Why power is shifting back to the hands of creators
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This is the most innovative companies from Fast Company, where we speak to visionary founders to understand how they think, how they innovate, and what lessons they have to help you and businesses of every shape and size. I'm James Vincent, a founding partner at Foundr.

I think one of the stories I want to share with spending time with Steve Jobs at Apple and some of the things that we learned was acknowledging and understanding the value of things. If I go back to 2001, no one was paying for music. Back then, people were going on LimeWire and Napster and downloading music for nothing. And the assumption in culture was that that was it. Music would never be paid for again. It was just going to be free.

And few were challenging that question. And the music industry's response to it was to sue 13-year-olds, which didn't have much future to it. So Steve's belief was actually just the categories got into the wrong place. So let's reorchestrate it. Because actually music is something you love and value. And wait a second, what's your favorite song? Oh, I really love that song, Can't Get No Satisfaction. I think probably the most popular song in the world.

Okay, Rolling Stones, yeah. So I love that song. And is that worth 99 cents to you? Yeah, I think I could argue that it's worth a lot more than that, but I'll pay 99 cents. Or do you want to get it for free in a poor quality? No, I'll pay 99 cents. So 99 cents for your favorite song was a campaign that we did. We actually did, we had a young kid singing Eminem, One Opportunity, the Once in a Lifetime Yo.

And then it just ended on 99 cents for your favorite song. And it in culture made people realize that I can pay a dollar for my favorite song and it's, it's the right thing to do. It's okay. Cause I love this music.

So we were about to do a big keynote to launch iPod and iTunes, and the music industry was in the front row. And in conversation, we were trying to figure out how to increase the jeopardy. How could we get the music industry to understand that really they needed help from Apple specifically, and that the industry on its own wasn't going to solve it by suing 13-year-olds, which is what they were doing at the time.

And so just in discussion, what came out of it was this rather harrowing but also very poignant quote about the music industry from Huntress Thompson. And it goes like this. The music industry is a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

A few days later, that was one of the slides that helped create, I think, some of the realization in the industry that massive change was needed. And sometimes maybe you just need to up the ante on the need for change in order to create that change. So knowing the value of things and understanding that music has value when all around you are telling you that it doesn't.

It does. And I think the founders at Patreon believe exactly that. They believe in the true value of things, particularly with regard to artists and them getting paid. Here's my conversation with Jack Conte and Sam Yam from Patreon. ♪

Today I'm so excited to be hanging out with my friends, colleagues, Jack and Sam at Patreon. For those people that don't know, Patreon is a, I don't know, multi-billion dollar music platform that has 250,000, I believe, artists and creators of all nature.

has given out $2.5 billion to their artists, yay, and was designed and built because artists weren't being paid, right? And so I wanna start with that and just tell us about it. Maybe I'll start with you, Jack, 'cause you had a band, Pampelmoose, and you were frustrated that you weren't being paid in full, right? So tell me the founding story and maybe that's how we start. - I've got a band called Pampelmoose. I got another band called Scary Pockets. Both bands are still active. We put out 100 music videos a year.

But nine years ago, I was working on my solo project and uploading videos to YouTube as I do. And I started getting really obsessed with this one music video I was working on.

It got wildly complicated. Long story short, ended up taking me three months to make this music video. I drained my savings account. I spent 10 grand on this music video. I maxed out two credit cards along the way. But I built this replica of Millennium Falcon cockpit behind me. I had two robotic, well, two robots coming out of these rotating elevators on these desks and walking forward and playing MIDI controllers while I was in the middle playing guitar. And we all jammed out in Millennium Falcon together making electronic dance music.

It was the coolest music video I've ever made in my life. I was very proud of it. I felt like, you know what? I had a vision as an artist. I made my thing. I put it out.

And what was interesting, what became very clear to me at the time was like, I'm not Lady Gaga. I'm not playing Staples Center, but I'm also not a starving artist. Like the video now has two and a half million views. When I put out videos, I would reach a million people. And yet somehow, you know, in 2013, despite all this, when a creator would put out a video on YouTube, you get paid 150 bucks and you move on to the next one. That was my paycheck for that in ad revenue.

Actually, for the pedals music video, the one I'm talking about, you know, after month one, I got $166 of ad revenue. And I looked up from that and I felt like this is totally fucked. Something is dearly wrong with this equation. There's real potential and impact and enthusiasm and joy and value being created here. And as an artist, I'm

I'm not participating in any of that. None of that gets reflected back to my paycheck. And it turns out, you know, we've designed and deployed these systems globally, this ad revenue system and, you know, cuts of ad revenue that end up undercompensating creative people at scale, which is like a fucking tragedy. And so I sketched out this idea on 14 pieces of printer paper. I called up Sam. I said, Sammy, let's build...

a membership platform that makes it really easy for artists to like get members and get paid for their work and be valued according to their actual value instead of like the minimum amount that tech companies can get away with. Yeah. Yeah. We were meeting up for coffee and then he told me this idea and I was like, Jack, don't tell anyone else. We got to start working on this right now.

So you could see in his idea an opportunity to do something radically different from the way that everyone else was going. And so, but this is 2013 when no one else was really thinking that way. And so, Sam, your first response was, okay, great idea, Jack. Don't tell anyone else. Let's go build it.

Right? Is that what you did? - So from my perspective, as maybe largely an audience member, even though, you know, a lot of my past was as an artist too, I certainly noticed that there were these creators, these artists that I was a super fan of, but it never felt, and this for me was maybe the compelling piece,

of all this, that they had ownership over even their own audience members. And so one of the big points that we talked about was how you could have followers on YouTube or these other platforms, but yet, you know, they couldn't email you. They couldn't have access, even if they were to send a post out that it would necessarily reach you. And so we wanted to sort of restore this ownership for this fandom that artists had built out for themselves. Yeah.

And this is 2013, but we're still living in a world, let's be honest, right, where you are the different guys, because most of the aggregators that we described in 2013 are still the aggregators that are around today, as in,

You go on a platform and you have to operate by the YouTube rules or the Instagram rules or the Facebook rules, right? So are you guys, are you really that different? Are you still the challenger in the category or is the category come towards you? So I have some strong opinions on this. Personally, I think the times has changed. Not that Patreon isn't still the challenger. I think we are. I think we're the most creator first company on the planet. And I think that's in our culture and our DNA and it's who we are. And however, yeah,

What has become clear to me over the last five years is the change between when we started and where the world is now. Because now the world has woken up to how dumb this first model of paying artists was over the first 20 years of the internet and how it must be fixed. And now everybody's got...

got this term that they're throwing out called the creator economy, which I think always makes me laugh a little bit because as if this is the first creator economy, like there've been many creator economies for like thousands of years, like different business models and ways that creators have made money. It's just that the last 20 years of it really sucked for artists. And now it's finally getting back to a more full fleshed out economy where artists can make money again. But I feel like that

Is that new trend of power shifting away from institutions and back toward individuals and in particular toward creators and creators getting autonomy and control and leverage of their businesses, of their media, of their ownership, of their payments methods, of everything. That trend is now coming at the world a thousand miles an hour and nothing can change it.

And granted, I'm an eternal optimist here, but what is happening right now is a sea change in favor of creative people. The world is about to look very, very different for creators in 10 years. For me, it's almost this like point of accessibility. And especially if you start looking at platforms like TikTok, where we're really democratized as anyone can create.

And so I think what's really happened when you have this sort of downward pressure of so much content and how do you get the attention to watch? So again, going back to the point of ownership, it used to be that what we wanted to grant was giving creators back access to their audience. And so YouTube would, you know, oftentimes offer recommendations and whatnot. Now you look at TikTok.

They're trying to get as much content into your eyeballs as possible. They don't even offer options for your recommendation, like on the side with YouTube where you could pick. They're just force feeding you what they believe is good. I think in a large extent, this is taking away even more control from the hands of like creators, from their ownership. And it's sort of shifting it more onto these platforms. And so-

We're largely dealing with that these days. Let me first explain to the Fast Company community a little bit of what's different about Patreon versus some of the other platforms. I might go on TikTok and scroll and scroll and scroll. I have two teenage kids. I've seen a lot of it. And then they go on all kinds of different channels and they might listen to some music here or do some on there. And very little of it ends up with the artist, right? And whereas Patreon is a place where you go

And you kind of sign up to an artist. You kind of say, I am going to like this. I love these. I think Apple characterized this back in the day, even when they were almost bankrupt and Think Different came out. And there are only a thousand people that loved Apple, but it didn't matter because they freaking loved Apple. And so for me, just as a simple kind of like, where do you sit? You sit in the, I love these guys and I love them so much. I'm going to sign up to Apple.

kind of sponsoring them, looking after them, you know, whatever. And I know you guys have a whole bunch of different ways in which artists can monetize, but it's not simply the attention economies flip, flip, flip. Oh, and you get two cents. I think that's such a great point. It is the core of it. The ad model doesn't work precisely for that reason. And by the way, I'm dumping on the ad model because I think it's not the best way to get artists paid. And yet I have to also acknowledge simultaneously, like for the first

15 years of my creator career, that was the only way I was really making money. There's all sorts of negative implications and side effects of that type of model. But there's a really bad one for artists that I think isn't talked enough about. And that bad one is, say I'm a super fan of this creator. Say I follow them on Instagram. I follow them across all the social platforms. I have the t-shirt. I went to the concert. I'm in. And

And not only do I love this creator and what they've done in the past, but I believe in them and I and I believe in what they're going to build in the future. So say I'm that level of fan of a creator. When I watch their video on YouTube, I transfer fractions of a penny to that creator. That is what my view for that creator is worth. But that's not what it's worth to me as a viewer when they make a new video.

That video is worth everything to me. It's the coolest shit I've seen in a week or a month. And I can't wait to see it. And it's actually worth maybe $30 to me or $100. Who knows? But it's not worth fractions of a penny. And the ad model

That is a really negative side effect, which essentially reduces the overall payment volume to artists, which is terrible. So how is Patreon different? So I go on Patreon. I'm like, oh, I love these three artists. What do I do? So if I'm a super fan, I can jump into the $50 a month membership tier and I can become a $50 a month member and I get access to their Discord and I get the behind the scenes live streams.

and I get the special content that they don't release anywhere else, and I get the extra interviews, and I get the extra half hour on top of the webcast.

I get all the extra stuff and connection with the community and with the artists that I wouldn't get otherwise. That model is not ad revenue. It's a completely different model. Right. Talking earlier about like how we distinguish ourselves, we want to extract the artist out of this sort of content treadmill. And so it's this idea that instead of having to fight against this like tidal wave of content and getting, you know, the attention within the algorithm, we're breaking you out where you have access to your audience individually.

and you can focus on the aspects of creativity and community building that those folks fundamentally want to. I think as an audience member, the platforms on TikTok, they're going to argue that what they're doing in filtering out the content is they're picking the best things for you because that's what you want as a user. But fundamentally, we know that there's just higher value as users

as an individual, when you're connecting with other people, when you're forming your own identity around the communities and the artists sort of facilitating that. You know, we've seen now, I think there's like 9 million patrons paying every single month for creators. We've seen that this sort of relationship has grown. Initially, I think the patrons were paying something like $10 a month, and now it's grown over time to $13 a month. And then we've also seen the majority of

the revenue, the $2 billion or so that comes through on the platform on an annualized basis where the majority of that money is coming from people who are supporting multiple creators. So as an idea, as this concept of supporting creators, it's certainly grown and spread over time.

Sam, you and I spoke a lot about Web3 back on a stage somewhere. And I know that let's not get too involved in like what the hell Web3 is. But the notion of that Web2, if we characterize it as just these big aggregators that get in the way in the ad model and that they use your data and, you know, oh, you can have human magic. Oh, but there's and it's free. Not really. Actually, we're taking right or wrong.

artists, you can have human magic. Oh, but we're not going to pay you anything or cents on the dollar. And so, yeah, utilizing the, and this isn't so much about, actually what you're doing is just facilitating the connection between artists and their super fans.

and allowing them to get true value for the output as creators that they make. Yeah, the concept of Web3 is actually quite beautiful and it goes back to the whole notions of ownership that we talked about. It's like restoring ownership to everyone in a decentralized, universal way. I think the one part

right now that hasn't quite materialized, that's going to be really important when you talk about ownership and giving it to everyone, is just the accessibility of it. If you look at a quarter-to-quarter basis, like there are studies on the number of addresses buying these NFTs, it's never even exceeded, even at its

peak beginning of 2022 and end of last year, a million users in any given or a million addresses, so probably even less users doing transactions in any given quarter. And so largely this hasn't been accessible to the masses. And that's why you see companies like Twitter and

Instagram and I think yesterday Reddit announced a thing. They're trying to expand it out so broadly people can get access. But I think the concept of ownership doesn't require having that to exist on the blockchain. And that's the whole point of Patreon from the get-go. We can grant ownership of at least this data to you as a creator. Here's what I think is the future for creative people. I think...

creators will be paid more in accordance with the value that they're generating for the world than I think what exists now, which is basically getting screwed out of the value that they're creating and none of that being reflected back or a very small portion of that being reflected back to them. We're not even scratching the surface as a society on paying artists according to the value that they're generating. That's not happening right now. And there's so many ways that artists are generating value. Rallying communities,

sharing ideas, innovating, pushing society forward, holding a mirror up to society. Anyway, the point is artists will be better compensated for the work. That's going to happen again. It's a trend that's moving at a million miles an hour. The second thing is ownership of

of your audience as an artist. Right now, you rent your audience from the platforms. And when the platforms make changes, you lose your audience. And that sucks. That's not creator first. And that's not fair for creative people. There's got to be a better way that creators can cultivate strong, deep, meaningful relationships with their fans.

and not be subject to the whims of an organization that pulls the rug out from under them and basically stops them from being able to connect with and communicate with their fans. So that's the second thing that I think is a long-term trend that's going to be solved. And then another thing that I see happening is around like,

better rules around copyright and IP protection and making sure that artists own their work. In addition to owning their audience, there's ownership of your work and making sure that you get compensated for your work. Because what's happening right now is content is getting ripped and uploaded to other platforms and appears all over the web and artists aren't participating in any of that. And one of the cool promises, I think, of a lot of the new technologies that are coming out is a way that artists can continue to be paid no matter where the art shows up in the future on the internet.

And I think that's probably a trend, regardless of the technology, that we're going to see more of over the next decade is wherever an artist's work is, they will participate in the value that's being generated by that work. And it will likely be transportable across platforms and uploadable into different places and that sort of thing. So NFTs, Jack, do you see that being a part? The answer was very interesting, but I love your point of view on NFTs. Yeah, I think everybody wants to like, is Patreon building NFTs? And no, it's not on our roadmap right now.

We're not building it right now. And I guess you could say why? And I think why? Well, because like there's a lot of development of the use case and how they're applicable to artists that I think needs to be sorted out and figured out before we just kind of try to jump in on a trend. Again, we're more interested in like, how does this benefit creative people than any particular technology? It's also sort of clear that the use case so far for NFTs has been very much largely about like speculation on appreciating assets. So like making money, right? Like,

Even with this whole current market condition, I think there's some stats showing that the NFT sales have declined like over 70% already in terms of people purchasing as well as the value of these things. And so like, again, if our purpose is to provide like sustainable, predictable, reliable income for creators, this sort of volatility isn't necessarily meaningful at this moment.

I want to flip to a different question because just so people understand the difference, it's sort of back to how you really are different, right? So here's a mad thing for everybody to think about for a second. There is no search function, or at least you don't scroll through stuff on Patreon, and you don't have an algorithm, right? Now, I...

can barely even think of other places I go where there isn't right. And I'm sure you have a search function, but you understand what I mean. What challenges does that present to you as a business when everyone else, right? I know you did this in 2013, but again, everyone else is like, well, you make tons of money if you have like a

rolling scroll and an algorithm that throws things into their feed. And oh, suddenly they love, you know, Pamplemousse because you got thrown into someone's feed. Doesn't seem like that's your model. Is that present challenges to you as a business? So, you know, to the earlier point, like we're trying to kick people off of the content treadmill and have them own that direct relationship. But I think ultimately,

Also, what you see then in these various dynamics is that I love Jack's sort of concept of you're renting the users from these platforms. You're also renting the space on the feed to have any of your content displayed. And not only that, you're fighting against all these other tenants there.

and now you're paying for it and not and not only that yeah the platforms are getting all the money from the the ads that are also existing and you're getting barely any of that uh cut of it yourself and so i think like when we're thinking about shifting this whole paradigm out it's just entirely removing all that content treadmill fighting against other creators within the same space and we're saying hey you as a creator should own your own space you should be able to customize it

as you would like, and you should own that direct relationship with your fans. So there's a big strategic difference between the other platforms and Patreon.

The strategy difference is the other platforms go broad and go wide, and you're trying to reach as many people as possible. And so you need to diversify interests and introduce you to a billion people and literally a billion people. And the way it manifests is now as a creator, Pomplamoose, when Pomplamoose makes a post on Facebook, we get a little pop up that says, congratulations, Pomplamoose, you've reached 1.6% of your audience.

Would you like to reach 1.9% of your audience? Pay $200 and we'll boost your post. That's the way that it works on Facebook now and other platforms. When I want to reach more of my audience, I have to pay Facebook. Okay, on Patreon, when a creator makes a post, it gets delivered to 100% of their fans, 100% of the time.

100% of a creator's posts get delivered to 100% of their fans, 100% of the time. What you're getting at with Patreon doesn't have a quote unquote algorithm is we don't

rank stuff for patrons. If the creator makes a post, we send it to the patron. And that's a big strategy difference. Now, why are we doing that? We're doing that because we want to have a place where creators can go deep with their most important fans, with their most passionate fans. We want to build a place where creators can cultivate that depth of connection rather than having a strategy where we're trying to go broad and connect as many people as possible, which is just a very different product strategy.

I really want to understand the dynamic between the two of you. Okay. So, and so I'm going to just do that, like caricature, right? Which is if you build a creative company, you need the creative guy and you need the tech guy or the business or whatever, Sam, I'm sorry. I don't want to pigeonhole you and whatever, but right. So anyway, throw that out and tell me what it really is. I love that setup, James. It's so funny. I'm trying to provoke you. Come on, say something. Sam, what do you think?

I feel like we've been married for over... What is it now? Like two decades is what it feels like. Because we met in college and like we started in 2002 and it's 2022 right now.

We were living together. We were roommates. They had paired us up. I think at that time, I mean, Jack obviously is a super creative artist, did everything from film to piano. But at least I was very much into like piano and music. So I think they paired us up for that reason. And then we lived together for, I think, we were roommates or drawmates for three years out of our four in college. And

And then all Patreon was for me was it was effectively us moving back in together because that's what we ended up renting the

this apartment in Noe Valley and then San Francisco, basically, and then having to sleep in the same building or not same building, same set of rooms effectively again. And that's what the whole relationship has effectively been full circle to just having to deal with each other as we go to bed and wake up and use the restrooms. So James, can I make you a deal here? So you asked for the real story. So we'll give you the real story, but then you got to give us the real story

Okay. And I know you probably talk about it a lot, but I want to hear about some of your partnerships at Apple over many, many years, and maybe especially some of the more difficult ones. You're turning the tables here, Jack. Yeah, but that's where the goods is, right? But you've got to answer the question first, and then maybe we'll do that. All right, I'll do it first. I just wanted the handshake to make sure that it was a deal. Okay, I'm up for it. Let's go. Okay. So Sam and I have been married.

It's really felt like that. And as he mentioned, we were in a two-bedroom apartment for the first couple of years of the business. I'm relieved to hear it's a two-bedroom apartment, at least. It was two bedrooms. People came over to the office to work. It was wild. The other thing is that Sam and I have only talked about this, I think, maybe once before, but

It was not without conflict. Like it was for the first couple of years, getting to like know each other and work together was very, very difficult. We went to co-founder therapy together. Like we got really deep into it. I'm serious. There's co-founder therapy and we did it. There's co-founder therapy? That wasn't a joke? No, I'm serious. It's like a thing that you can do. Okay. Full blown marriage. What I'm, I think very proud of is, is I feel like we came out the other side.

I think strong relationships are not devoid of conflict. Strong relationships are, are when the conflict is dealt with plainly, candidly and with care and compassion. And I think that's the thing that I'm very, I'm probably most proud about is, you know, with the relationship with Sam is like, it got heavy for us for a couple of years. And like, I think Sam is such a wonderful, good person and such a good soul that,

And we were able to like talk about it and work through it and come out the other end. I think very, very strong, much stronger than we even were at the beginning. But it was because we dove into that hard shit together and did the therapy and did the conversations and

And had the, you know, had the open conversation and dialogue with each other. And now we finish each other's sentences and know each other like the back of our hands because we've seen all sides of each other. And I think that's just, I wish more people talked about that because it's the truth of company building and it's the hard stuff about company building. And it's the stuff that I think makes companies ultimately stronger.

If we're going to dive into it, I think it helped a lot, Jack, from the get-go too. Like the way you framed this whole arrangement was like, hey, we're going to prioritize our friendships first. If you look at like a lot of these companies that are really well-known, like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, all of them actually, they ended up with like lawsuits and founders getting kicked out. And just, I think effectively people at each other's throats.

But literally in our first contract together that Jack drafted up by email, it stated that we would prioritize our friendships above all these issues. And despite all these, you still end up disagreeing like very violently, you know, at times on a lot of issues, especially when it comes to something I think that Jack cares so deeply about with creators. And then for myself, just having...

been through a struggle of working through all these different companies that don't make it. Like once you have a thing that you're seeing momentum on, you really care about it. Like, you know, we're going to continue the marriage analogy like a child. And so I think when you're both caring that deeply and passionately about an issue, you're bound to run into points where there's going to be those disagreements.

So I'm going to sort of start the ping pong a little bit. You see value in each other's different perspectives and you respect it. And that allows you to progress as a team together, focusing on the relationship, having a lot of respect for each other, respecting that they're coming up with, but maybe different. Oh, you're seeing it from that way. Oh, I'm seeing it from that way. Okay, great. That actually potentially makes you a more robust company than one led by a single founder with a single point of view.

for me, like Jack is the lens of the critic. He lives and breathes it. And he cares so deeply about that. And that, that is atypical. If you look at any sort of silk, in fact, I think Jack, you want to push away many times I've seen like this idea of even operating like a Silicon Valley or like a company in that sense, you want to think, how can we serve creators? That's why even internally we have this value and it ends up

leading every single one when we talk about our core values as an organization, that we are creator first. And so fundamentally, I think that has seeped into our culture, our DNA. And I saw that from the beginning. I've known Jack again for 20 years now. And that was critical for, I think, getting to where we have been. What's also interesting, Jack, neither you or I are the guy in the room. I don't think we've ever been that. We care deeply about building and Jack just gets his

really hands-on in both his creative work and building sets and everything. And I'm very much focused heads down on all the little details and experiences that we build out. So

I think that meant that we had to figure out that role. And I think Jack had to, especially when we had to deal with things like pitches with investors and being, you know, obviously speaking to the organization more broadly, you've had to pick that up. And then similarly, when we get into conflicts, it oftentimes is like just ourselves, like in a room like this,

again, violently disagreeing with how we want to build. And that's really tough when you both care deeply about how something and you want that control. And I think working through that has been amazing and cathartic in so many ways over the years. I would strongly encourage if there are other people forming these sort of building working relationships that you figure it out very early on because otherwise it's going to be a world of hurt down the road. Hearing that story, James, makes me wonder,

for you as a leader, I'm curious, you know, as a leader at Founder, do you have a sense of like when you exert your own opinion versus when you're not the guy in the room? Let's be clear. For 11 years, I wasn't the guy in the room. There was another guy in the room, right? And he happens to have been, you know, one of the greatest founders the world's ever seen and created the biggest company in the world. So Steve Jobs at Apple, right? And I wasn't the guy in the room. I was learning from the guy in the room. So it was a

a student for a long, long time. And only when I went to see some other founders and started to realize that maybe I learned some power here and understood it. My job is to pull the genius out of founders, right? And so I'll do whatever it takes. And I think I can modulate and I have range and I have fairly decent EQ to figure out who they are. And should I like raise it or lower it down or should I just be silent?

And I'm hopefully can take myself out of the equation. This isn't about me. It's about the founder. So I would call founder. And so I'll play this role with you, but I might play a different role with other people because they're quiet or they're a scientist because we work with all manner of, so I think the EQ as much as the IQ is really important. And then that's why

I call myself the alchemist because I often honestly don't need to be the baller at all. Like, you know, people come to us now and Steven takes it away. And most of the time we agree. And actually we agree more and more to be honest than we did even a few years ago, because he has a sense of me even more than, and I have a sense of him. So, so no, I think it's about reading the person and understanding it. And I've always been the King's hand, not

not the king. So I'm the whisper in the ear of the person who's taking the stage. I'm not actually taking the stage. That's why I think it's actually very important for me to modulate that. And I don't think I'm the baller in the room, but I'm willing to speak truth to power as and when it's needed. And just...

go back and, you know, whatever is needed at the time, dependent on the founder. So speaking of speaking truth to power, one thing I'm curious just about, you know, you've had the opportunity to work with so many founders, so many CEOs across a range of companies.

in Silicon Valley, in the world of technology. I'd love to hear your sense of like, what do you wish more companies understood about brand building? And if you could just snap your fingers and have them get that takeaway, what would it be? Yeah, I think the simplest answer is the brand isn't like a thing over there that you like do sometimes. You know, it's like, oh, we should do a brand campaign, like create a brand. It's like, oh, so what the hell have you been doing the last 10 years? Like,

The brand is everything you do. And hence, I can paint a picture of your brand because of all the things that you've just talked about, because of the way you think about your mission, the values you have, the product you've created because of the values you have. That's your brand.

right? You care about artists. You don't want the algorithm. You don't want the thing. You want them to get paid. You want people to have a great experience, right? So that's the brand. And so I just think the challenge is when people think they don't understand marketing and brand, then they go, oh shit, we need one. No, I mean, if there's lessons from Steve, it's the brand is absolutely everything you do, whether it's the iPhone box. I mean, you try opening that in less than three minutes. It's really fucking hard. Like it's like, yeah,

Because it's designed to be slow. You're like, nope, you can't rush this. This phone is deserving of your three minutes as you try to pull the top off, right? You know, the box is like vacuum sealed and... Right? Or the store, the way they're trained, the way they talk to you, the way, right? How...

Every keynote is designed, how every product is thought about, how they won't put things out into the world unless they're exactly right. That is the brand. And so the icing on the cake is like, you know, some ads that some people used to make, right? That's fine. That's great. Think different. 1984, blah, blah, blah, right? They're great.

But they're only being able to be built because they truly reflect a company whose behavior it matches. And so I think brand is everything. It's not a department. If the CEO could just care about that shit and understand that what you do matters, then

Because that is the brand. Your intention and your vision and your values and all the things you guys represent, that is a brand. And I wish CEOs were a little less accountants and a little more behavioral thinkers about the fact that building a brand is done every single day in every decision you make.

And with that, I'm going to thank both of you for joining me. I appreciate you throwing it back at me and asking me the tough questions, even ones that made me squeal a little bit, but it's been terrific. And thank you so much, guys. It's been one of my favorites. So we had a lot of fun. We could have gone on for hours, I think, right? I think so. Thanks for having us, James. Thank you, James. Thank you.

Jack and Sam, I think, are pretty special founders on a number of levels. I mean, it's a passion business that's turned into a massive business. It's, as I've said before, innovation for the human condition. It's positive to the world. It's helping creators get paid. It's helping fans connect directly with them and stopping the triage of big tech companies getting in the middle and making money out of them. And I think it's a great way to

So I think there's beauty in their story and real specialness. And I loved the lessons of co-founder nurse built on relationship. And I think maybe everyone can think about that in terms of the people that are operating with the people that are sharing their journey with like, what is that relationship? And if it's turning into something that isn't positive, then take the time to invest in

energy in that relationship and, and, and maybe go for a drink or go and like, you know, it's okay to disagree. It really is. It's okay. Like, I don't think this is about

totally dissolving the conflict because you have different points of view. And actually, I might argue that the very best, greatest ideas come from positive friction, but make sure the friction is positive, but don't remove the friction. And so I loved the fact that those two guys were willing to admit that they argue a lot. And out of that came this incredibly beautiful, special thing, Patreon, because Sam's the tech guy who built it, right? And of course, Jack's the creative guy that

felt it. And Sam also had the bridge in that he was a musician. So he understood that conversation too. I think focus on your relationships around you because I think it making them positive, respectful, but not devoid of friction.

Make it positive friction. I think another thing, a wonderful thing that is reflected in Patreon and Jack and Sam is that they go very deep. And I think I might argue that the future of technology is multi-niche, not mass. I actually like to think that the future of technology is multi-niche, not mass. I think the worst thing that happens in John Mader at RISD once called it computational design. And what that means is we're designing for massness.

Well, basically, so there's billions of people and you're all going to pretend that there's a personalized nature to the experience you're having, but you're really having the same experience that everyone else is having versus designing for different and designing for small groups to have interrelationships. But that doesn't mean the company has to be small in going deep.

What they actually are is a bunch of niches that actually, when you add them all up together, they're a huge company. And I actually think that's the opportunity of the next generation of technology is to create multi-niche companies. They're not mass. They're not everybody's the same, so let's all wear the same T-shirt. It's you go there and everyone has their own distinct relationship directly. But you can build massive companies with that. And you might argue that the dispersed nature of Web3 is our future.

And we talked about a little too. And so being multi-niche and thinking about wherever we go, whether it's NFTs or Web3 or whatever the hell that is, it feels like it's the future. And that's why Patreon is so well positioned.

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Most Innovative Companies is a production of Fast Company in partnership with Founder, FNDR. We couldn't afford the vowels. The producer is Joshua Christensen. Sound, design, and editing is Nicholas Torres. Writing is Matias Sanchez. Alex Webster and Nikki Checkley have put everything together. This podcast was done in collaboration with my partners, Stephen Butler, Rebecca Jeffries, and Nick Barham, partners at Founder, and the whole team there.