Jacob Kastrenakes
Things are about to start back up.
Next on the schedule: Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, a panel on AI ethics, and a chat between Kara Swisher and former Twitter trust and safety leader Yoel Roth.
Jacob Kastrenakes
Executive Editor
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Jacob Kastrenakes
The Instagram —> Threads —> Code Conference pipeline.
Who’s better to ask questions of the co-founder of Instagram than the current head of Instagram?
The Verge’s Alex Heath asked the question, written in on Threads by Instagram leader Adam Mosseri, in response to Artifact co-founder Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Instagram.
Jacob Kastrenakes
Alright, time for a break.
Code’s on pause while everyone grabs lunch. Things start up again at 5:50PM ET with Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, a panel on AI ethics, and more.
Jacob Kastrenakes
“It’s freaky and fantastic at the same time.”
An audience member asked about how Lovett and Swisher handle strong parasocial relationships from listeners.
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.”
Jacob Kastrenakes
Most of their conversation has been about the 2024 election.
“It’s gonna be close,” Lovett says.
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.”
Jacob Kastrenakes
Lovett and Swisher are discussing the challenge of getting into podcasting in 2023.
The Pod Save America crew got in when podcasting was nascent and there was still a lot of free listening time.
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.
Jacob Kastrenakes
Jon Lovett is up now, speaking with Kara Swisher.
It’s the podcast crossover event of the century... or at least the afternoon. As you can imagine, the audience is very energized.
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.
Jacob Kastrenakes
Renaming HBO Max to Max was meant to “protect the HBO brand.”
Bloys made fun of critics for complaining that the “HBO Max” name diluted the HBO brand... and then complaining that the “Max” rebrand cast HBO aside. Here’s his reason:
If HBO is in the title of the platform, it represents everything on the platform, and it was about to get a lot bigger ... I did not want the HBO brand to take on all that stuff because it wasn’t designed to. So now we get to go back to HBO being exactly what HBO is.
Jacob Kastrenakes
“It’s not gonna affect what I make.”
Max’s Casey Bloys says the new writers contract isn’t going to raise costs so much that he won’t make a show that he thinks will be great.
“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.
