The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of BLOCKBOARD on Elon Musk, Twitter, Bots & Digital Fraud

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Myblockboard.com Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of BLOCKBOARD on Elon Musk, Twitter, Bots & Digital Fraud

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

And my brain was bleeding before I showed up. And now it'll get worse. It's hopefully the, what's a scientific term that happens when you're, hopefully the blood clotting will kick in. If not, if I pass out midway during the show, call an ambulance. You should probably call an ambulance now. It's just, you know, we've all seen me. I deserve to be in one of those rubber rooms wearing one of those suits.

Or as we like to call it around, the Chris Foss Show Fridays. Anyway, guys, welcome to the show. Thanks for tuning in. We really appreciate you guys. Thanks for being here. As always, we love you and care for you, especially when you refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Tell them to join the family, the Chris Foss Show family that loves you but doesn't judge you. And you're always welcome at the Chris Foss Show.

Just don't ask for money, okay? Because we've got enough doing that with the, it's not that kind of family. Okay, man. Anyway, also go to all groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, all those crazy places. The kids are playing except for Snapchat because we're not going to send you pictures of the Chris Foss show. So welcome another guest we have on the show. He's an amazing CEO. He's been on this week. I think his third appearance on the show. I think we have to buy him a robe in two more appearances like SNL or something like that. Do we have that in the budget? There's not a budget? I don't get paid for this? Oh, okay. Well, that's good to know. So we have the CEO of Blockboard and digital pioneer Matt Wasiloff on the show. He's also the founder too of that company. And we're going to be talking

to him about some pretty interesting things that's going on. Elon Musk, Twitter, digital media business, things that are going on. Bots. We'll be talking about bots. It's going to be a bot show. I mean, this whole show is bots. It sounds like something my kids use in the gaming field. So Matt is one of the original disruptors of the TV business. He's known as the visionary who revolutionized advertising

by enticing television advertisers to invest their marketing dollars online. In 2020, iMedia recognized Matt with the Conviction Award for his unwavering belief and conviction in the future of video beyond TV. I got a Conviction Award, but it's from a judge. In 2004, he founded broadband the industry's first online video company and he co-founded the mobile video platform torrential in 2013 he recently sold torrential to the television company itn and the leading unwired broadcast network in may of 2019 matt launched his newest and arguably let's argue about

it most exciting venture yet blockboard a new digital distribution platform service that utilizes blockchain technology to distribute videos that sounds like i should be doing the commercial for that as advertisers continue to shift their attention towards ott we'll find out what that is later and And non-linear television. He has created Blockboard to ensure trust, full transparency, and verification in the shifting advertising landscape, which probably will lead us into the Twitter Elon Musk thing. Welcome to the show, Matt. How are you? Great to be here, Chris. Thanks for having me.

There you go. Were you impressed that I got a conviction award from a judge? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean. We should all get conviction awards. Well, and just don't get them from a judge. I'm still wearing the ankle berets. I spent a callback the last few shows. I was just kind of rolling with it. Anyway, welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you coming by again.

Give us your.com so we can go and find you on the interwebs, please. Myblockboard.com. That's where you can find us. There you go. There you go. And give us an overview before we get into slinging at Twitter and Elon Musk's battle. Give us an overview of what Blockboard does and your words. Blockboard is the video accountability company.

Three and a half years ago, I founded Blockboard with partner, fellow co-founder. And we built a platform built on Ethereum blockchain that validates, really pre-verifies all video ads. And so we're well underway. Three and a half years later, we've proven ourselves to the largest marketers in the world. And they are seeing the benefits of 100% validated video advertising. It's pretty powerful. So that's what I think lends into that conversation we'll get into about Elon Musk versus Twitter, because that's the first time really that the market is garnering headlines and front pages for all the video fraud or fraud in the digital advertising business.

And we've talked about that on prior shows. So please go back, folks. You can search on the Chris Voss Show and see those interviews. And you guys helped stomp that out because a lot of ad money is wasted from bots and fraudulent people clicking and stuff like that. Is that correct? That's correct. It's correct.

It's a much larger figure than most people admit to or realize. It's now in the tens of billions of dollars. Wow. That's material. That's a much larger figure than most people admit to or realize it's now in the tens of billions of dollars wow that's material that's a lot of money and a lot of cmos out there who are throwing the money into the fireplace we need to know about this yeah it's the big deal that's a big check right there yeah yeah as long as they as long as they take it i'll be fine so let's talk about what you feel about what's going on, not only in the advertising industry, I mean, this Elon Musk Twitter situation. Yeah. I mean, the whistleblower at Twitter actually put it out there.

So I'm talking about stuff that's now in the public domain. But when Elon Musk went into diligence on his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. He asked, show me the bots. I want to know. We all know there are some level of fraudulent activity. And I'm going to ask you, Chris, to guess. Out of the 220 billion daily active users on Twitter, Twitter shared were evaluated for elon musk how many of those 220 million did they provide in diligence as a test case i think they only did like a hundred

or a thousand didn't they or something like that or that's how they measure it well did you say a hundred or a hundred thousand a hundred or was it a hundred or a thousand it was a hundred yeah Or that's how they measure it. Well, did you say 100 or 100,000? Was it 100 or 1,000? It was 100. Yeah, they do like a dip somewhere in the middle. Let's put that in perspective. Thank you. You're more knowledgeable than most anybody on this stuff. So 100 out of 220 million, Chris, is 0.0000005%.

Wow, that's a lot. 0.0000005%. So if I'm Elon Musk and I got $44 billion on the table, I would expect a little bit more than that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just like buying a business. I would expect a little bit more than that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can't, it's just like buying a business.

You can't like go, like say you're going to buy like, I don't know, IBM. And IBM's like, yeah, we really can't show you our balance sheet. And then we can't show you any profit and losses or P&Ls. But we have a hundred customers here and we'll show you who pays the. You know, why I get really upset. You know, I was one of the early pioneers that great introduction, thank you for introducing me earlier on the show. I'm the first guy to put video ads on the web back in the late 90s. So I have a personal interest and stake in this industry and this business,

which today is over $50 billion. It's really exciting and growing and all all it should all be good this is this is damning what's going on right now you know we live in digital media in a world of accidents accidents you can see all 220 million users of twitter you know what's going on. At least Twitter does. Twitter knows what's going on with all 220 million daily active users. And to turn over 100 to Elon Musk, that is an indictment on this industry. And I am pissed. I am effing pissed.

I don't know what anybody else thinks, but pretty much anybody in the know who does Facebook advertising and advertiser accounts, Twitter is like the worst place to put your money for advertising. And look at the list. It starts with Unilever, Verizon, Nestle.

I mean, those guys pissed away billions of dollars. Oh, yeah. Pissed away. Yeah. So it's interesting. It's Peter. He's known as Mudge in the industry. Peter.

I believe it's Peter. There's an I in there. Zatco. And I remember Elon Musk bringing this up. And I think the amount of bots that are on Twitter are huge. Let me consult with my attorney once. I feel like I'm in a congressional hearing. Can I think it's, I think the amount of bots that are on Twitter are huge. Let me consult with my attorney once. I feel like I'm in a congressional hearing. Can I say it?

I would bet you that at least 50% of Twitter is just bots. Yeah. I agree. Daily active users. Bots. Foreign bots. October 17th, Chris. October 17th.

We're going to see it. You know, I'm on Twitter. I'm settling this deal well before october 17th but that is going to be the day the world going to see under hood with so one of the things that i've always found one of the things i've always found disturbing too is the is the porn bots that are on there and recently twitter came out with there was another thing that blew out of Twitter where it came out, they'd been trying to do an only fans and they have a real problem with the law that regulates,

you know, you gotta be over 18 and I've seen stuff on Twitter that, you know, I'm not any place. It's not the dark web, it's Twitter. And I've seen stuff that I'm just like, God,

I hope there's no children on, you know, seeing this. And, you know, and normally, you know, if you want to see certain things, there's laws and you have to, you know, click something that says you're 18 or older. I've heard this. Friends have told me about it, but they don't have it on Twitter. And some of it's really explicit. And I've just gone, you know, I, I, I'm somebody who works in the industry and I'm like, not that that industry, but in the industry of social media and internet. And I'm just like, there are kids, and I'm like, not that industry, but in the industry of social media and internet.

And I'm just like, there are kids. There are kids. Like, if I was a father, I'd be losing my mind. And the fact that I don't know how they've gotten around it. There must be some sort of, I mean, what is it, the Section 200 or Section 6 or whatever that rule, 205 rule? Whatever that rule is where they're not a publisher. They're just a bullet they're like a they're like they're just a bulletin board basically they're not a news publisher or something whatever that

that whole section 200 the naveler yeah yeah so somehow they get around it but the extraordinary thing is that there's stuff on there and one of the things they talked about was the amount of child stuff that was going on there that shouldn't be on there as well as everything else i would bet you that 50 of twitter is bots i'll bet you i i'm kind of worried and that and that's you know if that's where as an industry we have to come to terms because twitter is a five percent and industry experts like you and i would say 50%. And in between that, we're talking about tens of billions of dollars that the advertisers are floating across. So they're the ones paying the bills. They're the ones carrying the bags.

And I'm out there advocating for those advertisers. That's why I'm in. Yeah, and the Twitter management scene has been a nightmare. I mean, Jack, I called for Jack to be removed for, I don't know, the last 10 years or something as the CEO. Who else is bad? Their recent people have been awful. I mean, I was telling you in the pre-show about some of the conversations we have with Twitter. Somebody wrote a book and they nailed it.

Or maybe it was a news person. It might have been Walt. What's his face? I think it was a news person it might have been waltz what's his face who worked for i think it was mossberger worked for new year times but somebody coined the term that twitter was a clown car that crashed into success and like it just it just got popular just in spite of the three stooges in the clown car and it kind of keeps on going it's like a car crash that just never i mean they only had like two two quarters of profitability in 12 13 years or something but but but what's painful for me is that they are not they're they're not the exception they're the wool

and wow maybe the entire marketplace that i play in, the leadership is running that way. That's how this business is being run. You know, whether it's Google, whether it's Twitter, name your company, the leadership in our space is running the business this way. It's becoming the world. And that's where we need a reset. We need a complete reset. And I'm hopeful that through this

court case, the government will send a signal. We need to see some leadership here that kind of resets and settles this business and starts to aim it in a different place.

Do you think if it will make a shot across the bow where these companies be like, oh, crap, man, that thing exposed and that went badly. We need to, you know, we need to clean up our act. Yeah, we need to clean up our act.

You know, this is a great opportunity for this Delaware Intensory Court. You know, this is a great opportunity for regulators to come in and, you know, kind of reset them. So we need that. We need a reset. Does the business need more regulation, do you think? Or do they just need vendors like you who, you know, help clients make sure that their money is well spent? Yeah. I mean, I'm a, you know, kind of Pollyanna kind of guy and, and I've always been an optimist and I'd like to believe that, you know,

government, I'm sorry, that the private sector can, can do this, but they've run them up. You know, I, I, there's only so much I can do. And like I said, the private, you know, business leaders in our space are not getting it done. So we need help and regulation needs to step in. Yeah. I mean, if Elon Musk can prove that there's a lot of bots in that system, it would massively affect their price or nullify their contract to buy Twitter. They're kind of up, my understanding of the court, they're kind of definitely up a big hill. And I believe the judge that's in the court case has ruled, usually in the companies, that it was being purchased in favor, I think, at least twice or three times. And she sticks to the rule book.

But, yeah, if they can show fraud, and with that whistleblower, you know, there's a lot of stuff that guy can expose. I mean, their security, he knew everything about them. And, you know, he's already said that they already have enough security problems. Twitter, you know, it's always been such a, well, a clown car that crashed into success. I mean, it just always has been. Poorly managed. I know people that did business with Twitter for years. And they, you know, I remember when they moved to the new, to the new, what's the place in San Francisco, they moved to the big building. They kind of tried to renovate the area and the area had a lot of blight to it, drug use and stuff like that, the Tenderloin community. And I remember when they moved there, my friend who is a vendor, we were in the Sun Valley up at the Allen company thing. And he goes, he goes, you know, it's really a wonder that Twitter in that lobby at the Tenderloin hasn't put one of those, one of those Foxconn nets in it because the morale is so low at Twitter. It's a wonder the employees aren't jumping out of that lobby.

And so, I mean, for a decade plus now, I've gotten just all sorts of morale news and different issues with Twitter. But you're right. If this comes down as exposure, it could run a lot of companies going, we need to clean up Iraq because if we get bought out or we get people that come by that are interested or even if you get investors who are, what do they call them, the type

of investors that usually come in and they demand change and clean up and they start shining a light on abuses. There could be a lot of that going on. Yep. The activists. Activist board members. Yeah.

I think that, I think it'll all help, but this court case should provide that opening. And hopefully we as an industry could start to rally around that. I read a book called Subprime Attention Crisis written by Tim Nguyen, and he outlined it in, you know, in full detail, full color, what is going on in the industry. The book just doesn't, you know, no one picks it up. No one reads it because there's a healthy denial across the digital market ad business.

And that really needs to, you know, kind of a kick in the ass. It needs a Twitter headline like this, a Elon Musk headline. Everybody says, okay, you know, we have a problem. We need to fix it but what tim went called for in the book is he called it a constructive demolition uh or orange better said a controlled demolitions these words and we we need to all recognize that there's a problem need to take this thing down and rebuild it the right way. So that's what we're looking for. Most definitely.

So, you know, you built Blockboard to take and combat this stuff and to build a trustworthy advertising system that people can know what's going on. Let's talk about how you fight that, combat that, and how people and companies can find that useful to make sure that their ad dollars are well spent. Appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, we're using the blockchain. That's our system, our operating system.

Today, our entire platform is built on Ethereum. And so what we do essentially is put every deal in a smart contract. We take the ad calls and we accept the bids that are real human bids and they'll be the right target. And when we accept those bids, then we shoot them out. We verify them again. And essentially, we go through this three, this betting three times to assure our advertisers that they're getting the right person. That is netted out for our advertisers that they're getting the right person. That has netted out for our advertisers. And we're working with many of the majors like Chipotle and Descom and

Campbell and 8 O'Clock Coffee. They're getting huge results. They're selling fraud on driving email registrations. They're driving downloads. They're getting all the things they've never seen before because of the toxic waste that runs a mob across the the space wow we're having a lot of success and quite frankly we're having a lot of fun because once you start to show these advertisers what success looks like it's it's addictive and now I'm starting to get a lot of steam.

So it's... Sure. The advertising money is going to the bottom line as opposed to having the fluff of the waste that, you know, you're like, how come we're not really being as effective as we are? I mean, if you can drill that down so that you're effective as all get out, that can make all the difference. So, yeah. So we're basically using the blockchain.

There's a lot of fans lot of fans are around web 3.0 web and what all that really stands for is transparency you know a new way a more responsible way of doing things more collaborative you know the blockchain is built on a peer-to-peer network of nodes and there is no central authority. It's all decentralized. So you're removing the Twitters, you're removing the Facebooks, you're removing the Googles. And all of a sudden you add this whole new way of validating stuff that is making a huge difference. So we think Web 3.0 is going to take hold here over the next two, three, five years and be an important reset for not only our industry, but just business in general. So we're super excited about WET. Yeah. So is Anderson Horowitz. They're a big proponent behind that.

And, I mean, how is that really going to change what we have now? Is it just more openness, more disclosure? Yeah. So the reason we call Web3, I mean, people have varied explanations, but the way I see it is it started on HTML, right? We all built our websites and went to business. That was the 1.0. 2.0 were these apps that were now being distributed across iOS, which is Apple, and Android, which is Google. So that 2.0 was about the app.

And this 3.0 was about blockchain. So we're decentralized. We're taking the Googles and Apples and everybody out of that mess and say, this is your platform. Web 3.0 is about the peer-to-peer, decentralized new way of doing things. So that's how we do Web 3.0. Awesome, Sauce. And you guys have a pretty easy onboarding system. Tell us about that.

So if people are out there in the world, they want to do business with you, how do they collaborate with you and get hooked up with you? Yeah, I mean, we're easy to work with. I mean, you know, just reach out to us. You can talk to us on myblockboard.com. We have a national sales force that's talking to the major advertisers and agencies today. We're all across social media and here on the Chris Boss Show.

So easy to find us, easy to work with us. We take a lot of pride in ease of use. And our platform is now self-service too. So we're a self-service platform as well. I think there's a level of human touch that's necessary just to get the ball rolling. But we are self-service. We are managed service and self-service. And we say one advertiser at a time.

That's how we get. There you go. One advertiser at a time, one ad at a time. Or lots of ads at a time. Yeah. Do you, I mean, do you see a lot of waste on Twitter? Do you guys do any advertising on Twitter? Do you stay on?

You know, it's somewhat ironic, but now as, as, you know, light has been shed, we have not been on Twitter. It's not been a great, we're a video company. Oh, that's right. And Twitter has been a lagger to the video for any, but they've also been a driver of fraud. So that's why those are two very good reasons why we have not been there. But we use the other social media and we're just very careful and thoughtful about how we use them. But we're big in the CTV, which stands for connected TV, heading OTT over the top. That's where we play the most. We're typically working on the major media's streaming provider.

Like NBC is our biggest publisher, and they have what's called Peacock. So that's where we're playing the most, the major media, CTV, and OTT space. Yeah. It's really interesting with Twitter. I mean, some of the numbers that I quoted with Twitter is based upon my experience. I mean, for a long time, I remember in 2010, 2011, there was a client that came to us. And they go, hey, you know, you can buy followers. I was like, what?

And he goes, yeah, yeah, you pay these guys some money. You can buy followers. You can turn your account from zero to 100,000. You just pay them. And I'm thinking about doing it. And I go, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me look into it. You know, you're a client. So look into it. So we went and tested it and you know, we found that these were all bots. They were commanding literally like, I don't know, millions maybe of bots. And they could literally, you could say, I don't want a hundred thousand follower account by the, I think it would

take like a month to do. And so we tested it to see what it was. And we, we wanted to test because my client was going, well, these are probably real people. And I'm like, how would you control reputable accounts? So we tested it. And then we looked at the bots that, that had followed our account and, and they're all bots. They were just like little lead, you know, just these machine companies that were like going through a software and they would set up the account. It would do all the process of the Twitter. And it was crazy. And my account at the Chris Voss account with Twitter would go from 100 to 400,000 up and down because I would, you know, I always be, people always be following me. From like 2009 on, there was a big washout they did with the Russian bots and my account would like drop like 36,000

overnight or 18,000. I remember huge drops and they would warn people. They'd be like, Hey, we're wiping out the Russians. So, you know, those people have gone. One time they said they were wiping out somebody, some bot system or something. And I lost 100,000 followers over, I don't know, a month or two. And I was like, holy crap, there's that many bots on here. And I mean, it's just extraordinary. So when I say there's 50% bots in there, I might be under the thing. You know, all the politics bots that are on there. There was a bunch for the 2016 election and stuff.

Craziness. Yeah. And our largest advertisers is diabetic treatment. And, you know, they had been running on all those social media networks. And we produce in one campaign, an 83% improvement on their results. That's huge. I'm not prepared to say only 17% was real on those others, but you're in the right zip code there.

You're in the right ballpark because there is a large amount of front and waist across all these platforms. And we're just trying, we're sussing it out now through, you know, one deal at a time. But you're absolutely right. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, I've seen a few things on Twitter that make your head go, wow.

And it's just, you know, you've got to have trust. But yeah, like you say, all these different ad platforms, you know, and there's clickability issues for, you know, Google search and stuff and things along those lines. Anything more we want to touch on or talk about today? I mean, that's my topic du jour, topic of the day.

Chris, yeah. I mean, I really enjoyed being a guest on your show and knowing you had that insight and background makes this a rich, nutritious conversation. Yeah, it's interesting. I wouldn't buy Twitter for $44 billion. I got like $50, I think, somewhere in change here in the house or something. I get $50. That price tag is going to go

down. Pretty much. I might want to raise your bid. I might be able to just match $100 with the deal. I don't know. $200.

We'll buy that thing. There you go. Yeah. Get it at the Goodwill. Find it on the shelf at the Goodwill. Well, Matt, it's been wonderful having you on. Very insightful. Thanks for coming on again.

It'll be interesting. We should have you back for when the whole deal, whatever explodes with whatever news we get. It should be interesting. That's what we're trying to tape. It's right in front of us. Can you imagine how bad it is? I mean, even if they have like 10% bots or 15%, it's still just going to be awful.

Yeah, yeah. And what's so cool and what I enjoy about it is that's all a fraction of $44 billion, right? Yeah. You're going to see how broad really matches or correlates to billions of dollars. Yeah. First time we're getting that kind of look at the business. Yeah.

Especially if the judge throws out the, I don't know what the current price is, but I know the price dropped enough to where I think it's like $34 billion. You should buy it at based on the stock price. So if they throw out the price and throw out the whole deal and contract, that thing might be worth $20 billion maybe. Right. And who knows? It could take a huge nosedive.

Anyway, and then, of course, their stock will tank. So if they release him from the contract, he could probably buy it for $10 billion when the stock tanks and sees what's going on in the thing. And there might be a spillover to a lot of other stocks too, like we talked about. Hey, Matt, thanks for coming on the stock tanks and sees what's going on in the thing. And there might be a spillover to a lot of other stocks too, like we talked about. Hey, Matt, thanks for coming on the show. Give us your.com so we can find you on the internet, please.

Myblockboard.com. There you go. And thanks for being on the show. We really appreciate it. Chris, thanks for having me. Great to see you. There you go. And check out Matt's other appearances where he gets into detail

on a lot of other things in the business on the Chris Foss Show. You can just search for his name or Blockboard on the show. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.