00:00hi and welcome to the a 16z podcast this
00:03episode of the podcast is all about
00:04community and culture online moderated
00:07by Chris Dixon general partner at a 16z
00:10and including Alex lay VP of product at
00:12Reddit Michael Temkin CEO of rabbit and
00:15Jeffrey Wu co-founder and CEO of human
00:18is all about how our idea of community
00:20is changing what a community is who it's
00:23made of and what it does thanks to the
00:25Internet this conversation was recorded
00:26as part of our summit event in November
00:282017 it's interesting because these
00:32communities prior to the internet I
00:33don't know they may have been formed
00:35through in-person meetup groups or
00:37magazines or something like this but now
00:40it's happening in a much more kind of
00:41bottom-up way where people are
00:43self-organizing into very large
00:45communities and sort of interest
00:46communities and doing things like kind
00:49of bottom-up science and research and
00:51things like this too
00:52ya know I think it's a good point I mean
00:53I think a lot of the behaviors were
00:54somewhat illicit or sketchy right like
00:56people talking about not eating or
00:58people talking about cognitive enhancers
01:00and you have the range of people looking
01:03at military research compounds to people
01:05talking about microdose seeing illegal
01:07substances so I think it's a lot harder
01:10to have these conversations when there
01:12wasn't the internet and these platforms
01:14that enable these conversations but I
01:16think in some sense I think all of these
01:20yeah we're empowered by the availability
01:22of breaking on Geographic walls we just
01:23have these very easy conversation with
01:25the people that align our own interest
01:27and we got interested my co-founder and
01:29I Michael in terms of enhancing
01:32cognition we thought that you know
01:33humans what really differentiates us
01:36from machines is our ability to think so
01:39it seems sensible to enhance cognitive
01:41performance there just happen to be you
01:43know tens of thousands of people on our
01:45nootropics on the reddit platform that
01:49were talking about doing citizen science
01:51and equals one experiments around taking
01:54substance doing cognitive tests seen
01:56different improvements I think this was
01:58like a really rapidly growing organic
01:59community and there's a lot of friction
02:01for people to acquire nootropics and get
02:03into biohacking so it made sense in
02:05terms of like the entrepreneurial light
02:07bulb if a lot of people were organically
02:09getting into this topic and a lot of
02:12people are like a lot of friction too
02:13even enter this space maybe there's an
02:15interesting service seat built here what
02:17that means from business point of view
02:18is that you tend to have a lot more you
02:20know a lower acquisition cost for
02:21customers they come to you naturally you
02:24show up an SEO the news media likes to
02:26write about you because these
02:27communities are kind of out there and
02:29doing interesting stuff I personally
02:30follow a lot of this stuff on Reddit
02:32that's how we discovered a bunch of a
02:33lot of the cryptocurrency stuff by the
02:34way I like that I mention
02:36it's almost all happening I'm reddit and
02:37so you know reddit I think is often my
02:39views it's often misunderstood because
02:40people look good at the homepage and
02:42they think it's funny memes and stuff
02:43like this which of course there are
02:45those things but it's also this massive
02:47I think of it as like a nation almost or
02:50hit like where many of all these
02:51different cities subreddits and things
02:53like this which I'm sure creates
02:55interesting opportunities and challenges
02:56how do you think about like kind of
02:58balancing wanting to foster these
03:00communities at the same time you
03:01obviously have communities that you may
03:04not love you talk about that yeah I mean
03:07I think the easiest way to talk about
03:08that is to think about how we got to the
03:10place where we are where we actually
03:12have millions of communities that are
03:14dedicated to almost any given human
03:15topic reddit actually started off as one
03:17community so we were just a single
03:19community of kind of hackers that were
03:21interested in sharing tech news this was
03:24like 12 years ago and really everything
03:27spun off from there so we created the
03:29facility for people to have a community
03:30about anything and it really started
03:32slowly there were just communities that
03:34were kind of adjacent to that first
03:36community and it's spun and spun and
03:38spun from there and that these are
03:40subreddits these are these are
03:41subreddits and so those actually have
03:42people don't understand this I think but
03:44they actually have their own moderators
03:45it's not you right right so the
03:47community nominates their own moderators
03:49exactly so we have about 50,000 active
03:52on any given day and those are self run
03:54communities the moderators are really
03:56behind the scenes doing a lot more to
03:58keep the communities in check and guide
03:59the conversation than it might seem and
04:01especially more than it might seem from
04:03our front page which is kind of a lot of
04:05memes and the most funny and interesting
04:07content but the way we think about it is
04:09we are a network now we're a network of
04:11communities and we focus on making sure
04:13that we can strengthen that network
04:14every additional node in that network
04:17strengthens in the network effect then
04:19any nodes that are kind of behaving
04:20badly or are affecting that overall
04:22network those got to go and when we
04:24think about it as a network
04:26happy to see communities grow and evolve
04:28and start to become whole companies or
04:31have an industry form around them as is
04:33the case with human because you know
04:35we're very focused on the platform and
04:36enabling every kind of community to
04:38spring out of the network and so when a
04:40company forms to support a community
04:42that's a super happy moment for us and
04:44we want to keep seeing that happen one
04:46of the ways I think about it is the
04:47Internet is sort of a set of communities
04:48and then there's this relationship
04:50between the different websites so for
04:52example red it tends to be I think of it
04:54tell me if you disagree upstream from
04:56Facebook and what I mean by that is
04:58people will develop memes and funny
05:00videos and other kinds of things which
05:02will then spread to other kind of more
05:05mainstream mainstream but like what ya
05:06face by guys Facebook just by definition
05:08bar mainstream right just bigger
05:09networks and then but a lot of that will
05:12you'll be sort of a I don't know where's
05:13the sources you had the source the
05:14source of the mouth of the river or
05:15something right yeah yeah we actually
05:17think of ourselves we often joke in the
05:19office that 4chan which is another weird
05:21place on the Internet is like raw dream
05:23space and we are maybe a level up from
05:25that where we're finding that content
05:27and making it more interesting and then
05:28it goes off and spread and then it goes
05:29into the kind of retail game retail it's
05:32like Facebook and Twitter or something
05:33like this and you saw that in the
05:34election for example like I think a lot
05:36of the smarter politicians get that and
05:38they know they need to affect the mouth
05:39of the river right yeah to in order to
05:41affect downstream yeah and it also
05:43affects like SEO and all these search
05:45results this is why it has business
05:46implications you get that community
05:47going yeah and that community will
05:50determine what the search results are
05:51and how people think about a topic yeah
05:53the way we like to talk about it at the
05:54company is that reddit is a place where
05:55authentic opinions are shared and also
05:58authentic opinions can be shaped it's a
06:00moment in time when you're talking to a
06:02community of your peers where you're
06:03seeking that kind of first inkling of
06:05what you want to think about a topic and
06:07that community can really shape your
06:09your understanding Michael so just to
06:11dig into a little more about what rabbit
06:12does can you go a little more detail in
06:14terms of what the service is and like
06:16what kind of communities you develop
06:17around it sure so people come together
06:18to watch anything so the way it works in
06:22rabbit is anything that has a URL is
06:25available to stream synchronously we
06:27make sure that people see the same
06:29moments at the same time and we make
06:31sure that you have high quality video
06:33chat and audio and text if you want it
06:35but for us the high-value experiences
06:39seeing people while you're experiencing
06:41content together you know it's really
06:43will typically watch it honestly it's
06:46everything and and that's where the sub
06:48communities come in so we have it's
06:50usually what happens with rabbit is
06:51people will come from somewhere else
06:54from an asynchronous community like
06:55Reddit if they have a super obscure
06:57animes sub genre that they love to watch
07:00together they tend to congregate in
07:02places where they can talk about it
07:04but of course they want to have that
07:05in-person more authentic genuine
07:09experience of actually watching it
07:10together so they'll congregate in other
07:12places and we see it all over Twitter
07:14Facebook reddit and then they'll come
07:17into rabbit and build a more real-world
07:21social graph around the content so it's
07:24as much about discovery and that's
07:25really where we focus so we we focused
07:28first on perfecting the experience of
07:30small groups of friends watching
07:31together so when we started it was not
07:33about being a broadcast community it was
07:36about giving people the experience of
07:38being in person with their friends and
07:40then we made it easy to find other
07:43things that you might want to watch or
07:44other people that you might want to
07:45watch with so the content really is the
07:48icebreaker and the thing that draws
07:50people together but then what we see is
07:52once you come in for some specific type
07:56of content you'll branch out and we can
07:58watch that social graph develop around
08:00related content or related communities
08:02as I understand it's like a lot of its
08:04just people watching random YouTube
08:06videos and things so it's almost like
08:07the video is just a excuse to have
08:09something to talk about and hang out and
08:11it simulates the real-world experience
08:13exactly I make a dorm room or something
08:15you definitely have people who will come
08:16in and watch full-length movies and
08:18watch full episodes of TV shows but
08:21there's also a whole group of people who
08:23just want to have something on in the
08:24background while they hang out with
08:26their friends so it really is that
08:27college dorm mechanism you know hand me
08:29the remote I'm going to show you this
08:30funny cat video that I found and I want
08:33to play this new music video and let's
08:35listen to the song and experience it
08:37together so it's about those shared
08:39moments it singeing because one of
08:41course the big change is the internet
08:42over the last few years has been the
08:43push to video obviously Facebook doing
08:45that and part of that's just enabled by
08:47the fact that the cell phones you can
08:49now get high quality video full duplex
08:53do the injustice technically possible
08:54but it also provides kind of a richer
08:57experience by imagine the next level of
09:00engagement after having an asynchronous
09:01conversation with people is to engage in
09:04video and other kinds of things right
09:05yeah so we actually rolled out video to
09:08a subset of our communities just a
09:09little while ago and it's been an
09:11amazing thing to watch the most
09:13incredible thing we found is people who
09:14are not posting any content at all we're
09:16willing to do video there's this amazing
09:19low barrier to entry that we have now
09:21with video in the consumer landscape
09:22where everyone just feels like they can
09:23do it I think maybe this is partly
09:25coming from the snapchat effect and so
09:27it was a big boost in those communities
09:29to content submissions all from people
09:32who weren't posting content otherwise
09:33they weren't writing posts they weren't
09:34responding in comments they were just
09:36kind of lurking but video unlocked a
09:39whole new set of experiences and the
09:41other thing that we saw with video was
09:42that people weren't trying to upload
09:44video to you know become famous or
09:47become like a YouTube famous person they
09:49were just uploading a video because they
09:51wanted to share it with their community
09:53of friends so we had people in like the
09:54golf community just uploading a video of
09:56their swings saying can you give me tips
09:58on like what I'm doing wrong so it was
10:00pretty interesting to see video I think
10:01is is it's really incredible what's
10:04possible so it's like about the business
10:05side of these things so there could be
10:07tension between kind of fostering a
10:09healthy community and making money from
10:11the community how do you guys think
10:12about that Alex yeah so with Reddit we
10:15hope that we can map the entire interest
10:18graph that exists in the world and
10:19provide a community for any topic that
10:21you might be interested in and it's very
10:23natural to go from that knowing knowing
10:25the things you're interested the people
10:26that you want to connect with and the
10:27topic you want to read about to being
10:29able to turn that into a commercial
10:31intent and you know you could take it
10:32very far as we see with human where it
10:34starts as a community of people kind of
10:36just experimenting themselves and
10:38needing a business to form in order for
10:40them to actually to go further so we
10:41think there's a lot of commercial intent
10:43when when people are diving into the
10:45communities you know they're people who
10:47are into things and are seeking a
10:49community are the most passionate people
10:50in the world a lot of times you've got
10:52audiophiles who will spend way more
10:54money than they should on audio
10:56equipment you have you pretty much any
10:58topic you can think of you've got people
10:59who are ready to engage with their
11:01dollars but I would say that I think
11:03people are smart I don't think people
11:04like being marketed to so I think for
11:07about community that human is that we
11:09just create a service around things that
11:12like people would want to do anyways so
11:14one of the biggest behaviors in our
11:15communities around intermittent fasting
11:17this idea of shortening your eating
11:19windows and having longer periods of not
11:22eating so people can be fasting for 20
11:25hours a day which is like a late lunch
11:27and early dinner and the way we think
11:30about it is I like that's like very
11:31similar to how Nike has like that's
11:32running clubs like Nike isn't monetizing
11:34people running there's clearly value-add
11:36in terms of just providing a context of
11:39people that do things together or like
11:40Lululemon doing like yoga classes in
11:43their studio and we create valuable
11:46offerings to the community then it makes
11:48sense for you to actually like talk to
11:49them directly so I think there is like
11:51that fine line between overly collecting
11:54value or extracting value from the
11:56community versus like can you add value
11:57back and then over the long term collect
12:00value over that time yeah that's
12:02actually exactly how we think about it
12:03as well because the experiences in
12:05Rabbid even if you're meeting new people
12:07who you know you wouldn't know in the
12:09real world they're still very intimate
12:11experiences it's designed around small
12:13groups of friends and you don't want you
12:16know you're hanging out with a small
12:17group of friends you don't want somebody
12:18walking into your room trying to sell
12:20something to you but what's unique about
12:22rabbit is we have people's actual
12:25behaviors right so while you might say
12:27on Facebook you like some show Facebook
12:30and sort of asynchronous social
12:32experiences end up being performance art
12:33you're trying to craft a persona to get
12:36people to react to you whereas in rabbit
12:38you're actually doing whatever it is
12:40you're talking about so if I'm a game of
12:42Thrones fan I'm probably watching it
12:44with specific people who are also Game
12:46of Thrones fans who have other interests
12:49and if we can add value to those
12:51experiences by connecting them with
12:53content that they wouldn't have
12:54discovered otherwise or products that
12:56are relevant or something there's a big
12:57opportunity so let's like what about the
12:59future the broad secular trends seem
13:01pretty obvious which is people are
13:03spending less and less time watching
13:04traditional TV consuming traditional
13:06media more and more time and internet
13:08more and more time on their smartphones
13:09all the statistics bear that out that's
13:11happening with kind of younger
13:12generations so clearly those shifts are
13:14happening and that will have all sorts
13:15of secondary effects on content you know
13:20or something will shift to the internet
13:22of presumably ad dollars will flow
13:24there'll be all sorts of business
13:25implications but you know and and it
13:26soon be interesting to see like this new
13:28generation growing up who's just sort of
13:29you know mobile smartphone native or
13:32something and just expects everything to
13:33be as you said like the influence of
13:34things like snapchat on people's
13:37behaviors so one would imagine that
13:39we're still pretty early on in the
13:41development of the internet and these
13:43trends will continue and only accelerate
13:45but but I'd love to hear your guys
13:47thoughts yeah this starts you know like
13:50projecting into the future I mean I
13:51think all these communities start off
13:53fairly marginal by definition otherwise
13:55it'll just be like dominant culture but
13:57I think it's like you just see the pace
13:58of all of these things growing I think
14:00all some of these subreddits
14:02that you know communities on rabid you
14:04know hopefully about having community
14:05ends up becoming just mainstream culture
14:07just like computing used to be a niche
14:10activity with the homebrew computing
14:11Club now everyone you know as a
14:12supercomputer really in their pockets
14:14you think the same things gonna happen
14:15biohacking so I really see anything
14:18that's one of your like key theses like
14:20what are smart people doing on weekends
14:22and how did is that gonna be a behavior
14:24that everyone does in the future one
14:26thing with the shift of the dominant
14:27media form being things like TV and
14:30magazines which were based you know in
14:31cities like New York and LA to the
14:34internet I think as a secondary
14:36consequence you have a disproportionate
14:38influence of kind of tech culture right
14:40because tech culture just kind of
14:41defines it just does better on the
14:43Internet right I mean think it's what
14:45we're seeing with all these kind of new
14:46trends so I think to your point like a
14:48lot of these things that seem kind of
14:49marginal and nerdy right now will
14:51increasingly see mainstream yeah
14:53I think the last point I want to make
14:54there's I think to make this not just a
14:57fad or like a cult like that needs to be
14:59some core data or science that's driving
15:02fundamental truth right like I think an
15:04example with crypto like okay there's
15:05maybe some truth that like a
15:07decentralized system it's just the
15:08better like bio hacking techniques like
15:10a ketogenic diet or interment fast and
15:12just better than the standard Western
15:13diet like so I think it's like you can
15:15have a community but there needs to be
15:17some underlying science driving why this
15:21is a better better way of living better
15:23way of culture what do you think that
15:24sort of traditional brands who try to
15:26kind of get into the internet and I
15:28think they suck at it like bluntly I
15:30think it just comes off very transparent
15:32that they're trying to extract
15:33value from a community like I think we
15:35were just relatively lucky in terms of
15:37being biohackers ourselves like we just
15:40so you think that people are more
15:42sensitive to the authenticity of brands
15:44and then they used to be they see
15:46through it and they and they want
15:48authenticity I think it's why the what
15:50but in one of the senses that I think
15:51humans are most attuned to like can you
15:53just smell BS on people I think that's
15:55why you see everything moderated through
15:58TV ads everything else oh now you can
15:59like read about it and go and master the
16:02BS meter comes through with traditional
16:04brand through the idea of controlling
16:06the message and I think that you know
16:08for the first time we have an entire
16:10generation of people who grew up with
16:12participatory media as their first real
16:14experience of media not a controlled
16:16media experience and that's that's
16:18definitely what was just being strange
16:19yeah we shout out all old message to you
16:22it just seems like a weird behavior
16:23there has to be a real give-and-take and
16:26even if you manufacture some way for
16:29there to be a participation if there
16:30isn't a genuine chance that you know
16:32that the conversation is gonna shift
16:34because of that participation they'll
16:36smell it a mile away and I think that's
16:38why companies like like neutral boxer or
16:41human are so successful because they're
16:44actually listening they're like shaping
16:45their roadmap based on that conversation
16:47they're not just selling a vision or an
16:50aspiration and expecting you to come
16:51along I think that that's actually the
16:52key right so I think we're traditional
16:55media is fallen over is sort of
16:57discovered district or a media social
17:00media whatever is a thing and now they
17:02want to know well how do I make it
17:03social right and the reality is you
17:05can't make something social it either
17:07has a dynamic that's social and
17:09authentic or it doesn't and people can
17:13sniff that out from a mile away right am
17:15i participating in this community in a
17:18natural authentic way or am I being
17:20marketed to and I think in speaking to
17:22the future I'm you know one of our
17:25theses is that because this generation
17:27of people is coming online now and
17:29they're coming online with spending
17:30power having grown up in a social media
17:32world I think we're just at the
17:34beginning of what's going to happen and
17:36I think it's gonna be hard to see to
17:38because I think that a lot of
17:39traditional media isn't paying attention
17:41to a lot of the people who are making it
17:43really big in social media right
17:45because traditional media is just too
17:47used to controlling that narrative and
17:48shaping that story so do you think
17:51they're under estimating you know degree
17:53to which it's happening
17:54yeah I think they're under estimating
17:55the degree to which is happening because
17:57traditional media looks to itself it's a
17:59little bit navel-gazing to see what's
18:01the next thing what are the other
18:02decision-makers making decisions about
18:04now but when you look at social media
18:06and communities the decision-making is
18:09diffuse across you know millions of
18:11people and you really have to have your
18:13finger on the pulse of what everyone is
18:14thinking to understand what's coming
18:16next I think there's a key piece there
18:18which you've both mentioned actually
18:19which is geography I think that
18:21traditional media still thinks in very
18:23you know local centric communities and
18:27you know one of the things that I think
18:29is a big change that's happening
18:31especially through the adoption of video
18:34for communications is communities exist
18:36across boundaries I mean that's always
18:38been true through you know bulletin
18:41boards and Facebook and all of that but
18:43now that people can actually talk in
18:45real time no matter where they are they
18:47can exchange ideas they can essentially
18:50do things together geography matters
18:51less and especially we it's funny we've
18:54been watching what people are watching
18:56in Rabbid and of course all the
18:58traditional media companies are very
19:00concerned about geographical rights for
19:02their content and everything that's
19:04happening on YouTube and Facebook people
19:07are sharing it everywhere so those
19:08things are being adopted by a much wider
19:10audience I was just talking to someone
19:12who was a top eSports player like League
19:14of Legends and he was talking about how
19:15you know there's a new thing now where
19:17all of the their friend that they're
19:18selling the franchise rights for League
19:20of Legends and also overwatch teams to
19:23like traditional sports teams yeah and
19:25all it's funny because all that you've
19:27touched these people I get such a weird
19:28concept to have like the San Francisco
19:30eSports team like no one has Geographic
19:32concepts yes right you like this team
19:34because they're cool and they do what
19:35they yeah and they don't there's no one
19:38even thinks relays like it's just like
19:39you live on the internet but like you
19:40have this like oh but like it's awesome
19:41like they're you know whatever their
19:42attack strategy or whatever you know and
19:44they like get into that and then it's
19:46funny though to see then and then the
19:47sort of existing sports teams come in
19:48they map their kind of way of thinking
19:50of a geographic and we'll see how it
19:52plays out but like this person was
19:54arguing that this idea that you'd have
19:55the San Francisco League of Legends team
19:57or something was a sort of leg
19:58notions well thank you and thank you
20:01thanks thank you guys thank you
![How To Succeed As A NEW & YOUNG Realtor [Deals Every Month + Luxury Listings]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FrtrRghgTayc%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
