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Feb. 11, 2025
Google, Tech Hype, and Podcasting Challenges: Tips and Tech Talk with Jordan Thibodeau
Are you curious about the latest trends in technology and how they can elevate your podcast? If you're looking to get ahead in the podcasting and tech space, this is an episode you don't want to miss!
In this episode, Mathew Passy chats with Jordan Thibodeau, Co-host of the SVIC podcast, where two tech veterans from Google explore the cutting edge of technology without the hype. Jordan, who has a rich background as a tech industry veteran, brings his insights from his time at Google, discussing everything from internal tech industry dynamics to the intricacies of podcasting technology.
We delve into Jordan's journey into podcasting, the intersection of AI and tech, and how emerging technologies impact podcast production. You'll learn about the unexpected challenges within tech giants like Google, how podcasting can benefit from smarter data analytics, and Jordan's vision for the future of podcasting tech.
This episode is a must for any podcaster or tech enthusiast who wants to understand the deeper workings of the tech industry and improve their podcasting strategy.
IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:
- Jordan’s Journey into Podcasting: Mathew and Jordan discuss the origins of their podcasting venture, sparked by an onslaught of tech hype and the need for authentic commentary. (00:01:24)
- Cutting Through the Tech Hype: Learn how Jordan and his cohost use their extensive tech backgrounds to remove the noise around tech innovations and focus on the real implications. (00:04:06)
- Privacy and Perception: Jordan explains the reality behind tech giants' data management practices, debunking common myths about privacy and data tracking. (00:08:44)
- Podcasting's Data Dilemma: Mathew and Jordan explore the current challenges in understanding podcast audience metrics and how this might evolve. (00:11:14)
- The Fragmented Tech Paths of Google: A deep dive into Google’s missed opportunities in podcasting, its internal bureaucracy, and the complexities of their strategic decisions. (00:19:05)
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
- SBIC Podcast: Follow the show on YouTube
- Utilize Riverside.fm:
- Follow Jordan Thibodeau on LinkedIn
- Discover Jordan’s favourite podcasts:
Dive into this tech-filled episode and enhance your podcasting know-how today! Don’t forget to subscribe and follow podcastingtech.com on all social media platforms to receive the latest podcast content and insights.
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EQUIPMENT IN USE:
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Transcript
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Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy
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entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective
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solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm
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Matthew Passi, your host and a fifteen year veteran in the podcasting
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space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and
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hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly
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for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and
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strategies for podcasting success. Head to
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podcastingtech.com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite
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podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full
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potential of your podcast. Taking out
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to San Jose, California, we are chatting with Jordan Thibodeau. He is the
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cohost of the SBIC podcast. It's two tech
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industry veterans, from Google breaking down the latest in
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technology. Jordan, thank you so much for joining us today. Hey. Thank you for having
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me here. I appreciate it. So, I mean, obviously, we're talking
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about technology. As you and I are recording, CES is happening or is just
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wrapping up. So definitely wanna talk about that and some of the trends that you're
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seeing in technology overall, but also specifically any tech in the podcasting
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space that has you interested, you know, given the name of the show. But
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tell us, how did you first decide to get into
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podcasting and and launch the show? That's a good point. You know, best
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part of the show is tech and comedy, so I haven't watched very much the
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CES. So failing to do my job. I think,
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one aspect of what's going on in tech is there's just so much coming at
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people. That's hard to figure out, like, what is actually the, signal from the
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noise. And, me and my cohost, we
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used to work at Google together. And when you're inside working in a
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corporation, you see how the sausage making process works,
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but then externally, you get to hear people commenting on on on
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things. And a lot of the commentary is not that good.
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And but you have a very you're getting paid very well
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your tech job, but you take a valve silence because you don't wanna be one
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of those dastardly leakers. Those people are not good.
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So you can't say anything. So, eventually, as time went on, me and my cohost,
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we moved around with different jobs. And then
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chat GPT happened, which was, like, a magical moment. And it was
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the first time it felt like since the launching of the Internet,
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maybe CRISPR, where real novel technology was coming out. It made
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us wonder, like, what what were we doing for the last ten ten years, like,
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releasing chat apps and releasing other social media apps that were
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crap like Google plus. Oh god. So
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I'd I see. Take that one to the grave. Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk
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to you about Google and podcasting. Oh, boy. Okay. So I I remember
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when I was at Google for an acquisition, I was helping Google's
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chat team do an acquisition. And while I was working the deal,
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they launched four chat apps on the same day. It was
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like, Aloe, Duo, and some of their crap. And people
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at my house were asking me, like, so can you explain the differences? I'm
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like, knowing less, I have no idea what we're doing
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right now. So, it it was just it was interesting
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times. So we me and my buddy,
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my coach, Joe Joe, we have we'd have barbecue every two weeks,
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and, you know, we eat ribs together. We go way back.
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Dead giveaway. Sorry. I'm trying to play. You know, the guy who who the the
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black dude when they found the, the missing white girl,
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and the guy found her? Oh, god. I have I have this
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I have this on hold. Give me one second. Dead giveaway. You
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wanna go you wanna go, Charles Ramsey, original dead
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giveaway guy. Yeah. Yeah. I I actually have in in our
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soundboard from Riverside, I have him saying dead giveaway. I use it for, like,
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good areas. Anyways, so one of his one of his quotes is we eat ribs
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together, and barbecue, and we listen to salsa music.
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So me and Joe have barbecue every two weeks. And,
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after we we eat, I talked to some of my homies, and they would say,
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you know, be great to hear what you guys were talking about. And I'm like,
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well, I guess we should, like, do a podcast. And back in
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2016, Joe was saying we should do a podcast. I was like, ah, no one's
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gonna listen to this garbage. So, eventually, we start the podcast,
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and we work a breath a breath of fresh air because
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when everyone was talking about this AI hype of, like, oh, like, when Chechnya came
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out, it's gonna be sentience. Sentient. It's gonna kill us
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all. It's gonna take all the jobs. Or people saying, it's
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worthless. I I, tried to ask her for the meaning of life, and they didn't
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give me an answer. And we're like, hold on. Like, there's a lot of in
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between space here that we think me and Joe can fill. Like, yeah. It's not
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gonna destroy society, and no one's gonna give the nuclear launch codes. But at the
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same time, I know that I'm using it at work at at
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Salesforce to take very long too long didn't read executive
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emails and synthesizing it down to, like, okay. What do I what should I know
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here? Or helping me take, what I wanna
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be curtain to the point to someone who I'm I'm mad at at work, going
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to it and saying, hey. Can you actually make this nicer and fluffier so I
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don't get fired? So there is value here. So our show is focusing on, like,
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just taking the hype out of tech, but also including real talk about how the
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sauce making process work inside tech companies. Because people from outside just say
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basically see, like, you know, oh, everyone's so like, they see the comms messaging and,
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like, Google hires the smartest people, and we're so nice to each other and
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blah blah blah. But we were inside these big tech companies, it's just like a
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free for all, and no one really knows what's going on. So,
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we started the podcast just help noobs and folks learn about
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what's going on tech, but also include some comedy. We won't be at the boring,
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like, welcome to the next Freedom podcast. And today, I'm gonna talk
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about how I want to service Elon's crank and how,
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I always love Elon. And I'm gonna talk about how much I love Elon to
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Sam Altman, and it's gonna be very awkward. So take your pens and paper
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out, and get ready to take notes. Yes. You know, it's it's funny you
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talk about how people perceive the tech industry and then what it's really like on
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the inside. I worked in media for a very long time and, you know, you
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obviously hear a lot of stuff about, well, the media is doing this and the
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media is doing that. It's like, you think the media is that organized, you are
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out of your mind. Right? Like, it is just, you know, I I
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appreciate a good conspiracy theory, but there has to be some some
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plausibility to it, and there just isn't in that case. So We all like
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ancient aliens. You know? Yeah. Sweat But no. No.
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It's it's just it's just people. Right? People make mistakes. People do things. And, yeah,
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you could piece it together and frame it and shape it however you want to
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make, you know, support your message, but it's just people. And
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on the whole, people are good, but, you know, there's a lot of people who
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just suck, and a lot of them work, at various industries including ours. True.
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It's like it's like Occam's razor, basically. There's another wonderful
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member of our community who's like his name is Maj. Super smart. He's one of
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those those freaks of nature who knows he's really good with a pen, but
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also he's a computer science major. So he can do both things really well. And
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then he has a good heart. He's a really good person. But there's another there's
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a different type of Occam phrases for for politics where basically says, like, it's not
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the conspiracy of the one world behind their pulling on the the strings. It's
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usually either, bureaucracy,
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red tape, miscommunication that leads to some of these
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failures. And the same thing for some of these tech companies. You always hear stories
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of, you know, Google's monitoring me or of a law. It's like,
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no. Actually, no one cares about your data. We actually have more to
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lose monitoring you because you do a class action lawsuit, that
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we would gain knowing about your grandmother's secret sticker duel recipe.
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To be fair, those snickerdoodles are pretty damn awesome. They might be. And listen, I
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will go to the grave. You will never convince me otherwise that Facebook isn't listening
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to me because I will talk about the most obscure crap. And then next time
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I open up Facebook, I've got an ad with something related to that. So Okay.
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So that's a Facebook tracking pixel, and that's another I can't go
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side note real quick. So, Facebook tracking pixel is on is is
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on your cell phone or you've you don't even have to maybe launch
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the app. It could the app could just be on your cell phone and it's
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still tracking pixels and it's still monitoring in some regard or either the
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websites you're on. And so I'll just go type some random things in here about
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a mattress and also on my Facebook feed, it will show you the mattress. Now
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I Which that I understand. Yeah. But I didn't type anything. I just
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said something, and now you're in my phone. Exactly. And then
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another thing too is, it's not my
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area expertise. But when the FBI wants to
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track down terrorists or whatnot, they'll go to Facebook and be like, hey.
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This terrorist has a friend who's on this phone. We're
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trying to get to this this terrorist, though. Can you help us out? And Facebook
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has enough good enough data that they can basically track just based upon the per
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that person's IP, what other IPs are in the area, what
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routers they were going through, and then go back to the FBI and be like,
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here is the person you're looking for plus all their homies they were connected, and
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here's all the cities they went through, and they didn't even open the app.
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So it's it's dead. I'm closing down my computer right now.
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No. I enough for everybody. If you think about George Orwell's nineteen eighty
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four, I mean, it's it's it's impossible in this day and age
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that you're not being tracked in some form. You know? And I'm not justifying
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it. Like, oh, this is a psy ops actually. He actually stole the payroll for
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Google, and he's trying to get everyone used to this stuff. But it's just it's
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a it's a it's a fact of life in this day and age. But, anyways
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Well yeah. And and the amazing thing about 1984 is we are happily handing
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over a lot of that information. Right? We are posting about it. We're filling out
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forms. We're, you know, competing in those little challenges and games and all that stuff.
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We're basically just telling the algorithms, here's what you need to know about
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me. Enjoy. Exactly. Now I'm gonna get crucified because we, we
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have a great audience, and we have a lot of privacy folks here who I
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love and respect, and they're gonna crucify me for this. But I look at it
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always as a give and take of, okay, I give you some of my
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data, but so long as you can give me back more value for what I've
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given you, then I will be okay in some regards. Like, for instance, like,
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ChatGPT, if you have an enterprise version of it, it's not trading
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off your data. But if you give ChatGPT more information about you,
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it will start collecting memories on you so that when you give it a request,
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it will say like, oh, Matthew Passi, you're running your podcast and whatnot. I
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saw your request, but also I wanna put in additional context about your unique
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situation so you get a really robust answer or response.
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And for me, when I use ChatGPT, it's doing it more and more. I'm like,
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hey. This is this is fantastic. It's one though they are taking your
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information and just giving you, mattress ads all day
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long, or they are not adding any value. You're getting very
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creepy, where you're like, okay. Now you you kind of you you've crossed the line
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here. We need to, you know, dial this thing back. So, anyways So,
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I'm so glad you brought you know, I'm glad you you kinda took us in
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this direction. I wasn't planning on having this conversation, but I think it'll be interesting
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with you. You know, one of the the shortcomings of podcasting overall
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is the lack of data, is the lack of information.
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Right? We know we have downloads. We we're getting a little bit better with where
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they're coming from, what kind of devices, but, where, like, it
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is like the number one question I always got when I was, consulting with
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clients and now working with podcasters. Everyone wants to know, how do I know who
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my listeners are? And we have very little information on that.
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Do you think that can change, or do you think there's any appetite for that
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to change in the tech space? That is a really good question. I
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gosh. I
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I look at for for myself as for when you first start in
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podcasting, I'm I'm still starting out. This is, like, year one I've been doing
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a full time, so I'm I'm a complete noob. And a lot of people, like,
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ask me, like, are you looking at your metrics? Do you look at this and
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that and this? And I say, well, yeah. I can go on YouTube because I
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do YouTube is where I post my podcast, and I also cross post it onto,
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Spotify. And YouTube will tell me metric of people
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who open up the video and then how long they stay. And that's great.
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And I can see spikes sometimes of, like, okay. Yeah. I really shouldn't have told
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people that we're gonna change this to a mukbang podcast and start eating pizza in
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front of them, burping. Probably not a good idea because retention went down. But other
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than that, like, there's random spikes in every different direction. So I could sit there
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forever and just, like, try to overanalyze this point
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to the point that I get into my head that when I'm having an interview
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with Matthew, I'm thinking of, okay. I gotta say the most interesting perfect thing
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possible so I can get my retention spike going. So there's one thing about psych
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Let me bring the rate back up. Exactly. So I think the second and the
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second thing is, I think a lot of it is,
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will will we ever get to that level of information? We'll get more data and
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and metrics on people and folks. I'm sure. In some in some regard.
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But, I think there's an aspect of people like their anonymity of I'm
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listening to a show, but I also don't wanna give my whole entire profile who
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I am. I probably happens to you, but I've had it happen to me on
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LinkedIn a lot. People will message me on the side, be like, I saw your
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last post. It was really, really good, But I can't like it because then my
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management chain is gonna see it. So on the side, I'm just gonna give you
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a thumbs up. And I'm like, thanks, pussy sweat, whatever.
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That's why that's why I'm bugging I'm bugging LinkedIn. Okay. Hey.
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So LinkedIn needs to do, they need to make it so that okay. Why
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is blind popular? I'm gonna get back to your question. I'm sorry. Blind's popular because
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I answered my I asked my own question, answered my own question. I'm terrible. That's
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why you shouldn't have podcast host on this show. Blind's
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great because it's anonymity, because you can just ask a question and no one knows
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who your background is. And so you can ask, I need a price check on
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my comp, having a tough issue with my manager, like, what's going on here and
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things like that. But the issue with blind is you don't really know who's on
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the back side asking the question or answering the question. You're trusting blind that
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these are real people. But we know, and I have friends who worked for
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Reddit do write fake anonymous posts that are super
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juicy for engagement bait to get people to be like, oh, do you see a
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person said I read it? Am I the asshole for not allowing my mother to,
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hold my newborn baby or something? You know? So you don't really know.
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Well, LinkedIn will be great is what if you can set it to is people
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who are my first, second, third, third degree connections. I can
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post a question anonymously, and only they can answer,
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and they can decide if they wanna answer anonymously too. And
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what that allows me to know is, well, if I'm getting an anonymous response on
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my a question, it's someone I've actually genuinely connected to on LinkedIn who
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I know, which is better than me going on blind because I don't know who
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the hell is out there. And I could be asking this question anonymously to all
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Googlers. So I know that my MyKey has a response from Googlers who are in
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the know but can't actually tell me because they're worried about their job or whatnot.
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Then you get the ability. And people say, well, what about you people gonna start
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trolling you? If someone trolls you anonymously, click do not
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allow this person to respond anonymously to my post going forward. And so that would
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allow people then to then have a more robust conversation LinkedIn, and it would become
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just a constant corporate crap you see twenty four seven of, like,
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I love my manager. Agree? Like, it's stupid crap. You wanna have real
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talk. And people might mention and say, hey, well, like, this is not important.
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Well, if it is not important, why do corporations every year do anonymous
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feedback surveys for all their employees? Because they wanna hear real talk.
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Why do corporations also do anonymous surveys to other corporations
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asking about how much are you paying your employees so then they know
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what how to charge how to pay their employees.
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So imagine how powerful it'd be people to go on LinkedIn and be like, hey.
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I just got an offer. My employer decided to give me a promo, but I'm
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giving you 10% bump. For people who are level six at this role, what's your
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what's your pay bump what's your pay right now? So then it would give empower
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people to do that. Or when people wanna talk about dicey subjects, I think I'm
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getting sexually harassed in this issue, blah blah blah. Can I get some advice on
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what my options are here? Or I'm getting put in a performance improvement plan right
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now. Here's the situation, like, what do you think I should do? And so anyways,
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sorry. That was my that's my I'm always running that one. But let's go back
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to your original question about, getting more data and whatnot. I think,
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Annette, there's gonna be anonymity. People are gonna be
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anonymous here. They like to listen. They they don't like to give all their information.
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So the next question is when how can I learn more about my audience? I
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think it's important that you form a community as much as possible. Get into YouTube
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comments. You're gonna see trolls in there. Always trolls. I got a troll comment
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today. It was like, oh, the show's still on the air. You suck. And then
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I clicked that person's profile. He has one video, one view. And I'm like, I
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was gonna if I didn't say anything, you'll be a jerk. But then, same time,
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I got a comment, got a super chat for $15. And I was like, hey.
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That's great. Thank you. I appreciate it. But what's important is you gotta get in
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those comments because you're gonna find some really great comments on people, and you're gonna
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be able to learn more about them and build a sense of community with them
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by responding to your comments and being sincere about and what I like
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doing is there's an app called, well, two things you do. You could use YouTube
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Studio, and you can go through your comments and use your Android or
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iPhone device iPhone if you're a tool, best Android, real men, real people
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represent. You know what I mean? You probably have iPhone. I know. You're like, oh,
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blue dot blue dot gringo. I'm better than you, me, Steve John.
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Me. But anyways, what you can do is you can use YouTube
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studio, see the comments, and you can just use your audio feature
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in your phone and just do voice to text and respond to people quickly.
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And by doing that, you're gonna learn about what they like about your videos or
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what they don't like about your videos. Or in your videos, you can say is,
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hey. And don't make sure to comment about your comment about this podcast. And what
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did you think? What did you like? What didn't you like or whatnot? So then
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you could hear from people of, like, certain aspects they really like and pop about
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your video, and then you can incorporate that into how you do
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stuff. So for instance, we would do research reviews every now
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and then, and I started asking people, like, do you like this research stuff? And
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people were like, yeah. So overwhelmingly. So we start incorporating into our podcast. Or people
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started saying we need to start incorporating more comedy. And so that's how we were
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getting kind of signal in the early days. But as far as now, it's like
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you mentioned, getting to, like, the here's a master data sheet of everyone who's
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listening and what's good and what you should say. I think we're we're quite a
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ways away from that, but also I don't think it's ever been a perfectly materialized
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in that way. So That's fair. Well and and I love the fact that you
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talk about how important to have a community. So many podcasters think, I'm on the
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microphone. I've got the megaphone. I'm talking to my audience. Whereas
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the best podcasters, the one who do this really, really well, most
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of them are listening to their audience as well. And, you know, community
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is a great way to do it. I wanna go back to the very beginning
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of the conversation, we talked about Google and podcasting. And years
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ago, before Spotify got into the game, you know, it was really just
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dominated by Apple and a couple of independent apps. And it
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boggled my mind that Google wasn't trying
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to have better inroads into podcasting.
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Right? First, it was on the Google Play Store, which is convoluted. Then
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we had Google Podcasts, which actually I thought was a pretty good product and the
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information they were giving podcasts was pretty good. Then they shut that down. Now they're
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moving it over to Google Music and to over to YouTube. But, you know,
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why didn't why didn't Google just replicate the
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YouTube model and strip out video and
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own the podcasting space between searchability,
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their advertising ability, their ability to deliver media and
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track that. I mean, they could have blown everybody out of
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the water so quickly if they had, if they had really taken,
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you know, a real deep look into it.
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Let's do a quick moment of silence for all the dead Google products. We have
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about 296 here. I'll hold the time. Five seconds.
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Thank you. I appreciate that. So
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amen. Preach. If you're if they're passing the collection till right now at church, I'll
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be putting a hundred dollars in there for what you had to say. A lot
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of it is, I hate there's a guy who
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wrote a book called From Good to Great, and actually, a lot of the stuff
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in his book actually didn't play out well, but he said, companies
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don't die from lack of opportunity. They die from indigestion trying to
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eat so many things at once, and they choke to death and die. And so
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with Google, there is just so many different things they could be doing at the
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company. But internally, all decisions come down to
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a few VPs or they're the CEO, and there's only so many things you can
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chase. And then there's a feedback loop of, okay. You
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get an idea approved, but each time you wanna iterate on a product or idea,
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it's connected to another product. So they need sign up for their VPs. So it
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slows the iteration loop down. Whereas other companies like Spotify can
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just go all in on streaming and what they wanna do because they're just focused
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on that one mission. And so there were p PMs
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inside of Google saying what you were saying, but they didn't have the right
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political capital or their other priorities going on. One of my first
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acquisitions at Google back in 2014 was a company called Songza. And what Songza
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did was Songza? Yeah. Right? Elias Roman was a CEO.
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Great human being. Side note. Everyone who's on Twitter,
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the CEOs always talk about how great they are to their employees on blah blah
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blah. That only matters when there's actually money on the line
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because once a term sheet comes out, term sheet means when we go to acquire
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a company, it's kinda similar when you go buy a house or something. You have
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very expensive $6,000,000 chanting in San Francisco that you want
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that he has poop everywhere and whatnot. But anyways, you try to apply you try
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to put an offer on that thing, with, like, the the the poop and everything
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over there. And this is a call, like, a purchase agreement. And the same thing
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is called a letter of intent in m and a. When the purchase agreement says
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letter of intent comes over, it's from us in the m and a side, and
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we say how much we're gonna buy your company for. Now there are
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employees there are CEOs who will go on Twitter and say, I take care of
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my employees. They're great. And then we slide over letter of intent, and they'll
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say, actually, I don't want these employees getting any money from
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this. I don't want their equity vesting. F them, f this, and blah blah blah.
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Elias Roman was a type of, CEO who actually backed his employees
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and actually cared about them, and he built a really good company called Songza. Now
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Songza, what they did was, they focused on
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hiring all of these temporary employees who were, masters in certain music
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genres to curate playlist manually of different types of hip hop
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and rock and things like that. And so we acquired them, and then
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we integrated that into Google Play Music. And Google Play Music
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was doing pretty decently for a while, but then Susan Wojcicki, rest in
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peace, great person. She was the one who set she was the one who decided
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that Google should buy YouTube. She they launched
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YouTube Music. And so people at the company are like, wait a minute. We
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have Google Play Music, then we have YouTube Music. Like, what's what's
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going on here? So left hand wasn't talking to right hand, but it kinda underscores
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your other your other point of just there's so much opportunity. There's all these
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different people inside the company trying to run their own product roadmaps and get
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power and control enough to get their message going. So eventually, after
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years of work, it all consolidated into into
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YouTube music. But then we had this podcast thing called the YouTube, the
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Google podcasting that came about, and eventually that got deprecated. And I think
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the reason why that got deprecated is because YouTube music is like, no. We're gonna
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be the future of how this thing works, and having these two separate teams doesn't
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make sense. So going back to, like, why Google wasn't
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able to do it, I would say one is just, the company is becoming too
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big. Two, there's just too much opportunity, to get too much
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opportunity out there. And then three, internal bureaucracy prevents them from getting
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these just nailing these easy opportunities.
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And then four, what makes things tough is there's also the revenue model. You're
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probably wondering right now, do you use perplexity at all, for AI
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search? Okay. Or do you use chat gbt search? Yeah.
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Okay. It's pretty I don't know if what what are your thoughts on ChatGPT search
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compared to Google search? Oh, sorry. Search. No. I don't use it for search. I
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use it for just, you know, random tasks, you know, help me with this, clean
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up this, do that for search. I I still just Google everything. And I honestly
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usually ignore the first AI response I got. I got homework for you.
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I want you to either use chat GPT search. When you open chat GPT, you'll
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see a little world world icon in the chat box. Click that,
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and it basically is an AI powered search. So instead of it set set
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getting 10 blue links, it will summarize the links and give you an answer,
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and will do research for you. I use it for researching things and whatnot.
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Google could integrate something like that, which is a thousand x
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better than basic Google search. But if they do that, they're going to
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cannibalize their existing revenue, and that's gonna hurt a business model. So
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that's another reason that what gets in the way of Google iterating and then launching
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new products is they have those four concerns that I mentioned. So it's a
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long winded answer. Hope it made sense. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Like and
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subscribe to the show. It's great. Well, I I doubt anybody
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who was tuning into this episode thought they were getting quite this kind of an
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education on technology and how, you know, large tech companies
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like Facebook and Google work, but it is fascinating. As a reminder, everybody, we
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are chatting with Jordan Thibodeau, cohost of the SVIC
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podcast. Of course, you wanna check it out, we'll have a link to it, in
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the show notes. We can find it very easily on YouTube if you, Google
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that. Before we let you go, we ask everybody the same questions, and I'll be
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very curious about your answers because of the conversation that we've had so far.
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So the the first thing I wanna know is you've only
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been doing this for a year. I imagine you've been listening to podcast for a
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little bit more. Is there anything about podcasting
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could be producing content, distributing content, consuming content,
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or is there something like you're like, god. I wish podcasting did blank.
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Oh, great. Great, great question. When I
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was at Google, I used to work for Google's YouTube channel, and I worked for
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the talks program. And so all I have to do is just get great
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speakers, prepare questions, use the communities, help me get questions,
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and then ask. And then there was a whole editing team, recording team
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that handled all of the work. And it was, like, the greatest thing ever because
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I could focus on what I was good at is finding the right people, getting
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them on, get channeling the community's questions, and shutting
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up during the interview and just letting the person cook. And so I was able
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to get Sebastian Junger on there, Tim Ferris on there, Ray Dalio, Annie
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Duke, Susan Wojcicki for or Anne Wojcicki from twenty
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three and me. Just a lot of great people in the show. And then when
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I started this podcast, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I'm bootstrapping
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this, and I guess I'm now the editing team, but I got all their crap
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work in the back end. And there's just so much just,
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editing crap and box checking that you have to do in the back end just
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to get the content out. And I feel like it's a big miss from YouTube
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and Spotify and some of these editing software packages for them not making
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it easier to get podcast content out there. And right now, people say the
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solve is either go hire someone. It's like, well, with your check,
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I don't got that money right now. I gotta you know? Other solution is like,
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oh, you just spend more time editing. But it's but here's the thing.
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I've seen a lot of like, there's just I feel a lot of sketch
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podcast. I don't do any I'm in a sketch podcast. I'm in the back I'm
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in the meth lab right now. And I've had videos where I haven't made a
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good YouTube thumbnail. The background was turned to like a like
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a a Chernobyl disaster site, and I ended up getting, like, 30,000 views
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and 300 subs. I didn't do crap. And so,
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I think I wish one just the
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editing process, all the operational back end craft work will be improved for
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podcast to make it easier. So people who are podcasters can focus on just getting
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their stories out there. Because there's so many people who have good stories, but the
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technology just is not fully there yet to allow them to
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get those stories out and allow them to focus on what they do best, either
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getting stories or getting right people on their show. That's, I love that answer.
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I mean, we definitely have, I mean, from when I started doing this, the tools
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have improved dramatically and greatly and, you know, there's a lot of AI supported
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tools that will, you know, cut corners in certain places and different editors that will
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kinda make it faster to script and Riverside is a really good editing tool as
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well for stuff like that. But, yeah, it it still requires, you
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know, piecing together a couple of different tools and even with that
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assistance, there's still a lot that goes into it. So, I I
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really I really, really like that answer. Is there any tech on
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your wish list that you're hoping for, like a microphone, a camera, a
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piece of software, something that either exists that you haven't bought yet or
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something that you're like, god. I wish somebody would invent a blank to make my
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life easier. I mean, I guess your prior answer kinda answered that, but
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is there anything else in mind? So I will say if you're doing podcasting,
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shout out to Riverside. They have one of the best we're not getting paid for
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this, but they have a really good customer service team. It's probably the easiest place
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to get started for either video podcast or audio podcast.
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I try to influence a product roadmap and make and make requests on the WhatsApp
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group. That's how we found each other. And thank you for reaching out to me.
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If you'll be on this, appreciate it. Kendall's great, by the way, at responding to
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all those. She's she's amazing. She's really good. So they're one love to that
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team. I what I really want is
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I started the podcast because we were really interested in talking about tech and AI,
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and I really want computer use agents to improve so that then,
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I can have an agent that can can connect different pieces of
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software and do all the clicking and manual work in the in the back end.
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Like, do you, upload videos to YouTube for your podcast? Okay.
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How many times have you clicked the disclaimer of, like, no, this is not pornography.
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No. This is not hate speech. Yes. Put monetization, accept. You know, every time you
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put the you know, if I have an AI agent that could just do that
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for me, I can offload that, just automate that. That would that's what
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I want. And I've I'm I'm praying that this is the year because there's a
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company called, Cohere that had their own AI agent. Another
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company called, oh, crap. I'm bringing the name right
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now. They created their own AI agent, and I was able to get it to
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upload YouTube Shorts from my computer into YouTube
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and have them run. But here's the thing, it would do it once correctly
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out of 20 times. So I I can't does not it doesn't work.
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It's because the underlying agent, the foundation model is
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not there yet. And they're making improvements now, and I'm hoping that this is a
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year where I can at least say, okay. Can you do this correctly 85, 90
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percent of the time? So I can offload some work, and there we go. So
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that's the thing I want. I want a computer use AI agent that can help
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me put together these various software tools that I'm using that requires no code
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and can just serve as my low level assistant editor and just go,
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assistant productions person. If anybody if anybody listening out there can do
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that kind of stuff, I'm sure there's some, investment dollars to, to help you
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get it done, help you, get across the finish line. Yep. Alright.
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Last question. Is there another podcast or two that you listen to, you subscribe
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to that, you know, when they drop a new episode, whatever it is you're
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listening to, you're gonna stop, check that out, or you're just you're never gonna let
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one of their new episodes get past you. Oh, that's a really good question.
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Yeah. That's a good question. I I listen to various podcasts, but I got when
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I was when I was a kid. I guess I used to used to
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listen to Tim Ferriss podcast a lot. And then as I grew older,
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now I find myself listening to more audiobooks. And then when I do listen to
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I do listen to podcast, but it's more of work focus. So I do
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reaction videos to either Sam Altman's on whatever podcast.
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I, what So it's a lot of it's a lot of guest centric,
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listening? Yeah. I'll listen to Kill Tony when it comes out when I have time.
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He's for I like, like, comedy. And then, Shane Gilles has
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some good stuff I'll listen to. Oh my god. Last weekend
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last weekend podcast with, for his name. He has a mullet. He's from New
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Orleans. Theo Von.
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Theo Von has a podcast, I'll I'll listen to it. And,
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what I like about his podcast is he stays in his lane of comedy.
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He won't go on there and just be like, okay. Now let's go talk about,
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like, why you shouldn't do vaccines and stuff like that. He he knows, like, where
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he's supposed to be. I also for people who are new, who are listening,
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setting up, I always it's the cliche advice of just get
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started with any any crap technology you have. If you want inspiration,
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go over to MKHV's YouTube and then click
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like, sort his videos from the very beginning. And his first video is, like, him
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at, like, 10 years old, and he's, like, using a flip phone, like, re
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recording, and everything's crap, but he started. And
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what's important is you just get something out there and
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then focus on what you can improve from that last
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video. Don't focus on all my views or my subs or
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someone's mad at me or, you know, if someone else's product is beautiful.
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No. Look at your last video and say, like, what can I improve? Extra points
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is get the transcript from your last video, put in the chat GPT and
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say, what can I improve from this interview? And chat GPT will give you some
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recommendations on what you can improve from your your interview. And then do that step
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by step. Don't even spend money on buying equipment. If you can just
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use what's on what you have, even if it's like your your integrated
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laptop, camera, whatnot, just use that. And then if you get super
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chats or donations, then use some of that money to buy pieces of equipment, but
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buy cheap stuff. This is a $50 microphone. I have a depth
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depth sec camera that's, like, maybe a hundred dollars or so.
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I have a, you know, that light that has this it's a light, but it
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has the cone on it. I don't know what the hell they're called. It's like
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I should cure. Okay. I have
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this light box for, like, four forty five bucks,
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and then I have, like, a my I have, like, my dual monitors.
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But all this is, like, kind of just put together, like, bit
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bit by bit in my headphones. So keep everything cheap because
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everyone thinks, like, when you start up, it's gonna be, oh, it's gonna be success.
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I'm gonna go it's not that way. You just grind you need to grind stuff
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out. And if you're constantly out laying cash, it's gonna be eventually, you're
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gonna get the call from the wife, like, what the hell is going on here?
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I have kids. I have kids to raise here. Like, with the You
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you must be listening to my phone because I give out this exact advice all
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the times when I was consulting clients and doing audits and, you know, just going
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out of the podcast and talking about the space, like, just verbatim. So I I
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love that advice. I love the energy. I love the spirit. I love what you
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guys are doing. Once again, it's the SVIC podcast. Co host, Jordan
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Thibodeau, joining us today. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed
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the conversation. Thank you, Matthew Matthew. And also, Matt, like and subscribe
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Matthew's podcast. Do it right now. Like and subscribe and comment and share
Speaker:
with a friend. It means a lot. Thank you. Jordan, check us in the mail.
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Thanks for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all
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the hardware and software that help power our guest content and
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podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at
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podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your
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favorite platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave a rating and review
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while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting
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Tech.
Jordan Thibodeau
Co-host
Jordan Thibodeau is the co-host of the SVIC podcast, a popular show that demystifies complex technological concepts for a broad audience while infusing episodes with a refreshing dose of comedy, where he combines his extensive experience in the tech industry with a touch of comedy to demystify the latest technological trends.
A former Google employee, Jordan has witnessed the intricacies of big tech companies firsthand, working on projects ranging from acquisitions to product developments like Songza and Google Play Music. His current work focuses on the real-world applications of AI, particularly in the context of corporate environments. Jordan's passion for technology is matched by his drive to make complex topics accessible and engaging, building a community of tech enthusiasts through thoughtful discussion and humor.
In addition to his podcasting endeavors, Jordan is a passionate supporter of leveraging AI and other emerging technologies to enhance everyday life, from improving workplace efficiency to making complex tasks more manageable. He continues to explore and promote tech innovations that can add real value to users' lives, always with an eye toward balancing technological potential with practical utility.