or leader is to be the ability to go from the very ground level, what is the consumer doing up to abstract ideas about the, you know, and system level ideas of like what's the whole company's structure. And if you can't connect those two, then you end up with a culture where the leadership is out of touch and doesn't understand the things that are actually driving the

business. But if you're only in the weeds, then you can't operate a bigger company. You have created the viral content from way back in the day. When was the last time published an article? Yeah, well, actually, or do you sometimes publish stuff under a pseudonym that we don't know that's happening, phone them already? I mean, I worked, I worked sometimes on a few little pet projects. I got interested in some of the new, new AI image creation and video creation stuff. So I made a video with my brother-in-law, who's Jordan Peel, the director, about, still got to watch Nope. Yeah, it's great. About deep fakes. And so it's a PSA where he does his Obama impression. And he's controlling video of Obama. It's in my head. And basically making Obama say things he never would say in

real life. I'm a Cub fan. We kind of collaborated that. And then there was this AI soulmate thing that we did, which was a BuzzFeed quiz where you answer questions and it shows you a totally fictitious person that is your soulmate. And that was one where I worked with, you know, a few of our team members on that to sort of try to build a new. Answer 10 questions and we'll create your artificial soulmate. We'll recreate you. And you get, yeah, you get, you get, you end up with like a glitchy image of some like psychopath that you're supposed to like marry, you know. So it was designed to be a little bit more like edgy and funny and weird. And so that was that was one I worked on a little bit.

Jonah, BuzzFeed says it's the home of the best of the internet. We've talked in this conversation already about some great new vocabulary awards that BuzzFeed's responsible for it. And they are the best of the internet. Like listicles and Disney quizzes, Disney princess quizzes and one pot cooking videos. But the internet's also a dark place. and there's other vocabulary words like troll farms and deep fakes, which can be really scary. What makes you hopeful about the internet?

I mean, I think it's easy to be an optimist or a pessimist. A lot of it maybe is hardwired. I don't know. And I tend to be more of an optimist. But you're really asking at this point about what makes you optimistic about humans, because the internet is everywhere now. And so you're really talking about human nature when you're talking about, you know, do you believe in the internet and the future of the internet?

well, do you believe in humans in the future of humans? Because so much of what people do is on the internet now. And so the distinction between life and the internet is not that big. And so if you believe in humans and human creativity and ingenuity and ability to try to, at least some people try to be heroic and fight against the bad things on the internet, if you believe that humans have that in us, then I think you can be optimistic. And I am optimistic. But I think there's lots of challenges. and we need to like be clear-eyed about them and go after them and try to make the internet a better place. And that's one of the things that gets us up every day at BuzzFeed Inc. One thing that's had the biggest impact on all of us in this entire industry is really the tech platforms. So curious, in that relationship between the two, media and tech, one kind of needs one, one kind of needs the other. And it's been this interesting dance, Jack and I have always seen. When did the two find peace or do they ever find peace?

I think they'll always be tensioned between tech and media. I try to be an ambassador between the two. I feel like I... I can sense that. I feel like I... I mean, you're such an internet optimist. You're bringing everyone to the table. I feel like I understand the worldview and the way that tech founders think, and I am one of them in a sense, in terms of how I think and my worldview. But I also feel like I understand creative people, media people, and content people. and feel like I'm one of them too. So I feel like I'm in some ways between these two worlds and that the most interesting creative things that get me the most excited,

merge tech and content are when people push a medium further or do something using new technology that wasn't possible. If you were like a couple's therapist. No, if he was a Game of Thrones character. Okay, talk to me. He'd be John Snow because he's a Targaryen and a Stark.

Absolutely. But not the winter is coming. Dark John Snow. Definitely a much more optimistic one. If you were to play like couples therapists, between these two, between tech and media. So I'd be like, I'd have Mark Zuckerberg and Rupert Murdox sitting there and I'd be like, how do we make your relationship better? Exactly.

It just feels like you're not seeing eye to eye. Exactly. You're having a lot of communication problems. Totally. What would you say, hey, Mark, this is what you got to understand. And hey, Rupert, here's what you got to understand about. Tech. What would you say to the two?

The biggest thing the media people, especially the older generation, don't get is that the world is not going back to something where there's the gatekeeping and power by a small number of people at the top of the masthead of a newspaper or, you know, who are running the cable network. And that the internet is inherently more democratic and is opening up more possibilities for people to have a voice and for people to get recognized and people to build careers. And, you know, your careers right now are possible because of the internet. And that's a great thing. It's an incredible.

And if you were slowly working your way up through five, You know, news corp or whatever, you know, that would suck. And it's great that you can make this. And there's all these amazing things in the world because of the internet. Tech people need to realize that there's also a lot of darkness in the world and that a small number of really dedicated, malicious bad actors can have a disproportionate effect on the experience of the mass public by harassing content, trolling content, racist content, anti-vax content or misconduct. information and that the algorithmic structure of the platforms, the fact that the content is served up algorithmically favors more extreme content. A lot of people, if you do surveys, say they don't want that content, but they still watch it. It's like the car wreck effect or the rubber-necking effect, right? It's like these two sides are having crazy fights and battling, and you're like, I think both sides are dumb, but you're watching it because it's fascinating to see the battle and the fight and the wreckage and the car neckage and the car

right? And the algorithm is essentially smashing all the cars into each other. And the rest of us have to like gawk at all of it. I hover over a link and I'm like, I need to see what's under here, but I don't want to gratify them with my class. He clicked on it. Two questions to go back and we can go back in time a little bit on this. One, a new employee gets to BuzzFeed. What are you telling that employee for their career to be successful at BuzzFeed to be successful anywhere? So many of our listeners are starting careers in the middle of careers. How do you tell them to take advantage? What gets into the next level? So just don't quiet quit. You know, that's you never want to do that. You never want to do that.

You better not quiet fire them. No, no, no, no, no. You know, a lot of the advice depends on what kind of company you're joining, right? But that's, I think, the first thing. Join a company that you have overlapping your values and that you're excited about and that you believe in, even if it's a smaller company, even if it pays less, even if you should find something that is a good fit for you that gets you passionate and gets you excited. Because if you do that, long-term, your career is going to be much better. And don't waste those three years working in some job that, you know, where you know going into it that you kind of hate the company you're signing up to work for. Like life's too short for that. But people do that all the time. All right, Jonah,

before we let you go to hop over the Bay Bridge and go see your dad, because we don't want to get in the way of you and your dad. This show is called The Best One Yet. So Jack and I were talking before the show and we wanted to know what's your best ones yet got some rapid fire questions for you we do Jonah what is the best slice of pizza yet single word please zacharies since i'm in in the bay area what's the best book yet i'll say thinking fast and slow the best business leader yet jeff bezos the best coffee yet i like stump town the best airport terminal yet The new LaGuardia Terminal with the BuzzFeed store in it. Is that a native ad?

The best performer yet. Prince. And the best podcast yet, that isn't the best one yet. My sister's podcast. I was telling you about it. But, you know, the call-in show. Call Chelsea Perretti? Okay.

And you can call in on the show? Yeah, but I don't think she's made one in like seven years or seven years or something. We'll just call until she picks up. So this is like, she's like, she's just. really got to bring it back. And finally, Jonah, at the end of every story, we like to know what the takeaway is. So there's one thing that we would like to hear you say before you leave us. What's the takeaway on BuzzFeed?

BuzzFeed Inc. has these iconic brands. BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Complex, Tasty. And we're reaching the majority of millennials in Gen Z. And we're having a great time really building a media company for the future. And Jonah, as Jonah Paredi, what is this? the takeaway on Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed. The takeaway for me? Yeah.

I mean, maybe I'll eat that burrito you got and go see my dad and, you know, have a nice rest of the day in the Bay Area. And then finally. Jonah, if we had to get a uncut gems moment, what should that uncut gems moment be with you? We need this episode to go viral. If we want this podcast and this episode to go viral, how do we pull it off? It's too late now, but you should have asked me some really controversial. question got me to slip up and say something that would, you know, get me, get me like

canceled or fired or some, you know, in some way. Well, we do love your slamming salmon shirt. We got to say. All right. Thank you.