F*ck creator funds, we need a creator index fund

02/02/22 • 27 min

2 Listeners

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex brought on the Most OnlineTM reporter at TechCrunch, Amanda Silberling to talk about one of her recent pieces, "maybe creator funds are bad."

The column, mixed with the recent saga between Spotify and Joe Rogan, helped us ask a bigger question for this week's episode:

What makes a platform economically viable for creators?

It's no small question. Creators are a key plank in every platform's success, from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram to, well, wherever you watch or listen to stuff made outside of major studios. But the financial relationship between platform and provider -- creator, in other words -- is often fraught and broken.

Creator funds are some proposed fix to the situation, but we find the to be more band-aid than holistic solution. Rev splits are good, and seemingly more sustainable, but with YouTube's ad load reaching truly epic proportions, they may not be a fix-all. So we sat down to chew the fat and try to work towards a solution.

Which we mostly did, except for Alex, who decided that a return to feudalism is the only way forward. We're back Friday! Talk soon!

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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The column, mixed with the recent saga between Spotify and Joe Rogan, helped us ask a bigger question for this week's episode:

What makes a platform economically viable for creators?

Which we mostly did, except for Alex, who decided that a return to feudalism is the only way forward. We're back Friday! Talk soon!

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Previous Episode

Equity Monday: If you don't want to be criticized for your editorial choices, don't make editorial choices

This Monday show actually felt a bit old-school, in that the weekend controversy in tech has spilled over into the working morning, meaning that we need to talk about it. But first, markets:

After the somewhat punishing start to last week, today's trading is somewhat more staid. Global equities are moving, but nothing suicidal, and cryptos are off a bit in the last 24 hours, but up in the last seven days. Naturally, given what has happened in recent trading sessions, all that could change in a moment but at least we're starting in un-choppy waters.
The Joe Rogan furor continued. After several musicians decided to take their music off the service in protest of Spotify's decision to pay for material that those artists viewed as undercutting public health, Spotify made some of its rules public and said that it will append COVID-19 notes to podcasts that discuss the pandemic. We talk about why.
In startup-land, FTX has raised another huge round, TCV is putting more late-stage money into early-stage rounds, and Bamboo raised.
Closing out, changes are afoot in China's venture capital market.

So yes, there's going to be a lot of Twitter drama this week. But don't worry! You can compensate for that by hating on people posting Wordle scores, as that appears to be the latest way to lose friends online.

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Next Episode

Taxing crypto only makes it stronger

We had the full crew aboard today, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex.

Last week we promised Cute Farming Robots, and this week we delivered, along with a lot more. But first, the Equity team along with our sister podcast Found are doing live recordings starting soon. You can find out more here, but Equity will be live-taped on Hopin next Thursday. Come hang out, it should be fun!

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/come-hang-with-us-for-live-recordings-of-techcrunch-podcasts-equity-and-found/

Now, the show rundown:

Funding rounds from Pluto (corporate spend in the Middle East), Free Agency (agents for tech talent), and Metafy (video game coaching) got us started. From a host of rounds this week, we chose the most interesting for your delectation. If you want more on gaming, check out our Wednesday show where we niche down into the universe, or in this case, the metaverse.
The new Seven Seven Six fund got us into the crypto investing beat, which Alex explored here earlier in the week. In short: Expect more crypto deals. We also touched on the Indian crypto tax rule, which is a revelation of a regulation.
From there we dove into the fintech realm through the lens of the Bolt fiasco/drama/truth-telling saga. More tweets, please.
And then, we end with a section on autonomous vehicles, that has nothing to do with cars. Yep, we're talkinig Cute Farming Robots, including rounds from Vecna, Electric Sheep, and MongoDB founder doing this, which reminds us that the AWS of robots isn't too far away.

So far, 2022 is feeling good. Along with our soon to be standing live show circuit, we're working hard on making the show more focused on tension and nuance, while still sticking to our love for numbers and nerdy networks. Let's annoy some people this year, and teach you something in the meantime.

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