Jacob Kastrenakes

Swisher said the strong bond was why she got into podcasting into the first place, then recounted a recent interaction she had at a wedding.

“An older person came up to me and said ‘You’re my friend,’” Swisher said. “And then they said, ‘I’m not your friend, but you’re my friend.’” That experience, she said, was “freaky and fantastic.”

He thinks the media has better learned how to cover Trump, though. “I am a little bit more optimistic,” he told Axios’ Ina Fried in an audience question. “I think there has been a lot of lessons learned.”

Now, they both agree, there’s less opportunity. “Getting someone to add a new podcast to the mix is harder than it once was,” Lovett says.

Swisher also just teased a surprise guest she’s bringing in later: Yoel Roth. Should be fun counter-programming to X CEO Linda Yaccarino at the end of the day.

“Is it gonna be more expensive?” he asked. “Yeah, but not that I’m gonna say I’m not gonna make this show now.”

He thinks the strike went on so long because “there’s a lot changing, a lot shifting” in the industry. “It has been upended,” he said.

“We’ve tried to come at this from a publisher friendly perspective,” Mike Krieger said. Artifact thrives if the publisher ecosystem “is healthy and thriving,” so that approach is a long-term play.

“It’s about recognizing what needs to exist several years from now for you to have a viable product,” Krieger said

He’s happy to see that some of the ethos he and co-founder Kevin Systrom built continue onward, though. “They really nailed photo galleries on Threads,” he said.

Artifact, his news app, has been doing some neat things with AI and just launched a fun new section called Links.