Welcome to imagination in action, where we have conversations with compelling people driving the action that will power our futures. These are successful Imaginators you want to know
so I just want to orient people. We're gonna dive into this. We have a bunch of great questions. Alison Sander and I will be alternating questions to Randall. Alison, is is like the snow Simone Biles on trendwatching. She's the Chief futurist for BCG, she doesn't wear her professional hat in this room. She's just awesome. I also want to do a shout out to Kelly, who's the patron saint of awesome. And thanks for supporting our show, always. So this is imagination action, where we have conversations with some of the most compelling people. It's a dynamic mix of Imaginators. That's what we call our hosts, our guests, like Randall tonight, and we believe these people are re envisioning the nature of their industry and driving the action that will power our future. So before I ask the first question, Allison, just want to say hi, and just want to welcome you to the stage and see if you want to say anything.
Just so excited to be here, Cory, thank you for kicking us up. That was fabulous. Appetizer to the multi course meal. And Randall, so honored to spend two hours with you. And I knew thanks for giving us a platform.
Great. So Randall, you know, I know you created the 30 under 30. And you have this billionaires list. But let's go back to the beginning. You have been doing journalism, since you were an editor of your college newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian at UPenn. Before you, and then you interned with the Wall Street Journal, where did your love of journalism come from? And what age were you when you got hooked at it? And what really hooked you during those early days?
That's a great first question. And I'd love to dust off the cobwebs and go back that far, it really was a chance to be you know, dab a voice and, you know, this is, you know, dating myself a little bit. You know, when I was in college, the internet hadn't yet it was just being invented. So, you know, the Mosaic browser did not exist. And so there was no way to get to have impact, basically, you had to have somebody else, you had to let somebody else give you that opportunity to have a voice, the ability, even as a young age, my big kind of break. My big kind of break was actually in high school, where I was waiting online. Now I'm really gonna date myself, I was waiting online for Bruce Springsteen tickets back in the, you know, in his late 80s Prime, and I waited all night, and landed, they went to being a kind of a mini ticket riot, because those are the days where, you know, they weighed out all night, and people would squish up to the front of the SAM Goody or whatever it was to get the tickets. And it was just this kind of interesting sociological experience, I wrote it up. And I sent it to the New York Times, and they actually printed it. And it was really cool to get how you're 17 years old or 18. And to have people talking and commenting about what you know, you realize that you can have an impact. And then and then I repeated that in college, working on the college paper, but also having a you know, I wrote a story when I was an intern at the journal about I wrote a story about the shortage of women in Alaska. And an entrepreneur who started a magazine. This is way this is 20 years before Tinder called Alaska men magazine and she was making a lot of money. Basically, Alaska had a and probably still has a male female imbalance, a bad ratio. And so she was she was writing a maggot. But she was basically like a bunch of she called it mousse mousse cake, where she would take pictures of got lonely lumberjacks, and guys, you know, in mining camps, and they were looking for women and a lot of women's are moving up to Alaska to quote unquote, you know, they were looking for kind of old fashioned quote unquote, real man and random reading on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And it created a bit of a sensation. So much so that Oprah land when a Peter Jennings did a segment on and quoted the story on the ABC News back when everyone watched network news, and cosmopolitan reprinted the story, and I guarantee that's the only time Cosmo was reprinted a Wall Street Journal story. And then Oprah did a whole show about the Alaska men. And just to see all that rollout was in and again, I was probably about 2021 at the time, and you realize that even as A kid journalism and again, this is a silly subject. But you know, when you hit something that Zeitgeist D, the whole world can talk about. And I was just a kid in Philadelphia, who just happened to know a woman who had his magazine, I'm like, What the hell is that. And I saw that nobody had ever done the story on it. And you can really make the, you can really make the world talk about stuff so that you get hooked on that, you know, I'm not one of these people who likes writing, I think it's painful. It's work. I put a lot of work into it. I write slowly, and I take care on what I write and what I edit. But it's not fun for him. It's not a fun process for me, but the ability to have impact. Is, is fun. And is, is that got me hooked.
Randall, that is such a great story. I love that image that Alaska men are somehow part of the early appeal here. But you described a little bit of this in your answer to John's questions, but what do you see as some of the major ways that media has changed since your days interning at the Wall Street Journal, and what's most surprised you and how the experience of curating, creating and consuming media has changed since those early days as a kid in Philadelphia? Well,
it's changed a ton. I mean, back then, and then, you know, I started, you know, I started my career, I went that that story helped me get me a job at Forbes that, uh, the fact checker out of college. So I, you know, I had the privilege of being, you know, kind of at a large journalism organization, very young. But I appreciated back then, that I had so many friends who wanted to be able to write and somebody else had to give you the ability to write, if you didn't work for somebody who had the means of a magazine, or newspaper, or, or a TV network or radio station, you had no way to communicate with the world. And so, what's happened is, now every kid, even when they're, you know, six years old, and they you know, and they put some, so, you know, they start playing around with an iPad, they are creators, and certainly when they get social media accounts, so that people are growing up with this, you know, the knowledge that anybody can create content. I mean, I hear things about, oh, the media, that's the media that, you know, everybody's the media, anybody can be the media, and anybody who starts something and becomes popular, becomes the media, there is no, there, there obviously are hurdles, but fundamentally, there aren't anybody can be the media, it's just you find your audience. And then of course, there are ways and then grow and there are, you know, distribution issues, but net net, we've gone from a media oligopoly, where there were x places that, you know, you could write for, or that controlled kind of what was, was read or listened to, or seen to basically a tower of Babel, and that in some ways, listen, in many ways, in fact, in most ways, that's great. I mean, we've democratized media, it's great. It also, of course, creates all sorts of back, you know, of, of negative side effects, including misinformation, misinformation, and, and a lot of people feeling detached. But a lot of people also feel community. But mostly what it does is it forces the, you know, those of us who do this for a living to get better, because it's not like I get competition makes you better. That's fundamental premise of what Forbes is about. I mean, Forbes, embraces competition, philosophically, as, as, you know, kind of the Bible of entrepreneurial capitalism. And so that's what's happened is that it's an incredibly competitive landscape where you're not just if you're Forbes, you're not just competing against, you know, the traditional magazines or The Wall Street Journal at the ft. You're competing against, you know, some competing against the blogger, you're competing against, you know, a small new outlet with three people or somebody or who, who has an active Twitter account, and that listen, that makes you better and forces you to get better.
So, Randall, what are some of the most fun stories you've been able to cover in your career? I know you, which includes serving as editor of Forbes magazine, is editor at large for both Newsweek and The Daily Beast. We gather you've been able to do cover stories on individuals such as Spielberg and Lucas, you got to go to the Olympics with Phil Knight from Nike, and regularly discuss capitalism with some of the powerbrokers the billionaires on your billionaire list. Were these the highlights, which have been your most meaningful moments in your amazing career and I know you have two daughters, would they agree that those highlights are your highlights for you?
Well, they would definitely disagree. They you know, they They, they, they certainly we were we were quarantining, we were quarantining. Obviously, during the, you know, the dark days of spring 2020. And Kanye West who is, uh, cares very much about what Forbes says about his net worth. Basically, he was calling me basically, I was one of his COVID, buddy, and he was calling me basically, every other day to, you know, complain about how much he said his net worth was because he says much richer than we said, he was kind of is a bit of a Trump syndrome like that. And then he had net when, you know, he, he was the one he told me, I was the one who announced that he was running for president and over there, you know, that you're running on the birthday party, all that stuff. So that made obviously a lot of headlines around the world, you know, he told me to go to chosen me to be his messenger for this campaign, his campaign run, the kids would say, that is the most exciting because when you're stuck in a, in a little house, with dad, when kinda is calling, that's the you know, that that's exciting for them. For me, it was when some of the stories you wrote just triggered a lot of good memories. And then when I was in my 20s, at Forbes, I got a lot of great opportunity before to the place that will promote, you know, doesn't like an age, you know, look at production. And I got promoted a bunch of times when I was in my 20s. And I went up as a writer by kind of early, mid 20s Getting to do some crazy things that I frankly, was a little over my skis on, but, you know, going to the Olympics, 1996 Olympics with Phil Knight, you know, that's, that's, you know, it's heady stuff, and, and getting to see our special effects work and spend three days on Skywalker Ranch Skywalker Ranch with George Lucas and learn how to kind of get schooled on the movie business in journalism is a great job because you're always learning. And, you know, every story is interesting, if you allow it to be interesting, and you know, just like a conversation like this, I mean, you're, you're a journalist, I mean, is that what you do as a vocation, but you're, you're creating journalism, you're, you're creating journalism here. And, and the reason, you know, makes sense for you, and the urine, academic as well, and you're somebody who's interested in ideas. If journalism is done, right, you're always learning. And even though I don't write that much anymore, mostly editing, and I'm kind of trying, you know, and trying to drive strategy and try to drive growth. You get to learn and you know, everything you work on you learn from that's, that's a treat that I appreciate.
So, Randall, that to drag your daughters into this, but you have an incredible title, where you now serve as Chief Content Officer and editor of Forbes magazine, how do you describe what that job entails, to your daughter's or to this audience? And you how have you helped to really shape the dimensions of this role? Because it's amazing to go on the Forbes site, and your name is everywhere. But how do you scope out what isn't? isn't part of the Chief Content Officer responsibility?
It's good. The Chief Content Officer is fairly, it's actually fairly simple, which is I'm in charge, you know, ultimately, for the editorial output, the content of the site across all platforms. So whether it's video or, you know, we have an entertainment division that does documentaries, obviously, your most important being the website, the most traditional being the print magazine. And, you know, there's a global reach to it, which is great. We, you know, Forbes has editions in over 40 countries, local language editions and almost 50 countries. So what we do here get shared around the world, which is, which is fine, but it just means it does. It's a fairly, you know, it's a job that basically is, is pretty decently defined, which is I'm putting out the stuff that, that I'm putting, I'm in charge of the journalism, but in charge of the very loose word, I've been putting out over 300 stories a day on forbes.com. So it's not like I'm sitting there, that we're putting out too much content that I'm sitting there really, it's more about directing, you know, strategically directing what we're doing, and, and making sure that we're always doing honor to what a great brand that I feel very lucky to help shepherd.
Great. So, Randall, I got I have a question. So how do you describe all the pieces of your multi ARM platform? So let me just break it down. Forbes enterprise and Forbes platform includes forbes.com, which reaches at least 120 million people. I did some research Worldwide every month, Forbes social, which engages at least 44 million people every month, and Forbes magazine, which under your leadership reaches about 7 million readership just in the US, how do you describe all the pieces of this? And how do you? And are there any surprises of how it's working now versus, you know how you first started working at Forbes, we'll get to where it's going in a little bit. But explain that. And I also want to do a shout out to Clubhouse. I'm a passionate photographer, and I'm at Gillette Stadium on the sideline of the finals games of the revolution. And I'm going to photograph I have a press pass, but because this tool is so easy, where I can do an interview anywhere, I'm able to do that interview from here, but yeah, so Randall, how do you think of your multi ARM platform?
Well, it's, it's important to think about it, multi arm is exactly right. Every platform is different. And it's not one size fits all. There are too many people in who kind of look at media. And they think of it as a kind of one size fits all, every, every piece of content, every piece of journalism needs to be considered for the content for the platform that it's on. With a magazine story, I mean, one thing that I did with the magazine, when I returned the Forbes, was that I kind of decided that the magazine then was too much like the website, it was just the it was lots of stories, lots of and lots of quote unquote synergy with the website. And to me, that's exactly wrong. Where a print magazine, listen, there's not in this day and age is not a lot of reason to have a print magazine, unless you lean into exactly what makes the print experience great. So what would that mean for something like, like me of Forbes, it would mean that instead of a lot of magazines trying to save money, because the magazine, print economics are tough, they invest less on the product I actually worked with, you know, our very good team who supports us. And we have an amazing leadership team, executive team business team that really supports the content, and they support us. So we have we're lucky to have leadership, Mike fatally the CEO and but the whole, the whole team is willing to invest in quality. And so we put money into the print magazine, so the papers nicer, the covers, you know, is nicer. So it feels like a luxury item. Because you don't want bad, you know, if you're going to experience print, the paper and the tactile feels part of it, then we invest in photography. And then we invested in instead of making the article shorter, we made the article longer because reading something in a print magazine, it's a better experience to read long form in print than it is on your phone. So let's lean into that. And then let's work on on when we do lists and packaging, the more elements on a page, all the things, we curate each page, that stuff, the unlike the ala carte, you know, appetizer hors d'oeuvre experience of being on the web, I grab this I serve to this, I click to this, it's about it's about the packaging. And so it's thinking like that, that each platform needs to exist and to maximize what that platform is good at. Just like you're sitting here in clubhouse and say, Hey, we're gonna do two hours, because we're just gonna have a long conversation, that's different rhythm than what you get, you know, you know, you're you're, you're experimenting with this platform that way. So I think that's cool.
So that it's so baffling, because we've had so many speakers in the 50 shows that I've talked exactly about that Randall of, you know, what's going to be the future of socio audio and social media. So this is really a privilege. Can you help us understand in this highly competitive world that you're describing, you know, with this multi ARM platform, where the money comes from today for Forbes, so there's obviously print and digital advertising, evangel, sponsorship, licenseeg, etc. So how has that changed in this more competitive space in the last decade? And then what do you think will be some of the new revenue streams in the next 10 years? So I'm a little bit curious. Can you imagine Forbes for example, getting into newsletters, social commerce, such a audio streaming? I mean, what is inbounds and what's out of bounds?
I mean, the brief and the brief. Answer that question is yes. You need a diversity, you need diversified revenue to be healthy. Obviously, I'm the content guy. The revenue is not in my in my purview, but obviously some visibility into it. And what Forbes has done very well In the last 10 years is its diversify the revenue streams. It's gone from majority print advertising, to majority, digital advertising and now increasingly than diversifying from, from advertising to consumer revenue, subscriptions and, you know, affiliate and, and dip, you know, products and licensing, like you mentioned. So it's healthy. And but we have more and more we're pushing like, like, most healthy media companies towards a more, more of a subscription model, because the healthiest model involves having people who want to pay for the journals and you create. So that's, you know, that's something that's big and getting bigger here. But, you know, it's not at the expense of anything else. The answer is a healthy, like, you know, we were taught our kids have best diet, say, a balanced diet, and you don't want to be too reliant on any one revenue stream at the end of the day. You know, we're very proud that during the pandemic, we didn't lay anybody off. We didn't furlough anybody. We didn't cut anybody sour, even temporarily, we made a commitment. Mike, the CEO, and all of us and leadership made a commitment that we were going to try to get through intact and but you know, the the ability to do that if you have a smart, you know, if you're to depend on any one revenue stream, you're vulnerable to, you know, changing worlds. And so we're trying very hard to make this a very safe and healthy place to work and to, to consume knowing that we're going to continue to put out great journalism. That's the that's the North Star.
Great, Randall, you are known for bringing an emphasis on young innovators and disruptors, I think the 30 under 30 list is an example of that, in your own lifetime, before returning to Forbes and you had been at Forbes. Now, you know, returning in 2011, as editor, you spent 15 years co founding two media startups that in aggregate launched almost a dozen magazines and related websites, including POV Adweek startup of the year, Trader monthly and dealmaker. How have you developed and honed your own entrepreneurial skills? And how critical Do you think entrepreneur ism is to capitalism? And how and how important is it to our economy as it evolves?
Uh, you know, big question. And I think, kind of personalizing it, you know, I had these experiences in my early mid 20s, with all these titans of industry, and got to, again, really just basically, I was writing Harvard case studies on businesses and entrepreneurs. Except instead I was handing in to professor I was submitting it for a million people read them in Forbes magazine. Because, you know, Forbes articles are intended to have a point of view, to kind of cut to the chase to figure out what makes a company tick. And so I kind of learned, I learned on the Forbes 400, billionaires wealth team, I'm able to, you know, learn from the ground up how to take apart a company and put it back together, or at least try. It's after interviewing dozens of people at a very tender age, you know, you figure out that a lot of the most successful people in the world are smarter than anybody on this, you know, on this chat. They work harder, they're more driven, or they have an idea. Sometimes they're smarter, for sure. But a lot of times, they just work harder, or they're lucky or they're more persistent. And so I just felt like that being a journalist, about writing about entrepreneurs was gonna make me a great entrepreneur. So yes, a buddy of mine from Forbes and I wound up raising a good amount of money and starting a magazine back when people in their 20s weren't supposed to do that. And we were at Pixar for the year. And then again, we had a lot of success, we got the revenue up to eight digits. But then, you know, we got the.com crash, dusted ourselves off or just myself off and did it a second time and raised another, you know, pretty good heap of money and got that company up in the eight digits, the revenue as well, a lot of success. And that was that company, which we had a lot of exposure with, you know, as covering Wall Street really is all the hedge fund traders and private equity. And it was really a very good company for its times but actually got shellacked in 2008 during the market meltdown. So some tough times a lot of success and tough some tough timing, and a lot of lessons learned. But I think the ultimate lesson is kind of went in thinking that being a journalist was gonna make me a good entrepreneur. Good be in business. Cheryl's gonna make me a good entrepreneur, but I really think it's actually being an entrepreneur has made me a strong journalist because a business journalist because, you know, the second company I was the CEO of that company was the editor in chief. So I while A small company, I mean, we're doing like, you know, 10 $12 million in revenue. Not teeny, but you know, but it's small, but it's still, you know, 50 employees. I mean, you understand, you start to understand things differently when you're, when you're calling the shots. And so now when I'm editing a story, and sometimes I'll ask a question, because I understand what it's like to be, you know, a founder, and understand what it's like to be, you know, CEO, or an executive or whatever. And I'll ask questions, knowing what that experience is like. And when you're just have spent your whole life in journalism, sometimes you you think you know, but you don't quite know. And the difference is, I know and I will tell somebody will tell reporter go back, I don't think that's true. If you dig, you'll find out it's not true. And they'll be like, no, no, they told me that, they'll come back and they'll say, Yes, true. It's because of that life experience. And so I do have some, they have a little bit different, I think, hopefully, I bring something different, which is that experience as an as an entrepreneur, doing it Bootstrap, raising, you know, 10s of millions of dollars, you know, generating 10s of $1,000 in revenue, losing 10s of millions of dollars, putting my own money in there losing my own money, you know, you'll learn how the game is played. And it brings, hopefully some sophistication to our coverage that we're not covering. Like an outsider, we understand what it's like to be on the inside.
So everyone, this is imagination and action, we're just set our first half hour, we have a musical interlude in the second half hour, a violinist virtuoso, is going to be playing. We're interviewing Randall Lane, who is a pretty accomplished journalist. And we're just getting started. This is long form journalism. If you want to visit our website, imagination inaction.co. You can see all our past shows were recording this, and a transcript and a full recording will be posted on the show on the page website soon after tonight's show. And we think we need not only imagination, but we need action today. Back to you, Allison.
So Randall, this is kind of unusual for us. But your talks generated so much interest, we have 13 people on the stage with questions. So John is not only reinvented long form journalism, but he has a specific format for this, that's much easier if you happen to have a pen and paper nearby. But we take questions and three, we hope you can remember them. But if not, I'm happy to take notes. And then after three questions, feel free to respond to all of them, or whichever ones most resonate if that's
a cool format. I love it.
It's a long form journalism, and particularly given the line of people interested in talking to you it's a it's a little bit of a necessity. So let's
actually let's do a few more of our questions before we get to our audience if that's okay.
Okay, well, some of the audience we may lose. So can we take three questions and then go back to ours?
You know, I just want to get a few of ours in first before we go to the audience.
Okay. All right. Well, in that case, you don't need your pen quite yet. So John mentioned this before, Randall. And when you rejoined Forbes in 2011, you created the legendary 30, under 30. And I will admit, one of the highlights of my life was in my 50s, getting invited to a 30 under 30 party and not having to wear a special badge. I'm very honored that they include some of us, well, out of that age range. But I'd love to understand a little bit more, you know, when you first develop the idea for the 30, under 30, did you envision that it would become so significant when you created it? And what role has that particular list we'll talk about the others in a minute, played in developing Forbes.
Three questions, the one right there. The 30. And the 30 was something I've been fiddling with during my entrepreneurial journeys. I you know, I was doing magazines and websites and events, I was doing media startups. And the first iteration of 30 to 30, was at POV magazine, the late 90s. And it was the it was the not quite as savvy, it was the 50 under 35. And I didn't call it that it was called like the POV all stars, but it was people under 35 It was 50. And that was back remember before kind of before, kind of that was just in that first.com era where it became more normalized for younger people to be actually entrepreneurs and starting things and changing things. And that worked. And I had you know, I if you look back on some of those stories, I you know, there's a picture of me and Daymond John, who's now on Shark Tank when he was running a clothing label and we're both in our 20s doing, you know, having a round table and that was that was you know, that we had Cory Booker we probably file that all sorts of people way ahead of our time when he was mayor running running for mayor of Newark. So when I got when I, the second starter trainer monthly, I kind of felt confident enough to say let's call it 30, under 30. And we did 30 to 30 for trainer monthly and was an absolute sensation on Wall Street. And I learned a lot I honed it, it was a it was our number one franchise there. When I got the Forbes I was basically copying myself and but I took all those learnings and it's kind of like what I was saying before, I mean, listen, a core, a core mission at Forbes fair failure, there's no such thing as failure if you learn from it. And you know, everything I learned and all those startups, I brought the Forbes and this is first or second thing I did was I said we're gonna do 30 to 30 we're doing in every industry, we're having big name celebrity judges. So we have third party validation. And we kind of did it right out of the gate. And that's why it succeeded out of the gate in the first day. You know, Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary, we actually have our 10th anniversary list coming out next year, next tomorrow. But it came out was the number one trending topic and all Twitter worldwide. But it was in part because we did it right. But I wasn't doing it right. You know, and a lot of people were like, Oh, that was so great. It's because I've learned, you know, at home the concept, kind of in the minor leagues, and I was ready for the major leagues. And I had, you know, so it was ready, and I knew what I was doing, because I practiced. And you know, with smaller scale, and so kind of came out. And we've been off to the races ever since it's global, you know, is a list that was perfect for its time. Because 10 years ago was right when you know the first generation that not just digital natives with smartphone natives were creating apps. I mean, Facebook was brand new, then Instagram, the first list, if you look at who was on that first list, it's quite an amazing group. And I might even post about it this week or next week. But if you go to that first lift list, we did a call out we had that time was 12 categories, we've since expanded to 20. And we did call outs with let's take one person from each and kind of go deeper on them. And we shot them all we had Harry Benson, the famous Beatles photographer, do the photo shoot with the idea that we get this old legend shooting these young kids and we had Kevin Systrom walked into our office by himself the founder of Instagram. We had Donald Glover walked in, who became Of course one of the biggest actors and he was then a show writer. And he also of course, you know, is one of the biggest, you know, rappers in the world. He walks in, we had Ronan Farrow came in when he was working for the State Department, before he was even a journalist. If you look at the people, and you know, just scratching the surface there, Mac Miller came in, he since passed, you know, the wraps the music category. You know, it was, it was a time when all of a sudden being in your 20s was not a disadvantage anymore. Maybe for the first time in human history, you always needed to experience and you needed, you needed assets and resources and needed to apprentice to succeed. And this was a time where suddenly youth was an advantage. Because you were digitally fluid, you were inherently able to see things about how to use a smartphone and how to build apps and how to build products that people a little bit older couldn't see. So it was also a the right idea for the right time.
And let me let me ask you a follow up question in this and then we'll go to the stage. I know in the movie The graduate they said the advice was Bob was plastic. In the movie, Fletch, the advice was ball bearings. I think today, it's what networks you work in and what networks you kind of are passive in. And I I'd like to hear from you a little bit about what kind of community what kind of network are you forming among your 30 under 30 list? And you know, I've heard of job hirings, partnerships marriages, does Forbes plays any role in fostering and I think Harvard gets a lot of credit for getting you know, filtering who comes but you know, are they really educating those who shows up? Or Penn where you went? And in more than a decade you've curated the 30 Forbes 30 under 30 list who have been some of the more controversial winners like Do you regret you know giving any recognition out and you want to take it back? And who are some that you think you missed? I know people a decade after felt like raging bull which didn't get any awards? Yeah, decade should have Yep. Selection Criteria changed. Originally was
we've been pretty whole you know, it's got it we look at things through an entrepreneurial lens. So if you're like us superstar at it dem, you're still gonna have a hard time making the list because we're Forbes and we, we lean towards entrepreneurship. And so it's the people who are really starting something, it doesn't mean that intrapreneurs and people who are superstars within organizations don't make it. But it's a lot harder. We're really looking at entrepreneurs. And it's kind of oh, it's always been a Northstar. You look, there aren't that many regrets? You take somebody like Martin Shkreli, he was on the list. Now he's in jail, of course. Should he be in unless he he made you know, he was 26? Or whatever? And he absolutely, you know, with worth a couple 100 million dollars. Absolutely blowing and disrupting and blowing up the you know, that's somebody who should be on the list. Now, is this a moral person? That's something time had to tell maybe he would argue he's, he's creating a new model for letting letting you know, figuring out how to, to put more juice behind certain drugs that weren't getting enough love. It's finding market inefficiency, whatever it is. He if you're 26, and you are the most talked about person in your field, and you you know, you're worth whatever, 100 million dollars. You do belong in the list. Now. Is he in our rogues gallery and our 10th anniversary issue? Yes, he is. Somebody who never made the list who probably is the most controversial, and I will, I will say this as both something I'm proud of. And as a mia culpa, is we never put Elizabeth Holmes on the list. Because we were never we she was on our billionaires list. Because she was a billionaire by the private, you know, by all the money that was raised the devaluation trays, she was, but she would never put on the 30 to 30. Because our team just was, it just didn't feel right. So part of me thinks, hey, look at us, or, you know, where we pression where we smart. But there's a bigger part of me that says, Well, if we were that suspicious, we probably should have Dig Dug deeper. And so, you know, yes, and you learn, I mean, it's what's interesting about this project is, you get to see stories emerging a little ahead of everybody else, in a lot of cases, though.
Alright, so now we're gonna go to the stacking a bunch of questions. And I'm actually going to stack more than three. Esther Dyson, one of my favorite journalists.
Do you think so Dyson used to work at Forbes if I know my Forbes history? Correct? Isn't that right?
Yes, indeed. Yes. I'm standing by.
Yeah, no, go. What's your question? Oh, okay. So,
I mean, obviously, indeed, I used to work at Forbes. I started out as a fact checker. And as did I, yes. Yeah. And it's, it's a key part of my life. When I was there. Long ago, Steve Forbes was one of the senior editors and but just really one of the game. So I'm curious when you were there. You know, it was an amazing place. Malcolm Forbes used to invite advertisers to lunch in the wine cellar, and we would sit around and sort of be, you know, harshly say suddenly, gee, these reporters might write about you if you buy some advertising. And then after, after lunch, we would be sent away so that Malcolm could give them more of a hard sell. I'm curious what, when were you there? Who were the people you were working with? was Jim Michaels still there? What did you cover? I'm just curious what it was like.
Alright, so Randall, that's question number one. If you have a pen and pencil, this is old school, or you want to type them
down. I will definitely answer that. Okay, great question. That's it. That's inside. That's good. Insider scoop, though.
Yeah. All right. Kunal love, having you part of the show and our show was part of your group and I think you have a few 100,000 members have we the future and thank you for all your support. Kunal,
do you have Thanks. Thanks, John. I Randall Good to see you again. You are here. You can. Yeah, here you actually write and see a bit of you. So welcome to clubhouse. So great to have you here. My question would be, you know, you remember I was honored to speak at Forbes impact. And I thought that was an extraordinary you know, initiative. I wonder if now into the future. You have any plan that I'd love to support you in doing something like for the metaverse given? The Metaverse is becoming so pervasive with everything out there, just here. Now. Is there an idea on the table with that? If then, if there is if it isn't, is there a way I could support you or John good supporter we all could support you. And what are you most excited about hearing now with Forbes and how can we support you know you as an extraordinary person? Leader at Forbes?
Great thank you Kunal. So I hope I'm saying your name right. Do you have a question?
You said it perfectly. Thank you. My question is what do you consider to be content? And I asked that because it has evolved from 10 years ago right now, contact could be anything from audio, but I'm just curious what you consider. And what do you define content? As?
Great admit, do you have a question?
Yeah, I'm curious. Randall, thanks for being here about navigating over the past decade or two into, you know, away from print media and into online and how you're going to continue to evolve with the changing time.
Great, thanks. And we're gonna do two more and then hand it back to Randall Cassidy. Do you have a question?
This is Cassidy speaking. Thank you, John. Allison Randall. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you. My question would be with the rapid growth of the social audio, landscape, which component are you most excited about?
Great. And then the last question of the stack, and then we'll get the others later and I see Cullen, that balloon means this is his one year anniversary Happy anniversary. I don't think that's your one year anniversary to your marriage. But one year for being on clubhouse. Very cool. Andrea, do you have a question?
Thank you, John. And thank you, Randall, for your time in being with us tonight. My question is with your experience as an entrepreneurial journalist. And over the years with Forbes, how do you see media evolving in this changing time of you know, kind of reimagining capitalism, and the role the media has to play?
Great. So Randall, don't feel like you got to answer them in order. You can blur some of them. You could ignore some of them. Or you could answer them all. You're not being graded. But You're so thoughtful, excited to have you share and if you want to do one word answers for some of them, or, or do an interpretive dance for others, whatever you want.
I'll do accordion. I'll go with Esther's first, since she has first and that's, you know, been a lot of these are the interesting overlap. But Esther and I clearly, you know, I was, I didn't start until until the 90s when Malcolm had passed, so I wasn't there for that, that that balloon, hot air balloons and motorcycle rally era, but it was still, you know, a golden era for magazines like Forbes. And yes, Jim Michaels. As I mentioned, Jim Michaels, he was also my editor and my mentor. And Jim was the editor, you know, and this role, you know, as the editor of the magazine, or whatever my title is, but the there have only been, if you go back, there have only been three, quote unquote, editors of Forbes, in the last more than about 55 years, I think, Jim, Jim was the editor about 35 years and then Bill Baldwin for 11 years, and now I'm on 10 years. So you got 55 years with just three books in the job. But Jim Michaels, is arguably one of the great and lesser known outside of business circles. But those who know no editors of the 20th century, certainly business editor, and he was, you know, he was the one who, who gave Forbes its its swagger, who insisted that Forbes stories have a point of view that you don't waste the readers time with, actually, you know, that you get right to the point that you, you, you interview everybody so that you can kind of cut through and tell folks what's really going on. There are a lot of lessons that still live on. And I'm very proud and because he was at the end of his career, and I was at the beginning of mine, it was a real privilege to get to soak in a lot of that knowledge. I mean, Jim was tough. And Esther can testify that Jim was a tough, scary guy for a lot of you know, I was both scared and enthralled. And I learned a lot and you set up and you learned. But he, he taught me a ton. And because again, I was in my 20s. And he was editor still in his 70s and 80s. You know, I'm glad I've been able to carry a lot of forward and will be able to carry that a lot forward to folks for a good long time. And it was, you know, it, you know, there was there wasn't is and, you know, I think that's what, you know, we've tried to do over the last few years is continue that tradition, that Forbes entertains on a large scale, the Forbes thinks big ideas that you know, forces you know, and certainly the fact checker is Esther and I both did that you understand that the building block of any story is accuracy doesn't mean again, nobody's perfect. And we have to correct things and you know, especially the volume of content we put out but we do Try very hard. The magazine is still fact checked the way we did it 30 years ago, and I'm proud of that. Let's see what else we got. We had a question about the meta, the meta verse from. I think we're the Canalis that are sold as as that. That was a Solmaz. We are the metaverse how we're evolving social audio as a question. And because of the print online, those are all, actually some of us because these are all actually, I could talk about canals question about impact. And then and then all the rest of them are really good questions that speak to the future of media canals question about impact. And thought, you know, he was talking about then then then push to kind of the metaverse, I mean, they all they all. You know, we had that other question about reimagining capitalism, per first of all purpose to have one question about remain capitalism. Kamal talking about the impact and talking about kind of the metaverse Forbes has succeeded over the last few years.
The last 10 years, we've had a good run, it's because I think because it stands for something. And it stands for entrepreneurship. And it stands for, you know, using the private, you know, the ingenuity of the private sector and entrepreneurship, you know, often in partnership with the public sector to solve problems. But it means something Forbes is stands for positive change. It's not, we've tried to really pivot, you know, harder, it's, you know, we try to lean in the innovation, and we try to lean in the philanthropy, but it's about solving problems. It's about being successful, and solving problems. The very first issue of Forbes 1917 BC Forbes, who was Malcolm's father, Steve Forbes, his grandfather, founder, Forbes said that the purpose of capitalism, the purpose of business, is to create happiness, not the pile of millions is to create happiness. And I think that idea, we still hold true 140 years later, which is that It's through entrepreneurship and innovation, that we can solve problems that make that can create that happiness, that prosperity, that ability to make a living, that ability to thrive, that ability to be free. That ability, it dovetails to democracy that ability to live in a free society where you have self determination. And that is something that infuses our brand. And, and we are proud proponents of continuing to push capitalism forward in a way that recognizes multiple stakeholders in terms of all the questions about social audio and audio going out thinking part about the metaverse some question about content. And it's question about, you know, shifting away from print, which we've successfully done online. It really is about being I think that's true of every media kind of it's true of every company, that it's being comfortable, evolving and understanding that if you're standing still, you're falling behind. And it doesn't mean like the metaverse specifically. Yes, we're looking into it. Are we diving in there? No, we want to be do we need to be the first person and no, do we want to sit and watch and learn? Yes. Will we eventually get there? I'm sure. When we get there with a plan that hopefully is thought out? I hope so. But it's that idea, that same thing, Cassius question about social audio. It's about something like this, I mean, I'm doing this, because John is a friend than a partner. But also because I you know, I know he's having a lot of success here. And it's it's interesting to learn to, you know, and to just kind of learn and just like John hopefully learned some stuff we do we all learn from each other. And so. So it's just about being curious and about being open to change and understanding that we have to continue to evolve the unit to salimos, his question about content, that media is always changing and evolving. And we have to evolve with it. And we have to not be afraid to fail occasionally, because as long as most times more times than not, we're succeeding.
Great. Thank you for audience participation, we're going to get you back. Also can't wait for you to hear from our violinists in the second hour. And as always, Allison does an amazing summary of the of the whole show, which you you all will get to hear. Allison, when you ask the next question.
Sure. Well, so Randall, you've talked a little bit about this, but I will admit you've totally piqued my interest on this formation of lists. So Forbes, under your leadership has become known for this. Can you explain a bit more? How many lists there are? How you build communities around these lists? And where did your vision come from to bring in outside judges to take these from static lists? Online communities with events around the world. Like I know, you said it started early and it leveraged your entrepreneurial experience. But I feel like you've sort of developed a whole new arm in the multi ARM platform.
appreciate that question, to be fair, I mean, look, Forbes, you know, Forbes got into the list game really heavily, certainly in the 80s with the Forbes 400, which was Malcolm Forbes idea, Jim Michael, you know, legend has it was against it but knockin was pushing for it. And that really could that was that caught the world by fans, but we were always doing lists of the global 2000 companies and things like that's a Forbes has a list tradition that long predates me, and Forbes is doing lists at scale. Before I came back there 10 years ago. That said, what hopefully what I've tried to do with again, we've got a great team, a lot of whom have been here a long time. And we have a lot of new fresh faces, too. So it's, it's nice to have that balance is trying to make them as you you know, as you were framing Elson, the the to make them more holistic to make them rounder, to be able to get creative physical communities out of the 30 to 30. Right. I mean, I, I learned a lot doing less because I was doing less it only startups from what I learned in Forbes, but it's to create, you know, how do you create impact it is, you know, John asked earlier about community and what we do are under 30, summit events around the world. And we are facilitating those connections. And again, we're not trying to, you know, and we have, we have private forums, and we have all sorts of ways for folks to get together. And that's a great thing. And if you look at your Twitter feed tomorrow, when the 30 to 30, this comes out, you will see how that works. It's a it's a it's a great, it's fun to be there with people as they're just emerging. And then it's fun to connect them because the connections you make through third, the third you're going to be you know they're gonna they're lifelong connections can have half century of impact. So what I've have tried to do is create, turn the list into something that's more as more impact probably the thing I'm proudest of 30 to 30. Obviously, I'm very proud of it, probably the proudest stuff. I think I did 30 to 32nd. The first thing I did when I got back to Forbes, I wrote a email to Warren Buffett and I, I said, Hey, Warren, you don't know me, but you knew my mentor, Jim Michaels, who estimation and I was on the Forbes 400 As a reporter, when I was out of college, and back then the billionaires of the world ran away from us, because they just would hope we would go away. But when I came back 15 years later, like it was like Rip Van Winkle. And all the billionaires were talking to us, because they realize we're going everywhere, anywhere that there was a public, there was a need of public service and letting the world know who the people who control the largest assets in the world are that there is a that's that's a public service, and it's not going anywhere. So they gave up and decided to try to work with us and try to spin us or whatever, and engage with us. And I said, Warren, instead of the Fortune 100 Being a static list and a magazine, why don't we make it a club for forgiving where the money has gotten so big? Listen, you can't spend $10 billion, it's impossible, it's impossible to spend $10 billion, you can buy the Yankees for $5 billion. And they'll be worth $8,000,000,000.08 years later. I mean, you can't spend it even when you're spending it, you're making more money, you can't, it's impossible spend it down. Frankly, if you give it to your kids, if you just drop 10 billion cash and your kids good way to ruin your kids, the outcome on people inherited saved money on that without any kind of strings attached are terrible. And so, you know, I think there is a need, you know, I think most of these rich folks need to get most of it away. That's the giving pledge. We're just getting started. And I said why don't we turn the Forbes 400 club. You know, where we talk about we don't put pressure on people we're not the giving pledge for it's not our role to be telling people what to do but it is our role to convene the first 100 as a as a kind of a group to talk about best practices to talk about people how how things are working to learn together to make people maybe accelerate their giving more to get smarter. And Warren said wow, he wrote me back immediately when I say he wrote me doesn't really email but as assistant emailed dictated the carrier pigeon style, and so come to Omaha let's be supposed to be with him for about a half hour an hour want to talk for two to three hours. And a partnership was born and Warren has been like my partner, my godfather, I call him on this project. He is the Godfather this where for 10 years we've been gathering weather virtually in person, the world's wealthiest people that how to you know unlock those riches. That's how you take a list and create a community and that's how you make impact.
Great. So I have two questions for you, Randall Randall, there used to be Faberge eggs on that fifth avenue office. I know Forbes, I think sold it to NYU. And you move to Queens or?
No, you still have four Jersey City, Jersey City. Yeah.
I've seen if you know where you foods, the foods that is good, as I'm curious, you know, was that a good move to get out of real estate and do invest in something else? That's part one. And then part two, is Forbes recently announced the next 1000, the comprehensive initiative to spotlight diverse entrepreneurs, who are redefining business amid unprecedented uncertainty. What was your thinking behind developing this list focused on small businesses with under 10 million in revenue or funding, but infinite drive and hustle? And what do you hope this list will? Spotlight? So two questions first, and then I see Carolyn's in the room. After you answer this, we'll have a violin virtual so that you will never forget.
All right, better. It's a quick thing, because that's what you know, we're ready for that. The Faberge eggs haven't been seen since Esther left Forbes, I'm going to connect that I believe that they were sold to folks back in Russia to go back to where they came from. I can't speak to the real estate economics, I will say that in this was we're all learning together. It's much less important where you work than how you work. And I think we're all learning from that. So I think it hasn't mattered much the last couple of years. And we've had a couple of our best years ever, because we work together as a team. So I actually
just done a real estate, it was March 15 of 2020, that I had 500 People coming to an event you and I were co hosting on the gig economy. And the night before I cancelled it, because that was the opening of, you know, this Twilight Zone episode called the pandemic
that is 100%. Right. And I do remember that, it was, you know, we still have a big event space on Fifth Avenue, we still so we still honor that. But you know, obviously, space is much less important. And what you do is, you know, is more important in terms of, so that's in terms of that to the next 1000. It's a recognition that listen, we've been ahead of the curve on a lot of so the the 30 to 30, the last couple years is range in the high 40% In terms of people of color who make the list. So if you go to under 37, it looks like America today, what America is gonna look like the boardrooms, America will look like in a few years, you see the future. But the next one that was recognition that a lot of our lists, were still, you know, predominantly white, a male. And in part, it's because there are a lot, there's a lot of entrepreneurial action at the smallest and smaller levels. And this is a list that recognizes those people who are big enough for a traditional Forbes list, but are doing something special. And that's been the idea behind that list. It's been you know, we've been very happy with it.
Great. All right, Carolyn, are you here? Yeah, sure. Okay, so Carolyn is a really accomplished violinist. And she's a Grammy nominated, and she's recording all over the place to share with the world and you are one of our distinguished artists in residence. Can you do a musical interlude to celebrate this great interview with Randall lane?
Sure. I'm gonna play you an original short composition called that Madeira pickle.
Okay, so people know that you're not just pushing play on an audio cassette or a track or CD ROM or whatever mp3. Can you Randall can you ask her to play a note or play something to prove that this is live and not Memorex? Randall you got anything?
I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready for
Mary Had a Little Lamb for 10 seconds just to show that this is alright, something like Irish Irish and fast. Great, so Carolyn, in a moment if you could play what you would play in the play. I do want to point out this is our 50th Show. Mike federally was on our fifth show that's the CEO of Forbes. So it is their second forge person,
enough to have a fourth person on the 500th. Show. We're gonna Yeah, no, we will,
we will do that. And if people check out imagination inaction Co. In addition to our artists in residence, the musicians, you'll see the close to 300 Imaginators. That's a made up word. And that's who we're referring to, as our guests that we talked to, because these are people using their imagination, but also making action happen. I also want to point out that on this 50th show, for the first time, we'll have a eight second roll in, that will be our signature rolling. And Randall, your show is going to be the first one to have that pre recorded rolling. So Carolyn, what did you What do you want to play? I know I interrupted you. That's what you would play in the play.
I just played it because I thought it was supposed to go was a little tune so
that would you would plan to play or
Yeah, it was it was called that material pickle.
I complete? Yeah. No, no, no, that was great. Right? No, but thank you. And I also want to say to the 2000 people who've been on the show 2002. So far, if you're listening, feel free to follow Randall. And, you know, he's, he's awesome. All right. Allison, what? Are you up? Or am I up? Or no, Allison, you go?
Well, and also, as you can tell, Randall and John, there is a growing list of people who've got their own questions. But Randall, I believe your predecessor permitted the use of bloggers to submit material alongside regular Forbes journalists and got a lot of publicity for that. What did Forbes learn? Or what did you learn from this more open approach to talent? And we'd love to hear a little bit more about your current approach to writing. So specifically, can any member from our audience submit articles? So Forbes by brother went to Northwestern journalism school? So we'd love to know, and how does the application process work? What do you see as the role for outside contributors? What do you look for when you evaluate them? And how quickly can you these days judge who's going to be successful for
we've got, you know, you're talking about the contributor network that Louis Dvorkin was the chief product officer and very important person in the history of Forbes developed, I inherited what some of the things that I've tried to do listen to the contributor network really helped Forbes at a time when needed to scale digitally. The idea behind it was, if our journalists are quoting sources who are really that smart about their subjects, let's let some of them actually become contributors to the platform. What I've tried to do, inheriting it, I think it's a great asset for us, and that it allows us to cover all sorts of things with all sorts of people and get in a lot of business nooks and crannies. They don't get to write about anything, and nobody can just submit you have to be, we don't do one off op eds. That's, that's not what we're interested. We're interested in getting people who we trust, and giving them the ability on the platform because they're it topic experts to talk about that expertise. But a couple things I've tried to do I move quickly to make everybody we put everybody on a paid contract. Because you know, people should be paid for journals, and they create, and we have a lot of a lot of contributors make a lot of money. We have others who don't make as much but they write stuff that's really good and very focused and allows us to cover a lot of niches that a lot of places can't cover because they don't have we have 3000 Pay contributors right now. And that allows us to cover all sorts of nooks and crannies. We have vetting panels, we do due diligence. We, you know, so people have to know somebody, we don't think things over the transom. If you know somebody, they get you know, if somebody who's on our staff vouches for somebody and then they go through a panel appears that appears but other former staffers who look into their writing samples, their background, we run background checks, you know, so there's a process, it's an important part of the Forbes ecosystem. And again, a healthy part of building a media company that the platform that's, that's expansive and inclusive.
Randall what is the role of social media companies in changing traditional media? Has social media affected content you cover and your approach to coverage? Has social media stolen audience? Do people discover Forbes through social media links? How does social media drive traffic targets? For example, as Google's and Facebook's algorithm affect your traffic? What do you think of the fight between News Corp and Google to get some compensation, does Forbes have leverage negotiating power or a conversation going? Do you see the balance of power changing anytime in the future? And what do you think of the whistleblower case? And I think you know, the one I'm talking about.
That's a lot of questions. Oh, all right. But one big topic. Obviously, social media is hugely important for every media company. In every media creator, most media creators are creating their on social media. Obviously, there's not a, there's not a media outlet around who's not affected when Google and Facebook, you know, first less Facebook, but you know, different balances for different media organizations. Very important. What we tried to do was an OG Google, you know, Google's algorithms really like for its content, why? Because we do what they ask us to do, which is we create quality content, and we create a good amount of it. So it's not just a onesie twosie that we, we create a an ongoing funnel of quality, high quality QA, and that's about you, and the algorithm didn't like it, it doesn't mean that's what we have to do. It's like, but we, we appreciate if that helps us, and it doesn't affect us, if it doesn't, because that's at the end of the day, that's our model, our entire brand is built around the idea of, of premium value added content. Again, it doesn't mean we don't you know, sometimes misfire, or print out 300 plus dollars a day, but we hit a lot more. And we have a lot of very rigorous systems to make sure journalism holds. So standards that we've been following for 104 years. In terms of social media, what's going on, you know, it's it's, it's, it's very, it's it, we're in a time of change right now. And you can feel both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, kind of girding up, I mean, the biggest effect, let's be honest. On social media, in terms of media landscape has been the way it has, it has absolutely gutted newspaper, daily newspapers and regional newspapers, small town, medium Town, Big city newspapers, that business has been eviscerated. And, you know, we're, you know, we're lucky, we have, you know, a model and a brand that has been able to rise above that. But that's, you know, and now we're in a news desert world where social media, people get the content that they want to see, and there is no local content to balance out or to kind of keep folks. So you know, it's a dangerous time. And, you know, social media, you know, we're gonna see I mean, does, does. Does Washington have the appetite to take on what you know, there, there certainly seem to be any trust issues. If you look at the percentage of digital advertising and go to the top couple social media companies. And in search,
you mentioned Washington, I'm going to come back to this, but I know you said something about not hiring press secretaries, from the last administration. curious on how you, you know, in retrospect, how do you feel about that? Confer?
So that was an that was an op ed. I wrote a January six, this year, realizing it again, I may, I, you know, we we there's only one, there's only one party that Ford's, you know, supports, and that's the, you know, that's the party of entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, but we don't we're not a part of, you know, we don't believe in partisan should we believe in solutions. So it's not about taking sides. But what it is about fundamentally, a lot of what went on then, was built upon a lot of lies. And my point was that if you are trafficking knowingly in lies, I wasn't talking about the whole administration. I'm talking about press secretaries, who for the first time that you know, press it, there's always spinning and exaggerate and maybe you never know, you know, press secretaries historically didn't look up in the sky and tell you it was pink when you know, it's blue. And that can't be accepted. Is not you know, listen there. There are practitioners on both sides. But you know, what happened in the White House, last administration was was taking it, a step that I don't think can be normalized, we can disagree on policy and argue about policy. In fact, we need to, but it has to be rooted, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, you know, everyone can have their own opinions, but you can't have your own. You know, you can't have your own facts. That's That's how society breaks down. So what that was was a You know, to got read the story went quite viral has been read almost 1.4 million times. Because it spoke to something which is that, you know, we need to get to some place where we can agree on the facts, and then we can start fighting about the solutions. And if we don't have some of the fact check, we're in real trouble. And I stand by the
Great. Thank you for that. And thank you for you know, that that important editorial. Let's go to the audience, I'm going to get a bunch of questions. So Bianca, do you have a question?
Yes. I was wondering, in the times where it may have gotten stressful for breaking stories that might have been controversial. How did you handle that in terms of your own relaxation or stress levels? What do you do to maintain a healthy and balanced my?
Great. I'm going to go to Cullen because it's his one year anniversary, and then I'm going to go to equity. Muse. Cullen, do you have a question? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, I guess I would ask him, well, actually, Randall, is it okay, that TMC asks Forbes a question? Do it. Thanks for Thanks for clearing that. Yeah, I guess my question is, um, the times that we're in with breaking stories and getting exclusives to put being able to put it out? Are you finding it hard now, to get exclude having exclusive stories? Before it's leaked? Yep. And before? For those that are new, we're stalking questions. We're gonna get a bunch out there that random will take. This is Long from journalism, you're at imagination, action. We're just getting started. We have a lot more the show to go. Equity news. Do you have a question?
I do. Indeed. Thank you very much. I'd like to. I'd like to frame this question in terms of the old and new forms of capitalism, in terms of the polarity between competition and collaboration, and between values and virtues. So my question is, what are the core virtues for developing or cultivating? A? Constant cons? Sorry about that. For cultivating a constitution for the metaverse, I'm reckon I'm done speaking.
Great. Thank you, Lawrence. Do you have a question? No, I don't have a question. John. I think Andre asks my question earlier. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you for being here. And if anyone wants to pass when I asked them feel free to Alex, do you have a question?
Yes. Good evening. Thank you for being here, Randall and hosting this room. It's been very informative and educational for me. My question is for the independent journalists that are out there that start their companies and then hit the ground running by covering events in racing as they continue their work. I'm trying to be curious when they use platforms like Facebook, and Instagram and YouTube and creating a website, what would be the next step into getting into network news being put on a different channel? And how can you raise the bar as an independent journalist and then enhancing your company for the
great Alex? Catherine, do you have a question?
Yes, thank you for the this this very important discussion, sort of, to build back to the question around economics and monetization, and also the impact of social media and your great statement regarding January 6. What is a way that organizations like Forbes can set the model for how to monetize what is good for humanity? And and how do we help design the future consciously and enable companies like yourselves and others to make money off that?
Great, excellent question, Catherine. Kay, Ron.
Hey, good evening. randos. A pleasure to talk to you again. It's been a while. So my question is going back to the 30 under 30 summit. What do you hope will be the impact of the summit in the online community the next sort of
great and then Raul and then I'll turn to Randall and Randall, when you answer these, you don't need to actually say that people's names just feel free to just go through your list. And thank you for doing this stack model.
It's always nice to show the love of love, like Chiron to Chiron and Chiron has their back in the under thoroughly Philadelphia when we were getting started. So you've seen the whole run. Alright, we'll go. Let's see what we got. I will say the metaverse constitution. I am not smart enough. But uh, but I will give it some thought you know, about who we can get to come on the show. Can in terms of stress and balance, that was a an early question, having been an entrepreneur who ran, you know, co founded two companies and ran one. You know, and there were many times when I had to, you know, I was trying to figure out how to make payroll every two weeks, everything after that is become much, much easier. So, I think the I naturally, you know, for better or worse, don't get that stressed. But it doesn't mean we don't take I think all you could do to reduce stress, in my opinion, I mean, we all get stressed, but I, you know, I've been, again, being an entrepreneur, and a lot of people here understand me, you know, you learn how to, to deal with uncertainty, and you start to become, you know, be able to handle it. And I think the key though, is to know, the thing, you know, you did your best, if we're running a story, we don't run stories that we're not sure about. And then we make sure that we dot the i's and cross the T's, and then you sleep fine, because you did your best. And sometimes that means you don't do the story. And then when you do it, you know, you stand by and, and, you know, if you're that stress running, maybe you shouldn't run it, because it's not there yet. So, you know, some of the stress can be controlled by knowing that you're doing it the right way. And, and, and, and just being comfortable, and just being coming and getting just getting used to making decisions and just been knowing that you do the best you can. We had a question about exclusives. Listen, there's more. There's more competition for exclusives, but there's more access to information. So I think you've got evens out that, you know, that is the curly, but there are different kinds X exclusive, you don't have to have an exclusive, like I got something a minute 10 minutes for anybody else. I mean, that's fine. And exclusive could be an idea. And I suppose it could be access to somebody who other people you haven't heard from before, it can be an idea of bringing together a lot of different ideas and in creating a, you know, understanding a trend, the first because you bring together the ideas. So I think there are different ways to have exclusives. And that's how you jump. In terms of independent journalists. I think the key going back to those exclusives is just do good work. People notice, trust me, we're looking at people who are doing work as independent journalists, and if we like their work, where we're reaching out to them, do good, credible work, and in this world, you know, socialize that and the audience will find you and the and the opportunities will find you it's it's a unique, it's a unique time. And then, you know, in terms of the future capitalism, the under 30 summit, Chiron talked about there, they're related because then the 30 some of the other 30 summits, if you haven't been there really are incredible events of ideas and connections and, and thoughts and opportunity and optimism most important and, and rethinking how capitalism should be and you know, reinventing, reimagining it. And that's fun. And it's fun. So you know, and I think that's the key to everything is, you know, no matter what you're doing, if you're having fun, even if it's stressful. And again, if you're not doing trying to do good work, it's probably not stressful. I mean, you know, if you're really trying to push it, and do the best work you can, it's gonna be a little stressful if you're having fun. That takes a lot of the takes a lot of the stress out.
Great, I want to do a shout out to Cheyenne, a friend of mine, who's in the room. Allison, let me turn to you. We got
quite Yes, we will soon see Randall. Why don't came up with long form journalism, because we have 20 people on the stage. And we have one more media question. And then we'd like to switch to the amazing topic you've written about on capitalism and media. But the last media question we have is, really, it links to what you said before that media is probably the most fast changing sector and easily one of the most challenging areas to make a profit. You mentioned the news desert and the absolutely devastating effect on small papers throughout the US even some large papers, but I'd love to know who are some of the new media players that most impressed you? You know, what, what have you taken away as the top learnings as the person navigating through this complexity for how to not only survive but thrive?
You know, what's new at old is new again. And and if you look at some of the people at Santa substack, or we're generating big audiences and again 99.9% it or not, but the top bar. And you know what, it's just a reinforcement that if you if you do green in the people the top are doing really good work they write, they write good stuff. And that's the takeaway is that no matter what the platform, and no matter what the brand, you know, it's just if you're doing good stuff, you know, success seems to find a way and, and, you know, it's a reminder that, again, you could build an audience and you could build a following, you could build an audience around yourself, firstly, if the stuff is good enough. So it's in some ways, reinforcing that it's not, you know, it's not a bunch of junk put on the platform. And then, you know, jiggered with SEO juice to get audience, you know, as people writing stuff that people will pay for, I think that's very healthy.
So Randall, AI and AI writing, you know, I talked to Mike federally about the bionic room. What do you think what's going on with AI and writing at Forbes? And where do you think it'll be in 2030?
Uh, you know, obviously, AI is something, it's a topic, it's the most interesting, and most, it's the most important technology, you know, with due respect to the metaverse or even blockchain ai, ai is the most important in my opinion, technology change going on right now. And, and, you know, affect everything and, you know, so how will, you know, to the extent that it can help journalists research faster, maybe write faster, but it's never gonna, you know, I don't think I don't think be you know, there are some companies that have gone out there with AI written stories. I don't think that works. I think you need a human. And I think people want to know that there
should not artificial intelligence, but assisted intelligence.
Assisted intelligence is important for everything. 100% It's important for everything.
Alright, Allison, let's start doing capitalism. Europe. Now listen, you're on mute, if you're trying to speak.
By let me unmute here. So, as John mentioned, we wanted to switch to the larger topic of capitalism and media. And you've written several powerful pieces under your byline on capitalism, which I really recommend everybody read on Forbes, I'd never read the full set. But you wrote in 2019, that you'd have to go back to the 1960s, or even the 1930s, to find a time when the primacy of the free market system was so widely questioned. What do you understand now, these days to be the core of the criticism against capitalism? Is it we've got a long list of what we think it is, but we'd love to understand at your core, what you see that criticism as and has that been a wave that's crescendoed. In in recent year,
um, you know, I think the issues right now stem around opportunity, which is people don't listen, nobody, you know, people who say, especially younger people who say that they're socialists, they're not really even then it's certainly here in America. The people who say they're socialists are not socialists, they're Scandinavian capitalists. It's just Bernie Sanders has an AOC have adopted this. Were socialism, which again, I think, is terrible branding. I mean, they're taking something that was a, an affliction on the 20th century and trying to bring the 21st century. But even what, what, what, like Bernie Sanders, socialism is, like Scandinavian capitalism, if I was Bernie, I would have called a Scandinavian capitalism, I think he might have done better in his in his runs. But that's, you know, but the idea, but there is, you know, kind of the idea of laissez faire capitalism is definitely on the way in and, you know, in some ways, appropriately so, and that, you know, built Milton Friedman, that philosophy doesn't hold anymore, that the primacy of the shareholder and everything else takes care of itself doesn't really work anymore. We are a stakeholder capitalism society and the reason that there's so much unease, in my opinion, around capitalism right now is not that people begrudge the rich, they don't. They look up to the rich, most of the rich or the rich. They think they had a fair and square, Tabor grudge, that they don't have a fair shake to become rich. And that's the problem we have we we don't have a problem in terms of outcomes, although there are some, you know, especially coming out of COVID, some yawning disparities that, obviously are exacerbating problems. But it's the idea that I don't really have a shot. That's all people really, I mean, that's the American dream. If you think about it, that's really when you boil it down, what people are looking for, they're looking for a shot, a fair shake, if you can do that. You're gonna have the system, you know, we still have here in the States, you know, the envy of the world, you could ask people come from all around the world. They, you know, when you travel the world, there's still an envy of what we have here for us. Randall, but you need that you need to make sure that everyone feels like they can have a fair shot at the starting line. Now.
Randall, this may dip into media. Two questions. One, are you watching the show succession? What do you like about it? And what do you think it says about media and capitalism? And my other question, so I snuck that in. You saw that? And then I have another another question. And that is, I guess, you've written about reimagining capitalism, and about inclusive capitalism. What are the elements of capitalism that you feel most need to change? And what are the forces? If you believe need to change? What What, what, what, what needs to change? And you know, I think the young generation, you know, it's really angry. And what do you what do you think needs to be done to kind of appease them, bring them in and make them feel empowered?
to question the first lesson session of Yes, of course, I watch the session. I'm not watching third season because I want to binge it I, I can't handle this week, every week dribble things, I'm gonna wait till the end of the season to watch all of it. But I watched the first two, two seasons. It's a great show for a couple you know, I mean, obviously, you know, if I was a member of the Murdoch family, or a little bit of the redstone family is big a fan.
Full disclosure, I had James and Laughlin in the class above me and below me in middle school. And so it's interesting to see how they're depict.
Oh, then it seems the wealth skip the skip the grade, didn't it? But uh, the
is different Soros in my class.
You did fine. Unify the, the, you know, the brilliance of the show is that basically every cat, every character is hateful. And also wonderful. So it's like, you know, there's no clear good guys or bad guys. They're all good guys and bad guys, which is, I think there's a brilliance of that in terms of storytelling in terms of capitalism as a shift or not really, because it's a, it's a very, you know, I mean, it's a characters your show, but it certainly does not show of capitalism. Well. You know, like I was saying, we need, we need everyone to feel that they have a shot. That's where inclusive capitalism comes in. You cannot have women raising less than 10% of the venture capital money can't have, you know, black Americans doing 2%. It's, again, it's it you can't mandate where people allocate, but what we have to do with thirds with education, we have to, we have to make it a great education is not a privilege. But it's, you know, that's the key if you if we can return, you know, you look at who was winning all the Nobel Prizes in the middle 20 centuries, all the people went to the City College in New York back when it was free, or University of San Francisco, or San Francisco, or there were all sorts of, and again, I'm not wanting you know, I you know, I think if you make college free, I mean, there's a risk that costs will spiral out of control. But there needs to be a way that people you see this, the Ivy League already basically makes college free, or at least makes takes away tuition for people above or below a certain income threshold, you need to make sure we need to make sure the society that from the beginning, and it's not just college, but that there's a great public education for people who want it, who want to grab the brass ring, that they can do it. That's the first step. Because by the way, if you don't have a chance to go to college or a great God, you don't really have a chance to do it doesn't mean that you can't make it there are people who don't go to college and make it but the odds are stacked against you, you got so we got to we got to, you know, level the barriers to entry. So that allows the gear because we need, we need a capital system that has disparate outcomes. That's part of what capitalism is about, that it provides the incentive that provides the that creates the innovation. You know, you you need winners, the losers. That's what, that's how you learn. And that's how you know and from losers become winners and lessons, and we learn lessons, all that stuff is good. But we have a real problem in terms of people, a not having a fair shake, and be not feeling like they have a fair shake, which creates this this bond into this anger, John, that you mentioned, I mean, I think that's the fundamental. And there, we can nerd out and talk about some specifics on that. But that's the fundamental, and that we have to make sure both that everyone does have a shot, you're never going to get everyone on an even shot, that the Soros isn't exists and the Murdochs that you went to school with are going to start on third base. And when most of America starts at home plate and has to get the first base, but they at least got to have a shot at bat. Everyone's gonna have a shot at that. And we there are ways to do that. I think it's within our power. And I think it's very important. Allison?
Yeah, sorry about that.
I've got a soccer game he's watching too.
is like, the show of my dreams I'm so excited about.
I wasn't worried about you get focused, I was worried that you get hit in the head by a ball. taking the focus off, you
will have to see how many shots how many photographs John actually gets tonight of soccer. So this is pretty compelling Mandel So what role I think you alluded to this earlier about what role do you think COVID played in awakening us to the the huge global divides that you talked about, with billionaires gaining an extra 1 trillion during a time when many frontline workers barely pull down minimum wage? And how did COVID If it did sort of reshape your understanding and awareness of the state of capitalism today, it feels like we have Black Lives Matter. And me too. And do you think it's a coincidence that this all happened in a time of
there's no doubt in my opinion, that COVID has accelerated all sorts of things. It was an incredible seller, and it took things that were gonna take 20 years to wind through society, and they happen in 20 months. You could see it, but how we work, you can see with how we're living, I mean, look at where the change is, in terms of people where people are choosing to live, how they're choosing the work. You're looking at different tech technology adoption clubhouse, came out of COVID, I'm clubhouse, you know, How fast would that have been adopted? And, and the social audio is one example and zoom and all sorts of things like that. The fact that we can manufacture a vaccine from zero to zero to launch in less than a year is unbelievable. And we should not lose, we should not lose sight of the miracle that that is. And it was a Tech Tech driven innovation driven miracle. And we had our world on our cover early in the pandemic, talking about what was coming. You know, it was an incredible. Yeah, so there was a lot of good. But yes, it also pointed to injustice is accelerated, that it accelerated. So to celebrate all sorts of things, and it creates a world right now. Where Yes, there is yawning income inequality. But it's also on there's an unbelievable need. And that is not BS. I mean, anybody who wants a job right now can get a job and when they're in wage growth is real right now. So these are good, you know, these are good things. But you know, they're complicated. I mean, and then you have inflation. So if you have wage growth, and, and expense growth, I mean, you know, these are complicated times. And so even though there's all sorts of good things happening, there's also some scary things happening. And that creates a time of unrest. And that's what we're in. And so it's very important that we do things like this, we engage, and we and we lean into the change and and don't we're not that we're not afraid, but that we actually try to look take this as a time where great change and there's a great opportunity right now, people are open all sorts of new ideas, and we can either harness it or squander it. I'm sure there'll be a lot of both, but let's all try to make it to the more harnessing.
Great you know, you pointed out this things that came out of this pandemic, I would say this weekly show came out of the pandemic. You know, while clubhouse was a thing. I am an extrovert. I saw a lot of introverts thrive in this new work from home. But I had a lot of energy and I collect interesting people. And I said, I'd like you to be an Imaginator and be on a two hour show. But in addition to being on a two hour show, I'd like you to weigh in and be a guest on some of the two hour shows like Esther Dyson, I've interviewed her, but she came as a speaker, and helped facilitate this, this community and you know, this is a product of these times. So, Randall, as you reflect on capitalism and institution that goes back, at least to the mid 17th century, what are the threats that most concern you? And what are the threats that you think have been overplayed? including, but not limited to global divides? With a widening gap between rich and poor, speculative bubbles? Cryptocurrency hyperinflation, cybersecurity risks, like ransomware, fragile financial systems, increasing power of tech Titans, rapid the graduation of the environment, with lack or true costs, or others. And you're not being graded on your answer.
Oh, I'm sorry. Let me I was I was asking John, what the question was, because that list was so sobering, that I'm, I, you know, that, is it what, which of these is the worst or scariest? Or
I guess I want to show, you know, the fees that not everything is, is going up? And no, there's some real threats. And you're sure, I've been polio Boogeyman. But But I think, you know, you could probably rank them.
Awesome. I'm an optimist. So you could say you could take that list. They're all accurate. But so is. But so is again, the idea of being able to develop a vaccine in less than a year. So is the idea that people can, you know, get rid of commutes. So is the idea that you can run an entire company, with people bathe wherever they want, and be successful without ever even having, you know, I met somebody in my world who started a company and for the first time, they gathered in the they had met did work for a year and a half, and they were met each other. I mean, it's like, there are a lot, a lot of great things out there. That's what I'm talking about with this balance. You know, what am I? What am I afraid of most? Oh, man, I mean, listen, I am is and I'm a I'm a journalist, I don't like I don't like the misinformation disinformation cycle where it will be very hard to solve things. If people have there's no such thing as a true truth. If, if true things are true, how can we then get to how we fix things? And I think that under undermines so many of these problems. And without, you know, I mean, the downside on having a democratized media is again, people get the media they want. Sometimes the media they want is what they want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not. That's true. In every country, and every you know, it's true everywhere. And it's dangerous, these echo chambers are dangerous, we need to engage with each other and push each other. But most important, we need to have a fealty to the truth. Again, I'm not saying that there's an absolute truth to anything, but there is an absolute truth to certain things. And we need to be able to honor that because that's the fundamentals of civilized democracy and civilized society.
Great, Randall. Allison, I have two more questions. And we're gonna go to the audience, and I can't wait for you to hear Allison's summary of the show. So you can see what what happened. So Alison.
Well, first of all, Randall, I just really want to thank you for pointing out the importance of facts. I do think it's it's kind of an incredible time when you have experts sort of thrown under the bus and when facts seem like something you can debate so we're all waiting in this AI world for Is there any way that you could use that to fact check, just to pick up what Dunn was saying earlier, but my question for you is a little bit more about how capitalism is taught. And if you were dean of a major business school, I know you're very involved at UPenn but could be HBS. Pick your favorite. What do you think should be the business curriculum for the future? What courses are no longer needed. I'd love to see accounting disappear. And what court courses are urgent? I'd love to know if there are any business schools that really impress you for understanding and training the new types of leaders required? Or do you think that the new leaders don't really need business school?
It's a great question. You know, I am on the Board of Overseers at Columbia School of Professional Studies, actually. And I get to this part of that job roles job because I volunteer, but it's, as part of that role, I get to really see what's working. I mean, that's not a traditional business school. It's it's a, it's a school, that's really about giving people master's degrees, in things like aI programming, or wealth management, or very niches that where they see need, and giving people very tailored degrees in professional. And, you know, I think there's something to that this, the wardens and HBs is and the dardennes. And the talks are always going to be there. And they're always needed, you know, these, these great business schools and these great MBA programs. But you know, if we're really going to, again, continue to make sure that this economy works for everybody having degrees for people in areas that are basically can't hire enough people, and giving people degrees that they could take out and, you know, hit the ground running. I think they're the, you know, you see this in many schools where they're seeing huge growth in schools like that, that are less, a little less, they're still they're academic, but they're also based in practice, and, and outcomes. And I think outcome based education is where's that? The education space? For sure.
Randall, we're going to go to the audience. But before that, how do you balance it all? How do you keep yourself and your two daughters grounded? You're certified wine guy, you're you were the chief restaurant critic for timeout in New York. What do you do for fun when you're not running Forbes and redefining capitalism? What do you do? What did you do on your last major adventure trip? And what are you most looking forward to? To imagine the snacks and on the opening day of the World Economic Forum? Yeah, you and I are curating.
That's gonna be my next big trip, I think, will be that hopefully, that, you know, that comes off? Well, I, you know, I try to, I think, I think, you know, exercising your body is important. And we had the question earlier about stress and balance. So, you know, I, I, in the summer, I play a lot of softball in the winter, I try to ski a bunch. And, you know, try to hit the gym. Just to keep the, you know, to keep the body thinking too. And I love it. I love listening. I spent a lot of time in New York. And I love when I'm here trying to go to restaurants and, you know, going out, you know, for a glass of wine or nice, you know, a nice cocktail, and just try to try to just see the city and take advantage. I'm a I'm one of these people who wants to max out wherever I am. And if I was if you know, if I'm living in a small town, I want to go, you know, to a corn maze. And if I'm in New York, I want to go to a great secret cocktail bar. And I don't you know, I don't watch a lot of TV. Something has to give and that's for me what gives like that I try to I try to take advantage wherever I am. I do love the traveler probably been my mom was a travel writer, she has been the 130 140 countries. I've been about 80 I do like to see the world. I think that but I think it's you know, I think you're just learning I like to learn I think when you travel, you learn when you go out to eat, you learn when you meet somebody for a drink, you learn and you know, you know doesn't have to be I think it's just you know, just the you could use a different side of your brain that allows me
to have killed the hat industry because he he was president and didn't wear hats. You wear hats. Is there a story behind your love of hats and
there's 100% Kennedy as a way nicer head of hair than I do so.
Yeah. Alright, let's go to the audience. And to audience, we're super excited to get you to ask a question. Thank you for waiting. This is imagination action. This is an amazing Imaginator in Randall, please keep your questions short so we can get a bunch of them. We're stacking them. So Randall has a photographic memory. So he'll listen to your audio and say it backwards and we'll see if he says Paul is dead. Beatles joke there we go. All right, roll. Do you have a quote?
Oh, yes, John. Yeah, I think thanks so much for putting this room together. And Randall, huge fan. And yes. My question is, from everything that's been happening during the pandemic, and to like in terms of like, the new social audio apps that are coming out like clubhouse and other ones out there. And just everything that's been happening. Just wanted to get your thoughts on where you see media heading towards and the features that you might have audience that but just wanted to get your thoughts on that. Yeah.
Great. And Randall, you could also say listen to earlier minutes to get a question if you want or ignore. I do have a question.
Hi to Hi, Randall. Longtime no speak. I do have a question on a print medium. In 2020. Forbes did run an article that there were 60 print magazines launched during the height of COVID. I was curious to see if you see this trend growing and has Forbes seen their print audience grow.
Great, Nora. Thank you. Shauna, do you have a question? Cheyenne. I am so excited to see you. I produced a talk that has gone viral that Ted reposted. I think you're at like 3 million views. You're a great cultural voice. Cheyenne. Do you have a question?
I do have a question as someone rings my doorbell right? If I ask right for after I come off mute. So I just want to say hi to Randall I had the pleasure to attend Forbes 30 under 30. It was amazing. My question is around social media. And I know that we touched a little bit on social media already. But as someone who started for the noise, as someone who is a big user of you know, Instagram, Twitter or Tik Tok and things like that, we see that social media has the ability to make things go viral very quickly. And when I say viral, I mean, millions 10s of millions of views in very short form, video format. With music. I think that we you know, there's a lot of opportunity to use social media as a platform to potentially reach audiences about things that are really serious topics. We talked about capitalism, we talked about cybersecurity, we talked about cryptocurrency, what are your thoughts on you know, maybe how media outlets can use social media a little bit more targeted to reach audiences about that are more serious topics.
Great. Thank you. Cheyenne. Miko, Cami Alexandria. I skipped you. Do you guys have any questions?
Yeah, I have a question. First question. Real quick is with Forbes, I used to read it all the time as a kid and teenager and young adult. But now I hardly ever think of it unless I'm in an airport or unless I want to be featured in an article. And partly because I don't see it in see Forbes or Fortune, like in some of the a lot of the online events. And I'm a part of like, so I'm curious. How do you see yourself being a part of online events? And then if so, like, Hey, guy throw throwing one with a million and tinetti. And I'd love to have Forbes featured in some way within it, as well. She's collaborators with Steve Harvey and others. So that's question and the great resignation. I wrote a book on genius within about finding purpose, your unique genius and feel like with all the great resonation Where's everybody going? What and What do employers need to do to stand out and recruit and retain top talent? So that's
great, Michael, thank you. I'm excited for the hearing the second question, especially Cami, you were the one that slipped me the AI question. I know you're driving. Do you want to ask a question? Alexandria, do you want to ask a question? You rom Do you want to ask a question? forhold. I love these names.
Right? Sure. Yeah, I'll ask the question. And I'll reference it back to a previous statement that was made about Adam Smith 18th century. Why is it that the free market and capitalism are falsely attributed to the west? I think it's so interesting that if we look back to Mesoamerica, China, Xena fond the Persian Empire, you know, he's essentially talking about market practices of ancient Persia. But why is it that in the present, we continuously say that capitalism started
in Europe. Great question. L. Michelle, do you have a question?
Absolutely. With all of the deep fake technology and Everything going towards audio? How far do you see the human voice going? And do you feel like AI will take over all of the roles of the human voice in the future? That's
great. And how do we know you're not an AI? Is there a blockchain that can prove that? That was a joke?
Haha. Thank you for that.
Excellent question. Ma, ma, Ninja. I don't know. Hello. Hi. Thank you. Manasse. Yeah, thank you. I'm just enjoying the conversation. I don't have any question at the Murray. Great. Thank you for joining Maryland and far he?
Yes, I do have a question. Now, if what I've been looking at is to be believed. roundel started off and was hired as a fact MBCT a fact checker. That is one of the hot topics of conversation at the moment. A lot of the things that we're seeing people are saying it's fact checks. It's not. So I really want to know, number one, where does the fact checker check their facts? And what advice does he have for those of us who are navigating through mainstream media? And number two, is it my imagination, that Forbes is breaking news, and I'm talking about on YouTube, that they're actually covering and handling stories and what I would call hot topics that we're not seeing in the mainstream media? Because that's been my observation in terms of that's where I'm starting now to go and get my breaking news. So those would be my two questions. Thank you very much.
Great. fajita, joy and Virginia.
Thank you. So hi, Randall. My name is Frida shaheed. And I was on the Forbes Under 30 lists for my work and helping parents protect their kids online. So thank you so much for starting that the definitely changed my life. My question comes from my curiosity about how you found about the most basically common characteristics of the most successful people on the Forbes list. I would like to know through the years, what have you found the most common between all of them,
thank you. Great joy.
Hi, Randall. Hi, everyone. I'm Joy co founder and president of joy cook public relations group. Randall, you mentioned something to the effect and I'm paraphrasing about minority presence. I've noticed over the years, my 20 year career PR that Forbes has made a concentrated effort to connect with the minority community where it used to be we have to pitch to like, you know, the ethnic, Urban Media on some stories now for in the mainstream magazine and mainstream content covers, you know, minority well then, and issues surrounding. I keep saying the word minority, but that's just what's on my heart. Was that a concentrated effort? And does Forbes culture have anything to do with that concentrated effort?
Hey, John, thank you so much. And hey, Randall, a huge fan of Forbes. My name is Vijay SUTA. Dara, I'm a serial entrepreneur. And based in the tech startups here in Bay Area, my main question is there's a lot of technology changes happening really fast. With IoT AI and the data collection that's happening, data privacy, and data ownership becomes a really important aspect. And there are many other things like internet and in communication, regulation and things like that. So my question is around, how do you regulate as a government, a technology that's moving so fast, you want to protect your your citizenry and their rights. But on the other hand, because a lot of the government officials who are working on this may not be up to date, they come up with really draconian kind of regulation. So having grown up in India, I've seen the license Raj and what it does to an economy. So I'm curious about your thoughts around? How do we balance regulation and innovation while protecting people's rights? This is
great. Suzanne, we'll pause there and have Randall take those questions. Suzanne, do you have a question? Great. So Randall, got a lot there. You know, feel free to dive deep and some or how long do I have? As long as you want or as short as you want?
To say we want to be mindful of the we shut off today? Straight in two minutes or you want to go over?
No, no, it's okay to go over. We're recording it. There'll be a transcript. And people want to write in their diary that they they heard from you today. We're gonna we're gonna go a little a little over.
Alright, we're good. overtime. All right, that was a lot of good. I
do want to point out that we have 3000 people have been in the room, your boss had more. So
that's why he's the boss.
No, but we got to get you back. And we got to take on your boss, but But I'm really glad you're 50th speaker and really looking forward to what we do in Davos together and those on in the room and listening to the recording. Feel free to send us suggestions on what you think should be recorded at Davos as a way to be a platform to get ideas out there and show imagination action.
1000 reset, I got a couple of these. Let's see. I saw my old friend Nora, I've been trying to hire Nora. I worked with her. Over a decade ago. I've been trying to hire figure out a way to have her work with us before a hit me. Hit me for a job. Come on, come come come home.
Monday.
Come on home. But the she asked about magazine growth. Again. I'm obviously bearish on new magazine, you know, and but the right magazines concert, you know, it's a luxury item that a trivia question. And, you know, we have a couple 30 to 30 alums on this call? What's the number one question a 30 to 30 asked me when they find out they're going to be in Forbes, is will it be in print? Why is somebody 28 year olds care about print? Because they understand that anybody, including their grandma, and their drunk cousin can post stuff on Facebook. And there's, you know, there's not a high barrier to entry, but those magazines with the printing presses and the fact checking, we mentioned the fact checking and that, and we had a question about that, and the proofreading and the editing and the reporting. They know that they intuitively know that that means more if it's been in the print magazine, so there's still going to be a human need for something that's a little more curated. So magazines aren't going anywhere in the near future. But you got to have something that feels good, that is pristine, you know, it's got the mass market magazines, I wouldn't want to be there right now. I think it could be a kind of a niche play. We had a question about common characteristics of folks on our list. There are three there, they're smart, to be successful. At four, you know, to make it in the four of you got to be smart, you got to be driven, or you got to be lucky. And you need to have those three, any two will do smart and lucky, hard working and lucky, smart, hard working, you can maybe do with one, you can just be lucky lucky. But generally you need to those are the three common characteristics. Choose to what else we had a question about, we have a one of our fans watching our breaking news show on YouTube, we appreciate that it's growing. We have over a million followers on our YouTube chat breaking news channel. We're just trying to cover as much as we can through a fourth lens, which is why does this matter. And we get a big reaction, in part because we're not seeing we're trusted. You know, we've seen a lot of studies about media, we're always in the top five in terms of most trusted brands. We're trusted by both sides of the both sides of the political spectrum, people respect that we're pro entrepreneur, that's certainly a popular place to be. They made you know, there's a legacy of doing quality journalism. So we have a lot of credibility that, you know, that comes out in breaking news coverage. Somebody mentioned Forbes, the culture, that's our under 30 group for black and brown professionals. It's something that's been going on for five years. It's authentic, it's grassroots and started by somebody I've been mentoring for about eight years, and he saw a need for young entrepreneurs and Game Changers of color to have a forum within the 30 to 30 community. You know, we it's a official part of Forbes. And it's an area we're very proud of. What else? What else we got social media trends. And can social media get serious? You know, like, there's an old saying, you know, can we get a more serious social media, there's an old saying that, you know, people get the government they deserve, they probably get the social media they deserve. We can get people to think more seriously, we'll probably get more serious social media. And you know, look at what else I mean, that's, that's, that's a lot.
Here, let me jump in with a question and then I 233 Question one gig economy what comes to mind? To what have you enjoyed about this show? You know anything unique? You know, this is our 50th Show. Yours is going to be the first one and the only one until next week's show. Music Yeah, your your your SEO was show number five, your show number 50. And but your boss did get the CEO of Forbes to get more audience. So we got to have you back so you can break that record. But 3000 not too shabby. And these shows live on I want 10s of 1000s to be listening after. But my other question is, can we use proof of stake proof of work concepts from crypto to verify news accuracy, proof of truth using consensus just like the blockchain ledger that comes from Dave Blunden my, my business colleague and founder of the fun that I work at. He's in a noisy place. So he couldn't jump on. So three questions gig economy. What do you think of this show? And then should we use proof of news
prove them? You know, we we've, we've looked into that we've dabbled with, with block, you know, at the end of the day, Blockchain, we're just scratching the surface. We're in the very early days of blockchain technology. You don't need me to touch that giant genome a lot more about that than I do. And I do you know, I do think there are there are albeit a question earlier about fact checking. I do think I do think the the idea of verification, very important going forward. And in a world of unlimited everything. Verification remains important. And that's something again, we're early days on that. But I do think there's a future there gig economy. Lesson, I think the gig economy gets a lot of people there with a big backlash against it. I think the gig economy is a choice. I mean, listen, if that when there are periods where, you know, people feel like they have no choice but to take these gig jobs without health insurance. And right now, there are plenty of jobs for pretty much anybody who wants one. And in the skill level. The gig economy, I think, you know, there are a lot of people who want to legislate against that I find it a choice issue. I think there are a lot of people I know, who desperately want gigs, and want to be able to they're basically entrepreneurs, and they're, they're creating their own career and setting their own hours. And I think that that's important. You know, and, and especially an economy like this, where it's not your only choice, it's a choice you make, because that's the lifestyle you choose, and you want. I think it's a very good thing. It's a healthy part of healthy part of our economy. In terms of this show, my voice is cracked. Two hours is long, John, but you know what, we got the stuff that, you know, I haven't talked about a long time or never talked about, you know, there's something you know, it's a bit of a content marathon, or maybe you're getting people to say stuff that they usually don't say so. Kudos to you. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the questions from from the community, super smart. It was fun to see a bunch of folks and actually bump into a couple people I haven't seen in a while. Nice community are building here. Congrats.
Well, to everyone on the show. You've been random. I'm making you into a verb writing diary. You heard from Randall Lane tonight. All right. This is the moment everyone's been waiting for. Allison does such a great job. Summarizing, She's the Chief futurist at BCG. She's not wearing her professional hat. She's wearing her imagination and action co moderator hat. Before you go, I do want to recognize Pamela who's in the audience. She's been to all 50 of our shows to date. You know, the whole idea behind imagination action was to get really smart Imaginators. And we're at close to 300 and invite them every show we have about 10% In the show, and they add an X factor. And as we record and post the transcripts, they they read and weigh in and they are able to spread the content and create audio grams of the content Randall they pull bits and pieces out. So I want to recognize Pam for having been at all 50 shows and being awesome and Imaginator. Thank you, Alison, take us. Take us home and remind us what just happened.
Wow. Well, first of all, thank you all so much. And Randall the only way to get through a content marathon is with tea and honey. That is one of the early long form journalism lessons. So tonight was our 50th show. Thank you to our amazing audience, and to John for being the original Imaginator who started with this vision and turned it into 50 Amazing episodes that live on on his website. at WWW dot imagination and action Co. It's just been such a pleasure to co moderate these John and tonight we had Randall lane on the future of media and capitalism, accompanied by Corey and by Caroline. Randall shared two wonderful early successes as a kid, journalist in Philadelphia that introduced him both to the power of media and he described being in a time where someone in the media had to give you the opportunity to have a voice. The first time was when he waited all night in line for Springsteen tickets, and there was a crowd dustup at 17. He sent his write up of the event to New York Times. I think it's fascinating to think how many others were in line and probably how few wrote a story let alone to the New York Times of their time, I think I might have been someone in that line. His second experience was he wrote an article on the shortage of women in Alaska that was picked up and ran on the front page of Wall Street Journal, and was subsequently picked up by Peter Jennings and Oprah. Not not usually a peering that we described. So Randall described just having that early experience of watching things roll out across the media. He described in 40 years a very powerful overview of how much media has changed since its early days as a fact checker at Forbes. First big shift he described was moving from a media oligopoly to much more of a tower of Babel, Bob baybel. In the early days, magazines, newspapers networks gave you the ability to write, but Randall told us today every kid starting at six as a creator, kids today grow up knowing that anyone can create content. And obviously, democratizing media has been largely good, but it's also the source of misinformation and disinformation. The second big change he described as media has become an incredibly competitive landscape, where Forbes not only as to compete against traditional competitors, but also bloggers and newspaper writers and many others. But Randall says in his view, that just makes Forbes better and stronger. The third big pressure is that media now has to develop multi armed platforms and diversified revenue streams to stay healthy. And Randall says Forbes is not a one size fit all place. They're in 50 countries and have 120 million viewers a month on forbes.com 44 million viewers on Forbes social 7 million on Forbes magazine just in the US. And that's probably just part of their empire. Randall also described what I thought was fascinating that print economics have become really tough, but he believes that each platform needs to be maximized for what it's good at. So Forbes decided to reinvest to make the paper nicer, and to feel like a luxury item. And as a subscriber, I can say I feel that it's not one of those publications that sort of goes all over your skin. They invested in photography, they made the articles longer and they curated each page. Forbes added consumer revenue streams and is proud that during the pandemic, they didn't lay off anyone or cut salaries. So it's a really fascinating statement of the kind of choices available in this highly competitive market. He says even though media is always changing and evolving, Randall told us it's essential to have a clear brand and that that somehow can save you above all the flotsam and jetsam. Forbes, according to Randall stands for using entrepreneurship to solve very tough problems and for positive change. He quoted BC Forbes in the original 1917 First Edition, who said that the purpose of business is to create happiness, not millions. And he believes that some of that ethos is why Forbes always shows up in the top five of the most trusted brands, even across the political spectrum where few are talking to each other. He described the power you get from having a legacy of quality journalism, but the investments you need to make to keep that up. Then third, Randall shared his personal experiences which were totally fascinating. First of all, his commitment personally to entrepreneurship, starting to magazines with revenues in the eight digits. He says that being an entrepreneur has made him a good journalist. He believes that entrepreneurs work harder are more driven and more persistent. And he gave a great example of how his entrepreneurial journey allowed him to hone the 30 under 30 list in what he called the minor leagues. So it was really ready to explode at Forbes and became the number one trending topic on Twitter, for Randall told us that tomorrow will be the 10th anniversary of the Forbes 30 under 30 list and identifying them across 20 categories, creating a club of people that will have a half century of impact. And he tells us that we're now in A time when being in your 20s is not a disadvantage. These are the digitally fluent individuals who will change our world. And he also said, the formula to getting on that list is you should be an entrepreneur. And you should have two out of three, at least qualities of the three are being smart, driven and hardworking and or lucky, I think probably a bit more as needed as well. Then Randall gave us a bit of insight that in our fast paced world, you have to be comfortable evolving, and his many hobbies and other areas and his huge passion for learning, I think really attest to that. Randall then gave us important insights into society and technology. He told us that AI is the most important technology change going on right now that will affect everything. He described AI as assisted intelligence that could help journalists the fact check, but he doesn't see them soon replacing journalists. Randall talked about the importance of fact checking and said that the building block of any story is accuracy. He shared that Forbes magazine is still fact checked in the same way it was 30 years ago, when I'm not sure when Esther's time was there, but but it stayed constant. He said that you can have your own stories, but you can't have your own facts. And that verification will become increasingly important. If we want to have a future as a democracy. Then we talked about the very interesting and rich issue of capitalism, Randalls written powerful series of articles on capitalism. And I recommend any of you going on to the Forbes site and checking with them. He shared with us his views on on how capitalism is under attack, but also how it's, it's proving to be very agile. He pointed out that the Milton Friedman idea that shareholders deserve everything has been totally discounted and replaced with stakeholder capitalism. He says, at its core, the attack on capitalism starts with the fact that individuals begrudge that they don't have a fair shake. He points out that this starts with access to education, and we need to level the barriers to entry. He says at its core capitalism is about disparate outcomes with winners and losers. But that's how you learn and it's critical that everyone has a chance at bat. He talked about the power of inclusive capitalism and philanthropy, and described writing an email to Warren Buffett that led to a great lunch in Ohio, and help to turn the Forbes 400 into a real club. I think some of the most powerful parts that we talked about were how COVID has really accelerated changes that might have already happened, but how they've sped up, Randall describe that changes that would have normally taken 20 years are now happening in two months. But he says those are not only bad changes, but also that we live in a time with unprecedented opportunities. And he described several examples clubhouse and John's commitment to do this show came out of COVID, the manufacturer of the vaccine went from zero to launch in less than a year. So he talked about COVID comes with this yawning income inequality, but also real opportunities for anyone who wants to get a job to get a job. I think in summary, he described it as a complicated time, a time of unrest, but also a time where it's very important to learn, to create change and understand the opportunities that are out there right now. He told us we can harness those or we can squander them. Thank you so much, Randall.
Randall, sideline of the revolution game. It's New York. New England one. You have the last word for this.
Go New York. And thank you for having me. Allison. All I gotta say is that was very impressive. You ever watched you ever want a job? You know, kind of doing our daily newsletters. You can come take a pay cut work for us any day of the weekend?
Well, we're gonna put a CD ROM together, or an mp3 of all her summaries. That's that's gold right there. But thank you, Randall, and I'll see you in Davos. Looking forward to curating a great show on the opening day of the World Economic Forum and a great event that evening.
Thanks. Thanks, John. Thank you every Thank you, everybody for Thank you,