The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Sam Reich

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Comedian, writer, and host of "Game Changer" and "Make Some Noise" (as well as CEO of Dropout!!!) Sam Reich joins Andy Richter to discuss his path to "Game Changer," watching "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" as a kid in Cambridge, Massachusetts, why he chose to make the hardest possible game show to produce, the future of Dropout, and much more. Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) or ask a question - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Listen to "The Andy Richter Call-In Show" every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Channel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome to the three questions. I am your host, Andy Richter. And today I'm talking to Sam Reich from Dropout. Sam is a comedian, writer, host, and the CEO of Dropout. He's not a billionaire, but he is a CEO. I don't know, maybe he is a billionaire. You can watch Game Changer and make some noise on Dropout TV, and you should. Here's my conversation with Sam Reich. I can't you tell my- Hi, Sam. Hi, Andy, what a treat. How are you? I'm great. Good to have you here. I have to tell you.

This is where you gush, right? This is where I gush. You can cut this out. No, I insist on this every episode. This is one of my favorite things in a podcast is where people tell each other how great they are. I love it. It's that portion. Yeah, yeah.

No, please, go ahead. I mean, I, I mean, I, it will make me uncomfortable. That's, that's the idea. Yes, I like to start you off on the back foot. Then go ahead, then go ahead, please. It's one of my least favorite things when kids come up to me and we'll say things like, you raised me. Yes. I feel a thousand years old.

I have grown adults with like families. I've been watching you since I, you know, I just sneak downstairs to watch you. I'm like, oh. I'm about to do it. Yeah. I was out to twist the knife. Go ahead. My brother and I, growing up, he had this battery-powered black and white TV.

Oh, cool. And we used to, like, lay in bed and watch it way later than we were supposed to. Right. Our parents would endorse. And I watched you and Conan four, four, five nights a week for years and years. Yeah. So it's an honor. Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that wasn't so bad. Yeah, there you go. I mean, there was nothing else on. Where are you going to watch Tom Snyder? Absolutely. If I walked in and found like my eight-year-old watching Tom Snyder, I'd be like, quickly turning off the television. We need therapy. What are you watching that weird old man for? Huge Charlie Reese fans. We would stay up all hours. And that's probably like people probably have no idea who the fuck I'm talking about anyway, Tom's a sad thought. Yeah, yeah. No, I am. Ages both of us. References now among groups of, like, grown adults. Now they're just where you'll say, like, I don't know, Lola Falana.

And they'll go like, I don't know who that is. Totally. Or even, like, shows like, you know, I can't even think of one. Like, designing women. Sure, sure, sure. And they're like, I don't know what that is. Perfect strangers. Yeah, yeah.

What are you talking about? Yeah. And now, I don't know if you have, but media has become so fragmented that we'll talk about shows that are presently on the air and people will have no idea of what we're talking about. Well, and the age, there's this age gap now too where I watch things on, I, you know, watch content on your channel on Dropout. And it just feels like so young and online that I don't have a fucking clue as to what people are talking about. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you.

And this conversation, I'll explain it to you. Do they get beyond you, too, like, you know, like some of the stuff you guys do? I mean, everybody, it does feel very online. Yes. Yeah, dropout. It does seem like that it's for people who are online because these are all their online favorites. Yeah, that's interesting. I would agree with you.

I would say that, like, the Dropout's demo is broader than just the kids. Yeah. But it sure is online people. Yeah. Because they found us that way. Right. They found us on the TikTok. Yeah.

And the Instagram, by making it sound foxy, I sound one step removed from it. I understand. When arguably, I am on. You're in all their pockets. I am right there. Yeah, for sure. The CCP, it's, you might as well just be wearing a mouse suit. But I'm also, I'm also one of them.

I mean, I'm one of these chronically online people. I like to pretend as if I'm not. As if you're not. That I get out of the house. Well, help me ask you a old yard? Yes, I'm 41. I see that. And that's, like, you know, that's, I think that you're probably older than most of the people that are on-camera talent there.

What are you trying to say? No, yeah, I agree with you. No, I mean, because it's a very young group. It's young. Yeah, yeah. It's funny. Until you get like a dinosaur like Paul F. Tompkins on there. Wheel him in in a wheelbarrow and give him his walker.

Put him in a bug suit. Yes, it is, it is children and people who still identify as children. Paul and I included. Yeah, but it's, we are, yeah, I would say the talent is like late 20s into 30s, sometimes 40s and getting on up there. But look, we'd welcome anybody from the comedy scene. Come on, Grandma. Figure out how to get on there. Good luck.

But the. The demo, like, you, I think it remains true. I cared about comedy most as a fan. Okay. When I was in my, like, late teens, early 20s, mid-20s. And I think that's still the beating heart of the demo is still that age. Yeah, definitely. That's when you're, like, really paying attention.

Absolutely. Yeah, and you're soaking up everything you can. For sure. Because there was, there was, like, a point where I got serious about comedy, where I lost music. You know, like, I said. kind of like sort of the grunge you know scene sound garden and bands like that for sure i just was like i didn't know who they were because i was kind of for sure just too deep into doing comedy and then and then it's you know doing i was in doing the conan show bands would come on but i didn't have time

to be checking out new music you know were you were you a music fan before you were a comedy so you were cool before something happened i was yeah i was and and it was was hard to be i mean i'm like i'm not trying to pat myself on the back or anything but i did have like i yeah i graduated high school in 1984 yeah and so it was when things a new wave that was what they were you know i i would punk i was not a thing very much but like there was new wave music sure and you you did not play on the radio like you had to go like buy a talking heads album yeah yeah yeah really heard talking heads on the radio and there were so many bands that I did that that I'd read reviews, I'd read Rolling Stone and there were different zines and I would read

those which were hard to find in the first place and just buy an album site on, you know, like unheard I guess. Yeah. Like I remember like the pit of my teenage depression was going to a party, a high school party that of course was a complete sausage part. No girls at all. And one drunk guy sitting by the turntable just playing Van Halen, Janie's crying over and over and oh, Janie's crying,

wow, wow, 25 fucking times till I was just like, I already don't feel particularly attached to this life. But now I'm really hoping in soon. Yeah, that's not going to bring women flocking to the table. Yeah. For me, those discoveries, music, and comedy were one and the same.

And it was, Weird Al was my portal into music. Oh, wow. We're like, I bought Smells Like Nirvana. No. What was the, off the deep end was the name of the Weird Al album. And then Smells Like Nirvana, his song was what got me into Nirvana. Oh, wow. So I took the reverse comedy to music path.

Oh, that's great. But was never cool. I mean, not a cool boat in my body. So respect. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you grew up kind of, you know, in an egghead kind of atmosphere. I mean, you know.

Fair to say. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because your dad is a famous economist, Robert Reich. Yes. And your mom is a law professor, correct? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Without even glancing at your notes.

If you're not watching this, you can't tell. Didn't look down. Northeastern University. I had a sheet of paper. I don't know her name. I'm going to guess Gladys. Is it on the paper? Hold on.

Yes. Claire Dalton is your mother. It's true. I'm letting you know that. It's true. Thank you. The results are in. Claire Dalton is your mother.

And then somebody hits you with a bouquet of flowers. No, but I mean, but you, so you grew up in like a pretty smart atmosphere. Yeah. Does that make it harder to be cool? Probably. You know, yeah. Probably. You know, so yeah, like Cambridge, Massachusetts, you'd be hard pressed to find a more academic.

Right. Environment than that to grow up. Especially even of kids. The kids are all have to be academically attached. The name of my high school, Buckingham Brown and Nichols, sounds like a law. It really does. Yeah. Wow.

And like a law firm that doesn't have Jews, you know, that kind of law firm. And yet, let me tell you, we had plenty. There was plenty of me included. We, it was, and I was kind of a black sheep in that environment. Like not, it's funny. Like, I think, I think I kind of look like a, or present as a quasi-intellectual. But it's that thing of being like, by far the dumbest in like a really, really smart environment. Yeah.

It's all relative. Right, of course. And academically, I super struggled. Meanwhile, my brother, president of his class, captain of the cross-country team, a frequent star of the school plays. He left nothing to me. Oh, my goodness. Just leave a little on the plate for your brother. It was like twins with Schwarzenegger.

And, I mean, I was. really the leftover crack. Was that hard? I mean, or did you, I mean, was there resentment as you grew up? And how many years older is he? He's three years old. Three years older. Three and a half. That's my brother and I are the same spread. Yeah. He's three years older. He's three years older. He's three years older. Yeah. We both have younger sibling energy probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was hard to carve out an identity. And I think comedy and even, even I would go so far as to say, niche comedy was kind of like a response to that. It was kind of like, I'm going to, I'm going to carve out weird as my thing, because

everything mainstream has been taken up. Right, right. And so I got, I started getting into sort of like theater and particularly like weird Alan Monty Python at a young age. But you also enjoyed them too. There's like a natural proclivity to it. It's not just in reaction. For sure.

Like, I'm going to force down this Monty Python. It was, I would venture to say, I mean, I loved it, but also it felt like the one thing that I could do is stand on a stage and, and it's sort of calmly get attention. Oh. It felt like a great way to get attention. Yeah, yeah. I really liked attention. Uh-huh. Was that in regular life, too?

Like, did you like attention from, or were you shy? You know, have you heard this? They say that everybody gets into this business. There's the exhibitionists who sort of get into it because they really want to be seen. And then there's the folks who almost like to hide in a role or to hide in a persona. I think I'm more so one of those. Yeah. I talk to people here all the time who are shy. Yeah.

Who do this for a living, but they are shy. And I would put myself in that category. As time has gone on, I, you know, I'm an old grown man now. So it's like I have to, I can't just be like, I don't want to talk to people. You know, I have to, I have to. Yeah, totally. It's a part of the game. I have to be a grown up.

Yeah. But left to my own devices, you know, like when my, when my wife, when we go to a party that is like mainly my wife's friends. Yeah. It's maybe 20 minutes and I'm like, so we can go in it, right? We can go. We can go now, right? Can we go back home and they just like, you know, just talk to each other? I love, I love a game night.

because then I have something to do. Oh, yes. I haven't been to one in ages, but yeah, they were fun. Yeah. If I have to merely socialize, I feel like I'll run out of material fast. I used to go to Game Nights at Sean Hayes' house. Nice. And it was me and my ex-wife and 75 hot gay men.

Hell yeah. And I will venture to say many of them were not bright. So I think my ex-wife won, like, Every time we went over there. But it was super fun. It was really fine. It was really nicely varied into be, like, actual kind of difficult quiz stuff and then rock and sock them, sock them robots.

Oh, hell. Like different sort of like stations, you know. It was really, it was really cool, you know. That's awesome. I wish I had the energy to do that myself. Maybe, you know, someday. these social deduction games like like mafia and werewolf you know have you ever played those no but i know i mean i've seen uh i saw the episode of the drunk game or the drinking game

that did you yeah i did someone's been showing you the stuff i well i showed it to myself okay i mean granted it was sean's login but no way i'm we're not against password share no way i'm giving you my email uh next thing you know what kind of security we got Some kind of Scientology shit will be showing up in my box. No, but I, but, which it was a brilliant idea and it was and it was actually good a very nice. Like when it did become for the, I mean, it's a, it's a fun episode, but it's eight women, I think. Was it eight, I think it was eight, eight women and the idea was that they were all going to be drinking, but there was one secret sober. Yes.

So it was very traders like, you know, you know, and that you had to seek out the sober. That's right. And it had a twist. And then there's a twist. But yeah, that's fun. Yeah. I do. What I am amazed about is that your game show is different all the time.

Why would you do that to yourself? In retrospect, as someone who's thought up ideas for television, what the fuck, man? Because if you come up with a good one, you can't do it again, can you? There's a whole thing we do as entertainers, as people who create shows. Yeah. And you've created lots of them. Yeah. And you come up with something that you can repeat again and again.

That's actually the whole point. And that serves everybody. Right. It serves creative. It serves production. It serves the audience who like, you know, sort of buying into a set of expectations. And we just flew in the face of that. Yeah.

And I didn't realize it until season four. And then I started to go, oh, I'm in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I love the notion of it. And I like to watch it. But I, because I, when I was young, I had like the audition. Like I wanted to do like an anthology series, you know, like a comedy anthology, like,

Black Mirror, but funny. No, no, like the guys that did the young ones. Oh, I can't remember the name of their group, but they would, they did these short films. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were like, it was like anthology. They, you know, would do different episodes where like once they're a rock band. And then another one, it's like a crime story, you know. And I wanted to do something like that. And it was when I first got out here and I was going around pitching, like, the thing is,

is when you tune in, there will be elements that are saying, but it's really essentially a different show every week, not realizing that I'm telling this to people who are like, that's a terrible. That's exactly what we're not looking for. That's exactly what people don't want. They don't want to go like, oh, I'll tune into this next week because it'll be different. Yeah. They're tuning in next week because they liked this one and they want to see more of the same, you know?

Yeah. And it took a while for me to go like, oh, yeah, that's kind of what people watch TV for. And it's a really big ask if you're coming on as like an unknown quantity and saying like, trust me, week after week, you'll want to know what new shit I have for you. Yes, yes, merely because I am great. Yeah, yeah. That's what you're buying into. But you do, I mean, you have. a brand and you have an identity and they're all very thematically the same. So it is kind of working, but it is so much, I imagine it's so much work. I think that it's a show that could only

exist on a network that I am also running. Yes. Which, which is to say like any other network would have put a stop to this a long time ago, certainly would have put a stop to the escalation of it. Because every season, almost like we're in an arms race with ourselves, we push it a little farther and a little farther. And the fact that, look, I mean, I work with my business partners and I have a budget and I try not to overspend and blah, blah, blah. But the fact that I get to do mostly whatever I want. Yeah.

It's pretty powerful. It's unheard of. Yeah, yeah. It's unheard of. I mean, it's the nice thing about stuff like this, right, where you sort of have free rain and you're not dealing with like gatekeepers and power set people, but like the idea of my show going through a network approval. Yeah, yeah.

It's like it could never exist. It's too out there. Yeah, yeah. That was when I went back to work for Conan on the Tonight Show. Yeah. It was, that was exactly the question, you know, it's like, how I can be in development. Yes. Which I was at the time, and I had had three shows.

Yep. And, you know, what they say about when you get a chance at something three times and none of them really pan out for a long time. Sure, sure, sure. There's a human sort of kind of sports analogy, like, well, you're not in anymore, really. But he, so I was pitching, I was pitching, I was having, still feeling like, oh, come on, it's the, it's the Andy Richter's sketch show. And like, nope, nope, nope, no, no, and then I got the offer to come and do virtually whatever I wanted. Yes. Have an idea in the morning and see it on TV that night.

And I was just, how to, yes, yes. And to work with people that I knew and loved, too. It was very easy decision to come back. I think I've had this conversation with so many different comics at so many different points in their careers, but maybe most recently with Pete Holmes, so I'm sure you know very well, which is you reach. Does anyone know? Okay, I'll go ahead. You reach a point and you really only want to work with people that you love in front of an audience.

That's all that feels important anymore. and you're willing to make all sorts of particularly budget-related sacrifices in order to be able to do that. I can do it out of the audience. Honestly. No, I really, I really, I worked, you know, I worked in front of it with an audience a lot. You know, that was the bulk of my career was in front of an audience. And it's nice. Yeah.

But like I much prefer the little band of weirdos and working just for each other. You know, and I've said for years, like, the audience was, it was great to have the audience, but it's, especially like on our show, you don't know who's there because they're diehard fans and who's there because two and a half men was full. Right. You get a lot of kind of just random tourist action. Yeah. And so I, to me, the most valuable laughs were cameramen.

Yeah. If I could make the cameramen laugh. I'm like, okay, there, because they've heard every bit of my bullshit. Yeah. So if I can make them laughs, and that's kind of the same thing. I like, you know, and also like work in multi-camp sitcoms, you're inviting them into the timing of the comedy, which is not good. The cameraman, it's interesting because we have a bit of an unintentional laugh track going on and dropout shows these days, which is the crew. Yeah.

And like there was a point where we released them where we said, you can laugh, like you're welcome to. Don't stop yourself. Yeah, yeah. And it makes a weird, it's like not nearly as common as a can laugh or a studio audience laugh, but when you get it, you really feel like you're earning. Absolutely. It's interesting. Yeah, because they don't, yeah, they don't have to if they don't have to, you know. And it's amazing too when you start working on multi-camp.

Have you ever been to a multi-camp sitcom? I think so. How have I been to a taping of a sitcom? Maybe not. Only late-night shows. Because it's, it's, you know, you do multiple takes. Yeah. And they say, and there's always like a, you know, a warm-up person to over-amp the audience and literally feed them sugar.

Yeah. Like, hand out candy and stuff. And they say, we need you to laugh as hard as, you know, as hard as you can through every take. And the audience is like, okay. And they do because they want to be helpful. Like the audience is there and they want to help. So they will laugh the same. every single time.

It's really a weird sociological phenomenon, you know. But that's also a weird thing to hear as talent is like whatever happens, please laugh. And then you step out on stage and you're like, am I a charity case? When I got out here from having come from Chicago and then New York late night, like kind of just this bubble of late night and then coming out here to the sitcom world and just the, unnerving fake laughter that is just peppered throughout the entire process through a table read, through, you know, like pitching jokes, just like where I'd get people would laugh and I'd be like, what the fuck are you laughing at? Like, yeah, it's funny, but Jesus Christ, it's not that funny.

It's like, it's like magicians going, wow, you must be magic. No, it's a card trick, you know? Right. And it just, it wouldn't. And the actors, like, I would be like, oh, this, fucking fake laughter and the other actors would be like no i kind of need it to help my timing and i'd be like really really you're really that's you're that you're that you're that limited yeah yeah you're a professional to like when to say you're lying yeah you need to like no oh it just anyway that's why i'm doing podcasts yes yes we're for a studio audience of two yes one of whom one of whom is not being paid is leaving and it's leaving soon um i want to go back because just to kind of how you got your start because like I say you are from such

an academic family and uh and I love I love this typo that I got that you intended the prestigious private school Buckingham Brown and Nichols but dropped out as a result of clinical depression and in order to pursue action. It was supposed to be acting. Yes, in the name of action. I'm depressed. I need action. as I slowly put on a Indiana Jones cat.

Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, a Shakespearean tunic. That would have been more accurate. I mean, did you drop down to school because, yeah. I mean, you know, honestly, some of that's kind of a blur now. I had a very privileged version of that experience of dropping out of school. So me dropping out of school was, I had two years where I was really like, struggling.

Yeah. Now, this school, this isn't like a boarding school. It's not a boarding school. It's hoity-toity, you know, like. It's high pressure. Yeah. I think actually, you know, lower school, middle school, we're fine for me. And then come high school, they like ramp up the pressure fast.

Academic or everything. Social. Academically. I mean, socially and so far as like you're thinking about that kind of stuff for the first time, but academically insofar as they're really intense. on getting you into a good college. And the pressure, the academic pressure just, like, broke me fast. And so when it became clear that was going to happen, my parents conspired to,

ship me off to England as a part of this interim program for teens who are having trouble in school. And so I spent, like, half a year in the U.K., and that course-corrected, something in my brain where suddenly I saw how big the world was and how many options I had. And when I came home, they tried to re-enroll me in school. That didn't work out so well. Once you set the bird free and so on and so forth. But wait, so they tried to do, did you just you know, say no, I'm not going back there? No, we tried. Oh, I see. I tried an arts boarding school, which didn't go so well. Then we tried the opposite, which was like a public school in Cambridge and that didn't go so well. And then it was like, and I give them a huge amount of credit

for this, my parents. I mean, they were so creative, right, in terms of the options they explored for me. They were like, let's roll the dice on just setting Sam up in an apartment and seeing what happens for a few years. And in that time, I moved to New York and I started a sketch comedy group. Wow. And you're like 17, 18 at this point? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I think the thinking was always will, at some point, he'll probably go to college. Right. And I just never, I mean, college humor hired me when I was 21. That's already false advertising.

That's true. I had zero experience at college. Yeah. Completely unqualified. What do you know about college humor? Truly. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I just never.

It just strike me now, which I'm sure it has you already, the fact that you've got a company called Dropout. So Dropout was born from the ashes of college humor? Yeah. Yeah. But wasn't it an existing name when you purchased it? No. You just sort of took College Humor and it morphed into Dropout. So the story goes, we created Dropout from within College Humor.

It was College Humor's answer to. subscription. So college humor was a website, YouTube channel and a dropout was going to be something that we charged our fans, you know, five bucks a month for, for a more premium slate of shows. That would be,

that would be exist on its own website or exist on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. But if you were a college humor fan, dropout was like the, you know, going even further being a college humor fan. It was the primo shit. Yeah. And drop out because we were, yeah, we were sort of dropping out of college humor in a cute

way. Yeah. But yeah, in the back of my mind, I was like, I'm going to drop out. It's about me. It works out well for me. Well, so college humor, you get, you start there and that you start to learn how to write comedy. Yes. I, uh, so I had been a part of this, this, uh, this sketch group that I helped found

where we were, we were putting videos. I'm sorry. How do you do that as a 17 year old that lives in New York City on your own? Totally. You know, what the fuck happens that way? So, also, it's 2003. Yeah. So basically me and my five buds, one of whom is now my wife, goes, we meet.

And I have this crackpot idea, which is we're going to put comedy videos on the internet for people to watch. But there's no flash video. So we're filming and putting up quick time files that people are downloading from a website. This is before YouTube. Yeah, yeah. And we don't worry amateurs. We don't have analytics. We have no idea who's watching this stuff.

Of course. But walking around New York, we're starting to feel like, oh, like someone recognizes us from a video there or someone recognized us from a video there. And we put on a live show at UCB and we sell out like instantly. Wow. Wow, people are really watching this stuff, but we had no clue. Right. No clue. And College Humor, when they're looking to hire someone to run their video department, literally in the job description, quote unquote, whatever that means, they have no idea what getting into videos can I mean.

That's hilarious. There's so few people they can look to for experience at this. I mean, it was me and I think one other guy who was also in an independent sketch group at the time. And this would prove to be, to spell out the whole rest of my career. Yeah. I mean, I was 21. We had just put out a video, which was basically a office, a corporate dance number to Earthwind and Fires September. Illegal for us to use that song.

Of course. Of course. Wild West. Don't come after me now, Earthwind and Fire. Here they are. This was a sting operation. and they're coming in in full stage garb. I would be merely excited.

I know. Take me, boys. And college humor was like, can you do four days a week? And I was like, sign me up. And at the beginning, I was putting out, I was working with the in-house writing team, some of whom were also writing ads for the website. Sarah Schneider was writing. ads for the website. She was contributing editorially, and she would go

on to be the head writer of S&L. Streeter Seidel was writing articles for the website at the time. He is now the head writer of S&L. I mean, the pedigree of this early, these early college humor days, extraordinary. Yeah, yeah. Jake and Amir were there now run a competitive

podcast. We won't mention them. Run headgum. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was such early days wild west of the internet. We were just like trying anything that we could dream up to get views on the website. That was the point. The point was to go as viral as the lonely island. That was the goal.

That was the idea. Yeah. It was like, what's our dick in a box? Yeah. That was it. Can't you tell my loves it grows? And then I did that for like over a decade. Wow.

Like the college humor days were, that was a long sprint. Yeah, I guess. In corporate America. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and you have money people that you have to satisfy during this time. Do you not? We did. There was, there's a corporate entity called IAC or Interactive Corps who bought,

officially bought College Humor two weeks after I was hired. And they were our shepherds through. much of my tenure. And say what you will about corporate America. And I'm sure you will. Not me. I need work. Brought to you by.

They were like incredibly patient with us. Incredibly patient. Because we mostly treaded water for 10 years. Like we didn't make anyone a lot of money. And that's ad revenue, right? Ad revenue and subscription. This is the thing. It wasn't subscription.

It was ad revenue. And as, it was really predominantly ad revenue. And as we were going and going and going with college humor, social media was being invented. And social media was taking a bigger and bigger bite out of ad revenue. So we would grow a little bit and then shrink a little bit and then Facebook would come along and we'd have a terrible year. And then we'd claw back a little bit and then YouTube. would suddenly be where all of our video views were coming from. It was impossible to keep our head above water.

And you've got people making viral videos just on their own, you know, I mean, such a proliferation of brilliant comedy minds, you know. When you're playing the viral video game, you'll spend $25,000 trying to achieve something that a dog achieves every day. It is so infuriating. Yeah, yeah. But that was the game. And then Dropout was invented.

And the sort of idea with Dropout was like, look, this Avod thing is, it's a losing game. What's Avod? Totally. So sorry. That's all right. Sometimes these words come out of my mouth. Yeah, yeah. And it's like I grow a tie out of every orifice advertising video on demand.

Okay. So that's Avod. Svod would be subscription video on demand. I see. So really just advertising versus subscription. I've already forgotten that. Good. Yeah, yeah.

Good. And so let's try our hand in subscription. Dropout would be that answer. And Dropout had a fine year one, but we spent so much money. And I see our parent company got very sort of bored and very done with us, very fast. And then at the end of 2019 tried very, very. aggressively to sell us at a time when we had just lost a lot of money launching dropout. And that's when I was able to come in and take over the company.

And take over the company. Because there were, there was no one else who was looking at the, I mean, 18 people who looked at the business and went absolutely not. Nope. Wow. And now when you do that, are you, I mean, I imagine. are you look at you have to get outside investors you have to go do you go around me yeah yeah yeah that's a go around and ask for money see you know something about how money i do well i know how money works yeah yeah because i you know i i know that i know that the usually the person

that's the face of something did not like have the money yeah they didn't put their mortgage yes right you know what i mean and i mean i've and i've had enough friends who were like you know like I'm doing a new, I mean, all the way back to like, yeah, a new, like, streaming game game thing. And it's like, and it would be like an act, a famous actor friend of mine. And I just, and they're like, yeah, I didn't put a dime into it. There's usually some Texan. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. We, here's the thing. So, so for lack of a better option. So it actually came down to me and a company that rhymes with Shmaiakam. Okay. And Shmaiacom was offering, like, I think, $3 million. This was a business that at one point, presumably was worth like $7,500 million.

Oh, wow. Drop out itself or all of college humor, I see. College humor. But, like, you know, it had had its heyday and it had dwindled to these were the smithereens of it. And my offer to IAC was nothing. but they could hang on to a minority percentage of it. So they could go with a competitor for them chump change. Right.

Or they could go with me and take a gamble that I would eventually take their, I would make their teeny tiny percentage of it. They're smaller percentages worth more eventually than Shmai Kemp's offer, and they went with me. So it's just you. It's me, and now I have other business partners who have come in, not with investment. Right. These are just people who've put in their work.

I see. And IAC holding on to their minority percentage. So when we took over the company, there was zero cash from anyone that came out. How do you pay yourself? How do you pay anyone? We went, this was, this was, when we signed our paperwork with IAC, we, we, we, to couch this and this is a fun part of the story.

That was a Tuesday. Uh-huh. On Wednesday, the basketball team stopped playing. And on Thursday, we entered into COVID lockdown in March of 2020. Happy days are here again.

Do you, do you remember the Wednesday, the basketball team stopped playing? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't remember that. I remember, I was supposed to do a game show.

Sure. And I would call my manager, I was like, I kind of feel like, because then I was hearing like, go get toilet paper. Totally. Toil paper was, oh, we were concerned about that first week. Yeah, I went to CBS and there was like one bail left. Yes. And I was like, oh, good.

My wife rushed to Gelson's and ran into Laura Linney in the toilet paper rival. And she was like, if Laura Linney's manic shopping, I am also brandic shopping. I am also panicking. But no, and I remember asking about this game show. Like, am I going to this game show? And he's like, hold on, let me see. Because I was like, I don't, it sounds like you might die if you go be around people right now. There was that very casual we might die.

Yeah, yeah. Around that. Yeah, I remember it well. So what do you do? Well, we, there was no company. Yeah. And when I say no company, we went from a hundred and five, IAC had laid everyone off in January.

So at that point, we went from 105 employees to seven employees. It was literally the people who could keep the lights on. I see. So the moment they passed the company to us, it was earning revenue in the form of YouTube, you know, ad, like YouTube inventory. Sure. There were no ad deals, but there was a little bit of money trickling in. And that's where we began. But we also had dropout.

and drop out had 75,000 subscribers at that point. And that's income. And that's real income. I mean, that's not nothing. 75,000 people paying five bucks a month. I mean, who could possibly do that math? Not me. Yeah.

But it's income. It's more than 10 grand. That's safe. Yeah. That's pretty safe to say. And 10 grand is you can do a lot with 10 grand. Totally. Yeah.

So my theory was that we had three shows in the platform that anyone actually cared about. And if we did just those three shows, we could tread water. Existing shows? Existing shows. Yeah. And that turned out to be true. We didn't lose anyone going from like 15 shows to three shows overnight. Right.

So that was our starting place. And then from there, we clawed our way forward during COVID with remote shows. shot content that very few people. I mean, people watched it for lack of anything else to watch. But simultaneously, we started promoting the content that we had shot in studio on TikTok. And that's when we started to grow. Right. I mean, the story of our growth is is a story of TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts. It's like, that is how people are finding out about us, even today. Absolutely. I mean that's how I first knew about you guys was sure yeah clips yeah and uh big michaelis too like just having known them and and following them on different things and and I mean they're incredible and funny and hilarious one of the fastest improvisers I've ever met my life did you take over this business yeah are you scared or are you just like yeah what the fuck let's give it a shot you know I'm I'm scared I put I put I

did put some of my own money into it. I didn't have a lot of money. I had stock options at IAC, which I cashed out. I would have if I had been laid off too, had these stock options. I cashed them out. It was like a few hundred thousand dollars, and I put them into the company to try to. And that was a big gamble. That's not a small amount of money for me at the time. And we, so scared, but also, what else was I going to? to do. Yeah. I mean, maybe go and try to become like a development person at a streamer. Sure. Maybe try to be a writer. Yeah. Like I didn't think I had a lot of great options. Yeah. And it was kind of just a chance to keep doing what you're doing, but with even less interference.

Yes, for sure. The, the promise of what Dropout could be was a really tantalizing or prospect. Yeah. Because the prospect was, we really get to be inmates running the asylum. It just wasn't clear that the dollars would ever get there. Or maybe we'd be a three show network forever and ever. Yeah, yeah. And then we've just been growing steadily for five years. How do you find your talent?

How do you find, because there's such a wide array of people, you know, like, And, you know, many of them, you know, I don't know, I'm, but I'm old. I don't get out much, you know, so there is like, especially, and you're in L.A. now, right? Yes, yeah. There was a New York to L.A. move, was there not? There was, in 2013, so well before any of this went down. Oh, okay. So you were, you've always been in L.A. Because I always thought college humor is a New York thing. I think its heyday was New York for sure. Yeah. And then.

So is it just kind of UCB kind of milieu and, you know, alternative comics? A piece of it, I would say, the three kind of strands that we pull on, one of them is UCB. One of them is social. So it's like we work with people who know other very funny people and are like, you know who you should get in the mix is this person. And then the third is people from the internet. So it's people who we are discovering vis-a-vis. their social presence. Yeah.

And I think it's interesting that this year, I think four out of the five, if not all five of SNL's newest cast members, had meaningful social presences before they ended up on SNL. Yeah, yeah. Like, it really is starting to take over. It matters for everything. It matters. Like, if you want to write a book, you've got to have followers, which is bananas to me,

Because there's nothing, nothing says Hollywood pizzazz more than a book writer, you know. 100%. I'm going to go viral with my thoughts. My father's most recent book that he published was his best-selling book of his career. Yeah. It is not the most, the biggest. It's like a little, it's a little memoir. Yeah.

You know, but his online audience is so much. larger than it's ever been before. Yeah, yeah. It's wild. Yeah. It almost has replaced marketing. It almost just is marketing. Oh, I mean, I, you know, my ex-wife wrote a book and just the, and then, you know, first had a deal for another one. And just in that intervening time, the loss of publicity, people, marketing people. Now it's just kind of on your own, you know, with books, at least with books. But it's kind of the same. It's sort of the same with, television and i mean i just did i just did dancing with the stars and i only bring it up because i was not on tic talk yeah and then i mean i was but i had an anonymous account

yes it was just to watch my kids yes you know yeah and when i started there i you know i i made it a public account and emma my partner amma slater linked me to it and i went from like 12. In the end of August, I had like 12 followers, which I don't even know why. I don't know who they were or they probably box. To now I have over 125,000. It's unbelievable. And I am, I can be a crabby old man and say, you know, now I'm posting. I don't want to post. Or I can go, no, this is the world now. And it is incumbent upon me to maintain content. For those 125,000 people that have, you know, made the investment of following me. Yes.

And it can only help me if I continue to do that. So it is, you know, my intention to continue doing that. And it's something that I've been feeling for ages. Like, if I posted more, it would be good for me. I do. There's plenty of justifiable complaints about social media. I would say that those complaints are mostly on the consent. assumption side of the aisle, just to say being, and as someone who consumes a lot of social

video, there's a lot of ick out there. There's also a lot of really fun stuff. Yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of ick. But putting video out right now is almost the closest thing we have as a society to manifestation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like true manifestation. Yeah. Just to say, you put yourself out there regularly with who you are and what you want, and you'd be amazed at what it can do for you. It's built. Dropout's a big business now. Yeah. And it's really responsible.

Yeah. It's wild. I'd say it's, yeah, it is amazing. And I mean, and it is, it's like, it's still, though, it still does feel like people don't really know how it's all going to work, like how TV is going to know, you know, like, for sure. Because do you get approached by? people to say like, hey, why don't you make drop out a channel? Sure. You know? And is that something

that's in a long-term plan? And what does that even mean? I mean, there's fast channels now, which are these like channels that people are putting together like 24-hour streams based on whatever content they have. I mean, the lines are getting really blurry. It doesn't appear that this is working for the big ones. I mean, Netflix is the only profitable one. Yeah. When I say the only profitable one, I do mean that. Like, Apple and Amazon are profitable, but not because they make content.

They're profitable because they make other things in addition to content. I see. Like Apple is a very profitable company. Yeah. That almost behaves as a wealthy patron of the arts. I see. And Amazon kind of does, too. Yeah.

See, I don't know any. I'm a terrible showbiz professional. I don't know. No, right. Most people don't know this. HBO's not making. Like Hulu, is Hulu just like some sort of lost leader for the Disney Corporation? Yeah.

Pretty much. You know, Disney's streaming efforts are not profitable. HBO's streaming efforts are not profitable. So, and because there's been all this roll up to go after Netflix, forgive me if this is too much shop talk. but it means that there's less people producing TV than ever before. Yeah. Oh, I know it. And they're all losing money.

Yeah. So what incentive do they have to make more? I mean, it's a bad situation. Yeah. Arguably, we need more scrappy shops. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I do.

I mean, it's changed so much that I just don't. I have a hard time keeping up because I came from a time when you did comedy. And then you got on television and then you got on television, you know, and that was pretty much what you did. Something, something, something. Yeah. And you get on television and someone gives you money to do something. And now it's like, you know, like the cold, I've said this before on here, like to me, it's from years ago hearing like, well, I do a show on YouTube and you think, oh, honey. Oh, isn't that cute?

And then these fuckers can buy and sell me now. You know, there are these people on YouTube that are like where the notion of doing it anywhere else just is stupid. Like, why would I, why would I do anything other than what I'm doing when I am wildly successful with this direct access to the consumer? You know, it's really interesting. There's, there's, it is a lottery, right? And some people, a very select few people are winning really big on the internet.

is these enormous influencers with enormous followings. But what should scare Hollywood is that there is a rapidly growing middle class of influencer who advertisers are really interested in. Yeah, yeah. And the more this middle class grows, the less it incentivizes anyone from participating in this industry. Right. Which is, as we know, brutally difficult. Yes. We won the lottery to participate in it at all.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, there's now kids in Wisconsin making a perfectly reasonable living from posting to Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. Why would they ever move to L.A.? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

What do you see as the future for dropout and for you, you know? Yeah. Sure. You tell me. Be my guidance counselor. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you know, you're the business. You own shit. I don't. You should have some idea of what's going forward. That's funny. I have these meetings now because because of dancing with the stars now. It's like people. You did so good. Oh, thank you very much. It did so good. It was really fun. And I mean, the amazing thing is, too, I have for a few years now been like, I, I just, something's got to happen where people go like, oh, yeah, that guy. Yeah. I remember him. Yeah. Let's give him a job. Yeah.

Because I have not been working enough. Sure. Sure. Just not enough. And I have this, have had this like, just put me in, coach. Yeah. Kind of feeling. Yeah.

And to have dancing with the stars be the thing that does that is not what I would have expected. But I'm having these meetings and people are like, so now what are you going to do? And I'm like, I don't have any. plans? Yeah. Man, I tell him, like, I tried after the TBS show ended. Like, I was pitching my ass off. And it was humiliating. Totally. Because it was just, nope, no, no, no. For sure. You know, like, well, we'll give you $12 to sit on this project for six months. And it just, and I just was like, no, you come to me with something. You put me in something. I mean, that's how every, everything successful that I've had so far. Yes. I've had this feeling throughout my

whole career like I should have be more of an author like this authorship is like something that plagued me and now I'm like no it's not how it's worked for me I've gotten into things and done a good job in the things that I was in and made my own way in the things that I was in like dancing with the stars totally I didn't remake that show but I certainly what did it my way and no but you know I know I mean I did because I definitely in that show there were things that they would say like say this and I'd be like no fucking way am I going to say that you know yeah that's interesting I mean dancing the stars is really interesting because it is a network television show and so it reaches like the broadest possible absolutely you know audience on

the one side of the aisle it's also a show that's huge on the internet at the same time yes so you're really galvanizing yeah everybody yeah and the thing the thing that's amazing to me and I mean I didn't think of this. Joe Adelian mentioned in an article. There's young people that this is their first communal TV viewing experience. This is their first. We all watch this thing together and then talk about it. And now they can talk about it while it's going on. For sure. Whereas, you know, I grew up. You'd watch Roots and then come to school and everyone would talk about it. Or you'd watch the final episode of MASH and so would a gazillion other people. And we were all doing it together. And you really did feel I'm one of many people doing this right now. And this

show for a lot of people first time. I think people are craving that experience. And premium TV often is divorced from that because of the binge model, right? People like drop out for that same reason where, I mean, you'll appreciate this as someone who's background as an improv. People like sort of treating it as comedy, but they also like treating it as sport. It's like that mood. It's like that move you know that was such a good move right or like that player you know damn like that they pulled that out like i never would have seen that coming i i think i think we want to broaden out a bit like we do a lot of in studio a lot of um game and panel type shows today they're affordable they're very authentic feeling i think we want to try our hand back in scripted we want to do animation

desperately. We're starting to dip our toe back in there because we want a broad audience for dropout. Sure, sure. We really do want. But those things are expensive. Those things are expensive. Yeah, scripted and animation. They cost money as opposed to turn on the camera and have funny people run around. We're doing it right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we're going to have to take those bets kind of like slowly and experimentally and make sure that we're getting good signals for that. 2026 is going to be like, we're going to try some airable pilots, some three to five episode seasons of things. We're going to behave very experimentally just to see what's resonating with people. And then, you know, it's funny.

I mean, you talking about your career as an actor in the same terms, I'm not one of these people who's like, I have a 10-year vision for this thing. I'm really flying by the scene of my pants. And experimenting and going with the warmth. Yeah. And letting the audience decide where the platform should go. Right. And so far, that's working out really well. Yeah.

I also think it's very, I very rarely met someone that had a long-term plan where it worked out. You know, often the long-term plan has to get ditched. Yeah. So you might as well play it by ear because that's how life works. Totally. You know, yeah. All you can do is experiment and then do more of what. it's working and less of what doesn't.

Yeah. That's really it. Is that the main lesson you think you've learned from this experience, from going from, you know, yeah, not sure what you're going to do with yourself, moving to New York City, video editing, now an owner and programmer? 100%. I often, I mean, they say that like if, and you might relate to this too, that if you're going to try to make a go at this business, you need to be really committed and really stubborn about

it. Yeah. Because it's so difficult and it takes so long. And that's been true in my experience at the same time as flexibility in terms of what exactly I'm doing has been hugely valuable where I wanted to be like a dramatic actor. And then an acting teacher told me you should market yourself based on the first impression you give when you walk into a room. For instance, Sam is short. So he should do comedy. I was like, oh, maybe I should. to comedy, and from there to becoming a director, producer, internet executive, and from there to taking over a company. And now I'm performing as a game show host in the wildest route back to performing you could have ever imagined. And yeah, we'll just, you know, keep following

the warmth wherever it takes me. Yeah. Well, Sam, thank you so much for coming in. Oh, what great. This has been... This has been... a lovely time everybody you got to go uh you own dropout you host make some noise and game changer it's true it's nice that you host two shows on your channels i should really hold auditions you can follow both of them on instagram and it's definitely with your time if you don't watch dropout uh programming there's a lot of really funny stuff on there there's a lot of shit too No, no, no, listen. Listen. We're experimenters. Yeah. Every hot dog has a little bit of snout in it. What do you want?

No, I'm kidding. No, it's really funny. And it is, what I really like about it is that it does have a risky, homemade kind of feel to it. And it is akin to where you watch, like watching an improv show. Yes. Which is that you get to. see stuff getting made as, you know, this isn't something that's been tested. This isn't something that's gone through 15 rewrites. You're watching funny people be funny in the moment. And that's a very, that's a very exciting thing. It's true. And, you know, it's us or AI slop. So what do you prefer? Well, I mean, can you give Donald Trump breast?

Maybe. Give it a try. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Sam, and thank all of you for listening. I'll be back next week with more of this shit. Can't wait. I'll be listening. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Leow, Adam Sacks, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Graal. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

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