AI, Zeitgeist and Algorithmic Warfare | Justin Banusing - E711
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
42 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 16 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Who is Justin Banusing and what is Clouted?
In the past, there were like, you know, only so many videos posted online, right? Right. Now everyone's posting thousands of videos every single day. And when the algorithm is deciding what it thinks you like, then now it becomes harder and harder for creators and artists to truly build an audience. in this era of algorithmic warfare is very, very, very difficult. We basically take your content and spread it across thousands of dirt surfaces to find the winners. Hey, good to
see you, Justin. What's up? Second time of the podcast. I know, right? Time flies and uh I think it's been amazing to see your growth and development. And this is your second venture as well. So a lot to update to talk about since then. So Justin, could you introduce yourself?
Yeah, what's up? I'm Justin, uh CEO of Clouded, CEO and co-founder of Clouded. So we're the AI virality engine for brands, creators, and artists, quick TLDR of everything. Uh started my whole journey in the startup scene in the gaming side of stuff. Back when I was 13 or 14, they called me a little child soldier in the whole grand scheme of things. Worked for a bunch of early stage companies, media outlets, and really spent most of my middle school and high school life in the gaming community. Eventually started my first class. company back in twenty eighteen. It was a platform for high school and college gamers called the Katarina. And honestly, that was a crazy experience, right? Basically juggling, building a venture back startup while I was in high high school and college and ended up raising our seed, ended up raising our A, made all of the mistakes that a first time founder would make and ended up parting ways with the company pretty messily, honestly, back in twenty twenty three.
Mm. Around then, I did a bunch of side quests, got into music, tried my hand at Venture, and then eventually realized that there's nothing else I'd rather do than be doing cool things with my friends. So towards 2024, I decided to bring all my friends together, all the smartest friends I know. And we decided to do a new startup together called Clouded. But even Clouded itself wasn't necessarily smooth sailing at the start. We started off as a gaming company, and over the last couple of years, We've learned a lot. We've pivoted a fair bit after our pre-seed. Eventually pivoted to the direction that we do now. And now we just raise their seed round, operate across uh Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Manila.
And we're figuring things out. But I think we're getting there.
Yeah, so much has changed over the past couple of years.
What drove Justin to become a founder in college?
Uh and so yeah, I think it's fascinating. So check out the prior episode and we can talk more about that for your prior background. But I think after a couple of years also I have a little bit of a different prism as well. So uh from that perspective, Justin, maybe if you take a step back and you look back at yourself when you were being a founder, wh what drove you to be a founder in the first place, back when you were in college?
I think at the end of the day, everything that I think there's different types of founders, right? There's founders that are founders for the love of the game of startups. There's founders that do it because of some sort of event that they're trying to like prove or like uh I guess like baggage you're trying to go get against. But I consider myself more of a missionary type of founder. I always tell people that if I wasn't working on something I didn't care about, I probably wouldn't be a founder. Right. And what drove me to be a founder the first time back in Acadarina was simply because I really believed that you know there was a massive opportunity lying in the college gaming space, right? It was a super underground scene at the time, but I saw just how much power there was in the community there.
And as a, I would say like as a promoter or as an event curator at heart, right? Like uh building a company that uh brings people together. Empowers communities is something that especially community I am part of or I'm passionate about is something that really drove me to do it because I saw no one believed in it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Justin Banusing and what is Clouted?
0:00–2:19
2
What drove Justin to become a founder in college?
2:19–4:03
3
Why did the college‑gaming and esports thesis collapse?
4:03–9:56
4
What was the “messy exit” and how did the sabbatical reshape his thinking?
9:56–17:43
5
How does Justin differentiate a revenge startup from a missionary founder?
17:43–33:01
6
What is “algorithmic warfare” and why is virality now engineered?
33:01–35:50
7
How does Clouted act as an AI‑powered media buyer for creators and brands?
35:50–38:30
8
What are the three biggest takeaways for founders building in Southeast Asia?
38:30–42:48
Speakers
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