Moving up the pricing curve

Brian: 00:00:09

Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

Brian: 00:00:11

I am Brian Morrissey.

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We are into August.

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We'll have episodes throughout the month.

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Hope you are going somewhere warm and nice.

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I'm actually heading out to Italy for a couple weeks and I'm really looking forward to it.

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again.

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We'll still be podcasting.

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I actually already recorded them.

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in September, we are kicking off a series sponsored by piano that will feature top CROs at top publishers discussing how they're reorienting, their revenue strategies for a very different landscape.

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My goal with the show overall really is to figure out, you know, the path ahead for these publishing businesses to get to sustainable business models.

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Obviously there's a lot of work to be done, but I think the contours are, are starting to come.

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Into view.

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And you know, one of the biggest shifts that I see happening right now is moving from volume to value.

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And I know that sounds simple and many of these changes like being audience focused, do often fall into the no duh bucket.

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But shifting businesses is hard.

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There's ingrained processes, infrastructure, and people.

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and one of the areas where I'm seeing a shift is in subscriptions.

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the rush to subscriptions was in some ways a counter to the scale era of accumulating lots of page views.

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Yet the strategies often pursued by publishers were mirrors.

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Of the page view strategies, it generally was to pile up tons of subscribers on cheap intro deals and then hopefully maybe down the road move them up the price curve and retain them.

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you know, that's proven a difficult proposition for many.

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Gnet, for instance, recently said it was overhauling its subscription strategy to de-emphasize, short term, intro offers in

Brian: 00:01:47

favor of annual subscriptions, and instead go to a paper article option for those who are on the low end of the price curve.

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And let's be real, most publishers are not going to convert a large percentage of their audience, and that means that you need to focus on arpu.

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Average revenue per user.

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This is something that constantly comes up and, and is important.

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You know, when you, when you go down in volume, you have to make up for it in value.

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You have to end up making more money off, a smaller audience.

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It's not perfect with my more, with less mantra, but it basically fits, um.

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And that's just for, for newspaper assets with Gannett.

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I think publishers in lucrative niches, have a lot of advantages and one of them is, you know, there's greater.

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Pricing flexibility, just as airlines make far more money selling, seats in the front of the plane.

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Publishers with these high value niches can do the same with their audiences.

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For example, you know, at the extreme, consider Bloomberg with its, you know, 20,000 odd dollars for a seat, at the terminal, or even Politico with Politico Pro, you know, publishers.

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In these kind of areas, it's not every publisher.

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we'll need to find the segments of their audience that, are, will, are willing to pay far higher price points for differentiated products.

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And then it's about, you gotta figure out what those products are in order to add value to them.

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And, and it can be data, it can be training, it can be access.

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On this episode.

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I talk with Adi Ignatius, the editor in chief of Harvard Business Review about how they're adapting to this ARPU era, and, and how they're trying to move people up the price curve.

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HBR recently launched HBR executive, a $700 a year premium subscription tier aimed at the C-suite.

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Of course, that makes a lot of sense.

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and it's a smart move.

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I think, you know, it's a sign of a broader shift happening, as I said, across the entire industry.

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what HPR is doing with executive is basically to test that, that.

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Top end of the curve, and Adi and I get into this, a lot of this is science, but a lot of it is honestly art.

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And the question is, how do you capture outsized value, value from the highest value part of your audience?

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we talk about the thinking behind the product.

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The constraints of, of working, inside a prestigious institution like Harvard.

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I mean, there's a lot of, advantages to it and also why AI looms large, even for a brand like HBR.

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we also get into what separates a true membership from what is, just a high priced, subscription.

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'cause I, I do think that there are differences and I think words like membership and community are thrown around a lot.

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By marketing teams, but, on a product level, they're hard to pull off and, and they're different.

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And, I think that's, that's pretty clear.

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You'll get that from this conversation.

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And we also get into how media brands, you know, evolve without cheapening, you know, what, what built their value over many years.

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Hope you enjoy this conversation.

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if you do, would really appreciate it if you shared it with someone who you thought would also, find it interesting and also leave, the rebooting show a rating and review.

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I regularly swing by to check them out.

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it's something of a scorecard, I guess.

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It apparently helps people discover the podcast.

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always want to grow it, of course.

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And I find growing podcasts to be a pretty difficult thing there.

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There're not a lot of growth levers, at least that are obvious to me.

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it's a little different than newsletters or certainly, website publishing, but I think that's part of what makes.

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Podcasting interesting is that there aren't these kind of growth hacks, at least, that are readily available or that I know of.

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So in any case, would really appreciate the, review or, sharing the podcast with others.

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Now, here's my conversation with Adi.

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All, right, let's get started.

Brian: 00:05:38

Adi, Thank you

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for,

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joining me for the show.

Brian: 00:05:41

Appreciate it.

Adi: 00:05:42

yeah.

Adi: 00:05:42

It's great to be on.

Brian: 00:05:43

You know, before I was like saying how, I'm kind of like an obsessive about the HBR brand.

Brian: 00:05:47

I know that sounds kind of strange.

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I'm probably not specifically in,

Adi: 00:05:50

It's a little nerdy, but, but it's okay.

Adi: 00:05:52

It's.

Brian: 00:05:52

it's a little nerdy, but I think it's really about like the brand because I think at this time of publishing, a lot of brand are just trying to figure out like, one, are they gonna get to the other side of, of this chasm?

Brian: 00:06:04

And then the other is, are we needed, like what is our purpose?

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What are we about?

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Because, you know, the internet really stretched a lot of these brands to try to be all things to all people.

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And I feel like, at least from the outside, HBR has a ton going for it and has a really diversified business model.

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And it's a true brand that gets expressed in a bunch of different ways.

Brian: 00:06:26

And we're gonna be talking about, one of the newest ways that, that you're leading.

Brian: 00:06:29

with HPR executive, but for those who are not as familiar, we don't have to do like, 'cause it's, it can be, at least from the outside, it can get a little complicated to describe like, HPR, it's like one of those, what do they call 'em?

Brian: 00:06:41

The Russian nesting dolls?

Adi: 00:06:43

Yeah.

Brian: 00:06:44

Yeah.

Brian: 00:06:45

It's like, it's like that a little bit.

Brian: 00:06:46

So give us the maka of HBR to kick things off.

Adi: 00:06:51

Okay.

Adi: 00:06:51

In English or Russian is, you

Brian: 00:06:53

No, do it in,

Adi: 00:06:53

are, what are we doing

Brian: 00:06:54

I know.

Brian: 00:06:54

'cause you, you're, you're in Moscow,

Adi: 00:06:56

I lived in Moscow a long time ago.

Adi: 00:06:57

yeah, I mean, I mean our, our, one thing I like about HBR is our basic mission is clear.

Adi: 00:07:02

I mean, we are, we're trying to, to help your careers, we're trying to help your institutions work more effectively.

Adi: 00:07:08

And that's, that, you know, that might sound nerdy, but that definitely will, will get our team, To work with the pep in their step every day?

Adi: 00:07:16

yeah, I mean, we, we try to do it in multiple platforms.

Adi: 00:07:18

I mean, it used to be, it was the magazine and every article was 12 pages long.

Adi: 00:07:23

so in the past 15 or years or so, we've obviously changed that the way everybody has, I mean, kind of digital and, and, and various platforms.

Adi: 00:07:31

And so, there's a magazine, there's a website there.

Adi: 00:07:34

there's a, a, a book, a book publishing arm.

Adi: 00:07:37

We, you know, are, are doing various, various new platforms, podcasts, video, everything.

Adi: 00:07:42

And, you know, it's really been an effort.

Adi: 00:07:43

Well, well, for 15 years it was an effort to kind of democratize Demystify, HBR, you know, it, it was a daunting brand to some people.

Adi: 00:07:51

So, the question was how do you, how do you, what we're writing about is important.

Adi: 00:07:55

It's about, you know, how you interact with people, how you get things done, how you improve the world, or how you make money, you know, whatever, whatever your motivation.

Adi: 00:08:03

so, so.

Adi: 00:08:06

I think we've always been creating value and the question is how to, how to enlarge that audience and make it seem not too academic, not too daunting.

Adi: 00:08:14

And, you know, and that's, that's about platforms and that's about length and it's about poppiness and peppiness and, you know, all those things that, that we do in this industry.

Brian: 00:08:22

Yeah.

Brian: 00:08:23

And so you were the, the editor, for I guess over like, what was it, 16 years?

Adi: 00:08:28

16 years.

Brian: 00:08:29

Yeah.

Brian: 00:08:29

And so, I mean that was during the sort of the transition of, I mean, I would guess it is like where it was real, it was really about the digitization.

Brian: 00:08:38

I think most brands were going through it probably, probably a little bit later maybe than, than, than they should have.

Brian: 00:08:43

But, it, I, I, at least that's the way I, I sort of peg it, but explain sort of what that period was and then we can talk about now.

Adi: 00:08:51

Sure.

Adi: 00:08:52

I mean, I mean now all of us have gone through that, so it's, it's not that interesting to say, well, you know, we were print and then we are digital.

Adi: 00:08:59

it, it was a little bit more complicated for us just because, because of our relationship with Harvard Business School.

Adi: 00:09:04

I mean, I. Harvard Business Publishing.

Adi: 00:09:07

The company was set up as an independent company to do the things Harvard Business School couldn't do.

Adi: 00:09:12

We, we've never been a Vanity Publishing arm of Harvard Business School, but you know, there are connections.

Adi: 00:09:17

So for us to suddenly say, well, we're gonna do blogs and we're gonna do short form stuff, and, you know, that.

Adi: 00:09:23

That required, I, I guess, more people to sign off you, you know, you just, you know, every, every institution has what they think is its special sauce and you come in and say, okay, great, and we're gonna do some new things.

Adi: 00:09:35

And nobody ever likes that.

Adi: 00:09:37

Right?

Adi: 00:09:37

so

Brian: 00:09:38

you had your own innovator's dilemma.

Adi: 00:09:40

Yeah, no, classic.

Adi: 00:09:41

Absolutely.

Adi: 00:09:41

Very nice.

Adi: 00:09:42

Nice reference there.

Adi: 00:09:43

so yeah, so, you know, but, and, but that's how it happens.

Adi: 00:09:47

I mean, you know, people, people are skeptical longer than you think, and then they realize this guy didn't fall in.

Adi: 00:09:52

And our authors are, they still wanna write for us.

Adi: 00:09:54

And, and are, are, we're, we're growing our, our, the audience that is, is reading us.

Adi: 00:09:58

And by the way, we're more successful, you know, as a, as a business.

Adi: 00:10:02

Too.

Adi: 00:10:02

So, you know, so, so we went through the process.

Adi: 00:10:05

Everyone went through it was, you know, slightly more complicated, but we, you know, we pulled through and, and you know, now we just have to keep reinventing things, moment after moment after moment.

Brian: 00:10:15

Yeah, and one of the big ones is obviously in the shift in, in most publishing is to subscription and, you know, HPR has been successful from everything that, that I've seen with getting people to pay.

Brian: 00:10:27

I mean, because.

Brian: 00:10:29

For the obvious reason is that people use HBR to improve their careers and therefore to make more money, and you're much more

Brian: 00:10:37

likely.

Brian: 00:10:37

to sell subscriptions when people can use that content to, to make more money.

Brian: 00:10:43

That's basically it.

Adi: 00:10:44

Yeah, I mean, I, I think a lot of our readers, I mean, not every person in business reads Harvard Business View, and I think, I think the profile of people who tend to read HVR, you know, they're people who are interested in ideas.

Adi: 00:10:56

Often that means that they're mission driven and purpose driven in their business.

Adi: 00:11:00

So, you know, the motivation, sure.

Adi: 00:11:03

To make money, everybody is in business to make money and to be more efficient and make more money for their shareholders, et cetera.

Adi: 00:11:08

But I, I think our reader base and, and, and certainly, and.

Adi: 00:11:12

We as a, as a publisher feel, you know, we, we, we we're not just talking about shareholders, right?

Adi: 00:11:18

We're talking about stakeholders more broadly and, and we're talking about the issues that kind of matter for the world, like sustainability and diversity and fact-based decision making.

Adi: 00:11:28

So, so, you know, those are values that we take seriously.

Adi: 00:11:30

And I, I think our readership does too.

Adi: 00:11:33

I, I think the basic profile, so.

Adi: 00:11:35

But you get it at a good point.

Adi: 00:11:37

We need to, we need to show clear value and we're nobody's first read.

Adi: 00:11:42

So, you know, we have to be super practical.

Adi: 00:11:47

Like, you read something and you, if you, if you're inspired and want to do something now we've kind of given you the playbook for how to do that.

Adi: 00:11:54

And it has to be differentiated.

Adi: 00:11:55

It can't be stuff you're reading elsewhere.

Adi: 00:11:57

'cause you know, we are relatively, you know, highly priced.

Brian: 00:12:00

Yeah, so talked about, talk

Brian: 00:12:02

about Not being the first read, and I

Brian: 00:12:05

understand what you mean.

Brian: 00:12:06

by that, because you're

Brian: 00:12:07

not a.

Brian: 00:12:07

news publisher, right?

Brian: 00:12:08

Like you're not a substitution product for the Wall Street Journal or for the financial Times.

Adi: 00:12:14

Yeah, we're definitely not, and, and I mean, we're obviously not.

Adi: 00:12:17

That's, I mean, it's not a, a controversial statement I made, but, but it, it just, we remind ourselves of that all the time that we can't just match what is already out

Adi: 00:12:25

there, what is already even in the zeitgeist, we have to, you know, we can't just say, wow, we're living under uncertain times.

Adi: 00:12:31

We have to say we're living under uncertain times.

Adi: 00:12:33

It's stuff maybe we've never exactly seen before, but.

Adi: 00:12:37

The world has lived through uncertain times before, and you know, there, there are approaches if you are a business or if you're

Adi: 00:12:43

trying to manage your career with kind of hyper uncertainty how you think about increasing your chances of getting through this.

Adi: 00:12:50

Okay,

Brian: 00:12:51

Right.

Brian: 00:12:51

so let's talk.

Brian: 00:12:52

about,

Brian: 00:12:52

HBR executive and, and sort of thinking behind that.

Brian: 00:12:57

obviously you.

Brian: 00:12:58

know, HBR provides a, a lot of content that people are willing to pay for.

Brian: 00:13:01

I think one of the, the big questions for a lot of publishers is, yes,

Brian: 00:13:07

how

Brian: 00:13:07

can you get

Brian: 00:13:07

as many people to pay as possible, right?

Brian: 00:13:10

But then it's also is like, how can we.

Brian: 00:13:13

You know, how can we have the price curve such that we're not leaving money on the table, that like, you know, just having a one size fit fits all, subscription offering is usually not, the best move for publishers and,

Brian: 00:13:26

and most wanna obviously have

Brian: 00:13:28

higher priced, you know, quote unquote memberships.

Brian: 00:13:31

and, and that to me, like a membership.

Brian: 00:13:34

To me, a membership.

Brian: 00:13:35

is different from a subscription in that it's, it's beyond access to content.

Brian: 00:13:40

It it, it needs to, it needs to have a, a bunch of different, aspects to it.

Brian: 00:13:44

I don't think it has to be community based.

Brian: 00:13:45

Oftentimes it is community based, but it doesn't have to be.

Brian: 00:13:48

And we can talk about how that's a little bit of a tricky proposition for a, like HPR, but talk to me about the, the thinking behind HPR executive.

Adi: 00:13:57

Sure.

Adi: 00:13:57

So, I mean, I mean, this is a new subscription offer.

Adi: 00:14:01

It's the highest tier, highest priced, subscription offer that we offer, you know, that we offer, that we've ever offered.

Adi: 00:14:06

and it's really exclusive content that you won't get anywhere else on HBR that is aimed at.

Adi: 00:14:13

You know, CEOs and their top teams.

Adi: 00:14:16

it's a, it's a departure for us in some ways.

Adi: 00:14:21

You know, in the, in the 16 years that I've been at HBR, we really focus a lot of that time into, you know, you know, growing the funnel, enlarging the audience, trying

Adi: 00:14:31

to reach people who were early career, in addition to the sort of senior people, We spent about a year doing segmentation work.

Adi: 00:14:38

you know, hired a consultant to work with us, and decided that.

Adi: 00:14:43

It made sense for us not to abandon the, the kind of lower level people who were interested in HBR, but to, you know, to use the, the jargon to super serve the, the sort of highest level, the C-suite CEOs and the, and their teams.

Adi: 00:14:57

So, so that's what HBR executive is.

Adi: 00:14:59

So it's, you know, I do a, a weekly newsletter that tries to, you know, capture the zeitgeist and offer, you know, interesting, practical advice.

Adi: 00:15:08

we have, videos that are, You know, sort of masterclass videos to help senior leaders develop their, their skills.

Adi: 00:15:14

We have what we call playbooks, which are, you know, kind of best practices for dealing with, you know, challenges that a lot of people are, are feeling right now.

Adi: 00:15:23

and then live events of various kinds.

Adi: 00:15:25

large, small, in-person virtual.

Adi: 00:15:27

The first one is, I'm doing a, you know, a q and a with Larry Summers on June 24th.

Adi: 00:15:31

So, you know, just trying to, to produce people who.

Adi: 00:15:35

Who, you know, our, our subscribers wanna, wanna hear from.

Brian: 00:15:38

Yeah.

Brian: 00:15:39

Okay.

Brian: 00:15:40

So talk to me about the pricing.

Brian: 00:15:41

'cause how did you determine, because I, I'll be honest with you, I thought, I thought it was kind of low,

Brian: 00:15:46

like I thought.

Adi: 00:15:47

Yeah, no, I've heard that a lot.

Adi: 00:15:48

So, okay.

Adi: 00:15:48

so, so,

Brian: 00:15:49

I was thinking I was gonna like, be like, okay, 10,000 bucks or something.

Brian: 00:15:52

Because if you're talking about CEOs, like, I mean, like, I don't know what the tam is of that.

Brian: 00:15:56

I'll use all sorts of acronyms to try to get,

Brian: 00:15:58

some sort of credibility here.

Brian: 00:15:59

So, I mean, I already, what I, I name checked, the, the Innovator's dilemma,

Adi: 00:16:03

Yeah.

Adi: 00:16:04

Yeah.

Brian: 00:16:04

I'm going deep, deep in my bag.

Adi: 00:16:06

So we're not trying to be charitable and, and to keep the price artificially low for any reason that that would not be a motivation.

Adi: 00:16:13

you know, look, one of our advantages is we've always been focused on subscriptions.

Adi: 00:16:18

You know, yes, of course we sell advertising, we have sponsorship of various kinds, but we've always been a subscription business, which I think has helped us through some of the, some of the turmoil that other publishers have faced.

Adi: 00:16:27

so previously our highest.

Adi: 00:16:29

Price subscription, you know, the kind of, you get everything, was $180.

Adi: 00:16:33

So to go from 180 to 700, which is what HPR executive is.

Adi: 00:16:37

And, and with HPR executive, you get all this new stuff.

Adi: 00:16:39

Plus, of course the core HBR, subscription.

Adi: 00:16:43

You know, that's a big jump if you compare it to, you know, some.

Adi: 00:16:48

Competitors that are also targeting this level.

Adi: 00:16:52

It, it, it is cheap, right?

Adi: 00:16:54

They are charging 10,000 or more.

Adi: 00:16:56

often the focus is on convening.

Adi: 00:16:59

we will do some of that.

Adi: 00:17:02

we may evolve into doing more of that.

Adi: 00:17:03

we're not, you know, we're, we're doing, we're doing some of that at this point, but, you know, I, I think the competitors that are successful are charging a lot of money.

Adi: 00:17:11

It tends to be.

Adi: 00:17:12

Okay.

Adi: 00:17:13

They convene people, CEOs, whatever, several times a year.

Adi: 00:17:17

They get a good group.

Adi: 00:17:18

People come together, they can talk.

Adi: 00:17:20

It feels like a safe space, you know?

Adi: 00:17:21

That's, and that's admirable, you know, I'd like to do more of that.

Adi: 00:17:25

ours is primarily content play to people who are used to, to paying subscriptions.

Adi: 00:17:30

So to go from 180 to 700 is a big jump.

Adi: 00:17:33

I agree with you.

Adi: 00:17:33

Everybody says it sounds cheap.

Adi: 00:17:34

I, I've, I've gotten that a lot and.

Brian: 00:17:37

Yeah, well, I mean, I was looking at it like the, the, you know, the, I just did a, a podcast with, Josh from the journal and we were talking about.

Brian: 00:17:46

A lot of their initiatives in this area because the journal as a brand is a different position now.

Brian: 00:17:54

It's like a Halo brand within a broader portfolio at Dow Jones.

Brian: 00:17:57

A lot of information services doesn't mean it's not a great business on its own, but they're looking to ring more value out of this.

Brian: 00:18:04

I mean, some of their like executive councils I think can go for up to 20 5K like a pop, but they're very.

Brian: 00:18:11

Convening focus Now you guys are different, right?

Brian: 00:18:14

And I think that's part of the HBR brand, right?

Brian: 00:18:20

Like, I mean like in that like you're not about, you're not like going to be like convening first.

Adi: 00:18:27

No, I look, I'd like to do, I would like to do more convening.

Adi: 00:18:29

I, I don't think our brand is known for that.

Adi: 00:18:31

That doesn't mean we can't move into the space.

Adi: 00:18:33

That space and, you know, we do.

Adi: 00:18:35

At this point, two major completely virtual events.

Adi: 00:18:40

Every year we charge, I don't know, you know, $400 per ticket and we get, you know, 1200, 1500 people who, who show up, who want to spend a day, you know, listening to.

Adi: 00:18:52

q and as with CEOs and sort of masterclasses by passionate people who are making interesting, points about things.

Adi: 00:18:58

So, you know, so, so we have a, a piece of that.

Adi: 00:19:01

But, it, it may well be that HBR executive evolves into, i, I would call it a subscription thing now that it evolves into more of a membership, offer that, that could have some of that meaningful convening.

Adi: 00:19:12

I mean, I, there's no reason why we shouldn't be in that space.

Adi: 00:19:14

It's just

Adi: 00:19:16

we're not there at this point.

Brian: 00:19:17

so you don't see like, it's like.

Brian: 00:19:20

That this is not a brand that, that necessarily makes sense for a quote unquote community model because there's, look, a

Brian: 00:19:26

lot of people

Brian: 00:19:27

like to talk about community

Brian: 00:19:28

these days.

Brian: 00:19:29

and you know, there's a lot of these executive membership communities out there and they do really well and they're really high priced, right.

Brian: 00:19:38

but they also come with.

Brian: 00:19:40

I think they come with some kind of brand risk that is, you know, inevitable when, when you go into any community model, like, I mean, you could have set up like a, a Slack channel or something.

Brian: 00:19:51

I see a lot of people do that.

Brian: 00:19:52

And, and for me personally, I like visit my, like HOA WhatsApp group and I'm like, uh, okay.

Brian: 00:19:59

That might not work for a lot of cases because these, these kinds of free for all community can, can, can really devolve.

Adi: 00:20:07

Look, I, I mean, I'm envious of DealBook and Andrew Ross Sarkin and you know, his ability to convene.

Adi: 00:20:13

Pretty much anybody to get together and, and have really interesting conversations.

Adi: 00:20:17

I mean, you know, I'd be happy to do that.

Adi: 00:20:19

You know, I, I don't, it's not really our brand to, to, to do things for the sort of celebrity aspect of it.

Adi: 00:20:25

to me, you know, where community gets interesting is if we, if we have a. A large, you know, group or, or membership or something of let's

Adi: 00:20:35

say CEOs or, or, or people basically at that level, you know, at what point would they be interested in writing meaningful content?

Adi: 00:20:43

Right.

Adi: 00:20:43

So, and I don't, I don't just mean if you join up you can, you can write something and we'll publish it.

Adi: 00:20:47

I mean, that's junk, but I'm talking about, you know, so, so a lot of the articles that we do that are.

Adi: 00:20:53

That are, well, when we do research, what people tell us they want more than anything else is I wanna see how my competitors dealt with a problem.

Adi: 00:21:00

So it is sort of a case, the case study, right?

Adi: 00:21:03

It doesn't have to be identical problem, but it's like, you know, watching the, watching the game tape, you know, seeing how other people do it.

Adi: 00:21:08

I'd love to scale that and, and let's say everybody who is a member of what we do, you know, they write a piece, how we did something, how, you know, how we.

Adi: 00:21:17

you know, figured out how to hire talent in a super competitive environment or how, you know, whatever it is, how we transform the business.

Adi: 00:21:25

'cause that they can write about, you know, CEOs can't just suddenly write the next, you know, clay Christensen disruption type

Adi: 00:21:31

article that will stand up and that would be, you know, a conflict for us to try to edit it and, and, and if there remembers.

Adi: 00:21:38

But if they're writing about, you know, how they, how they transform their company.

Adi: 00:21:41

You're suddenly scaling up those pieces.

Adi: 00:21:43

And so, so that's where community and membership gets especially interesting to me.

Adi: 00:21:47

If you really, have a community where people are creating content for each other and, and maybe that that goes out more broadly.

Brian: 00:21:54

So is this, is this really focused on like CEOs and C level, or is it for people on their pathways to be coming there?

Brian: 00:22:02

Because a lot of these brands, you know, the people who they are theoretically for.

Brian: 00:22:08

Are a small, are like a, not a sliver of the audience, but are a minority of the audience.

Brian: 00:22:14

I mean, you always get the aspirants, you always find like a brand that says it's for a specific group at a pinnacle, and, and then you're like, but wait a second.

Brian: 00:22:24

There's only like a thousand of

Brian: 00:22:25

these people.

Brian: 00:22:26

Like, and you have 300,000.

Adi: 00:22:28

i I think that's a smart question.

Adi: 00:22:29

I, I mean, it reminds me when I was at Time Magazine, you know, Time magazine covered like inside the Beltway really intensely.

Adi: 00:22:35

And and I think that was partly to give subscribers or readers, you know, all around the country, this sense that everybody inside the beltway was reading Time Magazine.

Adi: 00:22:44

I dunno if anybody was, but you know, that was, that sort of Got it.

Adi: 00:22:47

What you're talking about.

Adi: 00:22:48

You know, as we said before, it's a crowded space.

Adi: 00:22:50

There are a lot of people who are creating products for this really high level.

Adi: 00:22:53

I mean, that is our audience now.

Adi: 00:22:55

I mean, so, so, you know, we're, we're not the first to, to come up with, with a product.

Adi: 00:23:00

We, we've already got that audience.

Adi: 00:23:01

So the question is how do we, how do we give them one, how do we, how do we lean into this moment where, you know, with ai.

Adi: 00:23:09

It, it's, you know, we know it's coming after us all and we're not sure how.

Adi: 00:23:14

So that's, that must keep everybody awake at night.

Adi: 00:23:16

And then this, the, the poli political and geopolitical uncertainty, you know, this is just a, you know, a moment that is, that is really challenging.

Adi: 00:23:24

so the answer is, you know, yes, we, we probably have more C-suite, you know, subscribers than anybody else.

Adi: 00:23:30

We're not gating it, we're not saying, well, if you're not

Brian: 00:23:32

it's not like an apply to an attend where you gotta like, you know,

Brian: 00:23:35

give them, give their LinkedIn

Adi: 00:23:37

I mean, we thought about that.

Adi: 00:23:38

Did we wanna sort of say, you know, you can't, you can't get in.

Adi: 00:23:41

There's a waiting, you know,

Brian: 00:23:42

yeah.

Brian: 00:23:42

No, this Miami operates on

Adi: 00:23:45

I know it's tempting, but No, but we're not doing that.

Adi: 00:23:48

I think if we move to a membership model, it really would be you, you need to be at a certain level because we're gonna, you know, as, as other people do, we're gonna break you down and, and

Adi: 00:23:57

they're gonna be, you know, CFO groups and CHR groups and CEO groups and, and then we would, but at this point, look, I mean, if you're, if you're paying $700 and you wanna be part of this, you

Adi: 00:24:06

are either in the C-suite or you are close to it, or, or super ambitious and I would, you know, put money on you that you'll probably end up there.

Brian: 00:24:14

There you go.

Brian: 00:24:14

You see, it is like the, the, the fastest way to the C-suite is to get the HVR executive and then, you know, everything else is just execution at that point.

Adi: 00:24:24

Thank you for the testimonial,

Brian: 00:24:26

No problem.

Brian: 00:24:27

But I think that's a good, I think that's a good, differentiator between a true membership model and, because these things are all used interchangeably.

Brian: 00:24:36

Like I would say the

Brian: 00:24:37

journal.

Brian: 00:24:37

like always says, I think they, they used to at least always say that they had like a membership of like 3.7 million people and I'm like.

Brian: 00:24:46

I don't know about that.

Brian: 00:24:47

I mean, most people are just subscribing to, to, to get access to the news content.

Brian: 00:24:52

And it's not quite a membership community.

Brian: 00:24:55

Exactly.

Brian: 00:24:56

And

Adi: 00:24:56

I mean, I don't know about them.

Adi: 00:24:57

We're we're, this is a subscription for us, but, but you know, we, we do wanna evolve into membership.

Adi: 00:25:02

That would be more like what we're talking about, you know?

Brian: 00:25:04

yeah.

Brian: 00:25:05

How big do you think, like what is the market you think that would, that you can sort of get to upgrade?

Brian: 00:25:11

Because if you have how many, how many digital subscribers you have, I've seen a few numbers out there.

Adi: 00:25:16

Yeah, it's, what is the number?

Adi: 00:25:18

It's 300 or, well, our paid circulation is 345,000.

Adi: 00:25:23

You know, that's like the last audited figure I think.

Adi: 00:25:25

So, you know, pretty much everybody is digital and then a large number digital.

Adi: 00:25:31

Im print.

Adi: 00:25:32

so what's the question?

Adi: 00:25:33

What's the addressable market

Brian: 00:25:34

Yeah.

Brian: 00:25:34

What's the addressable market of that 345,000?

Brian: 00:25:37

I mean, this is not gonna be new.

Brian: 00:25:38

I mean, this is basically getting people to upgrade, right?

Adi: 00:25:42

yeah.

Adi: 00:25:42

I mean, we think both.

Adi: 00:25:43

I mean, our, our goal is to do both.

Adi: 00:25:45

That we'd like people to upgrade to that higher level.

Adi: 00:25:48

but we're also hoping, I mean, I mean one of the challenges for all of us is, you know, will, will CEOs read.

Adi: 00:25:54

I did not say Duke.

Adi: 00:25:55

Can CEOs read?

Adi: 00:25:57

I think they can.

Adi: 00:25:57

Some of them are rusty, but you

Brian: 00:26:00

haven't graduated to that point.

Brian: 00:26:01

To have the first like, sort of illiterate, CEO, just 'cause they listen to podcasts.

Brian: 00:26:06

They're, they

Brian: 00:26:07

listen to enough podcasts to get, to get to where they were.

Adi: 00:26:09

That's interesting.

Adi: 00:26:10

I, I, I think it's a fair question.

Adi: 00:26:12

You know, you can create this great content, but then you have to solve the problem.

Adi: 00:26:15

You know, are, are CEOs, do, do they have the time to actually tune into this?

Adi: 00:26:19

So, so my anecdotal hunch is right now, yes, more than any other time, You know, we, we did a, you know, kind of a virtual panel on

Adi: 00:26:28

tariffs the other day, and, you know, when tariffs were more sort of in the news and, and confusing and, you know, 5,000 people signed up.

Adi: 00:26:36

so I, I just, I think there is a willingness to, To, to tune in to something like that kind of content.

Adi: 00:26:45

even for busy people who might not normally want to do that in, in this moment.

Adi: 00:26:49

I, I think this is a, this is a particular moment and, and I think, you know, we assume some of our audience will be, you know, the chiefs of staff who, who read what we, what we produce, and.

Adi: 00:27:00

you know, summarize, summarize for the chief ex. You know, we, we'll find out.

Adi: 00:27:03

We'll find out what, what content, what, what, what platforms, you know, what, which ones really work.

Adi: 00:27:09

I mean, this, I mean, we're a startup.

Adi: 00:27:11

W when we launched this thing two weeks ago, we had zero subscribers to HBR executive,

Adi: 00:27:16

you know, and then one came in and we're like, cool.

Adi: 00:27:18

And, you know, should we call the guy?

Adi: 00:27:19

That's so cool.

Adi: 00:27:21

You know?

Adi: 00:27:21

And then, and then, and then it grows and, and, you know, so we're.

Adi: 00:27:25

We sort of like where we are and we wanna see a lot more growth, but but we will learn, you know, what, what is, what is effective, what, you know, I, I, we've created an advisory

Adi: 00:27:33

board of CEOs and former CEOs, you know, a lot of really interesting, you know, in some ways very prominent people to give us feedback.

Adi: 00:27:40

I mean, they promised this isn't just a symbolic.

Adi: 00:27:43

Yes, you can use my name on your advisory board, but that they will tell us whether the content we're producing is valuable, if it's differentiated, if we're asking the right questions.

Adi: 00:27:52

so I'm excited about that, that we have a couple feedback loops.

Adi: 00:27:54

and the biggest feedback loop, look, I, you know, we're.

Adi: 00:27:58

We're an established brand.

Adi: 00:28:00

we have a great, sponsor, partner, Egon Zender, the big, European, executive search firm that, I mean, they're big in the US too, but they're particularly well known in Europe.

Adi: 00:28:08

That's a kind of sponsor partner from day one.

Adi: 00:28:11

And it's, it's the most, you know, kind of the deepest sponsor partnership we've ever had, in anything.

Adi: 00:28:16

So, so, so we're excited about this.

Adi: 00:28:18

You know, the, the, in some ways the, the.

Adi: 00:28:21

The metric, the KPI that, that I'll be most interested in is renewals.

Adi: 00:28:25

I mean, based on our reputation, we can get people to buy this thing.

Adi: 00:28:29

But what what is interesting is whether after a year people will think, yeah, that that was valuable.

Adi: 00:28:34

I got enough actionable sort of bits of information that I will happily renew.

Adi: 00:28:39

And that, you know, that to me is the, the, the test of whether we've succeeded or not.

Brian: 00:28:44

Yeah.

Brian: 00:28:45

Just one, one more question on the, the pricing.

Brian: 00:28:48

did you arrive at that?

Brian: 00:28:49

Because I usually with pricing.

Brian: 00:28:51

It's a little bit of guesswork, like, it's like people like will make it like very formulaic and stuff, but at some point at the end it's a lot of gut.

Adi: 00:29:01

So there's a lot to be said for guesswork.

Adi: 00:29:02

You know, when we sold our brownstone in Brooklyn, you know, the, the, the property agent had a number and we were about to go to the market with it, and my wife just said, no, it should be higher.

Adi: 00:29:13

And it was, she didn't know.

Adi: 00:29:14

I mean, she was not a, it was sort of random, but she was also right.

Adi: 00:29:18

I mean, you know, it, it turned out that her.

Adi: 00:29:20

Spidey Spidey sense of the market was, was better than we were getting.

Adi: 00:29:23

So yeah, sometimes, sometimes your gut tells you a lot.

Adi: 00:29:26

you know, you always operate from gut when you're setting pricing, but we did a lot of market.

Adi: 00:29:30

Testing.

Adi: 00:29:31

We do a lot of market research and we're, you know, it's quantitative and it's qualitative, and you try to figure out what

Adi: 00:29:36

it is people want and people don't always know what they want, but, but what is it they seem to want that they don't already have?

Adi: 00:29:42

And, and, and what's the willingness to pay?

Adi: 00:29:44

What's the price point that where they stay interested and don't drop out?

Adi: 00:29:47

So, you know, I, I think we were looking at maybe a thousand dollars at one point.

Adi: 00:29:51

Probably never higher than that.

Adi: 00:29:53

Ended up at 700 based on the various qualitative and quantitative feedback.

Adi: 00:29:57

We, we got it, it, it, you know, it, it, it's, it's not large compared to some other competitors.

Adi: 00:30:03

It gives us a chance to, to push up the price as we add new features.

Adi: 00:30:06

I mean, that's, and, and, or evolve into a membership model.

Adi: 00:30:10

So, but, but that's where we are for now.

Adi: 00:30:12

And also you as a meeting guy will appreciate this.

Adi: 00:30:15

We're not, we're not offering monthly subscriptions.

Adi: 00:30:18

Right.

Adi: 00:30:18

It, it's only annual.

Adi: 00:30:19

I, I, I kind of think all publishers wish, you know, we'd never, you know, kind of, introduced the monthly subscription.

Adi: 00:30:26

'cause it just, you know, as you know, people come in, they come out and it's, the old fashioned annual was, was pretty sweet.

Brian: 00:30:32

Yeah.

Brian: 00:30:33

I think particularly for this kind of, I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna be.

Brian: 00:30:37

You gotta be pock committed for this kind of thing.

Brian: 00:30:39

And it, it makes a lot more sense than, than doing some kind of monthly, membership.

Brian: 00:30:45

Who do you consider the, the competitive set, but for HBR generally, and then for this, this product specifically, and, and I asked that for a couple of reasons.

Brian: 00:30:53

One is just in general, but the other is so many people, particularly as the general news market has collapsed.

Brian: 00:31:02

I don't know how else to put it.

Brian: 00:31:03

Right.

Brian: 00:31:03

Have been trying to.

Brian: 00:31:05

To find safety in these kinds of areas.

Brian: 00:31:08

And I'm surprised by the people who I'm talking to, who are talking to me like their HBR about reaching business decision makers.

Brian: 00:31:15

People like Newsweek are.

Brian: 00:31:17

I just had Jess Sibley the other week.

Brian: 00:31:19

Uh, she, I just published it actually today when we're talking from time, they're talking about being a B2B pub publisher that reaches like the C-suite and are developing products around that.

Brian: 00:31:29

and, and

Brian: 00:31:29

then obviously

Brian: 00:31:30

you know, the, the regular.

Brian: 00:31:32

Uh, Forbes and Fortune and Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

Brian: 00:31:38

BI is now saying that they're gonna do like events.

Brian: 00:31:40

They're gonna try to move up market after being, trying to straddle all parts of the market.

Brian: 00:31:45

But who do you see as the competitive set?

Brian: 00:31:47

'cause I think like for a lot of media companies, it's just like so much.

Brian: 00:31:51

It's everywhere, but it's

Brian: 00:31:52

getting very crowded, particularly when it comes for influential audiences.

Adi: 00:31:56

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Adi: 00:31:58

And you know, we're, we're certainly not the first to address this market, but again, you know, this sort of high level is our audience.

Adi: 00:32:05

So, you know, we, we, I think, I think we can win in this space even if we sort of weren't the first movers in terms of targeting, a product at, at that level?

Adi: 00:32:13

yeah.

Adi: 00:32:14

I mean, the boring question, or the boring answer people always have is, you know, it's, we're, we're battling for, you know, share of time and mind share.

Adi: 00:32:20

And so everything is a competitor.

Adi: 00:32:22

you know, right now in, in, in terms of the scariest competitor, I think it's large language models.

Adi: 00:32:26

You know, they were all trained with our content before we told them, you know, before we all woke up and said, stop.

Adi: 00:32:32

And, and some of them have stopped, some of them we know haven't stopped.

Adi: 00:32:35

so I mean, this is familiar to anybody who follows, follows Media, but just the, you know, not only are we not getting the kind of traffic referrals from, from Google, but The large

Adi: 00:32:45

language models, you know, they're, they're really getting good and yes, they hallucinate and make mistakes sometimes, but they're really getting good and, and, you know, you can, you

Adi: 00:32:53

can find a lot of really valuable kind of, you know, management, you know, advice and help and tools, with, you know, particularly the best versions of, of say, chat j bt.

Adi: 00:33:06

So, so I think that's a, that's a, you know.

Adi: 00:33:09

Possibly ex existential threat that, that, that we and others have that is only just starting to play out.

Adi: 00:33:15

LinkedIn is, is a, is a big competitor.

Adi: 00:33:18

you know, at one point LinkedIn relied on us for a lot of their content to sort of create stickiness when they wanted to be more than just a collection of digital resumes.

Adi: 00:33:28

you know, and then they evolve to where they create content and their members create content and, You know, I could argue that

Adi: 00:33:34

our content's better, but, but you know, it's, there's a lot of good stuff out there and, and you know, they didn't need us.

Adi: 00:33:40

So, we have 15 million followers on LinkedIn.

Adi: 00:33:43

So we, you know, we, we, we need that audience.

Adi: 00:33:46

But, but I think in some ways that that ecosystem is a, is competition to HBR 'cause they're covering a lot of the, the same topics.

Adi: 00:33:54

and then with, with HBR executive, with our, our.

Adi: 00:33:57

Product for the, you know, CEOs and their top teams.

Adi: 00:34:00

Yeah.

Adi: 00:34:01

I mean, you know, you mentioned the Wall Street Journal, you know, even some surprising, you know, Semafore has a, has a product now, you know, there, there are a lot of people who are, are, as you say, they're, you know,

Adi: 00:34:10

the, they're trying to figure out who, who will still pay for the subscription and, and that pushes you up the, the value chain, you know, away from the recent, recent college grads who might enjoy your content and two.

Adi: 00:34:23

This more, you know, this, this higher level, higher up the hierarchy audience that has a, a greater willingness to pay.

Adi: 00:34:30

But you know, again, because of all that competition, you know, you have to prove your value.

Adi: 00:34:35

And you know, for us, for us, the main differentiator, you know, as I was saying before, is we have to provide really practical.

Adi: 00:34:43

Actionable, but not just like off the top of my head, but, but sort of research based or otherwise, you know, kind of proven, tested, responses to the challenges people, people are, are experiencing.

Adi: 00:34:55

I mean, that, that that's us.

Adi: 00:34:57

And whether we do it, you know, Axio style in, you know, short bulleted form or, or, or long form, you know, that that has to be the, the, the basic.

Adi: 00:35:06

brand promise that we will, we will give you kind of proven approaches to the challenges that you face that you may not know are, are commonly faced, and that there is data out there and there is, there is research out there.

Brian: 00:35:17

So are you, are you confident that, that chat CPT won't be able to do that?

Brian: 00:35:21

I mean, I, I was using deep research to prepare for this.

Brian: 00:35:24

It gave me a nice, I'm not saying it gave me an HBR level.

Brian: 00:35:28

you know, piece about, about HBR, but like, you know, these, like, as we said, like these things are getting pretty good at a lot of types of content and, and, I know a lot of,

Brian: 00:35:40

A

Brian: 00:35:40

lot of us would like to think that.

Brian: 00:35:42

no, we're special and it won't come for us.

Brian: 00:35:44

But,

Brian: 00:35:44

I don't know.

Brian: 00:35:45

Technology keeps advancing.

Adi: 00:35:46

well, what would you say if I, if I said that we ran your, previous interview transcripts to figure out what questions you were gonna ask?

Brian: 00:35:53

I mean,

Brian: 00:35:54

I, this is like spy versus spy, I guess.

Brian: 00:35:57

I don't know.

Adi: 00:35:58

yeah.

Adi: 00:35:59

Um, so I think.

Adi: 00:36:02

We don't know the answer to that.

Adi: 00:36:04

you know, we're, we're, we're trying to stay ahead of, of generative AI by, our sort of curatorial personal touch convening, you know, the things that, that, that maybe.

Adi: 00:36:19

These large language models can't do yet.

Adi: 00:36:21

I, I think that's a fair question, I think for us to say, oh no, you know, people always want what we do.

Adi: 00:36:27

It's early days and, and I think the truest thing is that these, you know, generative AI models are advancing exponentially and you know, the stuff that we laughed at, it can't do math, you know, a year ago.

Adi: 00:36:41

They can do math.

Adi: 00:36:41

Like, you know, they, they, they're, they're, you, you, you don't want to, underestimate the power of, of generative ai, I think, to, to replace aspects of what we do.

Adi: 00:36:52

And so I think the, the strategic challenge for all of us is, okay, that will be the world.

Adi: 00:36:57

And how do you, how do you succeed in that world?

Adi: 00:36:59

And I don't, I don't have an answer for us.

Adi: 00:37:01

You know, we're, we're trying to be super flexible and super adaptable and introducing new products, but you know, we've, we've gotta pay attention to this nonstop all the time.

Brian: 00:37:10

I mean, did that influence any of the product choices here in that, like, I always think the more interactive, the type

Brian: 00:37:17

of content, the, the, the kind of better, like static text content to me of any kind is the most at risk text just in general.

Brian: 00:37:27

A clump of data that's really easy to be reorganized.

Brian: 00:37:30

And, as someone who has created a lot of text content, I, I say that with some degree of sadness, but

Brian: 00:37:36

interactive content.

Brian: 00:37:37

is less so, you know, and, and I think convening, I think the reason convening or events or anything is that, is because AI cannot do that.

Brian: 00:37:45

But I think also, you know, just having, you know, I, I believe in the webinar actually, I think, I don't like the word

Adi: 00:37:53

I don't either.

Adi: 00:37:54

I've banned it.

Adi: 00:37:54

That's funny.

Brian: 00:37:56

I call mine online forums.

Brian: 00:37:58

but like, honestly, like I believe in webinars because they have an interactive element that, yeah, you can get those kind of things with, you know, going back and forth with a chat bot.

Brian: 00:38:09

But honestly, that's.

Brian: 00:38:10

In some ways, the chatbot is outsourcing a lot of the work to you because it can't figure out like what you want and it doesn't want to give you choice.

Brian: 00:38:18

But I.

Brian: 00:38:18

think being able to go back and forth with an actual expert live has a different element than, than, than interacting with some kind of chat bot, but.

Adi: 00:38:29

I, I, I believe in that certainly, certainly for now.

Adi: 00:38:32

And you know, as I said before, the, this panel we did on tariffs, you know, it, it was the right, the right time and the right platform.

Adi: 00:38:39

And, you know, we had 5,000 people sign up.

Adi: 00:38:41

I think, you know, I, I, I think this innovation is something that we think will, you know, again, we're, we're mission driven.

Adi: 00:38:49

It is hard at the top, it's lonely at the top.

Adi: 00:38:52

We get it.

Adi: 00:38:53

We have authors and, and ideas that we think can, can actually help.

Adi: 00:38:57

So that's, that's the point.

Adi: 00:38:59

you know, I think it can be successful for us commercially.

Adi: 00:39:02

You know, it may be that, that that's, that's a kind of, that's a reform, an innovation on our existing business that buys us time to figure out the future business.

Adi: 00:39:13

You know, I, I, I don't, I don't think anything that we've talked about so far that we're doing insulates us from the ultimate threat of generative ai.

Adi: 00:39:21

I mean, yeah, maybe live events does, and that's fine, but I, I, you know, in my mind, this is an innovation that's really important and will be great and it'll be fun to, to do,

Adi: 00:39:31

but, you know, we need to simultaneously think about maybe a varied traumatic rethink of, of everything we do because of the rise of gen ai.

Brian: 00:39:41

So you've spoken to a lot of, a lot of business leader leaders over the time, uh, who have dealt with, you know, different.

Brian: 00:39:49

Secular changes to the, the business and political environment is a, is ai, does your gut tell you that it is qualitatively different as far as how the challenges that it is?

Brian: 00:40:04

It is placing on these people who are, who are stewards of these businesses.

Brian: 00:40:08

Because, I mean, honestly, sometimes, like I'll, like, pretty much anything is plausible to me at this point.

Brian: 00:40:14

If like, you know, it's like I open up X or something and I'm like, oh, bill Gates says that we won't need doctors in 10 years.

Brian: 00:40:20

I'm like, oh.

Brian: 00:40:20

Okay, sure.

Brian: 00:40:22

You know, like nothing surprises me

Brian: 00:40:25

at this point, but, but it's usually

Brian: 00:40:27

like.

Brian: 00:40:27

you know, five or 10 years, I, I, I make note of the time of the timestamps.

Brian: 00:40:31

and I don't doubt that these, that, that, all this, this, this.

Brian: 00:40:35

raft of changes that are coming, but I almost feel like these, the apocalyptic, warnings that are coming, I can imagine them being conversely paralyzing versus catalyzing as

Brian: 00:40:48

far as leading organizations, because how are you gonna make decisions if you have no idea if you're gonna have doctors in a few years?

Adi: 00:40:57

So good questions.

Adi: 00:40:59

I mean, you know, I was just talking to Kareem Ani at Harvard Business School, who is one of the more interesting people on kind of AI in the workplace.

Adi: 00:41:07

And you know, his observation and he consults everybody, is that.

Adi: 00:41:12

You know, CEOs are talking a lot about ai.

Adi: 00:41:16

They know that they need to talk a lot about ai.

Adi: 00:41:18

They need to, you know, read the reports and talk about it.

Adi: 00:41:21

They're not using ai, you know, there is this, there is this, so, so his view is that, you know, most, most business leaders have no idea really what the.

Adi: 00:41:31

What the kind of opportunities are.

Adi: 00:41:32

And, and, you know, he's a, he's a techno optimist.

Adi: 00:41:34

He's a, he's a believer in AI and, you know, he, he thinks it will absolutely remake every aspect of work.

Adi: 00:41:40

And that, you know, you just, you have to dive in and figure that out.

Adi: 00:41:43

ASAP, the apocalyptic part of that, I guess, would be that it wipes out all jobs.

Adi: 00:41:49

I don't know.

Adi: 00:41:49

You know, I, I, I could probably argue.

Adi: 00:41:52

Either side on that, you know, the optimists are like, well, it'll be man plus machine.

Adi: 00:41:56

You know, it, it'll be this, this kind of hybrid, you know, interaction.

Adi: 00:42:00

And I think that's true, but I, I feel like, you know, machine will wipe out most of the men and women and that, you know, there'll be sort of a. You know, one human for, for many bots and agentic bots.

Adi: 00:42:12

So it may be that, it may be that new jobs are created that replace the old ones, but I, I guess, I believe it was, it was the head of philanthropic who, what was it, within five years, right?

Adi: 00:42:22

I mean, you know, ha, half of white collared entry jobs will be eliminated.

Adi: 00:42:26

I mean,

Brian: 00:42:26

I don't know where they're coming up with these very specific figures.

Brian: 00:42:29

If they wanna them be the very believable ones, like don't make it like half, it's like 63% of white

Brian: 00:42:36

collar jobs will be gone in three years.

Brian: 00:42:38

It's

Adi: 00:42:38

that's how to get your attention.

Adi: 00:42:40

It's like, you know, if you throw garbage here, you'll be fined $199.

Adi: 00:42:44

Like you notice that on a sign.

Adi: 00:42:46

You don't notice

Brian: 00:42:47

But do you sense this, this, this being different?

Brian: 00:42:49

I guess because like, let's be real, like a lot of these, I mean, you've talked with a lot of executives.

Brian: 00:42:54

Nobody wants to be caught with their pants down and anytime any of these, like these supposed massive changes coming, you have to name check them.

Brian: 00:43:03

I've seen those, the, the, the metrics about the number of times, like AI is like name checked in, in earnings calls, and, you know, and that, that's to be expected because you have to message to the market that we're on it.

Brian: 00:43:16

Right?

Brian: 00:43:17

even if you're not on it, you have to message that.

Brian: 00:43:19

But do you sense that this is like a different management and leadership challenge?

Adi: 00:43:25

I do, and, but I wouldn't trust me.

Adi: 00:43:28

I mean, I, I, you know, again, I don't know where we are in the hype cycle.

Adi: 00:43:31

If, if it's, if we're hype, we're counter hype.

Adi: 00:43:34

I'm not sure where we are right now.

Adi: 00:43:35

I, I guess I just, you know, listened to enough people who, who I trust who, who, again, not, not necessarily good barometer, but, so yeah, I, I think, I think there is a fundamental shift happening.

Adi: 00:43:47

I think, you know.

Adi: 00:43:49

The, the mistake is to look at, at AI and say, well, what makes mistakes?

Adi: 00:43:53

you know, if, if you get past the notion that it's meant to be a flawless fact machine, it's, you know, it's not.

Adi: 00:43:59

but as a collaborative partner that we will all have our own personal, you know, agentic bots who will, you know.

Adi: 00:44:07

Go to school with us who will learn our, our study habits, who will learn our processes and will, you know, travel with us from job to job.

Adi: 00:44:14

You know, it's just that, that's not really sci-fi that's kind of already, already happening.

Adi: 00:44:19

So, yeah, I, I guess I, I, I, I think it will rework the white collar workforce in fundamental ways.

Adi: 00:44:26

And, and that it, you know, it's only just starting.

Adi: 00:44:30

and for the record, I never said that about the metaverse.

Brian: 00:44:32

Yeah.

Brian: 00:44:33

Okay, good.

Brian: 00:44:34

What about Web3?

Adi: 00:44:35

what, what Y 2K though was very,

Brian: 00:44:36

Yeah, Y two, well, I do remember

Brian: 00:44:39

Y 2K when, you know, people were like going to the ATMs, like, you know, getting out.

Brian: 00:44:44

I guess at the time you only had to get out like $500.

Brian: 00:44:46

That would last you a few weeks.

Brian: 00:44:47

But,

Brian: 00:44:48

you know, I,

Brian: 00:44:49

you know, people were like, not.

Brian: 00:44:50

Go going to New York

Brian: 00:44:52

City during Y 2K.

Brian: 00:44:53

So,

Brian: 00:44:54

and A whole cottage industry got, got created.

Brian: 00:44:57

I don't think,

Brian: 00:44:57

that that's necessarily the case here.

Brian: 00:44:59

What, What,

Brian: 00:45:00

about.

Brian: 00:45:00

the media business?

Brian: 00:45:01

I mean, there's a lot of apocalyptic warnings about the media business and, you know, some of these are.

Brian: 00:45:06

Directly attributable to ai.

Brian: 00:45:09

Some of them are only tangential, obviously, you know, search the specter of Google Zero is, is hanging over all businesses to some degree, all publishing businesses, some far more than than others.

Brian: 00:45:23

but you've, you've been in this industry for a long time.

Brian: 00:45:26

I mean, is is it time to, it's too late for some of us to go into commercial real estate, but for those who, who aren't.

Adi: 00:45:34

Yeah, no, I, I, yeah.

Adi: 00:45:36

I'm thinking about maybe going back to trade school.

Adi: 00:45:39

uh,

Brian: 00:45:39

Make room at the pencil factory.

Brian: 00:45:41

Both Adi and I will be on the line.

Adi: 00:45:43

I mean, so there are different ways to look at that.

Adi: 00:45:46

I mean, you know, I think there are people who are, are, are.

Adi: 00:45:49

Reinventing local news in ways that are meaningful.

Adi: 00:45:52

You know, I think that's happening in Baltimore.

Adi: 00:45:53

I think, you know, mass Live, you know, there is a formula, to kind of get you established that you can grow from.

Adi: 00:46:00

And, you know, that tends to involve things like high school sports and, covering the lottery, you know, things that, that, I don't know, you, you, you could do, and, and get engagement and then, and then build from that.

Adi: 00:46:11

So, I mean, in some ways, look, I, I can't remember you, you said this earlier or not, but.

Adi: 00:46:16

But whether it's when we record it or not, but you know, in some ways the media, landscape has never been more vibrant.

Adi: 00:46:22

it's just, it's very dispersed.

Adi: 00:46:25

so, you know, so, so what models work?

Adi: 00:46:27

I mean, the New York Times model, you know, the New York Times is unique.

Adi: 00:46:31

But I think it's model of, we have various ways of funding the journalism we do, in their case it's with, you know, a series of, of hugely successful apps, is an, is an interesting model.

Adi: 00:46:43

I mean, you know, the rich philanthropist, you know, they come and go, but when they come, that's, that's a good model.

Adi: 00:46:49

I'm not sure why Jeff Bezos still in the Washington Post.

Adi: 00:46:51

I can't imagine what, what positive that that does for him.

Adi: 00:46:54

But, but you know,

Brian: 00:46:56

Think he's stubborn.

Brian: 00:46:57

That's my guess.

Adi: 00:46:58

I guess, I guess it's, why does Elon Musk still, why did he buy, you know, X It's like sometimes you, you troll yourself into making these s and then you're sort of stuck with it.

Adi: 00:47:08

so yeah.

Adi: 00:47:09

So, but, but the Washington Post is, is a good example.

Adi: 00:47:12

I mean, that, that's a great paper.

Adi: 00:47:13

Great people, and you know, how in the world are they gonna make money?

Adi: 00:47:16

And I, I. You know, I think it's, Kara Swisher always says, I have a million ideas what I would do Good for her.

Adi: 00:47:21

I'm not sure I have any, you know, it, it's, and I'm not sure that the current management has any.

Adi: 00:47:26

So that's, you know, it's, it's, you know, and then you look at the New York Times, which again is unique and again, has these different funding sources, which I think is a really, a really interesting

Brian: 00:47:34

Well, you know what one of the posts, ideas is, is to go into these kind of like high price subscriptions for influential people.

Brian: 00:47:43

That's, I mean, that's the thing.

Brian: 00:47:44

It's like, that's why I asked about the competition

Brian: 00:47:46

because A lot of people,

Brian: 00:47:47

are saying, look, and I don't think it necessarily fits for most brands is, Hey, we have these influential people in our audience.

Brian: 00:47:54

It's like, well, yeah, you have like, you know, a couple million people in your audience.

Brian: 00:47:58

You're gonna have some that are, that are very influential.

Brian: 00:48:01

That

Brian: 00:48:01

doesn't necessarily,

Brian: 00:48:02

mean that, that you have the ability to, I don't know,

Brian: 00:48:07

to, to command their brand

Brian: 00:48:09

might not.

Brian: 00:48:10

be able to command that kind of convening power or just, you know, have that cachet with them when it comes to their identity as like business decision makers.

Adi: 00:48:20

But I, but I think what a lot of people are saying is.

Adi: 00:48:23

Business news and a business audience are likely to do better than a general news audience.

Adi: 00:48:28

And, and that's probably been true for a long time.

Adi: 00:48:30

so the, you know, the extent to which you can, you can chase the, you know, and maybe they're using corporate cards instead of, you know, their own hard earned catch to sort of buy a subscription.

Adi: 00:48:38

So, I mean, that, that's, that's tempting to all of us to sort of look, is there a way to crack that market?

Adi: 00:48:43

So I get it.

Adi: 00:48:44

At some point it will be a, a saturated market, but, but we just launched HBR executive, so I think there's still, there's still room to, to grow in this market.

Brian: 00:48:53

All right.

Brian: 00:48:54

There's still room.

Brian: 00:48:55

well ADI, thank you so much, for joining me for this conversation.

Brian: 00:48:59

and definitely keep me up to date on the progress of HBR executive.

Adi: 00:49:03

Thank you Brian.

Adi: 00:49:04

You know, check in in a year and we'll see if, if we're getting,

Adi: 00:49:06

we're getting renewals, that means things are good.

Brian: 00:49:08

Okay,

Brian: 00:49:09

cool.

Brian: 00:49:10

Thanks again.