The Most Innovative Companies list is out!
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I'm Yasmin Gagne. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. On today's episode, Fast Company Executive Editor Amy Farley. There's a real power in human connectivity, and I think we're feeling it even more so with the emergence of AI. Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beard talks with Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresfant and CMO Taylor Montgomery. We have the best fans in the world that love the brand more than Sean and I ever will.

We love the brand a lot. And as always, keeping tabs. The unions want to draw a hard line in using those AI models in terms of basically on the grounds of name, image, and likeness. But first, here's the download. The news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. Unilever has announced plans to spin off its ice cream unit, which in terms of units is my favorite.

This unit includes iconic brands like Ben & Jerry's and Magnum. The restructuring is projected to save approximately $868 million over the next three years. In unrelated kind of news, though, the company also announced it's laying off 7,500 people globally. Brutal. Brutal. Tough break for the mustard crew. Yeah. Or whatever else Unilever makes. What don't they make, honestly? Yeah.

So Spotify paid out $9 billion in streaming royalties last year, according to its loud and clear report about the economics of music streaming. The company's been on a charm offensive over the past few months, hitting back at criticism that it doesn't pay artists fairly for their work. That criticism is fair. Also, this is not nearly as important as paying artists fairly, which you should absolutely do.

Loud and Clear Report? We'd take one or two more cracks at that name.

Do we get any royalties from our podcast? No. Well, look, the company sees them, but not us. We don't do programmatic ads with Spotify, so they're not paying us. We pay for them because we host on Megaphone. But loud and clear, I'm tired of sound puns in the audio industry. It's true. Next story. Roblox, who previously offered a fund for game makers and designers, is now expanding that fund.

in good financial news. It's expanding to $35 million and will encompass developer studios and users who want to build things beyond games on the server. And one of the first partners is a short-form video service nudging into the social media landscape called TalkTik. It's not called that. But

It is probably a good time to create your short form video platform in lieu of the potential TikTok ban. Speaking of short form videos. Great transition, Yaz. You know it. YouTube is adding a feature for creators to label videos that contain AI generated or synthetic content. The labeling tool is basically just a checkbox that appears in the uploading and posting process. They're asking creators to disclose altered or synthetic content that seems realistic.

Not included in that criteria is basically beauty filters and special effects like background blurs. Also, the enforcement of the tool relies on the honor system. So how much of a difference is it going to make? So basically just nerds and teachers' pets will be adding that in. Yeah.

Yeah, huge losers. Huge losers marking their videos. And hopefully news organizations. When our podcast moves to video, we're never checking that box. I will probably check that box because I am a nerd at the teacher's pad. You're...

And finally, Microsoft has hired DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleiman to head a new consumer AI organization. Suleiman will be CEO of the unit called Microsoft AI. Super clever. This move consolidates Microsoft's consumer AI efforts, bringing together Copilot, Chatbot, and the new Bing browser that uses AI.

Listen, I'm really happy they just went with Microsoft AI because historically their naming has been Bing. No, their naming is not great. Honestly, underrated. Are you fucking kidding me? Just a utilitarian name. Yeah, Bing always makes me giggle. Who uses that? My father uses that. Yeah. And that's the news you need to know today.

Josh, have you ever had an idea for a company? I have had ideas for a company. I'm not going to reveal them here because someone will steal it. No, I think I've had some terrible ideas for the company in the past. I do always think about, you know, what kind of

Podcast company I would start which I think we have enough of those. Yeah, that's pretty well That's also like a pretty that one makes sense, you know, yeah, I mean I do this for a living This isn't a company that I've started but I've talked to or one of our colleagues on on Inc magazine over there Diana at ransom who hosts one of our podcasts

told a story about how her and her husband almost started a bone broth company and like got all the equipment made a bunch of bone broth and then decided no no no we just want to we just want this we just like bone broth we don't need to make a company bone broth is really good in fairness yeah I love bone broth big fan of pho that's awesome

Have you ever thought about a company idea? Not really because I'm not smart enough, but I will say my friend Josh, the other Josh in my life, did come up with two quite compelling ones, and they're both food related. Nice. The first is making falafels in a waffle maker, the falafel. Oh.

That's a great idea. I would have a falafel yeah, well waffle falafel falafel falafel And then you put you know you drizzle tahini on it. Oh, you could use that as to make a sandwich wrap Yeah, yeah, yeah, so great waffle. I know a layer in a burger honestly great idea very good idea his other idea that I do find compels you can just use a waffle iron for that you don't need a specific literally

We still go out and buy like random shit that we could make at home, right? Yeah, that's true. That's nice. Yeah, dupes is a thing. Yeah, dupes is a thing. And then the other one that my husband thinks is gross, but I think is actually a decent idea is hot ice cream. Deep fried ice cream's a thing. No, but like what if you ate it with a spoon and it was warm? So you... It would be hot cream. Yeah, I was just like, that's just, that's disgusting.

I feel like it could be good. I mean, you're basically talking about like, what if we made like sweet bisques and sold them? That's essentially what we're talking about. When you put it that way, it sounds really horrible. It does. Yeah, it does sound horrible. And this is why most businesses fail.

But not the companies we're talking about today because our most innovative companies list is out. It's true. And here to talk about it is Amy Farley, who oversaw the whole issue. She's going to tell us about some of the trends we're seeing this year. Welcome to the show, Amy. Welcome back to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Yaz and Josh. How are you celebrating this release? I'm

celebrating by going to South by Southwest right before the launch of MIC. So working weekend. Yeah. Working weekend. We're recording this a little earlier before the list comes out because of South by and because of the crazy deadline that is this immense monumental package. So and we'll get all into it. So I want to talk about some of the trends you've been seeing this year. And to start off, we have a package about kind of live mass experiences.

Live mass experiences that lead to human connection, not like live mass experiences like, you know, Roblox. Tell me about that. Well, I mean, this should come to surprise only to the three people that were living under a rock last year. But, you know, it was the year of Taylor Swift and Beyonce's mega concerts.

And obviously those were big cultural touchstones and amazing experiences if you were lucky enough to see them in person. But then you got to re-experience them or experience them for the first time in movie theaters, which brought out droves of people dressed to the nines to, you know, celebrate and experience it together. I loved it.

brought my 11-year-old daughter to see the Taylor Swift movie. And I was a skeptic and came away with like a wristful of friendship bracelets and a Converts. So they were really powerful. Did she make friendship bracelets? You want to know the truth? Yeah. That was me. It was me the afternoon of. So awesome. She's such a little CEO in the making. She's sitting at the table, barely doing them. And I was like working away. But anyway, there was that

But then beyond that, we also saw the emergence of Sphere in Las Vegas, the enormous tech savvy, you know, tech forward concert and then some venue, which really brings people together. And it's fantastic.

infused with technology, but it really is about people sitting cheek by jowl and having this like immersive experience together. And when we looked at these trends, we saw this sort of larger idea, which is that human beings really wanted to get together in person and experience a cultural phenomenon together. And I think that sort of mass experience is something, obviously we see that in the sporting world and, you know, the Super Bowl was, you know, more evidence of this.

there's a real power in human connectivity. And I think we're feeling it even more so with the emergence of AI. This isn't just about sort of the COVID feeling of isolation, but I think this is something where we are seeking to sort of feel just rejuvenated by being human beings and also thinking

and liking the same thing together. Like we are in such a divisive time. Like it's very cool to be surrounded by a whole bunch of people that all think Beyonce is just the most amazing human being. So, and that's cool. I mean, the Beyonce movie was amazing. We also have to talk about the fact that those two concerts, Taylor Swift and Beyonce, I mean, generated

you know, I think like more than the average country has. They were, have been like wildly successful. Didn't like the Eres tour when it went to Denmark, like literally affect the GDP of Denmark? Is that hypocritical or is that real? Well, not to, not to get too far ahead of myself, but not quite as much as one Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical. Oh, well, yeah. That's

Yeah, but no, we'll get there. But yeah, that's one of the things we wrote about for both Taylor and Beyonce. For Beyonce, we actually specifically put Beyonce and most innovative companies as sort of the top fashion company of the year because Beyonce at every concert was wearing these custom designer outfits that were just extraordinary.

They lit up on social media. On the big screen in the movie theater, I mean, people literally were gasping when she showed up in certain outfits. And they edited it together to sort of highlight all of these different outfit changes. And we actually tracked the financial impact on the designers. I mean, they saw sellout rates increasing. They got tons of media value from just the social media shares of these outfits online.

So Beyonce was arguably the most powerful force in the fashion industry last year for her, you know, for turning her concert into a runway. And then you have Taylor Swift, who crafted this like groundbreaking deal to cut out the middleman to distribute her movie directly to AMC theaters. And that brought in not as much as the tour itself, but so much money, $250 million by the end of the year in global receipts. And without the middleman taking a big cut of that, like a lot of that's going to Taylor.

Beyonce and Taylor, they weren't just about the concerts and the music, but they were, you know, spinning the tops for a lot of different industries with these tours. And it's worth saying, you know, the Sphere itself cost $2.3 billion to make. Companies are still investing, investing in all this stuff. I do, I will say with the Sphere, I have to mention, I think, the funniest joke about it, which is the conspiracy theory that U2 is just trapped there because they performed from there at the Grammys.

Oh, my God. The sphere's really interesting. I mean, they had to reach out to so many different tech companies to get them to build tech that's custom for the sphere because something like this had never been done before. So that was really fascinating to watch. I think the big question is...

what other city on this planet wants a sphere? I mean, it is so thrilling, so exciting. It's a huge draw for tourists, but also like, my God, like, you know, trying to fall asleep at night with that glowing in the background, you know, is not something that anything but a Vegas tourist would really put up with. So I think what's going to be really interesting for a sphere is seeing where it goes next, if anywhere, because it's already been shut out of London. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, London doesn't seem right. I feel like Dubai,

Dubai, yeah. It does Macau. Dubai vibes. Yeah. Casino centers feel like the right place for it. I just want to see one pop up in like the most random place, like Omaha, Nebraska and see what... Warren Buffett, secret investor. He's super into...

I don't know, maybe Niagara. Niagara, they'll put it up by Niagara Falls. Now, the second biggest trend we saw was basically really futuristic technology that is sort of here all of a sudden. Tell me about that. I've been at Fast Company now for...

several years, eight years. And there've been a lot of technologies that we've been writing about since I got to Fast Company and sort of like waiting eagerly for it to show up. And I'm not even talking about generative AI here. And one of the most prominent ones is CRISPR. You know, this idea that you could edit genes and create therapeutics from it is, you know, transformative, but it has also sort of felt just out of reach.

And in December, Vertex Pharmaceuticals got FDA approval for a CRISPR-based treatment for sickle cell disease, which is amazing. Because to that point, the only treatment was stem cell implant. It was only available to a small swath of people who had sickle cell disease. Everybody else just had to look for solutions to mitigate the effects of sickle cell, but couldn't find a cure. And here you have this ability to edit genes and go in

and basically like, you know, get blood oxygen levels back to a normal place. So it effectively cures people. It's really extraordinary. I want to say the first time like I kind of like really knew about CRISPR was probably in like 2017 when like Radiolab had an episode on it. And specifically they talked about, we think that this can be a breakthrough treatment for sickle cell immediately. And that was seven years ago now. And then it's finally come through is wild. Yeah, CRISPR has been kind of like

on the cusp of everything. But also just quick side note, every time someone says editing genes, I picture people bedazzling actual blue jeans, which was a trend for all of us millennials out there. Oh, yeah. The little like designs on the jeans. I actually was laughing at the fact that you were explaining sickle cell anemia and the current treatment for it. Me and Josh were going, yeah, yeah. Like we know anything about this topic.

I listened to that Radiolab episode. I know what you're talking about. There's also a large drone delivery company called Zipline that we put on the list, right? Yeah, well, Zipline's interesting, and we've written about them over the years. They really earned their reputation by delivering medical supplies across rural areas of Africa.

And, you know, what they figured out there is extraordinary, but also they were working across areas of Africa that are very not densely populated, right? Now, Zipline is here in the U.S. and it just received or last year it received FAA approval to

to deliver packages commercially. And this is the key detail beyond the visual line of sight, which basically means that up until this point, humans had to be on the ground watching a drone fly and they always had to be able to see it. Not me, 'cause I have terrible eyesight, but presumably.

Somebody with better eyesight. Now these drones can fly beyond human sight and they can deliver packages in suburban, even urban-ish areas. They have a new model for their drone that actually sort of flies and hovers above an area and drops like a little mini droid down on a wire to deliver the package down to the ground and then zips it back up and flies away.

They are working with companies like Walmart, Sweetgreen. So you can expect to see... Of course they're working with Sweetgreen. I'll believe it when I see it, guys. Like 20 minutes, you are going to get a shroomani salad delivered to your apartment. Yes.

From me via Sweetgreen or via Zipline. No, they're coming. I mean, I think not to New York, unfortunately, but in Texas, I think you will start seeing these things and humans are going to have to get comfortable with the idea of these drones flying around and dropping packages. There's a couple more sort of futuristic tech ones in the

same vein in that they're not medical, but kinetics is one that we put on the list. And so is climb work. Tell me about both of those. There's this sort of idea of these like sci-fi-ish things that are happening that just, when you stop and think about it, just feel outlandish. In the same way, it's like, oh, we're editing a gene and inserting it in a human body to address a horrible illness. Kinetics is basically a company that help

Spacecrafts navigate very, very far away from Earth. And they helped NASA travel 4.4 billion miles out to find an asteroid in the deep space

to land on it, collect samples, and then bring them back down to Earth. I mean, that is just something that feels like you're going to see on a sci-fi show not happening here and now. That sounds like something, you know, a writer who knows nothing about science would make up. Like, if you asked me, who is writing a sci-fi show? That's kind of a realistic thing, though. Like, people, like, there's sort of a feedback loop between sci-fi and, like, tech startups now. I mean, we just talked a couple weeks ago about...

on our news segment about Figure and their deal with OpenAI and ChatGPT about these silver-plated robots that are like...

straight out of iRobot that we talked about. 2003 Will Smith vehicle iRobot that we referenced. But there's so many things. I mean, like, CRISPR is just kind of, like, a little bit inspired by Gattaca. Not because it's a chance, a different thing, but it's like, it's a little bit, like, these things are sort of self-fulfilling prophecies in a way. And, like, all of the people who created this technology, especially in the early days, talk about this in Computer Freaks, which I produce. Go listen to Computer Freaks, another shameless vlog. But all of these

guys were like sci-fi nerds who were like, I want to make stuff that I see in sci-fi. And then they made stuff or talked about stuff. It ended up in sci-fi. It gets made. It's all a feedback loop. Right. Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's talk about Climeworks. That's a terrestrial invention. I'm trying to think about like what sci-fi novel like predicted this, which is like direct air capture technology. It was like sucking carbon dioxide out

out of the atmosphere and burying it underground. Climeworks is a company that has the largest direct air capture plant. So Climeworks makes machines that can pull carbon dioxide out of the air and bury it underground. Obviously, that is a crazy concept, and it's one that we really do need to commercialize in order to

prevent the effects of climate change. I mean, there's a lot of different solutions that we have to pursue, but one of them is trying to get the carbon dioxide that's already out there out of the atmosphere. There's no consequences to doing that? No, I mean, this isn't like... My only point of comparison, I'll be honest, is there was an influencer who was selling her farts in a jar and she eventually got ill from doing that.

I feel like this is a very, very different thing. That was because of the diet she was eating to collecting direct carbon capture. I didn't even know that. It's a different thing. Like it didn't like Bill Gates and Microsoft pledge like X billion dollars to like carbon technology companies and stuff like that.

I'm very excited about this. I used to cover a lot of this at WNYC when I was at the takeaway there about like talking about like, when's climate capture coming? Is this a thing? How is it feasible? And like, so this is very exciting. I mean, yes, I think there's like...

maybe less exciting, but you know, still consequential, like maybe negative impacts of this. And that would be, and I think that, you know, it's still very expensive to do and Climework still hasn't brought down the price so that it is like a huge scalable solution.

And so I think some of the critique is, is there too much money going into direct air capture? Will it be able to scale fast enough so that the price actually makes sense? Right now, Climeworks does have customers that are buying its sequestered carbon, basically, but it's still costly. So I guess the question is, should we be pursuing this technology over another? And I think the answer is we should be pursuing all of them because we are in dire straits. That makes a lot of sense. Now, the top three on the list are

were fairly predictable, I would say. It's NVIDIA, Nova Nordisk, and Microsoft. I want to hear the reasoning for why they ended up in the top three. NVIDIA is our number one company, and that's not all that surprising considering the company's growth over the past year. Harry McCracken, who's our global tech editor who covered NVIDIA for us,

really looked at not just its chip prowess, because its chips are really powering the generative AI revolution that's happening right now. Even competitors of NVIDIA that want to make their own chips or are pursuing their own chips are still using NVIDIA's chips. Like startups, universities, massive companies, they're all using NVIDIA's chips.

I think what's less talked about is that NVIDIA has also been working really closely with partners in different industries to create AI applications and AI platforms on top of its chips. So it's not just like creating the hardware that's powering the AI revolution, but it's also creating a lot of the platforms and applications for it, for industries as varied as automaking and retail.

So I think that's what puts Nvidia in a really powerful position right now in AI. That and the fact that like its revenue surged 126% last year and now it is right now the third most valuable company on the planet right behind Microsoft and Apple. So that's just kind of undeniable. So that's Nvidia.

Novo Nordisk, that's the good old Ozempic and Wagovi maker, which I know you guys have talked about and you're familiar with. I do have a story with this, and this is a little bit, and maybe this is too much to share. No, no, no. I'm sorry to take away from you. No. So I had my annual doctor's physical the other day.

Spoiler alert, my cholesterol and my triglycerides are a little high and I'm a little heavier than I want to do. I found out that I technically am obese in my analysis and my doctor had a talk with me about do I want to try Wagovi or Ozepic. Are you going to do it? Wow.

I'm not going to do it. Okay, so my BMI... You've seen me. I don't look... Do it for the content. Our listeners would love to know. I do want to say something to listeners that, like, I have a very hard time believing that you are technically obese. I will defer to your doctor. Oh, me too. I know. That is shocking to me. For the record, that seems crazy. You're also just, like, really tall. I am a very tall, broad person. You're like, you know, which... Yeah. But technically, my BMI is 32. But overall, we have this conversation, and, like, we've talked about it a lot, but I've never really...

Talked about it in relationship to myself a lot. So like going through and actually talking about things, I'm not going to do it because there are some like loose ties to thyroid cancer with that. And I've had cancer before in my life already. And I've had family members with specifically thyroid cancer. So I was like, no, that's a hard line for me.

Personally, now that's not like a huge risk factor, but like given my family history and personal history, it's just not something I'm going to do. It was an interesting experience to actually talk about this with a doctor and the potential gains and risks. My doctor wasn't like pushing it on me or anything, but we were like, this is an option that's out there and we can talk about it. Yeah, it's interesting.

Super interesting. For Novo Nordisk, it's similar to NVIDIA. Like it's known for one thing, but I think what's really exciting about Novo Nordisk and what it's done with semaglutide, which is that sort of the drug behind the drugs.

is that there's a range of different applications and they're still discovering them. Novo Nordisk is putting a lot of research into different applications for semaglutide and GLP-1s. But researchers are looking into everything from how they can help prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. They can help with kidney disease. Novo Nordisk is very close to getting FDA approval for cardiac applications for WGOVI.

It's going to be very interesting. I think like we have not heard the end of semaglutides and GLP-1s and it's not just about weight loss, although that's obviously really buzzy and it's a huge market. A lot of doctors that may not be fully comfortable prescribing these medications just for somebody's weight, they say like, ah, but it's also good for their heart and their kidney. There's a real power in human connectivity. I'll really try to get this medication to you. And there

We're also working on different ways to get it to you because right now it's an injectable, which is tougher to swallow, if you will, for some people. And if they can deliver to you in pill form, then that really unlocks so many more patients, too. Now, the last one was Microsoft, which obviously we know Microsoft's involvement in OpenAI. And it's involved in getting Sam back to OpenAI. The union's running a hard line.

Yeah, exactly. Getting Sam back to OpenAI. Oh, that's a faithful day in November. So I'm guessing it's on the list because of its AI investments and work in AI, but tell us more. Well, I think if you think about chatbots and generative AI, I mean, obviously Microsoft's investment in OpenAI has been huge. I joke, but like bringing Sam back and getting stability back to OpenAI over that

crucial weekend. I don't know exactly what happened in that boardroom, but that was a monumental moment for Microsoft. Let's not diminish that in any way. But also, when you think about chatbot and AI tools, some people are using ChatGPT

all the time. But I think for regular people who are not kind of on the front lines of adoption of things, it's Microsoft that's really, and Microsoft's Office products that are really gonna be one of their most profound and already are one of their most profound interactions with these chatbots because Microsoft has been incorporating them

in this co-pilot way, which is basically like a little AI assistant to help you navigate Excel and help you with your Word documents and do all this other sort of office related tasks. And I think that's getting people very comfortable with this idea of AI assistance and that'll filter into other ways. So Microsoft for really popularizing and getting these tools into our hands quickly. - Honestly, guys, fix SharePoint.

This is more of a personal office worker. This is a personal gripe. Like, fuck AI. Just make your SharePoint work.

I have no comment on the SharePoint situation. Make your line edit UI more visually accessible. That is actually a very real note. It is not visually accessible at all. That's really interesting because Microsoft really does have a strong inclusive design aspect. That's actually a note that they would take.

This particular thing, their line edits is tough, is tough on the eyes. Yeah, I believe that they have all the arrows. Yeah, it's a lot of dotted lines and arrows. Like the line edits for Google Docs is actually is more a little bit more accessible than that. I mean, it's a tough thing to solve overall. But yeah, by and large, you're right. Microsoft is

has a lot more accessibility settings usually, but this is just one particular area that just doesn't quite track. I've talked about how my husband's boss is extremely weird several times, but one thing that cracks me up is they have a bit where Luis will be like, do you know how to do like this function in Excel? And he's like, yes. And then Luis watches him type into chat GPT, how do you execute this function in Excel? He's just like,

I'm sitting right here. Now we can do it within Excel itself. That's the beauty of the co-pilot, yes? There we go. Another organization that we put on the list, and I love this inclusion. I think it's really cool, but it's not, maybe not something you typically think of as the most innovative company, is the United Auto Workers, the union. Because it's not a company? Pretty much. Yeah.

Tell me about that. I mean, Sean Fain's been in the news a ton this year. Yeah, Sean Fain, I mean, literally, literally elected president of the United Auto Workers. Oh, I'm going to forget the date, but like spring 2023, right? Yeah. And in a, you know, unprecedented way, like people did not think that because he, you know, overcame the incumbents.

And suddenly, like, he's leading them into a strike in the fall. And the reason—and a very effective strike. The contracts that they got from the big three automakers were really groundbreaking. What was super interesting to us was the way he executed this strike was very different than the way UAW and a lot of unions work. Usually they sort of—

say exactly when and where they're striking. Sean kept them on their toes the entire time. Like literally would sit in a room, try to get something from the executives. They would say no. He would, from their own boardroom or conference room,

And like, you know, and make one plant, just one plant go on strike. And, you know, the automakers couldn't predict what was coming. It really kept them on their toes and forced them to the table in a way that, and to concede to different things in a way that the United Auto Workers never expected.

had been able to get from the automakers before. In addition to that, like he's not done, right? Now he's got the big three and these contracts. And now he's set his sights on all of the international automakers who have plants here in the U.S. and also the ununionized companies like Tesla, namely. So that's always a fun matchup to see Elon go up against somebody. Cage match.

I mean, there's sort of this like old school sensibility. And he was talking about getting unions across different sectors to all get their contracts to expire on the same day in the same year so that he could set up the possibility of a general strike in the U.S. I mean, these are very like old school union ideas that he's bringing to the fore, in addition to being, you know, very dynamic and innovative in the way he's striking and the strategy he's pursuing. So...

UAW, you got to hand it to them. Even if you are on the side of the automakers, what they executed this past year was really innovative and from the outside, exciting to watch. I feel like the people listening to this podcast are not on the side of the big three automakers. I don't think that's our target demographic. I don't know. You don't know.

The National Women's Soccer League is also on the list. We published a pretty big feature on them a couple of years ago now. At least we published one on Angel City, rather, which was a team within the NWSL. But what have they done this year that's put them on the list? Women's sports are obviously having a huge moment and women's professional leagues are really coming into their own. I'll have to say, like, I was looking closely at WNBA and...

They've also done some really interesting things. But National Women's Soccer League, I think, is just moving the needle for women's sports in such a profound way. First, they expanded. They sold two expansion teams last year for $53 million apiece to different investment groups.

Previously, the price to invest and to get the expansion rights for a National Women's Soccer League team was somewhere between like $5 to $10 million. I mean, they just like raised the bar, the floor price for what you can consider a National Women's Soccer League by that much in a single year. They also renegotiated their broadcast contract to $250 million across four years with a

40 times the number of games that used to be broadcast in primetime are now going to be broadcast on primetime. I mean, they just sort of elevated the league into a new place in the course of just a single year. And I think their playbook is really interesting as well because unlike WNBA—

They're not tied to MLS, to a men's league, right? They are a very independent organization. So they really are, they can't rely on men's leagues to kind of help them with traffic, help them sell through sponsors and negotiate their broadcast deals. That gives them blank space so they can really set out and try new things.

It also means they don't have kind of that like safety blanket over them. And the fact that they're, you know, making such gains without that safety blanket, I think is really exciting to watch. I do feel like, and my son, who's a huge Premier League watcher will probably like quibble with me on this one, but you know, he's not going to listen anyway, because he doesn't pay attention to my job.

there's like a real opportunity here as well for women's soccer in the U.S. Obviously, the women's national team had a disappointing year last year at the World Cup, but still so many of the national team players play in the National Women's Soccer League that there is this sort of

strong fan base was people watch the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, and then they go to these games and see these players sort of right in front of them. But also because the play here is so high and because there are such so many world-class players on the U.S. women's team, you can't say that for the men's team. I'm sorry. Like Christian Pulisic is good, but like there's not, you know, an entire like stable of real world-class players on the men's team.

that you have an opportunity here in the U.S. to have the National Women's Soccer League be the league that draws the best of Europe and the best of South America and Latin America to play here in the U.S. year-round. There is a lot of international talent in the National Women's Soccer League. There's still a lot playing in Europe. And I think as it grows in prominence, as it grows in popularity,

As those teams become more valuable and the broadcast deals are better and the sponsorship deals are better, you're going to see more global talent coming to play here. So maybe, maybe the National Women's Soccer League could be like the Premier League for women's soccer. Like it could be the destination, the must watch, you know, TV of women's soccer, which would be really thrilling. That's, you know, maybe a decade or two or three longer off. You have to

build those rabid fandoms and obviously the chants that go along with them. But I think there's a possibility there and that's exciting to think about. - It's interesting too, with like the kind of analogous between like the men's sports and women's sports professional leagues at this point where we look at like where the like women's soccer league is and where the WNBA is in comparison. If you look back in like the 60s and 70s and 80s, the NBA in particular,

was not a very popular league. Like we think about the NBA now, like it is now where it's like the second most popular sport in the U S but like, it takes a while to build this. I think we're what, 25 years in with the WNBA, the women's professional soccer league is, uh,

a little behind that as well. If you compare it to the trajectories of some of the early men's sports leagues, it's on a similar trajectory. So it makes sense that the expansion franchises are growing, the number of teams is gonna continue growing, and then the talent pool, especially in soccer, like you said,

It just has such an open field, not to use a pun, to gain the best entertainers because that's part of what it is. And then nobody's watching men's and the MLS. Nobody cares about men's U.S. soccer. They care about Miami. That's it. Oh, well, yeah. Well, that's because they have... But they've done... How many times have...

Have they done this? Like Beckham can't come to the MLS. And it's like it has a splash for a while and then it goes away because the quality of competitions never going to be as high as the EPL or the Spanish League or Germany or wherever. It's like way down there. So there's just so much audience acquisition you can do, particularly for women's soccer. I think you're right, Josh. And it takes a while to develop these leagues, but

you know, the difference between the NBA and WNBA is that the WNBA is coming into its own in the era of social media. So these players can develop, you know, personal fandoms. And now we have, and this is especially applicable, I think, to the WNBA, but we are in the era of NIL. So like college athletes have outsized followings as well that are, and we're going to see the first generation of NIL athletes entering the WNBA in the next few years. It's going to be,

Yeah, it's in that going into the draft. That's going to that's going to be angel Reese is going to end up there. Those are probably the two biggest stars outside of like Sabrina Ionesco, Sue Bird. So I want to talk about some of the maybe this is not the right way to put it, but the random or picks on this list. The perfectly deserving but notably random picks on the list, but notably random picks.

So the first one I want to talk about is Sol de Janeiro, which is a body care company that I know is very popular with tweens, including yours, and which fell victim to a really funny Reddit rumor earlier this year when people thought that the body cream attracted wolf spiders. I presume that's not why it's on the list, but tell us what they did that, you know, merited inclusion.

Well, yes, I know. I know you've been spending some time on the sickly sweet body spray beat. So I was just

It's just fascinating. It really, A, it didn't invent, but it really popularized this body spray category, right? Like it's not perfume. It's something that you can layer on and God knows a tween loves to layer things on. They do not know moderation, right? So it's got to be a body spray. It's a more accessible price point, right? So it can appeal to people who have more

money to spend, but also to a younger generation that's maybe saving up their allowance week by week to spend it on a new body spray and a new scent. And then they started dropping in the last couple of years, these body scents, like their Hypebeast sneakers. They go off on social media, everybody wants the scent, and it's been fascinating to watch. So they've really stuck by

their profile and what they're pursuing, which is this very approachable, sickly sweet to some, but also just like adorable to others, like scents that sort of conjure beaches.

and coconuts and stuff like that. And then they've really appealed to Gen Z and Alpha consumers in a way that's just very smart. So I think anybody that's sort of looking, being in the skincare, you know, and makeup space should be looking at Sol de Janeiro and the way they've courted this rising generation of Gen Alpha. We make fun of these Sephora tweens, but like- I know. I know.

They've got money and they're going to keep getting money and they are very interested in these products and Sol de Janeiro has really found a way to appeal to them. Is Sephora tweens like an actual thing? Is that... Josh, do you live under a rock? They're everywhere. Yes.

Tweet, like if you go into a Sephora, it's just like hordes of tweens trying all the testers, like sticking their hands in everything. Oh, I did not know this was a thing. I've only been in a Sephora once in the last like 10 years. I think we need to field trip. Yeah, I'm fine. I will go on a social. I finally went to a Costco. I thought about making content out of that. Yeah.

Costco's amazing. I just need like experience, like just exposing me to like different cultural elements. That's a new video series. The other one I want to talk about is chess.com, which I know David Salazar, friend of the pod, championed a lot. Why chess.com now? Why chess.com now? It's true. I mean, chess.com kind of

took off in sort of that Queen's Gambit moment when everybody got excited about chess again. But the thing is, it has kept growing and it's been very smart. So chess.com is, for people that don't know, an online destination that has playable chess boards so you can play against friends. They also create bots that mimic the play of some grandmasters, tennis pros who love chess.

Even they had a bot called Mittens the Cat, which people started playing with and then realized that this cat was like the best chess player ever. Losing to Mittens the Cat, so that went viral.

But then they've also, and this is what we really were looking at, they brought into their orbit all of these chess influencers and players online who are on Twitch and streaming chess broadcasts and chess related content or commenting on the chess scandals of the day. And there have been quite a few of them in the last couple of years. That little Indian kid who courted controversy. Remember that last year? There's always a cheating. There's always a child. There's always a child.

There's always a child who's cheating somewhere. Scrupulous children. Unethical children. Yeah. These sociopaths. This entire MIC list is just like an homage to unethical children.

Sephora tweens and cheating chess players. But so they're creating kind of this exciting content around chess and they've become not just the place where you go to play chess, but also kind of the cultural hub for chess. And then Endeavor, which is the big media, sports, you know, entertainment conglomerate.

just invested in chess.com, just a minority investment in chess.com, because now they want to start working with the company to create some unscripted content around chess, because it's more than just obviously Queen's Gambit, which is a great, you know, high budget show. But like, there's a lot of stories to be told around chess and the drama and dynamics of chess. And all those stories right now are happening on chess.com.

I want a Dungeons and Dragons movie-esque version of chess where the characters are just pawns and stuff like that. I feel like- They could call it Checkmate. They could call it Checkmate. If you did it with the right amount of comedy and like self-awareness. Barbie, for example. Those type of movies have done pretty well recently and have been pretty good.

A high concept chess movie. No, I want a squid game style show where there's real people moving on the chess board. And you get smashed. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. It's just wizard's chess from Harry Potter. Oh, yeah, that is. That's right. I was like, where have I seen this movie?

this before. The one I want to end on is the four day work week. It's one of Fast Company's favorite topics. I actually don't understand how we've been able to milk that idea for so long. I think it's mostly due to Morgan Clendaniel. He seems to be really a friend of the pod Morgan. I would put this

this in the category of like sci-fi ideas that finally are reality. Like I remember when we first started writing about four day work week and I'm like, that sounds nice for like people in Australia who already have like a healthy... Yeah, or like Scandinavian people. Yeah.

For Italians in August. Yeah. You know, like that doesn't work here. But this organization, and in fairness, it did grow out of New Zealand. It was founded as a nonprofit in New Zealand by a guy who started a four-day work week at his company. And it worked so well that he started proselytizing about this and creating tools and like,

handbooks and helping other organizations and also governments around the world think about how they could implement four-day workweeks. Last year alone, four-day workweek onboarded 196 different organizations across the globe to four-day workweeks. It has partnerships across

You know, in studies running in countries around the world. Again, as I said, it's working with governments and big and small companies. It's also been very good at publishing studies that show how much happier employees are that are, you know, doing four-day workweeks. And also how productive they are, sometimes more productive during the four-day workweeks.

So they've taken this idea and with an assist from COVID and sort of all the conversations around how do we help with burnout and with productivity and remote work and all of that sort of stuff. They definitely got, it's weird to call it an assist, but an assist from COVID. But this idea. I was going to call it out a little bit, like high five, COVID. Zoom got the assist. High five.

Everybody's got a Moderna. High five, COVID. It's popularized now. And it's one of those things where it seemed like a very sort of out there conversation to have at your organization. Could we do this in just four days? And now I think people are having those kinds of conversations and it's not inappropriate to bring them up. Picture the conversations over 100 years ago when people might have been like,

Instead of four-day workweek, that'll never happen. They're going to be like, what? A five-day workweek and children can't work in factories? I'll never see it happen. Yeah, but they didn't have computers. People couldn't reach them at a certain point. It's here. The four-day workweek is here. We're going to take a quick break, followed by a conversation between Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer and Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresmont and CMO Taylor Montgomery. ♪♪

Sean, Taylor, thank you so much for joining us here on the Most Native Companies podcast. It's a pleasure to have Taco Bell on the cover of this year's issue. One thing that kind of became a theme or kept coming up in our conversations when I was reporting this story was how both of you talked about Taco Bell's brand ambition. It's got a very strong brand, but the way you guys talked about it was super interesting to me in terms of

going from a really great fast food or QSR, quick service restaurant brand to a great global brand. Sean, how about I start with you? - First of all, Jeff, it's great seeing you again. I would say it starts with our brand mission. About a year ago, two years ago, the brand team did some amazing work on what is Taco Bell's brand plan. The first part of that brand plan was the brand mission, and our brand mission is to inspire and enable the world

to live Moss. That's pretty lofty, it's active, it's inspiring, and we feel like it's unique to Taco Bell. So if our mission is inspire and enable the world to live Moss, we look at it not only as we want to do that, not only as a QSR brand. We've been around 62 years. We're a pretty confident bunch.

We want to be a great brand within QSR, but we also just want to be a great big B brand. And we feel like we are as good as brand as some of the other best brands out there. And that's really our compass and our North Star moving forward is that we want to inspire and enable the world to love Moss. And we want to do that by being a great brand.

When you think about like those great brands that come to mind, I think great global brands. I know we talk about like the in the same breath as like an Apple, a Netflix, a Nike. These kinds of brands kind of want to be synonymous with that kind of strength, right? Yep. All those ones you mentioned have one thing in common and they have incredible relationship with consumers. All those brands to be a great brand.

mention in those breaths, you have to have an incredible relationship with consumers. And we feel we have an incredible relationship with consumers around the world. Taylor, what do you think? What's that jump mean to you? I'm going to build on what Sean said, because I do think it starts with the consumer. And Jeff, it's great to see you. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So thanks for having Sean and I on the podcast. You opened the question with...

with, hey, we see the brand as something bigger than a brand in QSR. And I think it actually starts with that and getting really clear. And Sean and I talk about this a lot. What is our relationship with consumers? And as a brand, what type of brand are we? And it's in the brand plan. It is where our muse is.

But at the end of the day, Jeff, I think we are a rebel brand. I don't think, I know we are. And I think that is our relationship with consumers. And I think what is the relationship that rebel brands have with consumers and rebels in general is to inspire consumers to be more fearless, to inspire consumers to be more rebellious.

And I think when you think about when Glenn started the brand 62 years ago, it was a little act of rebellion to get a taco or a burrito in a burger world. And I think that was the foundation of our roots as being a Rebel brand. And I think what our responsibility is, and I think, you know, the role that we play in the world is to continue to take that Rebel spirit, not just in the U.S., and expand that outside and around the globe.

And I think that's what people need. It's why everybody loves Rebels is because they inspire people to be the most fearless versions of themselves. If we can lean into that and that's really true to who we are and how the brand was founded, I think the limits for the brand don't exist, honestly. I think we can push it and take it to more places than it's ever been, both domestically and internationally too.

You talk about it as a rebel brand, which you certainly see in the way it's Mexican-inspired cuisine, the way you guys mess with your menu, the way you guys, speaking of fan experience, the audience consumer experience, get them involved. One thing also that popped out was how you see the customer, not through maybe a traditional marketing kind of demographics, but more like a psychographics or an attitude. And this idea of a cultural rebel being like, if you think about that prototypical culture,

Taco Bell customer, when did that come into play and what's its impact been? Sean, I think you should take that one. But I do remember us cooking up those two words in the lobby of the Marriott about three years ago, if you remember that. Taylor mentioned it. Taco Bell has always been a brand who has attracted people who want a little something different, little something, we'll call it left of center or right of center.

people who want to zig when others are zagging. And so probably about two years ago, as we're creating this brand plan, I talked about we talked about who our consumer was. And I think any any great brand needs to know who they're speaking to. And it's kind of always been there. But we crystallized it to the idea of we want to speak to the cultural rebel.

Now, we're going to sell to everybody, but who we're going to speak to is this cultural rebel. And the cultural rebel, to your point, Jeff, is a muse and it's a little bit of a psychographic. It's the ones that are tastemakers, game changers, changing the game, pushing culture forward. And it really helped, I believe, our culture.

our marketing communications, our marketing messages is that it was pretty clear who we're speaking to and it allowed us to get sharper in everything we do from a marketing and branding standpoint and even a menu standpoint for that matter. - And it's also aspirational. So I think to Sean's point, when we said, "Hey, who is our muse?" When we said, "Hey, it's the cultural rebel." I think the first part is,

The brand is also, Taco Bell is also a culture. So it's our muse and who we speak to, but we also hold ourselves to that same standard of being a cultural rebel and behaving that way. And I think the other part is, you know, we sell to almost 70% of the country comes to Taco Bell at least once a year. And rebels are aspirational for a reason. So I think there's a lot of beauty in those two words, both for how we walk as a brand and the fact that we're a cultural rebel and it's aspirational for everybody.

The idea of rebelliousness, of something different, but also serving everybody. It's funny you say that because I was thinking about, well, what kind of piece of work or brand expression, for lack of a better term, illustrates that, that I can think of? And one that pops right away is the Taco Tuesday work. How, for you guys, does that illustrate some of the broader themes you guys have just been touching on? I'll start with you, Taylor, on this one. I think it starts with a belief. And

When we came up with Cultural Rebel, Sean pushed us all to think about, well, if you're a Cultural Rebel, what are the things that Cultural Rebels believe in? What are the principles of that? And one of the big ones is actions over words. Rebels don't talk about it, they have to be about it. And they have to take action to do it. And so the foundation for Taco Tuesday was,

What is an action? Not saying, hey, we're a brand that believes that everybody that makes, sells, and celebrates tacos should celebrate Taco Tuesday. But what is an action that's actually giving something back to a community that's bigger than that? That was the brief. And when we started to think about it, we said, well, hey, what's something that everybody who makes, sells, and celebrates tacos should have access to as Taco Tuesday? So I think that was kind of the impetus of that idea is what is a really bold action

action where we could give something back to everybody else in culture that sells tacos. Nice. Sean, what about you? Taylor is spot on. And as you can imagine, when you're sitting in a room and somebody says, we should liberate Taco Tuesday, the expression on people's faces, is it even legally possible? Can we do this? But

this is why I love this brand. And this is why we are on the path to be one of the best brands in the world, because not many brands would go out and try to liberate something that's been trademarked for a number of years. But this brand did. And this brand got, you know, legal and franchisees and yum all around the rallying cry of liberating Taco Tuesday, not for Taco Bell, but for the people. Because to your point, that's what rebels do.

It's funny because I usually think about creative teams avoiding calls from legal as opposed to calling them. So it was interesting how you got various levels of the company involved. Well, legal team, if you're listening, Julie and the legal team, if you were listening, Jeff, we were probably the biggest rebels in this whole campaign and we wouldn't have been able to pull that off without him. So shout to Taco Bell legal team. Shout to legal.

How many times have you heard marketing shout legal out? That's groundbreaking right now. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to come back because we were talking about making that jump to a great global brand. I did want to touch on, Sean, the fact that you came to Taco Bell in 2021 after 16 years with Nike and Jordan brand, your last post being a CMO of Jordan brand there. What was the most...

there's not a lot of maybe parallels between, you know, at least immediately top of mind between sneakers and sports apparel and crunch wraps. What was...

What's the most significant lesson or experience there now that you've been at Taco Bell for a while that has helped guide you there at Taco Bell, but also inform your answer to that first question about making that jump from great QSR brand to great global brand? I think the one thing Nike was really great at is understanding their consumer, understanding how to create a relationship with their consumer. And coming here, the team is amazing, but it was just reframing

transactions and relationships. We want a lot of transactions. We are a for-profit business that want to sell a lot of Crunchwrap's burritos, quesadillas, but we also want to create lifelong relationships with our consumers. And great brands, you know, I mentioned this earlier, I think great brands do that. And while we're driving people into Taco Bells or on their phone to buy Taco Bell,

It's really, really important for us to create relationships with our consumer as well. You got to have both. And I say people don't only want to buy brands, they want to experience brands. And so the team has been great of giving people reasons to experience Taco Bell, whether it's voting on your favorite Taco Bell item of the past, whether it's doing something like Live Moss Live, whether it's Taco Tuesday, we're letting people experience Taco Bell as well as buy Taco Bell.

Nice. Well, speaking of LiveMoss Live, for those who don't know, there's a big event that the brand put on in Vegas just before the Super Bowl. It was a live event, but it was also streamed on brand social and the website. And it was kind of, in my mind, the Taco Bell version of like

Apple's developers conference or Disney's D23 or basically a hype event for all the stuff that was going to drop this coming year. And there was a live event and then there was a big tasting after where everyone got to taste all the new stuff, a cantina chicken menu, cheesy chicken, crispanada, cheesy street chalupas. I mean, the one that stuck out for me was the Baja Blast pie, which was for- It stuck out for everybody.

I know this is an audio format, but picture teal pie, guys. This is fantastic. And then Taylor had the big Steve Jobs one more thing moment with the Cheez-It Crunchwrap reveal, which is a big Cheez-It cracker, 16 times the size of a normal one, kind of anchoring this Crunchwrap, which I think if this is Taco Bell's developers conference, this was kind of the vision pro of late night drive through. Yeah.

You both separately, when I was talking to you guys for this story, told me a little bit about how the idea for LiveMask Live came about. And now that I've got you together, I'd love you to just sort of get into that a little bit. How did the idea for this kind of super weird, wacky event for Taco Bell come about?

- Let me start so we can get the true version of the story before Taylor goes. It's a really, really funny story, Jeff. It was Taylor, myself, and a guy named Tim in a car going to LA to meet Maverick Carter, shout to Mav, to talk about Taco Tuesday. So we were driving down from Irvine to Los Angeles,

talking about how we wanted LeBron to be part of Taco Tuesday. So we're going to meet, you know, Maverick and his crew. So that was the scene is we're riding in a car. And I'll give all the credit to Taylor is that we're riding in the car and we're talking about just big brand stuff and stuff that's disruptive and stuff that nobody else would do because we're always pushing the envelope. And Taylor said, you know, what if we did like at the Super Bowl, something like an app or developers conference where we just unveiled the menu? And I think Tim and I just went,

whoa, that's big and that's, we should do that. You know, again, all credit to Taylor because it's easy to have a big idea, but to get from idea to real life at the Super Bowl where we're actually doing it takes a lot of, we'll call it gymnastics to get through the Taco Bell system. And he slash we did it, but it came from a meeting going to talk about another disruptive thing, Taco Tuesday, where it all came about.

Was Developers Conference kind of happening in around those days? It happened about like two or three weeks before. Sean, that is a very true story. You got that right. I would say this though, Jeff. I mean, it took pretty much the whole Taco Bell village and then some to pull this off, to make LiveMoss Live one of our biggest brand moments that we've done over the past two years, getting close, if not surpassing some of the stuff we did on Taco Tuesday. So a shout to everybody that worked on it.

I actually watched Apple's WWDC. I watch it every year. Sean has always been pushing us to say, okay, hey, it's actions over words. So if we're going to do an action, what is the action going to be? Can't just talk about it. Got to be about it. What is it? And I was watching it and I was like, you know what? I think that we are the most innovative brand in the world. I humbly do believe that.

And so that's where the dots started to connect, Jeff, which is like, well, okay, if we believe that, but we can't just say it. We can't just create a film about it. Like we got to do something about it. And then it kind of got us thinking, it got me thinking on, but why are we the most innovative brand in the world? It's not just what we do, it's who we do it. And we have the best fans in the world that love the brand more than Sean and I ever will. We love the brand a lot. And so I think when you put those two things together, that's where the idea of Live Monsters built out.

how do we create an action that shows that we are the most innovative brand in the world because we're doing it for the people that matter most, our clients, and we're giving them something that they've always wanted.

- I know in the audience there was, you guys had the administrator for the Reddit that sort of leaks new Taco Bell products traditionally. - Reddit Blake. - Yeah, and all kinds of other fans. What's been the reaction so far of lining everything up and telling everyone what's to come? - If I'm honest, Jeff, and this is the humble part, we had no idea that people were gonna watch it, that people were gonna like it, what the reaction was gonna be.

And I just think it speaks to the strength of our fans. There's like a half a million people that have watched the whole thing. I think there was over 200,000 people that watched it live. And the reaction and social has been absolutely incredible. And it's reached pockets of culture that love the brand, but we didn't know. I'll give my favorite example is Kai Lenny. All the Kai, if you're listening, shout to you. All the...

Kai Lenny fans out there. Kai is a huge Taco Bell fan, eats bean burritos before every major surf competition that he does. Big wave surfing, by the way. And we didn't ask him to do it, but he brought a videographer and videoed his whole journey at Live Moss Live. The fact that we gave him a belly, a belly icon over it. And Surfer Magazine did like a whole write-up on the whole thing, which I think is incredible. So I think that's just one example of

We did what we set out to do, which was create a moment that was for and inspired by our fans and let our fans take the brand to places that we never thought it could go. There are TikToks out there that have 10 million organic views on reaction videos to Live Must Live, which is incredible.

I'll give you my favorite story is, you never know, you build a tent and if you build it, they will come. And to Taylor's point, I think I'm still blown away about, hey, we invited our fans. We knew some of the brand family like Devante Adams would be there.

But when you have people just showing up that you had no idea were gonna show up like Tyreek Hill. Like Tyreek Hill just showed up because he heard about it. You know, Tim who runs Influenced in June, but no, I didn't invite Tyreek Hill. He just heard about it and wanted to come. Maybe he's there just because it's a lazy Friday in Vegas. But then you talk to Tyreek Hill and he's a huge Baja Boss fan and he wanted the pie.

He wanted everything Baja Blast related. And it just goes to what Taylor was talking about, the fandom of this brand. Tyreek could have been anywhere, but he chose to come to our event because he's such a fan. And that's always a bit humbling when you think about it. And the cheetah was vibing during Armani White's set. The cheetah was vibing. Nice. Well, listen, the teal pie was vibing. The Baja Blast pie was huge.

I myself was the salt and straw ice cream taco collaboration. Keep your eyes out for that, everybody. Listen, this has been great. Guys, thanks so much for your time here. Thanks for being on the podcast. And yeah, thanks for opening the Taco Bell door to Fast Company. For everyone listening, please check out my Taco Bell story for more detail about all this stuff that Sean and Taylor are getting into and more in the new Mostly Invincible Companies issue. Thank you, Jeff. And thank you, Fast Company.

It's been great. Thank you, Jeff and Fast Company family. It's been fun. Okay, we are back with Amy and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story.

trend or company we're following right now. And Amy, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? Well, since I just edited MIC, I'm going to talk about an MIC company. But I don't... Have you guys... Have you played with perplexity? Do you know perplexity, the answer engine? No, I haven't. It keeps coming up at editorial meetings and I just have refused to learn what it is. As journalists, you must. And...

Because this thing is coming for us, guys. I'm telling you. I did go into Perplexity the other day and ask Perplexity, you know, what the most innovative companies were in travel. And Perplexity was like, here they are. And it was literally our last list of the most innovative companies. Well, did they just search the internet?

Well, so Perplexity is an answer engine. It's not a chatbot, it's an answer engine. So it is very good at answering your questions. It's very up-to-date, unlike ChatGPT, and it has citations very prominently. So you can see exactly what sources it's using. And it uses a finite number of sources. It looks for trusted sources, Fast Company among them. So that is flattering to some degree until you realize it's taking away our jobs eventually. Yeah.

But right now it's flattering. And it will tell you where it drew that information from. And then it also will give you different questions that you may want to ask it that could sort of refine the information or lead you down another path in your research. So it's really good at that. And I think that's really interesting. You should play with it.

But also now send me, Perplexity sends me a newsletter where it will say, you know, here's the latest you need to know about Elon Musk suing OpenAI, you know, over this turn from nonprofit status. And it will summarize sort of the news of the day. And at the end, it will tell me the four news articles that it, you know, pulled that information from. But, you know, it's brief is enough.

So it's basically doing what we do at the beginning of this show. No, no, no, Josh. Wait till I get to the last thing. Then last... But we have charisma. Then last night I got an email from it and was like, would you like to listen to the Perplexity podcast where it digests... Oh yeah, you sent us this too. It digests the news of the day and using voices from Eleven Labs, which is a generative AI for voice company, will read these news stories. So basically...

Perplexity is fascinating. It's an incredible company. It's an incredible product. It scares the living shit out of me. Yeah. So that's what I'm keeping tabs on. Yeah.

White knuckle tabs on. Yeah, that's terrifying. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? I'm keeping tabs on the content studio unions negotiation with Spotify. So that's the Parcast, Gimlet, and The Ringer unions. Those are the podcast companies that were acquired by Spotify over the last few years. And the

main sticking point, speaking about perplexity in their podcast, is Spotify is pushing to basically use voice models of their hosts and talent to translate their podcasts into different languages to distribute to a wider network, notably to, I think, Spanish-speaking countries where podcast listenership is the fastest growing of

in terms of like South and Central American countries is where the most podcast listenership is growing. So it makes sense why they would want to do that. The unions for, you know, want to draw a hard line in using those AI models in terms of basically on the grounds of name and...

image and likeness claims of that. And this is a real sticking point. Now we're recording this a couple weeks before it airs, so I don't have maybe the latest of what's happening in those union negotiations, but it's part and parcel with what we saw over the summer with WGA and the writer's strike versus Hollywood Studios. It's WGA East is negotiating this, so really they're at the vanguard of these conversations between creatives' jobs and rights to their own voice and style.

And it's interesting. And I mean, the podcast industry is really interesting with this. I've gone to a lot of different industry events talking about AI voice models, and some has been like hand-wringing. But then there's a lot of people like bragging about like, I host a podcast with an AI sidekick on my post. So yes, you could replace me. All you need to do is upload the Daily Mail's consciousness to...

- I do actually, and this is maybe like teasing for a future episode, I do wanna do something around this a little bit more and figure it out with our podcast to dive into this story a little bit more 'cause I'm fascinated by it. Perplexity is wrapped in all of this, voice models, and this is just a conversation that's not going away in our industry. Maybe a little navel-gazy, but it's important.

Yaz, what are you keeping taps on? Lighten the mood, please. Guys, what is going on at Queer Eye? Oh my God. It's crazy. I've been hearing. Well, wait, wait. Before we get into it, give us some context because the context I have, the interior

Bobby Burke. Bobby Burke left the show in somewhat of a shady way and there were rumors that he was feuding with the fashion one, Tan France. Then yesterday or this morning, I'm not totally sure, Rolling Stone published an expose about the toxic environment around the show and said that Jonathan Van Ness has a rage problem.

And it was abusive to people on set. Oh. And this is very interesting to me because it comes at a time when his hair care line, JVN Hair Care, is part of a group called Amorous that went bankrupt recently. And his hair care brand is up for sale. And I can't help but feel this is conspiracy brain. I know I sound like someone else in the office, but this is a very well-timed article.

Smear campaign? Yeah, to screw up this sale. Now, it also may be true. Like, that's not me saying it's not true, but it's kind of crazy. They all seemed friendly.

and they're not enough. Oh, this really hurts. This really hurts. It does hurt. I do talk a little bit to some people around the entertainment industry just kind of on background, and this is kind of like an Ellen DeGeneres situation. Where a lot of people have been like, yeah, JVN comes off as,

in a certain way on camera, but behind the scenes, it's like kind of been like a little bit of an open secret in the entertainment industry for a little bit. And yeah. And then the whole thing with like Bobby Burke is that like none of them really get along is like the point, like not or like maybe a couple of them here and there, which is fine. You don't have to be best friends. You can just play him on camera. But like Bobby Burke left because he was kind of fed up with the contract situation and Tan France was trying to get Bobby Burke replaced.

And then their contracts were up for renewal. And Bobby decided not to renew because he thought everyone was not going to renew. And then so he left. And then, like, I don't know, Antony and Karamo are just kind of over there chilling around. Well, Antony has a failed restaurant in the West Village. His business prospects have gone down. Karamo, I believe, is like... He has a talk show. Yeah, so he has a talk show that's doing well. He's popular in certain platforms. But...

The Queer Eye scandal is super interesting to me because of the business aspect of all this, where I'm just like, you know, these people's personas were like everything. You know, they have so many business extensions and I'm just kind of interested to see where this goes.

Particularly Jonathan Van Ness. I mean, they were the breakout star of the show and had really been capitalizing off of that in a very real way. I mean, we did a photo spread of them. Yeah, like they've been around. I know Tan France has done some stuff with us before.

They've done a lot of stuff. I mean, there was an interesting, it was going around on TikTok something a while ago about basically like one of them was going around at parties like shit talking Jonathan Van Ness and was like, everyone was kind of opposite. Like there was a very like competitive atmosphere of like who was going to be the breakout star of it. And so then there was like a lot of stuff.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's, I don't know, it's not terribly surprising. When you get to the bottom of it, yeah, just let me know if I need to unfollow Jonathan on Instagram. I'll send you the Rolling Stone expose. Yes, what's the most important business news of the day? Yeah, exactly. Got it.

Anyway, we'll see how the story develops. But that's it for Most Innovative Companies. Amy, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me on. And thank you for all of your work behind the scenes on Most Innovative Companies. And where can we pick up the latest issue? You can order the magazine. You can subscribe online. Go to FastCompany.com for more details. We'll also put links to how you can get the issue and everything that's in digital in the show notes.

Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom. Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres. And our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review. And we'll see you next week.