Steven Galanis

For us, the talent are the four knocks, right? Like our business model has always been talent centric. Like the talent make more money than we do for everything. So for us, if we can provide the best,

For us, the talent are the four knocks, right? Like our business model has always been talent centric. Like the talent make more money than we do for everything. So for us, if we can provide the best,

tools in the world the best rails in the world for talent to directly monetize their fan base and nurture it and cultivate it and strengthen it then like i think we win in the long term but it's impossible to go from you know a tick tocker youtube business model where you know they have 100 gross margins basically on this ad product and they don't have to give anything to the talent or they give almost nothing versus our model where the town are making 75 to begin with yeah

tools in the world the best rails in the world for talent to directly monetize their fan base and nurture it and cultivate it and strengthen it then like i think we win in the long term but it's impossible to go from you know a tick tocker youtube business model where you know they have 100 gross margins basically on this ad product and they don't have to give anything to the talent or they give almost nothing versus our model where the town are making 75 to begin with yeah

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Let's take it all the way back. This is December 2018. We're right in the middle of Christmas season, which is our busiest time of the year. I think literally this was like Thanksgiving weekend. Brett Favre had joined Cameo earlier that year and at this point is the biggest person on the platform, you know, like an American legend and like

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Let's take it all the way back. This is December 2018. We're right in the middle of Christmas season, which is our busiest time of the year. I think literally this was like Thanksgiving weekend. Brett Favre had joined Cameo earlier that year and at this point is the biggest person on the platform, you know, like an American legend and like

hall famer and you know just getting a bread on had really started to be a halo for us to get you know snoop dogg and other like you know that kind of level talent onto the platform so that we're really just hitting kind of this big tipping point at that point we had closed our series a you know maybe six months before and all of a sudden we get a actually i think we closed the series a like like weeks six weeks before this happened and all of a sudden i get a

hall famer and you know just getting a bread on had really started to be a halo for us to get you know snoop dogg and other like you know that kind of level talent onto the platform so that we're really just hitting kind of this big tipping point at that point we had closed our series a you know maybe six months before and all of a sudden we get a actually i think we closed the series a like like weeks six weeks before this happened and all of a sudden i get a

Frantic text message from this guy named Sean Finnegan, who was extremely important to us in building this business. And Sean was working with Brad on a lot of his social stuff. And he goes, Steven, we got a problem. And I go, what happened?

Frantic text message from this guy named Sean Finnegan, who was extremely important to us in building this business. And Sean was working with Brad on a lot of his social stuff. And he goes, Steven, we got a problem. And I go, what happened?

Some alt-right group had tricked Brett Favre into making a dog whistle anti-Semitic video where basically the script said something like he was talking about, you know, The shout out goes to the families of the USS Liberty, which was this ship that Israel bombed of the US in like 1970s. It's like a very like esoteric reference in history.

Some alt-right group had tricked Brett Favre into making a dog whistle anti-Semitic video where basically the script said something like he was talking about, you know, The shout out goes to the families of the USS Liberty, which was this ship that Israel bombed of the US in like 1970s. It's like a very like esoteric reference in history.

And Brett just thought he was doing the shout out for, for, you know, basically for, he thought he was doing a shout out for veterans. And then this group took that and put it on 4chan and they'd made a bunch of little dog whistle references that I wouldn't have caught or I don't think anybody reasonably would have caught.

And Brett just thought he was doing the shout out for, for, you know, basically for, he thought he was doing a shout out for veterans. And then this group took that and put it on 4chan and they'd made a bunch of little dog whistle references that I wouldn't have caught or I don't think anybody reasonably would have caught.

And suddenly, you know, they were making it look like Brett was, you know, advocating for these, you know, like these Proud Boy-like groups, like these alt-right, kind of neo-Nazi type groups. And this became like a massive, massive story. And first things first, we always want to make sure our talent's safe. As I mentioned, the talent are our Fort Knox. Without the talent, we can't do what we do.

And suddenly, you know, they were making it look like Brett was, you know, advocating for these, you know, like these Proud Boy-like groups, like these alt-right, kind of neo-Nazi type groups. And this became like a massive, massive story. And first things first, we always want to make sure our talent's safe. As I mentioned, the talent are our Fort Knox. Without the talent, we can't do what we do.

We can't manufacture happiness. The biggest fear at that point was, holy shit, if like Brett loses his Wrangler jeans ad or, you know, and he leaves the platform and he never comes back, that will put a cap on whoever could go and join Cameo because suddenly he becomes the cautionary tale. And every single agent is going to be like, yeah, not worth it. I don't care how much you make.

We can't manufacture happiness. The biggest fear at that point was, holy shit, if like Brett loses his Wrangler jeans ad or, you know, and he leaves the platform and he never comes back, that will put a cap on whoever could go and join Cameo because suddenly he becomes the cautionary tale. And every single agent is going to be like, yeah, not worth it. I don't care how much you make.

You just threw everything else away. So this is really existential at the time. And so what we immediately do is we kind of let our talent base know that this happened. Like we were super transparent.

You just threw everything else away. So this is really existential at the time. And so what we immediately do is we kind of let our talent base know that this happened. Like we were super transparent.