this week on "press: here," what's it like to run a core company in your spare time? changing the art world. plus, realtime translation is changing the way the world communicates. and the delicate path as they get involved in partisan politics. that's this week on "press: here." good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. one of the great success stories in silicon valley is something

called patreon. it's a way to raise money. making the world's biggest burrito. you pledge a dollar or $10 or some figure in an ongoing monthly payment, and you support your favorite creator. they probably give you something in return. a shoutout or an exclusive video, but bottom line, these artists can count on a regular revenue. it solved a huge problem and the guy who solved it with jack, an artist and musician along with his wife natalie dawn formed a band. we talked with jack years ago when patreon just got started. little did i know how successful it would be. secured another round of venture funding giving it an overall value of $4 billion. jack joins us this morning. jack, you are the ceo of a company worth $4 billion.

>> i guess so. but honestly, the thing that i'm most excited about is i think what it means for creative people around the world, i mean, it's very clear the world is starting to change, right? where seeing creative people not just making a living but crushing it online, building businesses. >> it's absolutely changed everything. the online and then the ability to get paid. and i want to get to that in a minute, how this is really revolutionized things. do you feel like the ceo of a $4 billion company? do you go out and, is it davos things now? >> no, i mean, i know what you mean. i think i know what the question is getting at, and no, i mean, it's been like a frog boiling in water for eight years here. just one step, one foot in front of the next. so no, it doesn't feel like suddenly everything is different. we're just working hard and having fun and creative space.

>> you can see how this is. how much money has gone through patreon to various creators? >> we're sending to creators, that are making money from over 7 million. creators doubling income first year on the platform. tripling income in the first years on the platform. it's been, it has been a moment for creative people and i, you know, i believe that we're at the beginning of a second renaissance here. this is going to lead to culture changing. this is going to lead to creativity being a normal profession, which i'm just so excited about. >> it cuts out the middle man. technically, you are the middle man now, but i mean, in a lot of ways, it cuts out the middle man of i can publish music to the internet, get paid for it and it cuts out a lot of the traditional middle. >> it cuts out the gate keepers and the people who make you sign

a contract and tell you whether or not you're cool enough to be heard. we leave that world behind. those days of needing to convince somebody that you're cool enough to be heard and to have a voice, those days are done. you don't need them. you can build a business on your own, doing a podcast, make a video channel. you know, draw web comics. that is the world that we are now in. it's not even a future. it's the present. >> what surprised you the most when you originally came up with the idea and then you looked back on it to say, okay, i would not have thought my idea would be used in that fashion? >> we're seeing all kinds of creators pop up on patreon. we see investigative journalists, long form journalist pop up. video creators, education. we're seeing production studios pop up on patreon. we see the full gamut of the internet. it's the internet in all its

beautiful diverse glory and that is something that i just really appreciate. i never could have anticipated the breadth of the types of creators that we would see building businesses and making it happen for themselves. >> i think the other thing i wouldn't have anticipated if you had told me about this idea, the minute it popped in your head that many years ago, is that people would have been willing to pay. there's so much free content on the internet that people would be willing to pay a dollar a month or $10 a month or whatever happens to be for something that they enjoy. >> you know, that's the thing that doesn't surprise me and i think it doesn't surprise me because, and it didn't surprise me back then because i knew the relationship that i had with my fans as a creator. i knew when i uploaded the video, it would get a million views. i would get thousands or tens of thousands of comments and my fans would love the things i was putting online. i had a sense that they would step up to the plate and want to become members and that a portion of them would support me

and be contributing on a monthly basis. it existed with wnyc. >> i was thinking the same thing. the npr, the pbses of this world. a certain percentage actually contributing but it's enough we get this thing done. >> it's the same for creators. we've taken the membership. we've taken the membership system. we've extracted it, shipped it to every creator in the world and do the same thing. we've added a lot of functionality. delivering physical goods to your patrons. there's a lot more coming and capabilities that i think creators will be able to use to build businesses. >> when you came up with this, a simple idea. i'm a musician mysel and create a way paid, complicated from a computer coding point of view but overall, the concept is simple and then you ran into the

same problems that other big tech companies run into like you said certain people can't be on your platform. what they're doing is offensive and then you had to say, all right, take this gate keeper. it got more complicated than i think the original idea may have led you to think. >> i had no idea how complex it was to build a software company from scratch when i got started. i will say on the issue of content policy, which i think is what you're getting into. who is allowed and not allowed on patreon? we've drawn a much more firm line than i think a lot of the other type of companies, twitters and facebooks and youtubes of the world. we're unapologetic about that. no racism. you can't be racist on our platform. no sexism. you can't spread lies and hatred. we don't allow that. we don't want to allow that. we're not going to allow that,

and so we've taken a very firm line on that, which i actually feel really proud of and good about. and yeah, of course, there are people who are upset about that but i think it's impossible to make everybody happy and so we're doing what we know is right. >> i did read one complaint about, oh, patreon, big tech and censoring. you can have your standards. say, hey, this is my platform. this is what i'm going to allow or not going to allow. i don't think it's the same ideas as zuckerberg or dorsey. >> i think big tech is an attitude or mentality. i think what's unique about patreon. one thing, we're creator first. big tech is advertiser first. advertisers are building products for advertisers. building products for creators. we're building products for creators to make a living to build their businesses.

second key difference, we have a human approach. the platforms have fully automated everything that they possibly could. whereas if you're upset about a content decision on your page, you can call it patreon walk you through it, we'll educate you, send you emails. humans make all of those decisions. we've done it in a very personal way that's much more human and approachable than big tech, if you will. >> no, no. that's going to keep you busy. you said that patreon being the ceo of a $4 billion company is your side hustle. but your real job is being a musician. do you have enough time to make musician? >> my partner in crime, natalie, is the ceo and runs the whole thing from the ground up. on a saturday and sunday, four songs and then sunday, four

songs with my band and then there's teams that assemble all the videos and do all the post-production and then we put two music videos out per week. so i get to be a creator and put two music videos out per week on my channels with natalie and my band. it only cost me one weekend a month and that's how we set it up, that's how it allows me to be triple time focused. >> we call that parachuting in in the news business. i seem to recall a video about moving out of, what was it, your dad's house or natalie's dad's house? you were living with your parents to presumably not living with your parents. >> that's right. >> how is that, does that affect your music in a way, can you take more risks because you don't need to depend on being a musician to make money or is it somehow taking away from the music? >> we've chosen to do and again, this is a point of pride for us and very private.

an independent profitable band and company. an independent profitable company. i am not injecting cash into those businesses. they're running themselves and generating a lot of revenue through membership, through streaming, through merchandise, working with fans. we're running those businesses and those creative endeavors as standalone entities and that's been a choice that's been very deliberate. i take a lot of pride in that. i think because i actually do believe from an artistic standpoint, i do believe that some constraint can really yield a lot of creativity and really, like help a creator be scrappy and help them figure out what to do. at least that's how it works for me. >> it would be silly to talk to a musician and not ask about the new album. i saw the music video hot tub, i assume that's a nod to the pandemic. >> it was, we started writing that song four years ago. this is the new album.

we printed the vinyl and put all of our patrons name on it. i'm excited about this and it's been a really fun topic. we've been working on it for four years. otherwise, we probably would becoming out with more records. i'm very excited about it and i'm very proud of that record. it's something i think that sounds great. >> excellent. jack conte, thank you for being with us. the ceo of patreon. we'll be back.

republicans too. we fly. and we like baseball. 5050 senate. if i were running a major corporation, i'd stay out of politics. >> there are so many culture wars lately, it's hard to keep track but one of the latest has republicans swearing off baseball and apple juice from minute maid, that's a coca-cola subsidiary. as you know, major league baseball and coke and delta and home depot weighed in on georgia's new voting laws. senator mitch mcconnell says corporations ought to stay completely out of politics. then next day, clarified it would be okay if corporations still contributed money to

political campaigns. an expert in the way the company and brands present themselves to the world and thanks for being with us. to be clear, just named our georgia base. so at least at the headquarters, the employees there are georgia voters. they have really weighted into something here. >> i think they're expected to say something as a georgia-based company. the basic thing is obvious. if you're a company base in georgia, you have to make a comment on here. especially a large company because frankly, you have to have an opinion. you have to show your employees exactly what it is you care about. that being said, baseball moving the all-star game felt like one of those things that just doesn't make sense. moving the all-star game somewhere else suggests that they somehow move the conversation. all it did was just annoy the

gop. i don't think anyone is going to change their vote or change their perception of the gop. all these voting rules based on baseball moving, i think it's just a virtue signaling move. >> got a long way to go, although the nfl and nba. a lot of credit because they have come quite a distance. you know, does the rest of the world care what coke thinks? it's something you think. it's not something you think of as a political stance. >> yeah, but for their employees, i can understand. but at the same time, continually having a conversation going on tv talking about it in-depth, they're not going to lose the significant revenue from guys who don't want to drink coke anymore to stay republican. >> it's important when a company is socially responsible in a way that's to their function. the example of amazon using electric trucks, that kind of stuff. netflix giving bigger parental leave. they're going to say they're

going to be corporate social responsible companies and then they do something that is directly related to the thing that they make or do. the best brands or the best putting your brand forward comes when the thing that you're trying to accomplish has some relationship to your industry and what it is that you do. >> i think it has relevance and actual effect on the world, so the all-star game moving probably actually does more damage to the constituents of atlanta than the gop or the governor. >> i'll give you an example of a brand that i thought was a big off message was gillette a couple of years ago, a super bowl ad in which it said we've got to stop abusing women. which, don't get me wrong, of course. it struck people really funny because, first of all, you just make something a product that we use in our lives and obviously, your message is spot on, but it

seemed accusatory. >> it's just starting a conversation that no one had put them in. i don't think that anyone was like, well, gillette really needs to stand up for this. i, on a very tangential level understand why the company around masculinity, but it exists only in the vacuum where people will talk about it and say it's good and publicly. it's just, again, virtue signaling. it has no measurable effect. it's not someone who is traditionally known for being patriarchal, changing their tune. >> the opposite of that was dove, addressed the way the women looked at themselves, the way the women treat themselves and that one felt really, really authentic. >> yes, because it was about something you put on your body. it is inherently about exposing

one's self and one's physical appearance and it is something that is an enduring brand image. love the skin you're in idea. makes sense. it has an effect on your skin which you expose and the pressures that are on a woman in society to expose skin and be exposed, measured by the physical appearance. that is something that was an effective statement, capitalist and to make money off of people but nevertheless, still an effective and germane message, unlike gillette where it's like, what do you have to do with this? >> let me end on a positive and that is, i think we've seen companies take out a full page ad. we support some very important, very understandable cause but not a lot of action. so at least in the sense of the deltas and the home depots and the whatnot, we are seeing some action and not just a full page ad in the "wall street journal."

>> i think the problem is that actions usually don't follow words though. so a big advertisement that says we believe in this, we think this is good, do their lobbying dollars match that and i think, that wouldn't be a problem but now people are so much more aware of what political lobbying and the effects of money against politics. >> an expert in brand and marketing.

welcome back to "press: here." we've got used to the zoom meeting during the pandemic and appear there would be more in the future as corporate america discovers not every meeting needs to be a business trip. i say corporate america but also corporate mexico, corporate france, spain, italy, you name it. communication via computer as an unexpected advantage. if you're talking with someone who speaks a different language. your zoom call can be translated on the fly. now, i say zoom as the generic microsoft teams or webexas the same idea. >> they're transcribed on the left. my words are being interpreted into spanish on the right.

>> the ceo and founder of wordily, a service that does just that. translates spanish and english or english into italian as people meet via video conference. thank you for being with us this morning and let's start with walking me through how this works. this is done by computers, right? not by people translating. >> the realtime translation are changing the way interpretation is done today. there are a few key aspects to this. number one is we do a continuous form of translation where speakers don't have to pause after every sentence. we do a translation simultaneously from one language to multiple languages and all of this, as you said, this accessible to the user on their own devices. computers on the mobile devices. they can also get this, so the

importance of this is that imagine if you're attending, as you said. if you feel included, you would feel productive. it would increase productivity as well. >> how close do you think you are in getting the translations right? i mean, if 95% would be an astonishingly good number. in the business meeting, 5% misunderstanding is a lot of misunderstanding. >> we have done the hard work in this space to improve the quality. we have lots of scientists and engineers working on this every day. what this does is we focus on the contextual information. what our customers have found is that they're able to use wordly and it increases productivity.

>> maybe go back later and go over transcripts, make sure they understood the way they were supposed to understand it. >> that is correct. so there is the transcript available after the general meeting so people can access it and of course, there are some languages that we do better than that. >> which do you do best and struggle with? >> we do really well between generally more available for those languages. >> you mostly worked in hardware throughout your career.

>> that was my previous, my experience just prior to starting wordly. and while i was at the hearing aid company, i realized that, you know, there is not a good solution for the heart of hearing. i think it attended a meeting or conference, managing global teams. where we had a difficulty in communicating with other languages. we heard people speaking a

different language, i hear but i don't understand you. >> the power that's required to do this in realtime is not something that could ever have been done on hardware. >> absolutely. i mean, we believe that's coming up in the near future with the existence of edge computing and 5g but you're absolutely right. the convergence of cloud, ai and the mobile factors have made this ubiquitous. >> you anticipated my next question and that is, what do you see ahead in the next ten years or so? >> it's so obvious that every which way you turn, there's a need for realtime interpretation and language is a need. this is such an obvious problem. i mean, we are focused today on

the business case, but we are also geared up for the future. available and much faster, better quality and perhaps add more languages. >> i wish you good luck. the ceo of wordly and frontier. we'll be right back.

that's my show for this week. thank you for our guests and thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

damian trujillo: hello, and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo. do you call yourself latinx or do you call yourself a chicana? well, the experts are on our show to talk about that the entire show on your "comunidad del valle." ♪♪♪ damian: well, latinx, i was first introduced to it a couple of years ago, and i think i'm still learning about that identity term. so, we wanted to bring in the experts to kind of educate us on the power of the use of the word "latinx," and the power of the use of the identity term "chicano" and "chicana." with me is dr. julia curry, professor at san jose state