Members of Technical Staff

Welcome to Members of Technical Staff: week-after-week of prestige narration from the hotbed of San Francisco tech culture. Featuring founders, funders, and fanatics, join Jayden (@creatine_cycle) and friends as they chronicle the culture, scandal, and humourlessness of the most important city of the 21st century.

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Members of Technical Staff

The State of Tech Media

June 08, 2026 • Jayden Clark

0:00 | 38:43

No one asked and I delivered. Here are my thoughts on the current state of tech media while I take a bubble bath and risk destroying my fully specced out macbook forever.

I also read some fan mail.

Watch on X; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

“New Media” should be “Corporate Media”

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, so you are listening to a very, very special episode of members of technical staff. Um I really, really wanted to talk about tech media. People ask me lots of these questions, lots of questions about um what are my thoughts on this particular format, whatever particular format, whatever has come out in the last few weeks, right? I mean, you know, the A16Z New Media Retreat had me doing a two-hour talk on posting, right? Everybody is trying to scroot the inscrutable, right? They are trying to decipher what the hell is going on, what startups might actually want, um, how to make money in quote unquote new media, tech media, whatever the hell we want to call it. We can we can call it, you know, I really, really personally, I actually wish we called new media corporate media. I think it would have been much, much funnier. And I also just think it would have been just slightly less cringe because now every single VC firm on this fucking planet feels the need to have a particular YouTube channel, and some of them feel the need to bot their views. So that is how it is. Um the the view botting, inexcusable, the title of new media. Again, I I think corporate media would have been funnier. But that's a bit of a tangent before I actually get into what are some of the types of tech media. Um I'm also gonna try to try and like move in here a little bit because I just think I'm showing a bit too much skin. And the bubbles that I bought for this, um, they were very, very expensive, right? But like for whatever reason, Whole Foods just has to um basically inflate every single cool thing. So I'm pretty sure these bubbles cost me, I don't know, like I don't know, something crazy. $15, $20 is what it

The different types of Tech Media

SPEAKER_00 1:45

is, but um the different formats. So what comes to mind, what comes to mind, uh basically the oldest form of quote unquote tech media, uh, I think, would be the the the software engineer YouTube creators, actually. Right? They've been around for years. I mean, I learned a lot of what I know about software engineering from these particular creators. I'm thinking people like T3, I'm thinking people like uh Primogen, um all of those sorts of all of those sorts of people who make tutorials, right? They of obviously both uh T3 and Primogen, they go ahead in the live stream as well. And so uh th that's the that's the proven format, right? Gearing something for YouTube in particular. And uh, you know, uh I think that sort of that sort of thing is uh, in my opinion, the the best way to do it. The best way to do it. If you can make your format geared towards YouTube, absolutely great. Just looking at my little notes here. Um I'm thinking YouTube creators, live streams, standalone series, podcasts, and VC-packed media arms, VC backed media arms. Um, all of these things seem to be popping up now. Um, obviously the live streams, you've got TBPN that really went ahead and sort of pioneered the idea of sort of almost always on, well, I mean, five days a week, three hours a day, right? Um they jumped headfirst into that particular format. Of course, now you have MTS, which you know some people would see as a clone, some people might see as a you know an A16Z propaganda arm, others might see as sort of like an always-on media arm that uh tweets headlines. Um I think all of those things, you know, you you are reasonable to think all of these things. Uh, but of course, you know, we got a few more people in this particular space. Now, the live streaming thing, I'm not actually convinced that live streaming is the way to go for this particular format. I'm just not, I'm just not. Um, and we can kind of get into this because I will talk about like my particular thoughts on just clipping and all of those sorts of things. Um, obviously, all of these things that I do, except for live streaming. People are like, oh, why don't you do a MOTS live stream? Well, there are reasons, there are reasons, and I'll get into them in just a little bit. Um, standalone series, of course, we just saw the release of

@foundersfund Mafia reaction

SPEAKER_00 4:05

uh Mafia, so fuck. I'm gonna have to fucking pull up a tweet here, and now I've got $15 bubbles on my arms. Basically, I want to go ahead and actually look at this mafia thing. Um, because you know, a lot of talk was given to well, uh basically a lot of people were talking about this mafia episode. I mean it did the rounds. Uh 6,200 likes, 3.1 million views released on June 4, so just a few days ago. And of course, obviously with Mafia, um, you know, they had like Sam Altman, Parmalaki, uh fucking like founders fund VCs. Um, did I watch it? No. Do I have time to really consume much media? Uh no. Is what it is. Uh, but you know, I'm I'm sort of thinking them. I'm sort of thinking like what the what the soon technology guys do um in terms of like standalone series. I think uh what Silicon Mania and Azile and those guys are doing. Uh again, just thinking about standalone series, room to monetize, room to monetize again, like like a lot of these, a lot of these things, they're geared for YouTube, they're very, very highly produced. Uh founders fun, probably not looking to get it sponsored, uh, mainly looking for sort of maybe firm credibility, all those sorts of things. Uh, that is all that's all totally fine. So I just wanted to set the stage with like what like how I'm seeing tech media because again, it feels like it's one of those things in which everybody has a take and like nobody knows what the fuck is going on, including me. But I'm just here to give my thoughts. I'm just a 27-year-old unemployed podcaster podcasting from his fucking bathtub, and so you can take whatever the hell that I say with a grain of salt. So I did not think through the logistics of this particular thing, but we're showing enough skin on the timeline, so naturally it doesn't really fucking matter what I say, it's probably gonna do okay. It's probably gonna do okay. Um like to call this a bit of happy bait. Um, okay, so this is what we were getting into here, and what I actually wanted to check out. So fuck it, this is how we're gonna do it. Theo is gonna be so mad if I drop my fucking laptop into this bathtub. Uh, but it's it's gonna be worth it. It's gonna be worth it. So I wanted to pull up here actually

@DylanAbruscato reaction

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Dylan Abruscardo's post. This is in regards to Mafia. Um, and you know, I want to sort of like I want to go over what he had to say. Um, honestly, mostly the last few paragraphs, just because uh for sake of time, we don't really want to be reading full fucking articles on a podcast here. Um but at the same time, I also want to give sort of my thoughts on the mafia thing because they obviously whenever whenever whenever any firm, anyone releases any sort of like new media thing um and they do a good job of it, like that does the rounds in the group chats, and then obviously all of the discussion continues with like, oh, you know, will they be able to continue this? Is this a good idea? Is this actually good? Right? More people should be asking, is this actually good about everything all the time, in my opinion? Um, but that's a side tangent. So with this particular thing, excuse me, it's fuck it, it's actually really difficult to be doing this uh this way. I probably should have thought this through, but anyway. Uh so he says, uh TPPN is Sports Center for Tech Twitter. We already talked about founders and VCs as though they were star athletes. They were, at least in our minds. Uh we just built the show that we wanted. So of course it's talking about TBPN. Of course, Dylan is president of TBPN. And he said, so if you're thinking about launching a show or new media arm, start by asking what you desperately wish existed. Take a proven format, late night shark tank, a talent competition, a cooking show, and rebuild it for a niche community you know better than anyone. Don't copy Mafia, don't copy TBPN. Find the format you can't stop thinking about and build the version you've always wanted to see for a niche community on the internet. Um, okay, so I think that generally makes sense. That generally makes sense. Uh I I feel like um taking a proven format, I am I'm actually not convinced that that is always the way to go. Uh it's definitely an easier way to go. Uh, but I am I'm not convinced that simply taking a format and adjusting it for some particular niche tech Twitter thing. I mean, the reason the reason people are so obsessed with uh media and new media and tech media, whatever the fuck we want to call it, corporate media, the reason they're obsessed with it is because they see people, they see the numbers that TBPN are able to make uh with the numbers that they have. And you know, in reality, the numbers that they have is it's not like network television, it's not like the big YouTube creators, the numbers that they have, the the the raw view numbers are actually quite low uh compared to a lot of these, right? A lot of like, I don't know, fucking take like Twitch streamers, right? Or or or any sort of big YouTuber, the numbers of TPPN is very, very, very low. And of course, they're able to justify charging what they charge or charged. Uh this was pre uh pre-acquisition. They're able to justify those numbers by saying, well, here's the audience, right? Here's who listens to us, um, and here's who you can get in front of. I mean, that's like a totally valid thing. You can price, you can price those sorts of things against that of, say, like a billboard, which is in a billboard in San Francisco is probably going to cost you around 120k a month. Um, Monaco, uh fucking props to them, they bought a blimp for $6,000 a day. So if you price against those sorts of things and you can say, well, you can get similar or better exposure uh by going through us, uh, you know, you can price accordingly. So also what I do with Mons. Uh, granted, I charge a lot less than TVPN and uh fucking San Francisco Billboards. Um, but with those sorts of things, uh, so getting back to the article Dylan was talking about uh, you know, like taking a proven format. I'm not convinced that you should take a proven format. I mean, I think actually I would like to see more innovation on the format front because, you know, so many times have I been pitched ideas, right? It's like, okay, uh, what like what do you what do you think of my media idea? And it's gonna be something like a fucking like um, you know, it's gonna be like Love Island for like tech founders, or it's gonna be like James Corden car interviews for tech founders or some bullshit like that. Uh, and I don't see any of those sorts of things working. The reason James Corden car interviews works is because it's fucking James Corden. Uh, the reason Love Island works is because it's sort of like, you know, it is actually going for a broader audience, right? It's meant to be sort of like just that easy watching reality TV, mindless slop, and it's like, that's fine, actually. That's fine. Um, the thing is with something like a Love Island or any of those like reality TV show formats, the same thing with Mafia, right? The production quality that needs to go into that to make it good is it's it's very expensive. It's very, very expensive to get something like that produced if you want to do it properly. I'm gonna ballpark anywhere between 3 and 10k. And if you're starting from scratch, that's a big lift. The unit economics of that doesn't actually make sense for quite a while. And so, you know, you can take punts at these things, you can get them sponsored, but if you're trying to actually, you know, create a business business and create revenue without taking on VC funding, which a lot of these media companies now are doing, you might run into hot water. You might run into hot water. So rather than thinking of format specifically, I

Edge > format

SPEAKER_00 11:32

like to think of edge. Not to be confused with edging, which again, in this particular setup, we can absolutely do a little bit of that. Uh not on camera, that'd be kind of uh kind of concerning. And uh uh yeah, I think my case officer is probably at my door right now. But basically, I'm thinking of, you know, what's your edge, right? Maybe your edge is your distribution, maybe the maybe your edge is purely the amount of followers that you have, and so therefore you can basically fucking do anything. If you have followers, you can get away with so many things. Maybe your edge is the information that you have, right? Um for me, of course, my particular edge, and what I like to think my particular edge has been, is that I have been in San Francisco for long enough, I've done just about enough in tech, right? I've done the founder thing, I've raised a little bit of money, I've built the software, I know how TCPIP fucking works, I've like written code, all of these sorts of things. So I have like a baseline level of knowledge when it actually comes to technology and those sorts of things. But at the same time, I've not necessarily done enough that I can like rise above everybody. You know, I sort of like fit this little in between, and so therefore I can kind of just be a little bit of a dick on the internet, right? I can make fun of myself, put fun of myself, all those sorts of things. And so I sort of sit in the middle, which is why I like to go after, you know, the culture side of things, report on events, and you know, have my friends over and podcast with them. It's sort of ended up being a really, really nice niche, and it just goes out to my, you know, to my almost 40,000 followers now, but you know, it's even more niche than TBPN, definitely admit that. And the companies that I work with, I like to work very, very closely with them, and I only take on four sponsors at a time. Could definitely take on more, but um, to me, I like to give my companies the time of day. But, you know, sort of tangenting a little bit, again, I'm just thinking about what my edge is. What is TBPN's edge? Honestly, TBPN's edge is that it's John and Geordie, actually, right? That's that's their edge. Like John, uh, generational talent in media, had done YouTube before. Uh, Geordie, same sort of deal, right? Like these guys already knew what they were doing, they were seasoned at what they did, and they've done a lot in the tech industry, right? So they have that credibility, they have the level of credibility, so they're able to do something straight away. And, you know, the success of TVPN and the speed of the success, right? The acceleration of TVPN, um, yeah, goes to show someone like David Senro, right? He's he's access to guests, right? His uh his way that he can tell stories, like those sorts of things. Um if you're gonna be doing a podcast, honestly, a great edge to have is your access to guests. Of course, Dorcash is the same sort of thing. Uh no one was really doing purely AI interviews when he first started. Now he has access to all the big guests. And he all he himself is incredibly technical and knows exactly how the shit works. So that sort of thing definitely helps. That sort of thing definitely helps. If your founders fun and you're spinning up a mafia thing, of course, you have access to all the guests as well. You have access to production, you have access to capital, all of these sorts of things. I'm just lifting off edges again, not to be confused with edging, which would be kind of concerning. Kind of concerning. So, you know, I think with that, it's actually a good time. Speaking of edge, uh, who else has edge? Well, capy.ai has edge. You know what their edge is? Well, of course, they're an agentic IDE IDE, can't even speak, trying to relax while also doing a podcast. And also, I'm not really sitting in the right spot, but it's also because I'm not actually trying to show that much skin. Um, but the agentic IDE, the cool thing about Cappy is that um, you know, with its Slack connector, you can actually have your non-technicals push PRs from Slack. Again, kind of concerning maybe, but at the same time, this is the way that software development is working. I was with the Cappy guys on Friday, they are absolutely cracked, and you know, they're an absolute pleasure to work with just in general. Also, the product is just good, so maybe you should go ahead and use it, and if you don't, you're fucking dead to me. So, getting into this now, I want to actually move in, move on, move in, move on to

Clip driven growth

SPEAKER_00 15:25

clip-driven growth. Clips, right? The fucking buzz term, right? There were there were articles written about this. Of course, when MTS was released, there was an article that was written by Edelson. I'm gonna have to bring my fucking MacBook up with me again. The logistics of this, uh, I did absolutely did not think through because I wanted my reference here. I wanted my classic, you know, uh hold the MacBook, but god, this feels like I'm like holding it over the edge of a building. Um, but okay, Ed Elson. So this was a clip, uh, a clip, an article that really did the rounds. And it was basically talking about how clips, well, I mean, he's claiming that clips are sort of like the like clips are the new form of content, right? Clips are what people watch, nobody watches the rest of it. Um, and so he references TBPN, and he also mentions it, right? So this is this is the part where legacy media says cute, but clips don't make money. So he says this is where they're wrong. Unlike most media organizations, TBPN makes ads directly into their clips at the end of each one-minute slip, but the clip was brought to you by ads in clips uh what enabled TBPN to generate five million in revenue last year on track for 30 million in 2026. The podcast isn't so much a podcast as a vehicle for generating clips. The same could be said of many podcasts, by the way, but the ingenuity of TBPN is that they are the first organization whose business model actually reflected that. So I actually don't agree with that at all. I don't agree with that at all. Uh that is, in my opinion, that's not how they're able to generate a bunch of money. Because if you actually look at the metrics for watching video on X, you'll find that the uh completion rate of even clips on X is abysmally low. X is not where people go to watch video, it's just not. Uh, where people go to watch video is YouTube. It's actually YouTube is one of the only platforms in which people actually go to watch watch video at all. Um and so the percentage of people actually getting through to the ads or the end card is extremely low. The way they're able to monetize is basically brand association and quality of audience. Uh again, somebody like Ethious probably would debate me on the quality of audience thing uh and you know, really push hard for YouTube. But, you know, regardless of like what actually happens, I would go as far as saying is that that is how TBPN was actually able to monetize. It's how MTS is able to monetize at the moment as well, right? They can claim quality of audience, right? They can they have access to guests. It's again, it's a very, very, it's it's the same model, it's the same model. Um, the clips are and will always be a top of funnel. They they absolutely will be. Um, of course, they increase surface area, but at the end of the day, it's a topper funnel for your main product. That's why I'm not actually bullish on live stream as a format. Not for mute, not for news, not for new media. Uh, I think what Theo and other creators like him do, right? They use the live stream as a means to generate clips and YouTube videos. That is the way to do it. I use the clips to drive traffic to the main podcast remote, right? I used it's the same thing with Swall as a service, right? I use the clips to generate traffic to the main one. And so, you know, I tend to, you know, you can you can look at the like like Ed has a bunch of these graphs in here, and he's talking about, you know, oh well, but what you need to understand is that the clips have so many more views than the actual streams, or like, but again, it's like it's it's just a top of funnel. Again, people are not like like people are not tuning in, at least in tech media, they're not tuning in for hours on these on these live streams, right? They're tuning into maybe little bits of it, they have it on the background, or they're watching YouTube videos, uh, or geez, in TBPN, MTS, they'll see half a clip max, half a clip max. It's really like logo placement and brand association, is why these kinds of companies are able to make money. Uh, I'm also just not convinced yet that brands have kind of figured out that people don't watch anything on X. I like to say that X is actually the greatest, world's greatest billboard, but what you will know about billboards is that uh people don't stop and watch billboards, they drive right past them. And that's the exact same behavior of X, they scroll right past it. And so I'm like not fully convinced by the whole clip economy thing. Uh, it's very, very important. Like, obviously, I make clips, people will see my clips, um, but at the end of the day, I am driving traffic to the main Mods Podcast or the main Swall as a service or what the fuck. Um, so Theo

@Theo reaction

SPEAKER_00 20:05

actually had a follow-up to this, and I want to actually bring this up because I think it's very, very good. Um, he fucking laid into it uh in classic Theo style. He was like another wonderful instance of not knowing how any of this shit works. My live streams average about a thousand viewers on YouTube, but my total viewership for a given stream is closer to 23,000. My videos do 60 to 150,000 views. So 60,000 to 150,000 views. Gap is way smaller than you think, and of course, he's got the graph. And he says here, so he follows it up by saying, to be clear, you do not grow your reach via live content. Totally agree. Absolutely agree, it's exactly what I'm saying here. I exclusively go live to film videos. Clip farming is the best use of live video. I do it different. I go live with a set of videos I want to record, and I go through each one with a system for uh with uh sorry, and I go through each one with a system for auto clipping it to send to my editor. I worked at Twitch for half a decade. Clips were always the top of funnel. This is just how it works, obviously. Nobody goes to the Twitch homepage looking for something to watch, they go to the channel directly. Entirely different ecosystem. The glimpse provided by Ed here is misleading at best, and you'll are so far from getting how this works. And that's fine. My grandma doesn't need to know what RAM is to use her iPhone. You don't need to understand the content funnel to laugh at silly clips on Twitter. Uh yeah, so you know, I obviously I tend to align with Theo on this one. Again, I just think that the, you know, the the YouTubers, they've been doing this for a long time. They've been monetizing for a long time, and the idea of sort of like monetizing on ex native content that was sort of born out of out of TPPN. Obviously, I've tried to use that model, but of course, I, you know, the people that know the inner workings of MOS knows that it's a little deeper than that. And I won't go into it on this particular podcast. Uh but this brings me to my next thing. Before I get into the next thing, though. I'm gonna put this down. And I wanna give a shout out to blackbox.ai. Cool thing about Blackbox is that they've uh recently uh, you know, they've topped the artificial analysis benchmarks with uh Nemo Tron3 Ultra. I believe I'm saying fucking Nemo Tron, right? Basically uh Nvidia's newest open source model, and of course, Blackbox is serving over 30 million plus developers worldwide. You can go ahead and spin up all your agent workflows in one particular place. You can use the IDE, you can use the seal I, right? You can use Clawed Code to write the code, you can use Codex to review the code. Of course, they have these particular features that allow you to set all of this up in one particular workflow, and of course, what they're working towards is full self-coding. You can actually go ahead and use that in the particular uh, well, in black box itself. So definitely go again and check it out. Uh yeah, that's blackbox.a. I think we can move on here. Uh so uh more of my particular thoughts. Now, the tech media

The audience for tech media is small

SPEAKER_00 23:00

audience is very, very slim. And so, you know, like you know, to sort of to sort of look at people like me, look at people like TBPN. Again, I'm not sort of equating it, but people do come to me with a lot of questions, like how do I monetize all of these sorts of things? Uh, you know, like the I think the thing to understand is that the the tech media audience, like the audience of this sort of thing, it to me it seems very, very small. It seems very, very, very small, right? The kind of audience that you're wanting to go after. It's like again, I'm I'm sort of thinking about the the the middle manager or like the L4 to L6 engineer that's done his like you've you know done their nine to five. Um the last thing that I could see them wanting to do once they get home from work is like watch some rando interview with like ex Series B founder or like watch a reality TV show style format with like rando like series A fucking founders in San Francisco. Like it's just like it's just not it kind of goes back to the whole like I don't think format is the only thing that matters, I do think it's edge. Uh and you know, so so it's like you gotta you gotta really think about like okay, who can I get who can I get a hold of, right? And that comes back to I in my opinion, I think it actually comes back to existing distribution. Of course, you can work to build up that distribution. Uh, I'm not convinced that a fully produced, uh, you know, five-figure media, new media show with little distribution, or a startup or VC firm just spinning up some rando YouTube channel, I just don't think that's the way to go. I don't think that's the way to go. And I wanted to uh make sure I addressed this because I see this all the time, right? It's like like it's like, okay, now the idea that software is getting way easier to build, okay, all we need is distribution. So therefore, uh me as a series A through C or whatever the fuck startup, we're gonna go ahead and hire an entire media arm, we're gonna spin up a company YouTube channel, we're gonna do the same particular interview series. Uh, it's gonna be like, you know, the three camera angles, we're gonna have some, we're gonna hire some like full-time interview or whatever the hell, and we're gonna put a bunch of production into it. We're gonna hire a team and we're gonna do the same interview series with the exact same founders that are going on the exact same style of podcast with some other startup. And it's the same thing being said on every single podcast every single week. How many people are really listening to all of them? Um, the answer is probably single digits. Maybe the LPs, uh, maybe the board, who fucking knows, maybe not even them. Um, but you know, it it's like there are so many of them out there now, and I am not convinced that the company YouTube channel is the way to go. Of course, I'm extremely biased. I do think that companies partnering with creators that do it full-time, it's a way, way better. The ROI is just so much better. The ROI is just so much better than you know, putting in millions to take on an entire team and trying to build it in-house. Just my two cents, but you gotta realize I'm biased as fuck because this is how I make money. Um, allegedly, allegedly unemployed by the way, unemployed by the way. I'm getting dehydrated because my fucking made the water so hot. But basically, with this sort of thing, okay. Uh, we get into the reduction value because I'm mentioning, you know, the the costs and those that end up doing this thing. Um, Jasmine's son, she had a great post

@jasminewsun reaction and personal style > polish

SPEAKER_00 26:24

kinda recently, kinda recently. And again, I'm gonna try and just not mess up my laptop here uh with water, uh, which I'm already kind of doing. Uh, but she had a great post uh because she did a talk on a bunch of this uh just the other week at the Substack thing. And so I will go ahead and just read her dot points here. Uh so she said, uh my full talk on the future of AI media is up. Um used out uh use the prompt what will be scared to propose what fuck it. See, I can't even speak. What will be scarce to propose four ways that media is changing and how writers can still win in the AI age. So she's talking particular, she's she's talking specifically about writing. Uh secrets over summaries, live interaction over static content, founders over bureaucracies, personal style over polish. Now, I do think a lot of this can be applied to video, uh, podcast, all of these sorts of things. Um, and I just wanted to give this a mention just because uh I think Jasmine is fantastic. Fantastic. Uh and so there is that. Obviously, I go for the personal style over polish. That's really that's the real reason why I wanted to bring up this particular post. Um because I'm recording from a bathtub, I'm sweating, and uh it's from my phone. And I think people are privy to the way that I do things. Now, I'd like to think that I'm pioneering the art of the low effort podcast. Um initially it was just cope. Maybe it now it is still kind of cope, but there's that. But you know, it kind of brings me to, you know, if we're thinking of uh uh, you know, personal style over polish. Again, with the video thing, I think polish is actually fine. She's of course talking

@ti_morse reaction

SPEAKER_00 28:10

uh specifically about writing. Uh, but again, if I'm thinking of the most polished podcast of all fucking time, it's gonna be T Morse. Uh T. I have a habit of saying T. It's such disrespect to hang out with the guy every second fucking weekend. Um, but Ty. My apologies, Ty. Of course I'm leaving all of that in. Uh, but basically, Ty Morse, again, dude's just like building fucking Mars sets in, you know, with the off chance that he get that he gets an interview with Elon, right? Dude is polished as fuck. I mean, that is that is his edge, right? He's he's happy to put the capital into these massive production and you know, he doesn't even he doesn't even take ads, he doesn't even do ads, right? So, like, uh, you know, it's important to note with someone like him and what he's doing and his YouTube reach and all that sort of thing, he could monetize that in a heartbeat. If you wanted to add ads to it, fuck, he'd be he'd be pulling in easy 50k an episode, easy 50k an episode. Just gassing up the homies, by the way. Um, I don't actually have the numbers of ties. Uh, it's totally fine. I just have a shit ton of respect. And again, it's coming under this sort of like polished versus personal style. Turns out you can do both because Ty's got both. Um, I wouldn't be caught dead being polished. Although Swallow's a service is kind of polished, but shout out soon, shout out soon media, uh, they do the polish for me. I just rock up with uh uh not much cloth, not many clothes on. So there's that. Uh but yeah, I you know, I do think there is something to like, you know, of course, the idea of like authenticity, right? Ooh, taste and authenticity and fucking agency and all these buzzwords. Uh, but yeah, like it at the end of the day, it just comes back to what is your edge? What is your edge? What do you have to offer that other people don't, right? You know, I do see a lot of these media things in which, you know, they're looking for hosts, right? They they have an idea, but they've got to fill the host slots, right? Multiple companies are doing this, uh, multiple startups are doing this, startups with YouTube channels, like, oh, we're just looking for a full-time host. We're just looking for a full-time host. I think if that is the case, uh, I tend to end up being a little more bearish because the the host and the personalities are what makes it. Again, John and Geordie from TBPN is the prime example of this. TBPN succeeded because it was John and Geordie, and it was their personality, and it was because they have done a lot of stuff in the industry, right? That's why it worked. Of course, they have a great team behind them, it's a great concept. They were the first mover to this whole sort of ex-native thing. But the reason TBPN worked is because it's John and Geordie, and they were they're actually just really fucking good at this thing. So there is that, there is that. Was that a coherent thought? I'll listen back to it in just a little bit, and we shall fucking see. We shall fucking see. Um, with this though, I need to go ahead and give a quick shout out to Zoe Computer, build personal apps and automations all in one particular place. You can host code using Zoe Computer, and of course, what I've actually been doing is I've actually been uh texting Zoe, right? So Zoe, you know, it summarizes all my emails, all those sorts of things, my little personal assistant. Uh, it also it could also give me gym workout tips if I had low sleep. I tried to build this little thing to help me. Uh I was going through a period of rough sleep. Um, and I was like, hmm, what if I used AI to try and help me periodize and help with my workouts? Anyway, Zoe did that. Did a pretty good job. Did a pretty good job. So go ahead and check out Zoe Computer. Uh yeah, pretty good. So to finish off here, because I'm fucking hell, I'm sweating.

MOTS fan mail

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Jesus Christ, I won't be doing this one again. Uh, but I wanted to really quickly, you know, it because it's Pride Month, uh, I wanted to actually just give a quick shout out to some of the homies. Um so this is my fan mail segment, all right. This is by myself. I'm showing probably the most skin I've ever shown on a mods episode. So I wanted to actually get into some fan mail, some particular fan mail. Uh, and so I'm gonna start off with this post from Luffy. This is from December 4, 2025. And he says

@0xluffy reaction

SPEAKER_00 32:08

here, he says, Day in the life of a San Francisco Tech Bro wakes up at 12 p.m. because he worked, uh, in parentheses, Doomscrolled X until 6 a.m. Uh, sends sorry for missing stand-up, worked late in Slack, Waymo's to office at 1 p.m., orders DoorDash using a company card, listens to Mott's podcast while waiting for lunch. Hehehe. A good man, uh, good person, rather. Uh, gym time, hey Claude, fix this ticket. Doom scrolls X says Claude takes one hour to fix a two-minute bug. Coffee chat with Random Mutual for networking. Hey, I'm working on this side project, visits cursor office, dinner at Chinese restaurant, ask friend to take a photo of him with laptop out so he can caption, interviewing our new founding engineer back to office. Hey Claude, you didn't actually fix this bug. Films a time lapse of himself working late in the office. This is gonna bang. Waymo's home, swipe hinge, cries himself to sleep in his eight sleep. Holy fucking shit. Uh, that was a banger. Of course, the reference to Mots Pod there is why I'm considering this to be fan mail. Uh, 120,000 impressions, 750 likes. This is why Motspod wins, right? Because people like the homies will just fucking tag them, tag Mots in these random, just like, you know, green text. Well, this was a list. It's actually not green text with the little dash thing or whatever, whatever you call them. Um, but this is this is why you have homies on the internet. This is why you have homies on the internet. Thank you, Luffy, for the fan mail. Uh, next one here, I want to read a post

@squirtle_says reaction

SPEAKER_00 33:29

from uh Squirtle says, again, these are all friends of the show, friends of the show with some fan mail. He says, so this is from uh last, not last month, fucking hell, it's June already. Uh so April 22, 2026. He says, Members of technical staff, it's just one Australian. Curious, where are the other members? And it's a picture of me. And of course, I reply with concerning. So thank you so much, Squirtle, for the submission. Uh, I really appreciate this again. It's a it's a valid question. It really is a valid question. Where are the other members? Right? It clearly says it's clearly members of technical staff. And this is not to be confused with uh MTS, by the way. A little bit of stolen valor. I'm gonna actually go ahead and fucking throw the punch. Um, but you know, uh MOS just sounds better. I probably maybe maybe there was an opportunity in the very beginning for me to take MTS, right? Because MTS is the abbreviation for member of technical staff. But no, damn it, no. Mots is easier to say. Mots is easier to say. MTS now stands for monitoring the situation. In fact, um I'm seeing people now who actually are members of technical staff at various startups, labs, whatever the fuck, they're using MOTs instead of MTS. So there you fucking go. There you fucking go. Really just wanted to get that out there. Clear the air once again. Again, no hate to the MTS guys, they are friends of the show. Uh, but yeah, little too close for comfort there, a little too close for comfort. People still come to me uh every other day being like, oh, MTS, did they steal your name? And the answer is no, technically not, but uh whatever, whatever. Yet another VC firm, um, you know, coming for my ass. Uh Sequoia already did that. Sequoia already did that, but

@hopes_revenge reaction

SPEAKER_00 35:10

it's okay. Uh so hope's revenge, he says. Uh, so there's another fan mail. He says, have you seen the new episode? It's on TPPN, it's literally on all in. It's on PirateWise Patreon, it's literally on uncapped. You can probably find it on Core Memory. Dude, it's on Cheeky Pint. It's an A16Z original. Even MTS has it. They just launched today. Timeline Native, always on. It's on mods. You can watch it on mods. You can go to mods and watch it. Log onto mods right now. Go to mods, dive into mods. You can mods it. It's on mods. Mods has it for you. Mods has it for you. Now, this one just absolutely warmed my heart. Um, you know, one of the most, one of the dearest friends of the show. Hopes, you know, one day hopes will come on. Uh hopes will come on mods one day. Mark my words, mark my words. And of course, whenever he's filling up for it, whenever he's ready, he is more than welcome to come on at any time, at any place. He's one of the most lovely people uh you can meet. And, you know, basically I'm just glazing him back. This is what it is. Uh, this is Mots fan mail. Uh, last particular submission, and this is not a particular

@DeepDishEnjoyer shoutout

SPEAKER_00 36:12

post, but I just wanted to give a shout out to PP Poo-poo. So P4. Um, you know, he has he has thrown uh, you know, has a habit of sort of ratioing me online. Uh, and you know, he I just wanted to just give a shout-out because he's not been mentioned on Mots yet. He's mentioned that he would like to be mentioned, and I said that I would, and I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. So that I think is a good place to wrap. I have no idea how long we've been going for. I'm sweating my absolute fucking head off. Um also shout out to Seven Girls of SF, by the way. Seven Girls of SF uh got the hat. Thank you, thank you, Madison. I I doth this cap uh proudly. I doth this cap. And I doth it at the gym and I doth it in San Francisco. This is what these hats were made for, and one of these days I will return the favor by making Mott's hats when I can get my act together. And they will be given to friends of the show. Mark my words, it will happen. Um, but I have a jazz recital to do first. We're just trying all the particular things, damn it, all the particular things. Um, okay, so I'm gonna actually just put this laptop down real quick. And before I wrap, before I wrap, um they've had a bit of airtime recently, but I figured you still gotta make the mention to the homies at superpower.com, the command center for your health. Uh, get the care that billionaires get for less than $200 a year, right? They test all of these particular biomarkers diagnostics, right? All in one particular test. You can go in and take your blood test, and it gets sent to their their uh their proprietary software in which you can analyze all of your results and they give recommendations. Of course, they can also send a nurse to your home, right? I always do the at-home blood test. It is much more convenient to me in my busy life as an unemployed single, not felt the touch of a woman in eight years podcaster. And so that's what you should do, right? You can get your thyroid check and get your testosterone checked. Obviously, I love getting my testosterone checked because I have crippling body dysmorphia. And if my testosterone ever drops below, say 800, uh, I'm probably gonna end it all. Probably gonna end it all. Or jump on steroids. But um, that's not medical advice. Uh, it's a joke for any sort of legal team listening. Um, but yeah, go ahead and check out superpower.com. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and get out of this bathtub without destroying my MacBook that's worth the price of a small car. And also, I mean, same with the phone, actually, probably also worth the amount of a small old car, maybe. Um, but you've been listening to another episode, another special episode of Members of Technical Staff. I'll go ahead and see you on the timeline again real soon.