Kick Talk w/ Eddie | Episode 25 ft. TIPSOUT

so Eddie how's the holiday man yeah it's been good it's been really good nice uh guess it's all coming it's all coming to an end we're getting ready for yet another year yeah man all the holiday activations was great to see on kick man I know we got some like New Year's Eve stuff coming up I think BB Jess is doing kind of like a Ryan seest type of countdown thing and then uh Woodle Bears had like some gingerbread activation and love that the kick awards today yeah yeah she did the kick Awards last night so uh that looked like it turned out really well for her man yeah no it amazing to see I tell it's it's just so cool when the community kind of gets around stuff and just runs it from the ground up like you know it was to be fair really well executed and you know really welld deserving winners and it just goes to show the strength of the community and the fact there's so many people that have been around for like the full two years as well you know so many familiar names still dropping by um I was hanging out in the chat there today and it's just like wow I kind of like recognized almost everyone I was like you know it's kind of cool when you've got this such a tight niit Community um but yeah it's been it's been awesome uh awesome December here on Kick we've seen a whole bunch of uh amazing uh different styles of content um you know whole bunch of really cool series bunch of saon you know a lot of exciting stuff looking forward to some of the plans for New Year's Eve I remember last year New Year's Eve being really big there's a lot of stuff going on so I'm assuming there'll be a few great streams planned yeah it's going to keep growing man and listen you know it's really cool to have this guest on today uh tips out uh CEO of otk because look you know one thing that Dan Clancy got right about some of his comments is that twitch has a good Community they have a very stable community but that takes time that takes a lot of time right and otk is one of those communities that coalesced came together organically uh kind of like what we're seeing with a lot of our kick streamers do right like you know you get these guys started doing their own shows doing their own content um doing their own original series like well before they were even otk right I mean these guys got guys like soda Poppin you guys have guys like San you got have guys like Osman gold and you know extra Emily so this guy's got to navigate a lot of egos in the same room and a lot of these guys are owners of otk but these guys have been running together for so long that for tips out to kind of step in as CEO I think it was like 2020 I think otk kind of exploded during covid like so many other like different orgs but what was cool about otk man is like tips out took them into different areas like into like Mad Mushroom which is like a game developer right or Star Forge that builds PCS and they even have like a studio out in La called we play Studios so these guys went from like you know a bunch of people just hanging out kind of like what Lauren Shay La is doing to you know six seven eight years later uh these guys are building many empires um with their own or right so I'm really interested in hearing his thoughts and like you know how much did he build it how much did the platform build it how you know how much did the community build it so um a lot of learnings that we can learn from uh from this guy you know as kick you know starts to build its own Community man no I think when you think of everything that twitch has achieved and that's a lot you know I think um you know a lot of those names that are a part of otk and otk itself really come to mind right I think you mentioned Community right I think the biggest thing has been a lot of those names have helped to cultivate what an incredible community that twitch has um I think they've been at the Forefront of demonstrating what amazing content looks like what healthy communities look like so you know I think um you know twitch is incredibly lucky to have such an amazing group of people and I'm sure otk is lucky to have someone like tips out to at the helm there leading it because like you mentioned it's no easy uh job having to you know Steer a whole bunch of people in the same direction and keep things under control so looking forward to this uh this episode of kick talk this is what episode 25 right 25 man 25 we're cranking them man it's great and the shows keep getting better more raw more honest more authentic so um I you never know uh who's going to swing by man so it's been it's been awesome but let me drag uh tips out in here real quick um

and get this cooking man how's it going yo what's up guys good morning good morning he's West Coast he's got his AI camera going on there we go W Coast okay what time is it for you right now then it's must be like 7 6 a. m. I'm actually in Austin right now it's 8:44 so we're good it's not too bad oh not too bad my bad it's all good man how you guys doing very well thank you no thank you so much for uh for taking the uh the time to join us I think we've been trying to tee this one up for a while right I think this is this has been on the books for a bit yeah no for sure thanks for having me and yeah I know we've been trying to put it together for a long time and glad that we could uh sneak in here before the end of the year this is the last one for you guys that's it yeah now this is the final one 20 25th episode um so yeah looking forward to running up another 52 next year so we'll keep at it it's uh hell of a lot of fun we've got a bit of a I think it's starting to develop its own sort of culture these kick talks I think it's really great so I think you know we're finishing the year on a high having you as a guest so again thank you so much for dropping in um tips I I just had a few questions for you and then I thought you know either hand the floor over to you to ask about kick or you know we just go back and forth and let it flow but um but yeah would you cool that let's do it hell yeah um just I guess what gaming in general right obviously otk is heavily gaming based from what I understand you're a gamer yourself of course um you know when we think of the gaming industry and what's happening with gaming in general right um you know it's changing rapidly like you know when you you grew up playing playing well right yep playing a lot of well too much and RuneScape oh RuneScape as well should didn't know that okay we got a common game but you know growing up playing wow you know how do you see gaming you know being different for say your kids growing up compared to how you've kind of grown up with gaming because it's it really has changed substantially right 100% that's actually a super good question and uh you know you kind of foreshadowed it if you guys hear like banging on my door it's probably just my kids trying to tear my off office store down but uh I mean for this next Generation man I it's so foreign to me like I think probably the biggest differentiator between how we grew up and how my kids are growing up right now is just the access like my parents were very much like no video games in the house we'll only turn the Nintendo on when like guests are over or something when you got to distract you kids from like you know ruting our time um but right now I mean at such a young age kids are being given iPads phones you know whatever technology is at their disposal and they're getting accustomed to it so quickly you know my son turns four in about a month or so and he's already like a master at the iPad and you know on one hand part of my uh part of my strict upbringing was like man should we kind of withhold that technology that access but then you know you look at all the other kids around them and you say well if they're not you know U developing that you know swiftness with these tools they could be falling behind so it's this real it's like a lot of cognitive dissonance you go through as a paren this generation but I think the biggest difference between us and Them is they have so much access to it so much earlier and just the level of adeptness they have um just like the tactile nature of like movements on touch screens especially is like unparalleled so I think for him and his sister I think you're going to see you know a lot of mobile gaming a lot of Minecraft uh anything that can be accessed on the iPad you know early is uh is what we'll be seeing out of them I think I love that take on it though you know zooming out from gaming a bit you know the idea of hold on it withholding technology will end up you know massively kind of disadvantaging them opposed to I know a lot of you know parents make that choice like you know where do you kind of draw the line with technology but you know having the open mind that hold on a second the reality is technology is here to stay um it's not going anywhere and if you kind of withhold it and say not you're not having this it's only going to kind of put them at a disadvantage especially when it comes to gaming that's for sure but um but you know just everything in general but now I guess yeah the days of uh you know growing up on World of Warcraft or even you know RuneScape as you mentioned and having to kind of figure out how to use the you know computers and the internet from scratch and everyone's kind of just like you know first learning how to talk to each other online versus uh what they're going to experience it's going to be a whole different uh world out there and I guess we're going to see a whole different generation of games probably stem from that as well and types of

content that people are going to be consuming but I guess that's just um I guess the nature of any industry it's going to continue to develop out 100% long gone are the days of like dialup internet when you know you're playing RuneScape on your on the family PC in the living room but then your mom goes to pick up the phone and then like disconnected or whatever it is um yeah this crazy New Generation like I feel like I'm becoming like a boomer now where you know it's like every older generation is like oh those damn kids these days I'm just like godamn these kids bro like I don't even know how it's going to turn out like how they're going to be in 20 years from now who knows our brains aren't wired for it man it's so much information so fast so quick so accessible it's it's Bonkers you just gave me uh just gave me crazy memories of yeah the phone would dial up yeah I remember my sister she figured out um you know that she could just pick up the phone to turn my internet off and so whenever we were having a bit of a tiff you know she knew exactly how to get back at me it was uh yeah good times back then now we're definitely in a very very different world in that sense um absolutely on on the wow front though have you have you been playing much recently have you played the new expansion you got any thoughts on that funny enough you just mentioned it so I actually just reinstalled it like two nights ago I played a little bit of the expansion launch and um you know personally I'm I come from the era of you know vanilla wow and you know I really enjoy the older version of the game kind of like RuneScape enjoy the older version of RuneScape um but I will say for what the modern game has become this iteration of it is one of the best that I've seen in a while uh there's a lot of things that I don't like about modern wow like you know um the ease of a loot acquisition and you know things just don't feel as epic and Grand as they used to and the flying mounts and even stuff like transmog I'm not a big fan of it I like how RuneScape when you get an item the item you wear is like what you have and that sort of you know like that power detection between players and trying to like size somebody up before like pking them or something um Wow's you know lost that over the years but considering what it is today uh and how it's been the past you know 10 years or so I think it's one of the better versions of modern W that we've seen do you think that's anything to do with uh I think what there's been a bit of discussion around obviously Chris metah coming back as uh you know executive creative director or something right yeah you reckon something to do with that um potentially it depends I think he came back about a year and a half two years ago now ago something like that so it might have been the expansion cycle might have been uh sort of already underway and they might have been wrapping up development on this current X by then not yeah a year and a half it would have been yeah way too late to kind of have too much influence on the core mechanics right it would have been well in trillion development yeah I think it's probably more so like wow has had so many fumbles over the years and like eventually you just have so much data that it's hard to mess up like if you can endure the like the bad years of like all right we're going to experiment we're going to try new things and we're going to AB test and a lot of it's going to go to ship but you know if you've got billions and billions of dollars like blizzard does and you've got you know recurring subscription plus microtransaction model like they do eventually it kind of got to get it right like you know they've got more data than they know what to do with so I think it's probably like just years of feedback data you know AB testing Brute Force they finally gone to the point where they understand what makes players take and you know I feel like there's a lot of good things ahead for World of Warcraft which if you ask me that like five years ago I'd been like dude that game is toast bro like I bust but it's nice to be excited about future versions of the game these days you guys like at otk right have always been massive supporters and you know players of wow right like I assume but you've got contacts of Blizzard do you guys have like much to do it all with the feedback loop is there any kind of um collaboration there at all or I mean definitely don't want to take credit for the dev's work or you know for us we're just like any other content creator you know we chime in every once in a while hey this would be cool that would be cool but the truth is I mean they're on top of it like again for especially for modern wow like we don't have uh we don't have nearly as close of an ear to the ground as we do for classic so like I would hesitate to even suggest you know anything about modern wow because I'm like right now the noob of the noob with the system where it's just like I don't even know where to start giving suggestions there because you know I'm just not as close to the game as I used to be no fair enough yeah I guess

um yeah I guess what that's yeah blu's job to very much treat you know every customer every player kind of equally and take on all that feedback but I guess what I'm sure they're watching a lot of the streams and seeing where people get frustrated and probably give that very honest feedback as well so I'm sure there's probably been some whether it's direct or indirectly influenced on a few decisions along the way especially when you've got uh you such vocal players just on the otk side though um you know what you took over as CEO in 2020 right uh officially a little bit later so um otk officially formed like the actual group entity formed in 2020 I've been there obviously as a founding member since the beginning but CEO duties more recently about two years ago okay well and I guess what otk the rise of it right was I'm assuming like quite phenomenal right it was it came out of it is debatably the best most well-known Org the these last sort of five or so years at what point did you kind of realize hold on a second this thing's like a this thing's a real success and we're not just going to build a traditional or we're going to go the full country mile like you guys have done and Adventure off into you know all kinds of directions like when did you kind of go hold on we're on to something that's a good question um so this is going to sound super pretentious but I think you know in 2020 just to kind of you know set the table a little bit in the setting and stuff you know as you guys know it was sort of the beginning of Co um we started right around the time of like it was two major things happening in the industry there was Co and there was also sort of the Apex peak of Esports and the slight come down like it started to come down where I think Venture Capital dollars start to realize that wait a minute this Esports thing it's not scaling in North America the way we thought it was so we sort of slipped in at this time of like hey you know we've got all these different Industries can no longer advertise in traditional Media or traditional sports or whatever um let's put our money into gaming and but at the same time we don't want to put it into Esports because like we tried that and it just didn't yield a return um and so what do we do well oh there's this like little media company that's like springing out of nowhere uh but I watch asmin gold so maybe we should give them a little bit money or I watch Mis GI or whoever it may be um so from the GetGo you know to answer your question it definitely felt like something special right away before we even went public with our announcement we had already signed our first sponsorship deal just as we were setting up and you know there were you know Rumblings in the industry and we were working with an agency at the time and they were able to get us a deal before launch so um it really felt special at the very beginning it felt like we were on to something it felt like just the timing was right you know all the stars were aligning um you know myself personally and some of the other guys we had hosted different content pieces like more uh upscaled produced content that we were able to sell to third parties and that gave us kind of the skeleton or the bones for the model we wanted going forward and um it just you know it just felt right dude like asmin announcing it I remember his announcement stream he had like 100,000 viewers uh again all the co viewership was there and I remember that first day we were at San's house running up and down the stairs from watching the stream to like going upstairs to like coordinating giveaways and stuff like that and I just remember feeling like [ __ ] dude whatever happens from this point on it feels like we get the jackpot that's I guess what you the otk roster right I guess is you know in terms of the people you've got involved and you know how they've kind of come together and um you know represented the organization I think that's probably been what you guys have done best right is how you picked and choos who to work with and then how I guess you you've also managed that right and it kind of leads me to my next question obviously dealing with with a lot of people who are in incredibly um you know influential famous whatever you want to call it um you know you you've obviously you dealt with a lot of strong personalities right and subsequently you've seen a whole bunch of success working with these guys you know I guess you've got without having to put you on the spot to choose any singular story like you know is there a certain Creator certain person from otk that comes to mind that's been just like you know one of those you know really great stories of bringing the best out of them because I guess that's what an or is meant to do is represent the you know the creators the the streamers the individuals and you know help bring the best out of them as a broader group right um is there anyone you from that kind of otk roster that stands out well I used to have hair uh so

there's that but I mean and frankly I could ask you the same question brother I don't know how you do it too um it's I mean when you're dealing with people that you know are in many ways at the top of their game and have done a lot in their space to prove that you know they're more than qualified to make you know executive decisions on content or creative Direction you know really I feel like it's my job to not so much um really just kind of stay out of the way like the last thing I want to do is stifle creativity get in the way of the process of these guys that again in their fields their Geniuses like getting 20 30 40,000 viewers sitting at your PC like it's definitely not something that I could do um so in terms of that you know I'd say probably the biggest part of the challenge is knowing when to insert myself not insert myself uh obviously there's certain business decisions and variables that need to be taken to account when we make content or creative decisions um so that's usually where I kind of slot in but overall it's really about you know being the guard rails for the group um but not necessarily you know being the bowling ball that takes down the pins and in terms of like anybody in particular I mean everybody is uh is very vibrant and outspoken let's put it that way uh a lot of different opinions but I think one of the beauties of otk and this is actually something that uh told somebody a few years ago I think one of the beauties of otk when it comes to managing all the different personalities is you know a lot of us have known each other for years even prior to otk being founded and we all or most of us kind of came up in that World of Warcraft environment like asmin esan Miz myself um Nick soda you know all of these guys have a World of Warcraft background so we're kind of all we come from that same generation that same culture and even though you know at times you have differing opinions sometimes like starkly different there's this Baseline level of respect in camaraderie that we have where it's like you know what it might be a five or six versus one on an issue but we respect you we know you know you for years you feel very strongly about this [ __ ] it let's send it and see how it goes love I didn't realize you guys go back even further than otk so what you guys what's have known each other what far longer from what all the way back how long um I mean for some of us eight nine I mean uh nmp and soda for example they've been decades at this point but I mean just for most of us I would say like uh going back to early 2017 is when a lot of us met yeah that's when asan originally got banned from YouTube I believe around that time and he started streaming on Twitch that's when he met as and Miz and myself and I'd say yeah sometime in 2017 is when we all sort of like really collided and San and I hit it off we used to run a podcast together called classicast and uh asmin you know kind of took San under his wing and kind of helped them transition over to Twitch and Miz popped up a few months later after you know cameram maning for uh for some people in the space and you know just kind of happened I guess well that's probably like I'm going to assume one of the big reasons for why otk has been so successful has been that initial group and the fact that it's so organically come together it hasn't been just like all right we're going to go find a bunch of people bring them together and just like try to create an or out of it it's like it was almost like kind of destined to be there was that or there was that three years leading up to it whereby you've got this yeah that camarad ship that you're talking about whereby everyone sort of understands each other and how to work together and naturally that's kind of been I guess the foundation on which has then led to Bringing on so many other incredible crators as well 100% we got really lucky like it's crazy sometimes I think back like man like we can credit ourselves for things but to be honest dude it just we got very fortunate with an incredible team and we got even more lucky just how things just kind of slotted into place it's weird like if svan never got back to me after he got banned that we probably never would have connected and I would have never met asman most likely and you know Miz I don't even I can't remember when svan and Miz met for the first time but if that never happened like you know who knows where it would all be so definitely very grateful and fortunate for uh for everything just on the otk side so obviously like things are restructuring just a little bit like what does that mean for you guys and and I guess the future coming into the new year and stuff obviously I'm assuming you guys have huge plans and you know always looking towards the future is there anything you can kind of speak to on that

front for sure I mean things are always cooking over here I think probably the biggest takeaway from 2024 for us is the organization has grown in so many different ways beyond what we originally expected like when we first started it was like yo bunch of content creators let's make awesome content let's do cool gaming tournaments you know let's create an organization based on a foundation of friendship and then like things got really serious really fast we saw like sponsors starting to come in and you know I think the big turning point for us originally was we hosted the spelling be in early 2021 that eventually became schooled which was the first kind of syndicated show that we did on Twitch and at the time was the most successful syndicated program done on Twitch so you know that model really carried us through all the way through like towards the end of 2022 but during that time we realized that hey you know sponsors are great and all but you know sometimes sponsorship revenue is quite unpredictable uh so why don't we go and create our own businesses diversify our Revenue diversifier verticals so that you know not only can we take advantage of this Awesome Reach and moment that we're having right now but also in the future you know we can essentially put our money to work for itself so that's when we founded star Forge which is our computer company and shortly afterwards we founded Mythic Talent our talent agency and you know most recently Mad Mushroom which is our game publishing company so I think you know when you start a lot of different businesses especially relative close proximity to each other uh you sort of like blur out a little bit and your focus goes all over the place and I think next year uh probably the biggest thing that we'll be focused on no pun intended is you know really targeting specific businesses and making sure that we're giving each business that we own right now the uh necessary resources they need to scale so um yeah it's just otk like ballooned really fast and everything we're doing ballooned really fast so you know part of my job is making sure that we're uh we're allocating resources efficiently and making sure that all of our different organizations are supported is it is it a sign of the times that otk and offbrand are kind of seeing the same tea leaves in the market and kind of expansion contaction expansion contraction like or is off-brand like it's totally dealing with a totally different uh set of things because uh I think offbrand announced then you guys announced that you were doing a little bit of restructuring and that there were amazing people within the market that um that needed to find work I think that that's the biggest thing was you guys had so much creative coming out off of these restructuring that um I think that the market still calls for it but at the same time I'm wondering are we seeing a trend in orgs like yours having to adapt to however YouTube's doing deals kicks doing deals twitch doing deals things of that nature it's a really good question um I can't speak too much on behalf of offbrand because I'm not exactly sure what the situation is over there but based on their public statement um I think there might be some commonalities I think you know more broadly speaking you kind of hit the nail on the head Andrew where like live streaming going back again to sort of that 2020 Co era um you know there was a huge shift in the Market at that time where you know and we all can probably uh call back to our own experiences during co uh a lot of us probably watched a lot more of you know at the time it was twitch and you know eventually kick as well um a lot of us probably watched a lot of live streams back then uh more so than we normally would and a big part of that is you know a lot of our favorite entertainment might have been shut down or we were indoors for a lot longer period of time and considering this is a you know long form uh type of content you're able to consume longer streams and stuff like that so there is this big desire in the industry especially again with reallocated budgets uh for more experiential high production content in 2020 2021 2022 and I think what's happened more recently as has gotten back to normal or quasi normal um and you know dollars have been reallocated back to more traditional Media or traditional sporting events and the live streaming audience has kind of corrected or you know contracted a little bit to adjust for the fact that not everybody's at home anymore you're seeing more and more um organizations media companies Esports teams whatever it is you're seeing more and more of those or sort of I guess um

readjust their budgets to align with where the dollars are being spent but also to realign where the eyeballs are being you know uh placed um I watched ludwick's video talking about their situation and one thing that he brought up that's super interesting is you know he spent a lot of money a lot of time on a on an event or so recently that had around 30,000 viewers or something that's the example he gives but then he went and started playing League of Legends with his friend and he had like 38,000 viewers or something like that so I think that sort of Paints the picture very clearly of you know audiences now the people that are watching live streams now are really there for the personalities they're there to watch their favorite streamer hang out talk to them engage with them Etc and you know our model up through 2022 while it worked for that time I would say probably doesn't work as well in this current state um I think you know at the end of the day there's couple thousand people watching us right now in chat they're here to see you know you Eddie Andrew they're here to hang out with you guys um if we were hosting some game show I think you know some people would appreciate it but at the end of the day uh I think people watch live streams because they want to connect with somebody uh whereas a couple of years ago you know there was also a big desire to see produce content because they weren't seeing it anywhere else that's a super interesting tag because I guess you know being able to help facilitate these incredible Productions you know there's been so many examples where it's gone amazing right but I guess that's a big part of what live streaming is about right and I guess that's what people really enjoy is that sort of very raw authentic way like you know your example lug we just playing League of Legends with um you know with his friend that that I guess that's kind of what people tune into whether it's twitch YouTube or kick or whatever platform is that they are looking for that genre of content that is relatively unproduced um but then again I guess yeah it's about figuring out what the trend is at the time right because I do remember when people were first starting to do produced events and they were going crazy right like even right now we're seeing this in Latin America right like I think they're just starting to do some of these huge produced events and stuff and they're getting like you know we just had like West Cole pull like 1. 5 million viewers for a boxing event and you know some other Productions as well that are going ahead like they're loving right I almost see them going through that same sort of phase um that the English speaking Market saw during that kind of Co era whereby everyone's like going whoa this is amazing we want to tune in and see they you know breaking records but you know maybe as time goes on people end up reverting back to this the idea of just wanting authentic live content maybe that's sort of the trend we're seeing I guess like you said that's what you guys do you have to follow the trends follow the you know follow the eyeballs follow the the revenue right and if that's uh that's a changing landscape then that means shifting Focus but I guess what the thing is you guys have so many things going on when you say shift Focus that could mean a lot of stuff and I guess that's the you know what I really admire with what otk does is understanding that hey look you've got this like you know you've got these amazing names like how can we all work together to Branch out into so many different areas because there is so much opportunity live streaming is so powerful having you know whether it's asmin gold with 100,000 viewers or mizkif with you know how many over tens of thousand he's got on like that is a huge audience and how you can leverage that to do so many other incredible things whether it's from producing games to building computers you know you can build legitimate businesses off of that can be worth you know a lot of substantial money right and I think you know having an organization together to help you know realize those opportunities and go after them is amazing and you know being watching from the sidelines what you guys have been doing on that front and I think um you know really excited to see like how you kind of P and change and uh you know like you said continue the focus on what makes the most sense going into the landscape and the um the environment that we're currently in right now which is you know again it's a great environment people are still tuning in the live streaming it's great I guess it's just you know changing and adapting to that different um you know landscape of what people are looking to uh to consume um absolutely hey uh Eddie yeah do you mind if I dig in real quick oh of course just dig it I just just because I'm real C because here's the thing I i' I've had the opportunity of seeing all these guys in the room at one time all right um and the way that they kind of operate right and I'm really just curious when kick is mentioned in the room with all you guys with all these strong opinions right and a lot of these opinions of you know I think Free Speech gets thrown around a lot um I think uh you know uh people saying I think streamers are

growing up man you know I think to's have to be a lot more flexible uh and I'm prefacing this with a lot of things with like your opinion of kick two years ago as opposed to your opinion of kick now as live streaming matures has the sentiment changed within that boardroom around those creators very interesting question so I'll say again I can only speak on behalf of myself I'll say myself personally I mean absolutely I'm not going to lie uh in you know when kick first started uh you know it's like I'm trying to think of a good analogy here but it's like um uh if you guys know like evil con evil and like you know old stuntman tricks and stuff like that like imagine somebody on like a BMX bike or something trying to like jump a canyon or something on their bike right and uh you know you see the first guy go down the ramp and he goes for it and he just like crashes into a canyon and then you see the next guy attempt it and he just like crashes into the canyon and then you see the third guy and he's got a green helmet on with like a k on it and you're just like I don't know man that's a tough one dude we've seen this before uh but the person happens to be you know evil can evil or in this case you know Eddie Andrew and the rest of your guys' team and you know at the time when we had first talked you know a few years ago you guys were still right at the base right it was like kick had just come out and so you know to kind of you know uh continue that analogy it's like you guys just started going down the hill ready to hit the r and there was definitely you know at least for me personally it was like man I don't know like that's a very big canyon to Le Microsoft tried it didn't work others have um you know can these guys do it and I think you know talking about Creator Le businesses a little bit earlier you guys had something that none of those other businesses had is you had this extra layer of insight from content creators in the space but then also you guys like you lived it like you know Eddie you've been playing enscape for God knows how long your ear is super low to the ground with the community you watch live streams all that stuff so that extra layer of like um just knowledge and familiar familiarity with the culture you know it helped you guys it was almost like a little turbo at the end of your bike that shot you over the canyon so as far as my opinion on Kick today I mean you guys have grown I just checked before the stream started from December to December over 250% average viewership I mean for any startup you know you guys have been Incorporated for like what two years two and a half years something like that if that I can't even remember at this point maybe less uh but for you guys to experience that kind of growth still be around do it for cheaper than the rest and still growing like I mean you know mazl I don't know what else to say like that's uh that's incredible like um there you I'll say again there were definitely early conversations where I'm just like dude will these guys last a year like will they last a couple of years and now it's like sky's the limit really is the way I see it that's um the way you explained that I love that I guess you know from everyone from the outside it's exactly what they were thinking right I guess you know the the stage was set with you know whether it was Microsoft whether it was Facebook whether it was the tens if not hundreds of other platforms which had tried this and you know you guys you know seeing another one come along was just you know hey look this is another one of those attempts which will you know maybe Fade Out and I guess every week every month you know now coming up to years that the kick sticks around and continues to keep on giving this a you know red hot crack I guess it changes the landscape right it starts to change the way that it's viewed because you I guess it's easy to kind of build a platform and then be like hey guys come over here it's going to be better without realizing that you know for big creators especially the people on o otk or any other um large organization or just large streamers in general um you know switching platform is like switching like jobs right it's like switching everything it's like a the biggest change you could possibly make it's the scariest change it's the riskiest change it's by far the any change which could have the largest adverse effect so you know putting your trust in a brand new platform is kind of insane if you think about it the downside is huge of course there's upside to it but you know the downside is is so massive so being able to take that shot is scary and I guess you know to begin with everyone just goes hot on these guys are mad they're entering this industry that

everyone talks about as being not profitable all this kind of stuff and it's shrouded in controversy and and you know you start thinking hold on like yeah These Guys are just going to end up in the canyon um but you know I'm super glad to hear that you know you almost deem it as if we' we've crossed that Canyon I beg to say that we're still kind of mid-flight like I like to think the trajectory is looking real good and that gap's looking scary and scary but we still certainly have uh you know some ways to go but no it's um it's been an incredible journey right and I think you know we've certainly had our Rocky moments you know we we've we've learned a hell of a lot I guess um you know going ahead and you know trying to cross that Canyon without any uh you don't kind of get any um any trial attempts right you don't get any practice runs you kind of just got to you know hit the ground and figure it out on the spot which has been uh an amazing experience I think it's been you know such a learning curve for everyone involved no matter what sort of part they've played in this and um there's no industry like live streaming there really is there's no industry quite like it when it comes to the whether it's the drama the controversy the everything associated with it it's just like it's something else in terms of how involved you have to be and you know for us I guess that's what makes it so exciting and why it's something we want to keep pursuing and why on you know trying to give this industry a run for its money in a sense so um but yeah no I think yeah last year alone is massive growth I think you know very heavily in some markets like you Spanish speaking markets um you know um all throughout Latin America for that um matter um your English Market too has such a solid Community starting to really build up you know we're starting to see our own sort of uh homegrown stream that have kind of found their way from kick from the beginning to the end and that's the most amazing thing to see um but yeah I think this next year though especially is going to be really interesting for us I think we've got some you know I think from our side we we've had to really close a gap on the tech side and that's always been the thing I always keep talking about the most and I think we're just about to kind of get a few things through the door which will hopefully start to really you know make sure that we're competitive on that bare basic front um in terms of what people expect from a streaming platform and I guess from that point onwards hopefully uh like you said Sky's truly the limit in that sense for sure I will say too I want to call this out because you know I don't see this a lot on Twitch you guys have a lot of Arabic speakers on the platform which is awesome to see my background is Syrian so like right before this call as we were like queuing up and stuff I went into uh mad CO's chat and I just you know it's crazy to see like Arabic speakers like 15 20K views dude that's awesome man like I just I didn't even know these streams existed so that's super cool you got to watch he's amazing he's great I I've been he's run that saath on right now it's uh he's doing I I don't speak a word of Arabic unfortunately but I've watched about two or three hours of that subathon thus far but that that's the thing I think there's just so many communities out there in live streaming um which I think you know we originally kind of went very heavy on the English speaking Market thinking hey look we know exactly like what the problems are we're going to help you guys figure them out little did we know that the English Market actually had it really good you know they were looked after real well it was the other markets like Arabic you know Spanish speaking um Turkish speaking those markets there they've got it rough man like they've got it real rough like we thought you know obviously everyone loves to complain right and you know we get it now streamers are always going to have something that they're not quite 100% happy with and you know at the time we thought you know twitch must be doing a terrible job because they're working with these guys and they seem unhappy or whatever but God the english- speaking Market have it so easy compared to these other markets so we've really heavily invested in looking out for them and trying our best to you know whether it's just simply giving them a connection um in terms of a support function or you know whether it's you know making sure that you know people like Moko are able to go ahead and pull together this subathon with the right funding with the right you know resources but um but yeah the Arabic community big shout out to them they they've been I think that was one of the first communities to fully move over the kick and have been a backbone for a lot of our viewership for a while now which is which has been amazing it's awesome man that's super cool hey uh I just want to give a heads up we got about 15 or 20 more minutes with uh tips just an hour right and uh man you're doing an amazing job with that kid uh I totally empathize man I i' I've got a 19-year-old now and a 10-year-old but I totally get it man so uh um amazing Focus for sure but uh yeah man listen if you got any heaters

for us man uh nothing's off the table would you know would love to to have you pick our you know Eddie's brain for sure 100% I mean um you know it's it's awesome to hear your guys' commitment to Quality and you know continuing to hear the Artisan you know refine their craft and uh you guys consider yourself still kind of in the air looking to you know get to the other side of the canyon what are your guys' goals long term like for you what defines success what defines touchdown on the other side of the canyon uh what do you guys think you know kick still needs to improve on or what do you guys want it to be in order to kind of check that mission accomplished box yeah so I guess if you had asked us when we first launched kick right it was a very simple response it's like we want to beat twitch right like that was the boring sort of way of looking at it um we wanted to win the market we we still want to right that that's certainly up there but I think it's more so now about trying to help understand what live streaming can become right I think live streaming and the potential that it has truly been untapped like I don't believe that you know I believe that the whole concept around live streaming being able to watch something in real time you know there's no you know major scripting involved the aspect of having a chat a community live there watching with you know this is just such a perfect recipe to make absolutely all content types better right like you know you could be doing anything you could be watching and consuming any type of content if you've got it with a live streamer live like you can make it so much better right I think all con all aspects of life you can take the fundamentals of live streaming and stream it live and it makes it better right the opportunities out there for live streaming I still think it just completely unta you know whether that's been because of you know harsh moderation lack of funding whether that's been because of you know lack of um you know visibility I just feel like what live streaming has to offer is just so much more than than what we're currently seeing obviously gaming has been incredibly successful and will continue to be successful Esports has been huge for live streaming um but I think that can expand further right whether that's into more so traditional Sports whether that's into you know more of the IRL content whether that's more into the just chatting whether that's into more sort of you know produced content like you mentioned finding that balance of what works I just think that live streaming in general and this um this world can certainly go so much further right like in 2020 when you when you guys first came together right I don't think many people outside of live streaming knew who the top five live streamers were right like it was kind of this smaller Niche I think that's changing now right like we're seeing people like you know whether it's I think Kai is a great example right he's kind of going mainstream now like streaming like on McDonald's commercials and [ __ ] yeah it's crazy well exactly right I think when you see that you realize hold on a second this industry has so much more potential it really does and if there's any way that we can help shape that if there's any way we can help be involved with that I think that's our job here is to make sure that we're here supporting the creators supporting them as they try to you know push the boundaries and make the most incredible content that can penetrate the mainstream um culture um that truly is what I'd define success as and I think it's possible I think um you know I I don't again I have so much respect for twitch right what they've built has been amazing but I feel like twitch is this small little um arm of Amazon nowadays right and you know I don't think they look at live streaming as the future of entertainment in the same way that kick does you know Ki we truly believe that what live streaming can do and what can be achieved with it is far from its peak and the you know I always say the better days of live streaming are yet to come right and I think if we can help to be on the Forefront and at least just a part of that story of how live streaming sort of penetrates mainstream culture then hey look that would be a huge success in my books um with that said are we anywhere close to achieving that I think we're a long way off but I think with the right um tools with the right team with the right technology with the right Outlook with the right support I think we can certainly um you know help to push things in that direction because I think the underlying thesis here is that live streaming is really entertaining Y no that's a really good point and I agree with you like if you had asked me like again like about a year or so ago maybe before that time's like going so quickly now um definitely like right as Co was starting to wne you definitely saw a bit of a correction in like live streaming numbers but then Kai comes along starts

to blow you know the lid off the can and here we are like regularly seeing streams you mentioned I think it was West CO 1. 5 million you know uh Kai bringing Kevin Hart on the stream stuff like that I definitely still think there's a huge market for like major cultural events happening in the live streaming domain um and I think as you know teams get a little bit more Savvy it's like how to generate that level of Buzz without spending you know millions and millions of dollars putting on events at least in North America I think you're going to continue to see that growth because one thing we've noticed is that once people you know if you think about like the traditional marketing funnel you know top of funnel is things like probably short form content Tik Tok YouTube shorts Etc then you got like midform VOD and then you go down to live streaming while live streaming is theoretically you know maybe a smaller Market overall once people get into it it's very hard to like get out of it like you kind of stay like when once you find a content creator that you really like that you do want to hop in you know their chats engage with Etc like you kind of stay there uh I've been watching soda Poppin since 200 I don't know 13 14 maybe something like that like I still watch his streams occasionally I open them up on the second monitor while I'm uh while I'm working so I think that you know probably one of the biggest challenges for live streaming right now is again just like your typical Arc acquisition retention conversion like the acquisition part is probably the hardest part but once you can get people in the door I don't think they leave very often I think that's the most incredible aspect of live streaming is that attention being able to hold someone's attention not just for the hours and hours of their live streaming but for the is right you end up creating this almost bond with the live streamer right no different to the same way people end up watching TV series and you know really getting to know the characters you know that I think that's the beauty of live streaming to that extent is that it can just once you do have people as you said sort of acquired through the door they stick around and you only build on that relationship right as you continue to make great content and continue to be entertaining you know the influence and that connection with the audience only grows and grows and it's more authentic and more real than anything else you know obviously that people you know end up creating a connection to whether it's a YouTuber right but I don't think that's quite the same as a live streamer when you're live streaming when you're in the moment when you're living all those you know all those moments in real time alongside them I think that's just a different form of connection I think we see that in so other so many other key performance indicators around like what makes live streaming special I'm sure you do too in terms of sort of operating you know all these other arms of otk um but yeah for that very reason right I think it's one of the huge differentiators for the industry and what live streaming can truly achieve on the back of 100% um let's see I know we don't have too much time left so let me think about uh another question here I guess this one might be a little bit too in the weeds but I'm really curious your thoughts about this so uh I'd say about 2 or 3 months ago I was having a conversation with a bunch of creators IRL and we were talking about like the future and um some of them hadn't really brushed up too much on their short form game and so we were talking about like Tik Tok and YouTube shorts and stuff and Ki came up in the conversation live streaming General kick different platforms and stuff and I asked a couple of these guys I was like Hey out of curiosity like why do you stream on Twitch like why don't you stream on YouTube Kick Rumble any of these other platforms like why do you specifically stream on Twitch and I was uh somewhat surprised to hear that you know I think obviously a big part of that calculus for a lot of people especially those that have been streaming on one platform for a long time already is hey moving my community is you know it's a little bit risky I don't want to lose viewers I you know move my community to another platform but a different sort of uh conversation sprouted up about like monetization and you know being able to make money specifically off of things like ad Revenue sponsorship stuff like that I think over the years twitch has gotten it feels like they've gotten better at encouraging people to run ads which isn't necessarily a uh a great thing for the viewer experience but for the streamers I feel like they're making a lot more money now as a result how do you uh do you guys think about how to equip creators on Kick with you know more you know a bigger ability or a bigger arsenal of tools to monetize their platform here because it's just

something that was brought up in conversation and I think you know the 955 split thing is huge obviously that's like a complete Game Cher but I think you know ad Revenue has increased so much at twitch as well that how do you give creators more opportunities to make money to make that transition to kick easier for them considering the potential risks that they feel like they face yes so I think twitch this um you these last 24 months maybe more specifically these last 12 months have you can you can tell that strategy has changed right and I think they've done an amazing job and I think this has been a really great call by them they've obviously moved away from you know minimum guarantees or all those kind of deals that they were doing for so long right um you I guess the idea behind those was that okay we'll give people these deals and then we'll make it back off ad revenue and you know give a very small piece that ad Revenue back to the Creator and not really incentivize them but I guess what they ended up doing now is they've changed that tune and they're like okay we're not giving anyone flat deals anymore but you know here's a really generous split of our ads and you can run as many of them as you want right and obviously it's doing really well right I think people are making a lot of money there I think it's also incentivizing people for all the right reasons you know I think previously you had these big multi-million dollar contracts going out and then it wasn't really incentivizing people to make the best content out there so naturally I think this switch that twitch has done to being more so based around hold on a second let's not give people any guaranteed money but let's you know put together this kind of Revenue sharing concept and really try to push people to not only make engaging content that attracts more viewers but also get them to run more ads it's really smart right it really is I think it's a it's how they probably should have been doing it the whole time right um and I'm sure they're probably going to start looking towards profitability that they they've been talking about for a long time now um you know how can Ki compete with that I think honestly I think competing with that will not be that difficult at all right I think you know advertising is very much a solved problem nowadays you know we've been looking very heavily into it you know as long as you do have the inventory um you know you you can you can solve for it it's very delicate with user generated content right is incredibly delicate um on that front and how we can ensure that we're able to be competitive on unit economics of the advertising game um with someone like twitch that again has done such an amazing job at creating a brand friendly and a safe environment for advertisers is going to be hard um but you know I think that's where you you have to zoom out a little bit I think that the whole Revenue perspective of only using sort of display ads um pre-rolls all that I think is a little bit two dimensional I think you know you would know this right um you know a lot of the power of live streaming doesn't come through that form of advertising it comes through so many other different Avenues and I think you know Ki is very open to exploring as many different revenue streams as possible and helping creators to realize those you know the same way otk helps all your members to realize all these other opportunities for Revenue driving I think you know Kick's big difference here is that we will help all the other streamers to go down those Avenues too because I think you know whilst ads are very great for the very basic unit economics right for minutes watched you've got you know a certain sort of return on investment right you've got a fixed revenue on every minute that someone streams it's great for the Bare Bones economics but I think you can overlay so many other facets of whether it's marketing or sponsorships or Integrations into that to really boost those earnings and I think Ki can be a really great partner in that and I think we're already sort of you know slightly trailing a few sort of ways around that um but I think you know we want to go a step fur right you know we want to allow people the opportunity to obviously you know dive deep into that ad Revenue um splitting concept I think that's really strong it's really powerful they're doing a great job there but I think that's just the surface right I think that's purely the surface of how you can monetize your live streams and if we're able to help people achieve that at scale I think will be the the key problem that we're looking to solve and I think we can we've got some ideas out there again we don't want to put the carriage before the horse you know we need to grow the platform grow the community grow the um you know the the viewer base and then once we're in a really good position that's the you know the problem that we really want to tackle and do really well at because that will be you know whoever solves that problem the best will win the market it is the backbone it is the fundamentals of what drives live streaming and I think being ready to solve that problem in a unique way looking at the problem different you know you mentioned before a little bit around our experience being very Hands-On with the industry I like to think that's going to be hopefully a big

point of differentiation when we give creators those tools to monetize their channels in the most efficient way possible absolutely no that's super cool to hear cuz I agree with you like problem with pre-roll ads they freaking suck not even just pre-rolls like mid roll ads like imagine during this conversation if you had like 10 ads playing right now all of a sudden like mid-s sentence just drop a skippable option man like it's yeah 100% And I think what sorry but we totally hear you on your note which is a lot of creators aren't coming over because they want that ad Revenue you know what I'm saying they want that I or some sort of line item that competes with that um and we're also trying to tweak kcip to kind of match that so the Creator is actually the commercial that's sick I would love to you know off stream sometime if you guys have some time talk about this a little bit more cuz I there's someone I would love to introduce you guys to but also just talking about this and some ideas that I know I thought of over the years but you know maybe uh maybe you guys might be receptive to them or something like that or they might spawn some other ideas so would love to uh catch up sometime talk about this because I think ultimately like you said whoever solved this is going to win the long term but also I think you know um you know we talk about competition in the live streaming space I think more and more even sort of the The Wider funnel platforms like YouTube have gotone so much better at monetization that you know I've got streamers that I know that are like you know what I want to spend more time building my YouTube audience because that's helping me grow my overall reach and it's helping me monetize as well so yeah I would love to catch up sometime and deep dive this with you guys yeah no definitely I think you know even kind of hearing well following sort of your story and how you've kind of built out otk I can see how you know you're thinking about the same sort of problems that we're thinking about right I think there's a lot of overlap between the way that ORS look at monetization how platforms do at the end of the day a platform is just really a group of content creators right where whether it's a small group of large content creators or a large group of you know mixed um size creators we're all kind of out there to solve the same problem how do we you know how do we go about this industry in the most logical way how do we take advantage of the situations and I'm sure you've uh you've been thinking about a lot of the same uh the same sort of yeah Solutions as us in different forms so I reckon we've got to we got to make that happen we' love to hear what you you've got the some advice on that front at least would be incredible heck yeah dude this was awesome by the way guys like thank you so much for having me on I know you guys got a bunch of stuff to get to and I just want to say I've been watching chat almost whole time you guys crack me the hell I've been trying to keep a straight face the whole stream dude there was a comment I read like 5 minutes ago bro like I just you got to me dude that's all I'm gonna say but uh no I I would love to Eddie and again like thanks for having me on guys and you know if you guys ever just want to talk about the industry shoot the [ __ ] I'm happy to hop on or sync up whenever you guys want yeah I feel like we just scraped the surface man could we should book another one of these in the future but you will definitely be hearing from us man for sure heck yeah dude for sure well I'm super glad we finally got to make this happen and really appreciate you coming on but yeah let's let's line up that conversation even if for early this coming week or something I guess would be amazing so but yeah thank you so much for coming on man thanks guys take care have a happy New Year happy New Year see that was epic all right that was great we got that across the line yeah I think we've been trying to work with tips out on that for [ __ ] I think what like two three four months but I think yeah otk I think that the whole concept around like how otk operates versus like how a platform operates like the synergies there are you know incredible right I think there's so much you know commonality between both a platform and an organization in terms of struggles in terms of you know how to best um you know approach these problems so and obviously I think yeah what otk's done um you know despite the fact they're all on Twitch which is cool um they've done such an amazing job right I think that there's no um the growth and and how they've kind of represented the platform as well I think they've uh they certainly they certainly changed the game for what an organization should look like yeah for sure um he's hitting me up on Discord saying and thank you um and listen man we'll reach out to him ASAP

because I think it's just good to have you know people in the industry to just you know bounce ideas off of and such and here's the other thing man uh my discord's lighting up and uh and I think we're gonna have a someone join us man uh out of the blue um let me give him a rooll real quick Eddie you cool with us in yeah good HS time good H time all right cool cool um but yeah man like uh real quick all right he should have access let me see guys we got a um we got a guest dropping by um give me one second there we go we got a guest dropping by he should be sweet let me drag him in oh lost never a dull moment discord's always a fun one fun to get work what's up guys can you hear me yeah we got him sneo how you doing good what's up guys oh [ __ ] there he is yeah in full full character man glad to be back glad to it's my first time on kick in a long time it's been a while right it's been like three four weeks or so it's been a little bit over four weeks so I'm glad to uh to be talking to you guys I'll take it off for this conversation hey man I'm loving the suit and the attire you look uh you're looking really whole aesthetic change I got my apartment in New York I've been uh honing in here for about a month but yeah are you an Australia sary or where are you no man I'm in the states I'm one of the few folks in the States but I'm gonna be heading out to Australia in about three weeks uh so I'll be I go out there maybe like three or four times a year oh okay because you're your background is very like Texas very Texas right I'll take that man I'll take that hey uh no the look is super clean man super clean yeah thanks a lot it's been good doing project deck I've still been keeping up with uh with kick pretty closely been watching a lot of the streams but it's been good to take a break from streaming for quite some time and focus on this stuff the Project X stuff is I because that was what just planned out sort of what 3 four weeks ago right it was it wasn't on the cards like a month ago was it no it was spur the moment so I mean we had I'm sure I mean you all know that we took a break from streaming we it was like a group decision and then actually coincidentally I'm like I just kind of need a break it had nothing really to do with the whole boycott or whatever I just wanted to take a step back from streaming and then it was home for Thanksgiving and I just decided I'm going to move back home so I moved to New York with only a backpack so I had my assistant get some of my clothes from Miami I haven't been back to my apartment since then just like last I have my streaming setup now a cam link and everything just because he got it but I've been um just here off of whim for over a month now or about a month man it's completely Chang like it's I think the amount of messages or the amount of comments I see around sort of Project X lately has been awesome and been kind of keeping up with the whole con I guess what the big concept behind is kind of going back to the Grassroots right really going back to like what is content creation about and sort of really trying to you know what sneo was as a brand sort of you know four five six years ago even and sort of revisiting and just like taking a fresh new outlook on the whole industry right yeah I mean I love streaming is a huge passion of mine and in some ways I think I'm equally a streamer as I am a video creator but I think streaming got really saturated for me and I'm sure a lot of other streamers can relate it be became too business oriented and too much into clicks and clip farming culture really took over streaming as well for me n everything I would say I would I was very I was hyper aware that it was going to be you know at risk to be clipped on X or on Tik Tok or they could be some negative PR or someone's gonna go back and forth here you call out this streamer he calls out you there's all this fake beef so I just wanted to get back to the roots of why I started this in the first place and I think I found it pretty quickly so when I do return to streaming and I am Keen to I think that I refound the

passion and you know it became fun again for a while it just like especially with all the censorship streaming just became a a chore yeah no well I guess what you you've seen your fair share of censorship these last like what two three years right and the fact that despite that and everything that happens like even watching you know any of your recent videos do I you don't realize how many people obviously recognize you right I you know you're just walking around New York and you've got like 15 20 30 people coming up to you in the space of like a day of filming or something right and that's on the top of all the censorship that's taken place these last like however many months or years right um and the fact that despite all that just managing to stay so on top of everything and fight back it's you know you've got a pretty unique experience um you know I streaming stressful as it is content Creation in general is like a pretty tough and it's a pretty you know hard industry let alone when you've got all these other factors involved where you're kind of like you know you really are paddling Upstream essentially like you've taken one of the more difficult parts and you know you're still you're still out there absolutely [ __ ] crushing it right and completely front of mind for so many people it's it's incredible to see I mean that is a major goal with project deck I mean those interactions are just the ones that I can turn my camera on in time because you have to flip it open press record and for a while I was kind of apprehensive to even come back to New York City because it's a very traditionally liberal place and you know I've been involved in this world for so long that they call the red pill and you know right-wing politics that I'm like would it even be safe for me to come back here I actually thought that for two years in Miami that was a major reason why I moved there because you know the gun laws are really uh relaxed you can anybody can get a gun I wouldn't even take out the trash without having a gun on me but in New York like now that I've been back here I have security but I can walk around freely and I really didn't know that was possible beforehand all the people that would assume that these you know that there's all this Division and that there's so much hate I think I'm showing a good example of like that it's not as bad as it seems on the internet so I am trying to destroy that divide that was created in the past several years I think a lot of it became more divisive after Co so I want to show that you know we're a lot more similar than we think and I'm trying to do like anti-rain Rod not brain Rod I want to destroy the you know that Cliff farming div division that's been created and a buying uh by and large by streaming so I want what I'm really impressed with man is your turnaround time on this stuff like you're like for example th listen Eddie this guy's got clips of Aiden and Drake on a topic about like having fake friends in the industry right like like navigating those Waters right um and in that turnaround time was crazy fast the other thing is um there was this horrible experience with um this lady that got put on fire in New York City Subways right and sneo like he didn't just like do re react content to it he didn't like retweet something and like rage bait right he went at this at like a different angle like bystander like syndrome right which is like how social media has kind of desensitized us to kind of just like be so dude how many times have you scroll through your Twitter and seen someone's head get blown off or some dog mangle a cat or some horrific thing that you you've seen and I think that sneo did a really good job of touching on a lot of the things that kind of plague us within social media and then tying it to like real world situations so I I don't mean to gas him up so much but what he's doing is like thought-provoking right and I'm really wanting to give people a sense of how he's rebranding his stuff man and I'll kick it over to sneer to weigh in on if any of that's [ __ ] or if I'm hitting the the on the head man yeah I appreciate you saying that because uh the reason I wanted to do this again is because like streaming doesn't really incentivize you to approach these topics from a human angle when I'm on the doing man on the street videos in New York and look in the past months as I moved back here the I think there's three major events that are very New York uh even though some of them are negative obviously the woman who was uh set on fire I went to the kite vigil there in Cony Island you have Luigi mangion the guy who shot the CEO in Midtown Manhattan and you have the Daniel peny situation where he choked out a man on the subway those are like three major um cultural events that

took place here in just a month and that a lot of people discuss and talk about and I think Define how we see each other and instead of just like rage baiting it like I could go on a Brent about illegal immigration or you know races should it mix or Mental Health crisis or this stuff but I think it's more crucial right now to approach it from a humanistic angle so like oh if I can go and speak to people that are Luigi Manion supporters like face on like they're holding signs or I can go to the candle light vigil or I can interact with people on the who take the train five six times a day and have to actually uh think about something like what happened to Daniel Penny and you know the man that he choked out if that actually applies to the life I think that's uh you could approach that from a realistic angle with video so it's helped me a lot I obviously I think part of the reason I'm in the Stream right now is because my PR it's taken um an upswing in a month I think people see what I'm really about I think that a lot of people if they just read headlines or clickbait titles or all this they would think that I'm a terrible toxic you know misogynistic racist whatever they want to say but now they're seeing what I'm really about and what I'm trying to do because you know even though I've been doing these videos pretty recently I named my community love speech about a year and a half ago to show like you know we love everybody you know we don't believe in hate speech even though I get banned on platforms they try to insist that I'm a hateful person we love everyone and so now I think people are really starting to see that I think there there's one instance where a Jewish guy approached me and he started like cursing and yelling at me and I talked to him and I like he realized that I didn't actually hate him and then we ended up hugging it out and I think that was uh that was one of my favorite moments actually that is my favorite moment so far of that is because that's the perfect um scenario that separates social media from real life he basically tweeted at me yell he sees me and he yells at me and then I'm like well why and then we talk it out like we come closer and then he explains his point I explain my point of view and he's like you know what I got it all wrong and he apologize and then we hug it out and then I give him props for even having you know the balls to have that conversation social media does not encourage that you're not supposed to say like there's no way to hug it out over Twitter you just say [ __ ] um f you and then go about your day that what you just described as a sign of weakness in social media uh being civil is sometimes perceived as a as a form of weakness yeah and then they say you're a sellout you're um a shill and what I hate so much what I hated so much about streaming is that people always say you're selling out to this organization and this government and it's like the people that always push that narrative never even have profile pictures they're faceless accounts with an anime picture and they're saying you're a Zionist shill or whatever like you're afraid of your face five followers five followers was like they were saying that we're going to like save our country and top all this government you have acne like you don't even know how to conquer the pimples on your fate how are you going to conquer a government and they they'll these people will make you think like well should I be talking about this should I be weighing on pushing this narrative and it's just it it's too neurotic it's too neurotic for to be genuine all the time so breaks are necessary and I've definitely like refound my purpose I think you know on that going back just a second there sort of you know with the state of where live streaming is at and all like the clip sort of farming and you know this whole idea around getting people's reactions and not really looking at it from that kind of human element but more so looking at from like how do we stir a conversation or get the most clicks or whatever it looks like you know I think that's probably one of the most refreshing things and why I think Project X stands out to me at Le so I'm going through my Twitter feed right and like I'm like you know it's it's all these these clips and quite sort of dramatic situations that are fully taken out of context or you know just a whole bunch of brain rot for lack of a better word and then you got Project X come through right and you know sneaker you're traditionally quite well known for being in a lot of these viral Clips right you know I think you were one of the most viral people on the internet for a good portion of time right um when when clipping got real big and throughout Tik Tok and everything right and now you seen these like 15 minute length videos that are just completely taking the opposite turn and you know even today right I I watched your video and I kind of came out of it like feeling happier right instead of just feeling more sort of miserable about the situation whether that be you know like you said debating the immigration policy or debating this or trying to topple governments you know just looking at it from that human element right I think is such a healthier way of looking a Content creation I think it is a legitimate problem with live streaming at this moment and you know just broader content Creation in general right now is that people are almost forced like if you don't adapt to

that you are at relative sort of disadvantage um you know the fact that you're kind of going out there and showing the people hold on a second you can you know go against the grain you don't have to go and create these shock moments you don't have to say things that are going to end up attracting all these opinions and getting people riled up it can just be about going about what you love doing and doing it well um and I think it's gaining traction I'm sure you're going to continue to prove this Point even further I appreciate you saying that I mean that's the streamer's biggest fear nobody will admit it but is when someone in the chat says you fell off and that they might be right so you have to weigh on in these situations and stay relevant and rage bait to an extent so that you can be part of the noise and so you can stay not falling off and constantly relevant and it's kind of uh it's not a the correct way to approach content or even to view life and I mean that's why I started on kick like I mean that's what Project X is about Project X is like I'm banned on YouTube so okay what do I have X this is a platform with video sharing obviously the monetization is not as good yet but I want to Pioneer that in 2025 um with the videos that I'm doing I want to show people that they don't need to just because YouTube has you know a monopoly on MP4 files doesn't mean that that's the only place you can go same thing with twitch is like known as the place for streaming but okay well we can make kick if you're going to ban people say if you're not going to allow gambling us to say this then we're going to make our own website and we're gonna we're going to compete with you so I was banned on Twitch and that was the same reason I started on Kick so I like um to show that there's an alternative option when it comes to live streaming um you know conscious you're kinding of you know taking a break right now and all that but you know how do you see platforms doing better how do you how do you see the live streaming sort of space not so much healing right but trying to move away from this kind of clip farming this sort of mentality that's currently had obviously it'll always exist right it's always going to exist and it's going to continue down this path but you know how H how do you see things getting better what would you want to see from live streaming in general why would to make it more enticing to return I mean it always goes through ups and downs and I think right now I'm not sure maybe people in the chat can see I want to see what they think but I thought it became very I think it very became very oversaturated to cor like the reason that streaming was good in the first place was that it was very genuine I think like the Aiden Ross example where he was in LA and he had the green messy curtain and his bed was here and then like he just have like rappers and celebrities come in this kid's room it's like this is it just felt like a dude who was like finished playing Cod and he sparked up a stream there was something very genuine and then there so much money became uh involved so many sponsorships and all this political and then it became robotic and it lost some of that Essence but it goes through waves I think it's going to come back I think right now for the next couple months it's going to be in a very difficult situation social media in general like the Free Speech problem is something that every CEO I'm sure that you both have to deal with this it's very complicated I think twitch is facing major pressure I think they have to ban a certain Creator and if they don't they're going to lose 70% of their advertisers um and some people know who I'm talking about I think YouTube is okay but yeah I think twitch is in a very difficult situation I know from two years on Rumble I know all the you know the headaches that Chris has to deal with he's always in some legal battle he's always having some government come after him he's getting rumble's getting shut down in different countries and he has to go to court here and he's suing Google it's just constant the guy's always that war like he's always fighting a battle and I you know you got to respect people that uphold values like Free Speech but you're like man I don't want to be um to be dealing with that so I think after the election and maybe several months into to Trump's first I mean obviously you're in Australia but you American politics does kind of dictate the climate of the world I think several months into Trump's uh second term when things calm down a bit and we get used to that then it'll get better and there'll be less pressure from you know different organization organizations but for now it's just it's a little bit oversaturated and I think that there's it's almost like too there's too much money involved and I'm sure you've had to deal with that uh one of my favorite streamers on Kick well I think that was probably the best example of like what kick needs was a streamer like your rage and obviously Drake Drake's stream yesterday was great I'm not sure I don't know I read some clip I'm not sure where Drake is at but I thought that stream was great from Drake but uh your raage was like he wasn't gambling and it was just like it wasn't political content he was just making you know he was making content but I'm sure like you have to deal with this like the people that are going to produce that level of quality content

consistently that there's just so much money involved compared to what it once was and then I think not specifically rage but some creators get entitled they think they deserve uh this amount or that they're comparing to other people's deals and you see publicizing like you know the clip farming channels on X like hundred million deal so then you think that you deserve that so it's be and you know Rumble had to deal with that too like creators scamming Rumble you know to do like eight streams for ridiculous amounts of money and you know not fulfilling their contracts it's just it became like you know that's why the NBA kind of sucks too the NBA gave too many contracts to entitled players that don't really want to try that hard and now they're not playing for the Love of the Game they're playing so that they can go and sleep with IG thoughts and you know they want to be the cool guy rappers basically and they just play ball once in a while so it's not it's I want once people start to do it for the love of it again not that they aren't but you know fully I think we'll be good it sounds like you're leading a Renaissance it's describing a Renaissance back into why streamers love streaming and don't get me wrong I think you should make a good living out of doing that right good content you know a fair days pay for a fair days work for sure but to your point like everything you're describing sounds like a ren and a call to action to get back to why you got into live streaming in the first place yeah that's a great way to put it I mean that's why so I'm doing Project X it's not like I'm making a lot less than I if I had invested I'm doing like 16 to 18 hour days every single if I had spent 16 to 18 hours a day streaming it would make like five times the amount of money you know I paying for employees I got this apartment paying for equipment it's uh the videos are expensive it's a lot of investment but it's investing into it's doing what love and that's invaluable so I would like to see people get back to that yeah and hopefully I um hopefully I could SP movement yeah well I think it's also I think I especially yeah these last couple of years I think yeah live streaming has been massively saturated with money and I think people have realized that it's a very lucrative industry for creators it's incredibly lucrative and that's because it is incredibly powerful to be able to sit in front of thousands if not tens of thousands of people and push any message push anything every people want that attention I think Brands companies like you said even governments have clued on to the fact that hold on these people have a lot of influence and the money moving around is it's big right um but you know when that starts to happen I think people start looking at things the wrong way I I think you know the way you're looking at it right I can assume here obviously you're making less money with what you're doing right now but you're investing into your brand right you're investing into to sneo into what you represent right and I guess the idea being is that through doing this you know shift in content sure you you make less for whether it's a month two three or a year but in the long run you know you're trying to aim for something different trying to reach more people trying to build your brand I think people have kind of stopped thinking like that you know I think with a lot of these people who made a lot of money in a short amount of time they started to naturally get a little bit lazy which is fine right I think the content I think the production I think the actual output of creators started to go downhill and I think hopefully people will start to realize that you know when it comes to streaming to not sort of look at it as like the next 12 months or the next 24 months but look at it more long term look at it like what is my brand what does it represent what does it look like 10 years from now you know if I put in 100% effort for the next 12 months you know what will that mean for me in in 5 years time and I think people are starting to think like that a little bit more which is amazing I think you know people see the likes of you know Mr Beast is obviously the easiest example to use of someone investing in into a brand into a larger bigger picture and I'm you know I hope that more streamers start to look at it that way because the potential on the upside from treating this as more of a marathon than a Sprint is huge um because you know people are able to get these huge massive deals but you know they don't get renewed if you don't put in 100% work right that you know things end up changing um people trust you they won't work with you further I think you know that's hopefully the mindset that we see shift um but then again I think it's also up to the companies up to the brands up to the sponsors up to the platforms to incentivize the right kind of behavior um you know we're just talking to tips out just before around sort of like you know the monetization models of platforms and live streaming in general and how that's kind of you know changed and how that's now hopefully incentivizing the right kind of uh you know output and behavior but um but yeah I guess yeah live streaming in general and in terms of you know what it's gone

through these last two years I think it's certainly been Rocky and I think we've seen some yeah to be fair rages is an incredible creator that I think you know made some amazing segments on Kick and did some really great work same with a lot of people that moved to KI but I think it's also about finding those people that are hungry right the people who really want to make a name for themselves who haven't yet seen that success they're the people that we back the most right like they're the on sort of join kick um you know whether it's you know from the ground up and created their whole following here and you know started literally from the bottom and announcing that success that's what inspires us the most and I think they're going to be hopefully that next Generation that sees the platform through but you know with that said I think there's also a lot of people that you know who have been around for a while that still have that fire because it's competitive now it's saturated it's crazy saturated the whole live streaming industry that you know you're competing with the likes of yeah Drake and Aiden's stream last night right that's you got Kai doing Mafia th you've got crazy [ __ ] going on you're fighting for everyone's attention and there's so many other opportunities so many other options out there to watch so you know it's tough out there now you really have to find a way to differentiate yourself and you know back to what we're just speaking about before that's exactly I guess what you're kind of you know doing to an extent as well and finding that nation in the sort of the MP4 VOD sort of model right now I mean I think uh what you said is very important in how billionaire talk how what are you 29 28 yeah 29 so you talk about investing in the long term and thinking 10 years 20 years ahead and that's how every like billionaire or multi multi-millionaire that I've ever spoken to they always talk like that I you know I was uh with Mr Beast like seven years ago he talked the same way it was about building something in the future and then look where he is now compared to where he was in 2018 I'm sure that you've had that Vision with and kick for about 10 years and so now that's where you are but the problem with uh with live streamers and maybe just our generation of the social media generation is we don't think 10 years in the future we think about you know the next minute the next hour the next how do we get like I want money right now so they just will you cash out from a stream and then like now what so they're not really if I can make a million dollars today then I'm good and then they'll make that money but they have nothing to do with they're just sitting around now and you have this money but you have no drive you have no passion you have no purpose and that's really what it's all about so that I think you that that's just what separates the billionaires from everybody else is somebody who's investing a long term into the future building a brand building something uh for the future not just for the moment yeah well I think I I do you think people are turning around and looking at content Creation in the same sort of way now I think it's starting to click now that people realize hold on a second it's not about this next one day this next week and I think when that starts to happen I think that's when we'll start to see a lot of this you know really high production level quality um these great streams this great Outlook and I think it'll just hopefully you know be healthier for the industry in general right I think you know even when you think about clip farming right clip farming is all about short-term game it's about short-term hype it's not sustainable in that sense it's it makes for great you know content for a short amount of time but it's diff to appease people constantly if that's what you're going for right so I think it all kind of really ties back to that same sort of concept of like how do we you know as an industry look at things from a longer term perspective and um yeah I hopefully more people start to change that way and I think it's you know as the money starts to pour in people have the right management the right advice the right people by their side to help them sort of you know join in on those uh on that Journey um but no I appreciate the kind words siko I think um you know having longm outl is really important so when you're talking about investing into those new creators who want to create something genuine question why would they pick kick over twitch or YouTube um I think well right now obviously I think kick has the 955 split I think we've got the road to kcip right now so kcip um on average will pay a ton more obviously kick is not nearly as large though that's the thing right there isn't that same audience that isn't that same viewer pool um but with that being said there's also less competition so I think a lot of people in certain categories see a lot more um traction on Kick I think you know great example is the IRL category has been really positive for kick streamers I think there's been you know more viewers to streamers so that ratio of people watching versus streaming is really healthy in that category um you same goes for the slot section right that slot section has growing to be really healthy so I think a lot of people that want to go for that career path if you want to call it that have chosen kick um you know I think there's fortnite has been a great section which

has done very well um same with Call of Duty um so I think there there's a lot of upside right from that monetary perspective I think Ki as a platform as well is a little bit more lenient on a lot of moderation side as well I think there's people that have certain political views that are sometimes not even welcome elsewhere um you know kick is very apolitical right we are based out here in Australia we don't really follow that whole us political sort of system so you know you don't really get shunned or maybe neglected for having a deferring view from what the platform does because the platform doesn't really have a view at all um so you I think there's a variety of reasons I think just in general I like to think that you know when you look at any product service any business the business that ends up winning is the one that looks after its customer the best right and you know the streamer and the viewers are the customer um and I like to think the kick puts every you know is taking every step possible to do the best thing by the customers whether that's just giving people a fair split of their subscriptions or their revenue whether that's just giving people the fair opportunity to kind of you know monetize their Channel just regardless of whether they you know they're quote unquote brand friendly um you I think there's a lot of areas in which we're starting to understand what do customers want and how do we satisfy them in the best way I think people realize that um of course there's downsides to kick there's a whole heap of downsides but competing with YouTube competing with twitch it's it's incredibly difficult to meet their size um and offer the same upside in terms of discoverability or potential viewership but I think that'll also you know start to change too and I think at that point there really is nothing stop and kick from hopefully continuing to gain ground on those guys hey real quick sorry sne real quick to add to that real quick you got guys like Eddie and Bon that are in within the generation right that understand live streaming they're in it right but the other thing I want to highlight also is that cuz I saw your smirk a little bit when we were talking about uh a loer to so I want you to be able to dive in on that right I want you to be able I want the story behind the smirk right that you gave um and open that up because I think one other thing is that especially when you came on to kick I think you experienced a kind of a quick ban an early ban right and there not even a ban it was like a it was like it's like an infraction like no one gets banned like it's so hard to get perab banned on kick or get banned on Kick I think we had you back up within like an hour because you were able to have a conversation with people we were able to like have a one-on-one like reformative type of talk or where did the ships miss each other right and then we got you back up right you're not having those kind of conversations on other platforms um like at all so I think that going back to the to where we do have a lead to and we're adapting day by day as we listen to our Market I feel that if you continue to stream on kick you will continue to feel that that back and forth that that relationship not so much like a hand slap but more so a hey man like can I get a warning or can we have a discussion on this before that happens but I want to open it up to the smirk and make sure that that we have a talk you know what I'm saying that that you get it out I mean what you're saying is true you can't I was banned on YouTube for you know covid misinformation election misinformation 10 years of content I never got a message from an employee I never heard from anybody actually get to speak to people we're speaking right now on KCK that's something that's different the smk is like you know it if it happened once but it was like three times and I understand the reason I didn't bring it up immediately is because you know at the time it was really hectic in the streaming world people were facing pressure a lot but some of the stuff I remember all the stuff I got banned for was I spoke to a 14-year-old fan who was a boy on monkey and they said I was speaking to him too I should have skipped right away I hadn't known that I think another band was for um it was on Halloween somebody dressed up as a certain in Austrian guy and that wasn't even me dressing up it was him and I got banned for that I think I got banned for saying like um for maybe the nword but I'm black I'm part black so it's just the bands that I got I think were ridiculous and I mean compared to Twitch though or compared to other websites at least you get to speak and it wasn't Perma banned I think I was banned for one day one of them was reduced another one was like was three days so it was reasonable but it was it felt like I was being you know like every time I would stream there was like Hawks watching like I was being there was surveillance cameras everywhere and every word I had to be uh

hyper careful of but back in 2023 kick had a different atmosphere do I think that kick changed for the better yeah some of that stuff was you know we don't need to bring it up but some of the stuff that on kick in 2023 was pretty like it was entertaining but it glad that it changed but yes this the stuff that I got banned for was I don't think made any sense but compared to Twitch they didn't tell me Twitch I mean look here's the difference between kick and twitch kick they explained it and I actually I get it I can understand why the climate do I think that it makes sense no but from a staff perspective I can understand it twitch for example they Bann me for off platform Behavior what is that what did I do did I like sleep and like was I sleep talking the nword what did I do what is off platform Behavior did my arm go up like when I was calling taxi or something and they oh that's just like what does that even mean at least kick describes it you speak to a moderator we're speaking to you they write a detailed email you respond they can reduce the ban there's a conversation to be had and that's something that other websites cannot even they can't even touch that twitch is just they just they're facing pressure they have advertisers they need to either keep one free Palestine guy hassabi or the other free Palestine guy sneo oh this guy is liberal whatever LGBT Allied we'll keep him we'll ban sneo for off platform Behavior they don't even tell me what it is and I'm perab banned on Twitch and I was streaming there for two weeks I had acrw I had to refund a lot of my Subs because I had gained a lot of Subs I think they kept the money I didn't even make any of that it was just a giant waste of time I didn't get a warning either and just overnight but yeah I do have to give kick props for at least having the conversation I think yeah the moderation side for us I think you mentioned before the election right I think the election definitely drove the whole sort of like content industry Bonkers like I think the pressure from all different angles I think the conflicting opinions and just so much that was going on at the time I think you know was a stage in which we had to clamp down on certain areas and I think you know you mentioned being like watched like a hawk um you know I think yeah speaking from our experience obviously a lot of what we have to do is based on reports and you've got whilst you've got a very loving community that sit there that you know the reports the moment something goes wrong the number of false reports was through the roof right like anything that goes even the slightest way misconceived would get reported and you know reviewed right so I think you know sometimes that can lead to this like high level of of scrutiny same for all larger creators on the platform which we've now recognized that basically what what's ended up happening through creating a consistent moderation policy it's actually become relatively inconsistent because what we've done is we've actually started watching every single move of the big creators because everything's getting reported like there's people watching it you know user reports are coming through on everything and then naturally the you know slightly smaller creators are getting away with far more because we're just not seeing it right so we've kind of had to adjust a few things and I think especially this last month we've really started to look at the overall picture started to understand okay you know what is the actual intent of this this content you know what's the context of the content and what's the outcome and really starting to rank everything against that and you know trying to understand you know what do we want to achieve as a platform and you know our sole goal is to make entertaining content like you said 2023 was a wild year but there was also some pretty crazy stuff that went down I think you know some stuff that was almost like a world first for live streaming I think it demonstrated like what live streaming had to potentially offer again I'm not sure if we're talking about the same stuff but there was some you know really great stuff that came out of that chaos and I think you know whilst it's been great that we've certainly tuned it down I think we've also realized like how do we kind of get the best of both worlds like how do we you know not go down this Avenue of just allowing anything I think that's dangerous and then again I understand that you know you have to sometimes it's frowned upon that you have to moderate but I think it's a fact of the internet nowadays if you don't moderate it just gets out of hand um but at the same time how can you achieve that while still allowing people to make the most entertaining content and you know go out and do what they want to do not have to kind of tread on eggshells um almost so I think your situations are I'd like to say probably during a time period in which things were a little bit um you a little bit fullon to say the very least um and I like to think that this last month things have changed a little bit and I think we've really struck a nice balance in terms of where moderation sits yeah and yeah I don't mean to be you know snarky by the smirk I was just reminded of that time and I understand I completely get why it was like that and I I'm seeing kick now obviously it's not it's it's cooled

down quite a bit uh so I think when I do return to streaming it's going to be a little bit easier they have been incentivized by other large streamers to falsely report there's a lot of people that you know um on different websites that have targeted my censorship and encourage people to mass report and to ban me so that's something that I'm uh that I'm definitely used to but yeah I've seen got to give you props kick has definitely made a lot of strides in the past two years and listen man I didn't want to put you on the spot on calling out the smirk but it's more so us establishing a relationship that you can say whatever you want to us you know what I'm saying like you don't like don't ever feel like I don't want you to hide behind your body language is as the relationship develops with kick just want you to know that hey man just come out and say it tell us your opinion let because you've been in the game for a long time man like one thing in looking back at your career is that yes you you are highly opinionated and you're a lightning rod um and then but there's always two sides of the coin where you kind of look at what you're saying and you're kind of like I kind of maybe see where he's coming from here uh but at the same time What I Really respect is that no matter what platform you get banned off of man you keep [ __ ] chugging man like you reinvent yourself on once YouTube goes away Rumble you reinvent yourself on on Twitch you come over to kick you kick the tires but then you reinvent yourself on X you've worked with Kanye you mentioned Mr Beast like um like you just keep chugging along and uh you seem to hold true to yourself so um I just am saying this so that when we have more these conversations you feel comfortable in just coming out being yourself saying what's on your mind that way we can adapt better as a platform yeah that's uh that's the only way to thrive I mean that's probably the balance between the relationship between the creators the audience and uh this tricky subject called free speech is that you have to you kind of have to mold it all to create a welcoming atmosphere and probably some of the obstacles that kick has had to face is that it's a newer website YouTube has had what 15 years to create that atmosphere so now it's pretty seamless twitch has had uh you know had an advantage Rumble was around for a long time but it recently blew up a lot so they're facing a lot of struggles now I think what I've come to realize is that the world doesn't really want free speech like they say that this a value they hold but if moderation means getting rid of you know trolls hiding behind with five followers in an anma profile picture just spamming slurs all day long cuz that's free speech just saying slurs over and over again most people don't want that they would prefer going on a website where that doesn't exist so it's about the right amounts and it's about trying to encourage people to put their best you know to put the best content out there not just use free speech to be a troll but we do have to appreciate how much kicked has allowed compared to most websites yeah I guess that's yeah the I must say yeah when when kick was first launched right the first thing we were like let's just allow everything almost like it was like that's the no-brainer way to go because why do we want rules let everyone you free speech is great I guess yeah it's just been this learning curve and I know I'm sure you've been down this same pathway too right I'm sure you've you're big part of the conversation around free speech and where moderation lies and you know been in it way longer than you know I have or we have um but you know I think what you mentioned that there's pros and cons to right and I think Andrew and I were speaking about this a couple weeks back you know I think ex's is a great example whereby you know obviously the free speech is out there and it's it's amazing right free speeches is great um however with that you you have to have thick skin because it's it gets pretty dark out there there's uh you know there there's a lot of hate strong opinions um it's not as cozy and friend friendly as a place that's heavily moderated and again that's just balance it depends what you're looking for right I think some people love that and that that's great and some people want something else from social media me personally when I go to you know I want to involve myself in social media I look at it as entertainment right I I prefer to have that kind of you know walking away with a good feeling um and but how you get there and what you're looking for I guess it's it's two very separate sort of avenues I guess when you look at live streaming though live streaming I like to think that everyone comes to live streaming because they want to be entertained they want to have a good time they want to feel cozy they want to have a great experience so that's where I think you

know making sure that there is that balance between a level of moderation but also that balance between allowing people to you know have that element of free speech as well is truly important but I guess yeah it's going to be something that people going to be debating a hundred years from now or whatever right it's never going to be that perfect balance it's it's a very hard one to strike right and it's been the most Challen in the most challenging aspect of kick for us for sure so far I mean ironically I think YouTube even though they Bann me I think that the stre the three strike policy is probably the most uh fair that makes I mean if the strikes make sense mine didn't election misinformation uh medical misinformation stuff that people would be like what today but you know a three rather than just Banning someone perab Banning like twitch for off platform Behavior giving someone warnings and the conversations it seems like you guys are on the right track I think so far it's like you get a one day then a three day then a 7 day then a 30-day then a perab ban um it yeah it's pretty much depending on the situation um that's pretty much the model that follows I think that that makes sense for pretty good pretty good rules but also the appeals process right like yes we have the in place but our appeals process is very fast very lenient um to the point where sometimes you'll be back on the air or have the ban reduced by like 70% in some cases um so it the appeals process is um is a lot more in favor of the creator for sure yeah that's true I think one thing that was changed since I got like three bands in a row I think it was like three bands in week was that you no longer get banned during the stream that if it's an infraction during the stream then they'll warn you and then they'll kick you off afterwards when I was streaming it was just like lights off in the middle and sometimes when it would lag you'd be like am I did I get banned again like what happened you're always wondering that did that get removed or no the sorry what got removed did you hear what I say did the ban Midstream get removed oh sorry the mid yeah so I think I mentioned this to too briefly right um like I think the yeah big thing we've looked to change has been like that Midstream ban I think that's I think that there is probably the most controversial aspect like what could end up happening is is what you know people are tuned into to a stream right they're enjoying the content they're having a great time watching it and when you it's like you coming in and turning off the television Midway through and you know a child getting pissed off like rightfully so like it's it's the same situation you end up not only upsetting the Creator but you end up upsetting the whole entire Community especially if it's for a ban reason which is like less severe right there's a whole multitude of ban reasons of course there's very severe stuff and then there's less severe stuff right I think cutting a stream mid Midstream for something less severe is is something we we've learned that is not the best way of approaching the situation best to let it you know end and at Point go hold on a second you know x y and Zed was not the way to go about it um you know as a result of that we're going to have to you know do a 24-hour boun that that's kind of the approach we want to take is really trying to avoid cutting streams off Midway through because it's not fair sometimes on the audience as well the audience is invested whether it's an hour or two or three into watching the content maybe there's something special about to happen and I think that was getting a lot of the you know backlash coming so you know we're making some changes around that I think again just comes down to this learning curve and I think a lot of it's just based on feedback um you know that feedback we've gotten from you know whether it's yourself or other creators as well is being able to go okay hold on a second why do we ban people Midstream or why do we do this and we start questioning it and I think you know a lot of it is just because other platforms do it and I tell you what I don't think other platforms are doing stuff for the right reasons all the time I think just because YouTube does it this way or just because twitch another platform does it this way doesn't mean it's the right way I think it's about utilizing the fact that we're a small team we're an agile company and we can make these small changes which can be really impactful into the end results so you know that there I think is one example of a change that we made quite recently in that sort of one month two-month period where we've been really adapting our policies um so you know I'm hoping that's going to help the overall landscape of how people feel about our moderation policy what else are kicks goals in 2025 I saw that you got some new advertisers you brought on UFC and it seems like there's more sponsors and kick is becoming more you know I see the advertisements in more places you have any major goals for 2025 um yeah from kick side from kick

2025 um yeah from kick side I think our biggest goal right now is is going to be having to penetrate further into the English speaking market in terms of hours watched in terms of viewership that that's our key um metric um you know obviously collaborations with the UFC collaborations with the F1 is great for brand awareness I think it's good that people start to know what kick is they start to hear kick and go I know what that is right it's great for building that Foundation but realistically the only way that actually builds up the platform as you know from a substance perspective is going to be great content right would much prefer to invest in great streamers in people who are going to put in all that effort that you know you're talking about before people who are hungry to truly go ahead and do what hasn't been done before in the industry rather than say you know plaster our name on the UFC um you know or F1 and stuff like that I think that was important in the early days for ensuring that we had um you know that initial brand awareness but you know I think there is a lot of opportunities into in a sense of integrating into sports like you know obviously uh Rumble did with power slap right I think that was really cool what they did there I think trying to find that interjection between um between like Sport and live streaming I think that exists somewhere I don't think people have pulled it off quite yet obviously Esports saw like a huge success with with live streaming being a sort of main distribution partner and for that very reason I think it can work with other um organizations whether it's you know sporting organizations or you know anything for that matter so you know we certainly want to explore that but at the same time I think when we get distracted from the the main um aspect of live streaming which is just you know the creators themselves and the high quality content that comes from them I think can be quite dangerous so yeah we don't want to get too caught up in all the other fancy stuff I think it really is just about attracting the right people with the right communities with the right audiences and the right approaches live streaming which will truly help us to grow and gain market share um but you know for 2025 it's you know I think we just keep cumulating up all these learnings that we've had um you know we're still so new to this game right like we really are in the scheme of things where we've gone into this guns blazing not expecting what it's going to be um you know what it was going to entail at all we've had to kind of learn on the spot I like to think we're kind of somewhat regarded as as knowing what we're doing to a little bit of an extent now um and I think with this you know knowledge and understanding of the broader industry we can start really starting to give the bigger players a run for their money but um you know we'll see maybe we've got a whole more whole bunch more pitfalls that we need to fall into before we start you know having a real shot I know you didn't ask for my feedback but I because it's kick talk I'll give it I think I watch I actually I don't gamble anymore but I do watch some gambling streams I watch the I think the Drake stream was really entertaining I like if you're going to do the um the stake integration I like when it's like a an event stream and then it's not solely focused like here and there they'll play a couple slots and then they go back into what they're doing so it doesn't feel forced uh sometimes I even watch like guys like cheer uh when they get like they like hit themselves and they scream and stuff that's kind of entertaining I watch Train sometimes but uh if you were going to ask my advice I would say Don't Go full in on I think kick got the gambling unlock I want to see more you know more guys that are trying to do you know whether hit or miss that are really trying to do content guys that are like flying around the world like neon one all around the world uh did stuff like that I wanted to see more but even then like sometimes some of these streams like it's like oh we're in Colombia or like we're catching a pedophile and then you click on the stream and they're just gambling and I'm like what am I watching so if you that's why I think a guy like your age was good is because it wasn't involved in all and it kind of got rid of that um that steak funnel feel that's that I do get sometimes even though like some of the gambling stuff is entertaining but I don't want to personally because I watch kick more than twitch or YouTube If you see my watch time on a streaming website I had I know people complain about the kick app I like it I like the way the chat moves I like the green and black look at the website and I would just say as a viewer because I watched tons of streams if there were just if there were a few more non-gambling people that were solely not doing it so that it got rid of that sort of feel and I think that's how twitch really started to succeed because it started as the pagers Omega L oooo like C ear whatever garbage and then it branched out when they started bringing rappers and celebrities then it became hu then everybody knew what twitch was in 2013 14 it was just like you know furries and people going to ComicCon convention weirdos that was twitch and then it became you know what it is today because

of you know culture and it was cool and it was following Trends I think kick can 100% follow the same trajectory if it branches out from gambling a bit more I think yeah no I for from outside right um you know we I think what what's come with kick right and especially these first two years we're just talking to to tips out right you the CEO of otk and yeah you kind of mentioned when kick was first launched it was like you know watching a person try to clear a Grand Canyon on a motorcycle and you know after like three four people had failed you know I think to get people to switch platforms early on to this brand new thing it was very hard right so I think the initial audience that we attracted were people who heavily rely on on gambling deals I think that's something which is certainly not a you know is a fact um but I think that's starting the change now people look at kick and they're like okay these guys are for real these guys mean business they've been here for over two years now they're still doubling down and continuing to invest more in the platform and I think we're starting to get more creditors like your age hopefully moving over right um from our side my side personally like stake side is already saturated right anyone on Kick has seen stake we don't need any more stake ads right we're we're cool with the gambling side we're not here to push the gambling side any further at this point it's already at a there's not much else to gain we want to see more people like your age right we want to even I've said this publicly even a year ago I think you know we want people gambling less if anything um I think obviously the upside from gambling advertisement is very high the money involved in it is quite insane not just from Stak side right we're talking all competitors the gambling industry is quite big right so if someone doesn't take a steak deal they'll take another deal elsewhere right and that money exists here on Kick because we give people the opportunity to stream that gambling side but no I completely get where you're coming from when it feels like hey look is this like a yeah it t it detracts from the content right and I'll be honest when I say there's been so many times I've been on a call myself with the large credit I'm like we got to cut the gambling out like let's make this a gambling free live stream because it'll do better for the viewership and again going back to what we were talking about before about looking at that sort of 5 10 year road map like rather than getting a quick payday today look at creating like an amazing segment for the long run um and you I think yeah we I think we share sh share a similar sort of outlook on some of that content because yeah it becomes it definitely detracts from the main um purpose um and I think you know we we want to bring more people like your age who don't have any desire for the gambling I think that's really healthy and that's why we'll continue to try to work with people like that there isn't uh a situation ever where we're like you must gamble which is a common misconception um which I think people certainly have no that's not true I know personally it's not true but go ahead no real quick to just to add to that my own perspective in the tips out conversation also where you see you know offbrand you see otk having to restructure because they went after like a network television model during Co right they just these Bonkers like bring in every producer we got to make a set we got to have a script writer we got to shoot on RED cameras we gotta we got to blow it out right and then you know you broadcast on the web right like this transition of content I think has the producers have to be removed from the Creator and the community right I I Envision more of because I come from Network television uh very early on but what I really like about live streaming is that you remove the producers you remove the executive producers you remove everyone that Waters down the content and I think that that's where you really need to hold the line for the Creator what I do agree about like movie models or television network models is I do think you need to have a slate of programming like if you could imagine your Project X being like our documentary arm of a type of programming right um then you have like underground uprise which is a music arm of our type of programming and then you take something like what ice Poseidon did with Hunger Games right which is kind of more of your IRL arm but but you start finding these great portfolios of shows that you can start I'm not saying blow them out like movies or television but give them some structure and support but still allow the Creator to have the creative control that way the studio or

kick or the platform is not coming in between the Creator and the worst thing that also happens man is all these agendas advertisers start getting in there they start putting their two cents on like hey you know what we really like what sneo is doing but we don't know if we want to really cover the lady that got burned in the New York subway right and then we're coming to you with notes and we're watering down your content that's what I think we completely need to stay away from and be able to say to other influencers outside of what the Creator is trying to do is say hey man thanks this relationships not working out we got to let these guys cook and do their thing but at the same time I think that creators also are finding that that line right and we want to keep encouraging creators to cross that line because I think that that's the only way you're going to evolve so um but Ju Just my two cents on that and then one last question for you what does the Viro mean uh behind your right shoulder oh that's viral that's a software company I'm working on um yeah I didn't know you came from nwk television what were you saying S I was gonna Qui ask you like you talking about like great content creators um I don't think you've been live in a while there that whole thing for a while where everyone was kind of talking about their Mount Rushmore of streamers have you got four people that you you'd put up there as maybe a help for us in terms of what we need to be looking for Wow Eddie's clip farming me okay t m Rushmore of streamers um M Rushmore of stream people that I watch the most that I think is the that are the best my favorite okay top four um I mean I go I gotta be hon like the streamer that I watch the most is definitely uh when he was streaming is Aiden I watch uh I do I turn on fresh and fit quite a bit sometimes like late night I'll turn on the after hour show I who else I watch the Bose yeah this is going to be clipped trying to be see now you brought me back into this world trying to navigate it it's like he left this out he left him out um the last to yeah I was never you know I always like kind of hated streaming before like two three years ago before I started doing it I really didn't like it and then I just started doing it because I'm like well you can make a lot of money doing this and it's like way easier and quicker than making videos like I don't need to edit I just got to like turn on my camera and Yap the last two that I think are the best um can I put I could I'll put myself up there I gu so yeah I actually think that if you had to go my watch time I probably watch back my own vods like more than some other and then the last one would be um you know I watch sometimes recent I mean I watch rage sometimes I like uh your rage streams even though I don't think I tell him that this is first um and I used to watch Alex Jones quite a bit but not anymore I'm taking too long to give you this clip I can't remember um no I wasn't looking for the clip so I'm genuinely curious because when you talk about like great content creators it's you know it's helpful to have that kind of outside view on what we need to look for right but you you're kind of it's a bit different yeah obviously like fresh fits a great example of uh what they're doing out there is pretty unique in terms of the um the talk show and the production that goes into that but keeping that kind of raw authenticity of live streaming alive still is pretty cool I like what they're kind of doing there it's interesting approach yeah they definitely brought a format and copied and pasted quite a bit by other people is there a reason you didn't go with like Kai or anyone from or those guys I just don't really watch them fair enough fair enough it's not really my sense of humor that's like I don't like the yeah it's not really my sense of humor what about that IRL streaming like the foozies ice Poseidons all those guys how do you like them I don't watch those either to be honest no yeah I'm not trying to I just don't I don't really I don't watch IRL streams like that I'm not a big fan I'd rather just go outside you know I always wondered you know that was you were on the ofl for such so long there I was yeah I was a Pioneer like in 2023 like I really blew especially I was when I was on Rumble I think when kick started I was one of the biggest kick streamers without being on Kick I was on everybody's stream I was around like on everybody's thing and all the major moment and I was never I never even had a Kick account but I was like I remember like being in the moment like you know some guys falling around with the backpack I'm like why are people watching this like I don't like why are

people like you're watching people go to the gym like are you dumb I'm not trying to be mean to people watching but I'm like dude just go to the gym like why are you watching someone do curls right now or like or be like on a date with a girl it's like go on a date like why are you I'm I gu I guess that's kind of the bit right you get to kind of live through people right like I must say like recently what's a good example like neon for examples traveling at South America I've never done that before in my life but I kind of felt like I was there every now and again like you you kind of get that opportunity and not everyone has the opportunity to do like you know simple things like that whether it's go to a gym or you know go on a date right I don't know like everyone's got their own situation so I guess it's got that hole to fill but it's funny you mentioned like you're the number one kick streamer without being on Kick I remember very clearly like when the iro stuff was going crazy like I said to so many people like you need to collab with sneako cab with sneo like we like try to get you on the camera without like uh you know without having you fully engaged which was uh yeah maybe a bit sneaky of us that's smart that's the I mean it makes if I was a CEO I'd probably be doing the same thing but yeah it's just Eddie pulling it's like that um the Eddie puppet meme behind the scenes pulling the strings like get sneo on the street that's funny I think top four I mean if I put it up there I probably I watched I think neon would be the fourth I do um I do because one thing that I do have the benefit of is like when I watch stream I could just text the streamer like if I'm bored and I turn on a stream I can be part of the stream in a second like you text some they're like SEO said this and then now they're doing it uh and especially when he was blowing up a lot of 23 I was watching uh quite a bit of neon yeah well you got out there on the moment right I think that that's kind of what spared the IRL stuff from memory is you just kind of went out there and started streaming neon and some of those streams just the numbers were insane like it was at the kind of almost that Peak right can I ask the both of you um kick in general how much I mean we've spoke about this before but how much of these views are real um in terms of camera dies that was not us chat it oh my battery just I'll answer the question ask your cameras off anyway but I think yeah know it's no secret that like you Bing got has gotten like pretty out of hand on like in general right I think it's definitely not isolated the kick I always want to preface this by saying like you know we've now had the opportunity to work with a lot of streamers from whether it's YouTube or whether it's um twitch or whether it's anywhere right and you know we've also got the luxury of being able to see what people's real viewership is right there's many when you are the platform you you've got tools at your disposal to differentiate between Bots and real people it's not that difficult and so many people that we brought over the biggest thing we learned in this like the first two years is do not trust anyone's view count on Twitch YouTube do not trust their Instagram followers Twitter followers [ __ ] all that like you cannot use that as a benchmark Mark for like saying okay you're worth X because it is most likely either going to lead you to overpaying or completely under off valuing someone because that is not the metric you should be looking at um you know everything online is inflated nowadays it's the reality well not everything but a lot is inflated and I think you have to be very careful how you look at live streaming all social media I think you just you have to do your own sort of diligence in understanding what people's real um is um but there's a good portion there's no there's even on Kick right we see it all the time um you know we try our best to control it we try not to incentivize it most importantly I think the biggest mistake we made early on was we were incentivizing view Bing not deliberately but because we didn't have the tools to understand the extent of it to begin with we didn't quite 100% know the difference between a a real viewer and a viewbot now we've invested a lot of time and a lot of resources work into trying to really understand what people's real viewership is so now the moment someone starts viewbotting we don't you know incentivize that we don't give them anything extra if anything we do the opposite we start going okay this person here is trying to game the system let's you know lower their visibility let's you know fight back a little bit so you I think that's been a big learning curve for us I think in terms of like you know completely beating view Bing it's impossible like no matter what you do people will find ways to you know cumulate a view or replicate what a human can do on a computer like Bots are getting crazy intelligent now right like as you see with like whatever AI is doing right now solving the problem of replicating what a viewer is is an

easy solution in the scheme of what technolog is achieving nowadays but yeah I think live streaming in general is heavily affected by view Bing there there's no two ways about it um and I think people just need to be very much conscious of that and when you look at someone's view count I think don't look at that as the main metric I don't think that's the main metric you should look for yeah the other thing I want to add to that is just like there's more there's far more sophisticated techniques other than AI viewbotting like pixel embedding like you're not going to find that on kick at like mass scale like the pixel embedding that goes on other sites is absolutely bonkers the other thing is like this idea of combining chats um is another massive thing to start watching out for to see how those numbers magically inflate um a view count yeah that's what I don't like about uh twitch people I think they said this as award show some girl said kick is all by but every website is like every website has inflation a lot of it it's incentivized if you look at Instagram for example there's like I just I was in Miami for two years half these people with like you know 500,000 followers and tattoos and a Lamborghini all the followers are fake the lambo's rented it's all infl I mean twitch has the probably equal amount of bots maybe a little less than a kick but even YouTube has it Rumble has it they all have it and one thing I noticed as a brief kick streamer was and I think you touched on it Eddie was that it was encourag and incentivized in the beginning and now you're seeing the repercussions of that and so a lot of the chat is dominated by like they'll always be talking about the view account and as a streamer that makes the atmosphere not fun at all it's like there was sometimes where I stream like I don't want to look at the you chat or you want to don't want to look at the view count but even when if you don't look at the view count while you're streaming people are in the chat saying 5K views 6K view like they're just saying like you fell off not like you're just trying to like watch a video or play a game and it's like okay I got to scream and jump around and bark to constantly like keep it at this level for you to be here and it's um that makes it not fun to stream and I've noticed that onck more than other websites Rumble I didn't feel that as much almost at All YouTube when I was streaming for a couple months I didn't well I was a new stream I didn't see that but out of all the websites I've streamed on uh twitch including I did see that the most on Kick and I because I I've never viewbot it in my life and I never will and because I've never like people would hit me up like some random number texted me I don't want to expose but some guy texted me like I can get you to 20K like everyone's doing it you got to do it too like kind of like Whispering like you got to do it and I really I was like should I do it like if everyone's doing it but I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole but even as someone who never did and never will it's like it you almost it feels like you're running a race handicapped if you if everybody else is doing it and you're constantly wondering and if the chat's always talking about it's like okay if I just bought 5K more viewers so the chat would shut up is this worth it and in a way it because in a weird way it is because if I would if I were to bought five 6K viewers so they would stop saying I fell off then my mood would be better and the stream in turn there'd be even more viewers because I'm in a better mood and I have a better Stream So if I'm not viewbotting and they're all talking about it I'm in a bad mood they're the whole stream is just about this the views are going to go down even more because it's a it's a terrible stream well I think that's the scary part though right I think people I know we we've I've witnessed it a little bit now right and you see people when they start viewbotting right like there'll be some people they'll have say 100 viewers and they'll start viewbotting 50 viewers that comes up on our system like we suddenly see 50 viewers and then the next stream they they drop to 140 viewers so they dropped 10 real viewers and they've got 50 added so they add 70 new viewers and then they slowly go ahead and before you know it people start viewbotting like a lot more it's one of these things whereby you know once you get a taste for it you continue to kind of go down this dark path almost and then I think ultimately what ends up happening is you lose the love for the game because it's no longer something which feels authentic you're no longer competing you lose what one of the most important aspects of streaming is bad is that kind of competitive landscape and the fact you can quantify your success but at that point they don't even know what their real view count is like people lose track they're like [ __ ] I don't even know what's going on right so I think it's it's definitely dangerous like I think nowadays though I think it's going to start changing because for about I think up until about a year ago I don't think the viewers understood how many people were viewbotting and how prevalent it was I think there was this like misunderstanding but I think now it's starting to change and I think people who have really authentic

communities and actually aren't engaging in that will be further respected and I think the audiences will definitely um you know continue to remain loyal to the real viewers right the the people who are actually out there making the communities what they are and I think you can really tell who's authentic and who's not right there is there is a stark difference between a channel which is heavily inflated and one that isn't right and I think people are starting to understand that they know what to look for and I think people will start going you know what I want to be associated with this guy over here because it's you know they're playing fair and I hope that starts to become the trend and people stop sort of supporting that um but you know it's tough because everyone's sitting there comparing the their success based on this magic number which is heavily influenced by a whole range of factors and you know I think what you said as well about the rented Lambo and the fake 500k I think Instagram Twitter it's everywhere right it's not just on live streaming it's everything nowadays is living this sort of like fake reality um to an extent but I think it it's just the nature of social media in general and that kind of pathway we're going down how do we fight it I'm not sure how do we stop people from getting not getting demotivated by not participating that's even better question it's tough but I think ultimately one thing I always say to people when they bring up this subject is like kick as a platform will reward you and look after you more if you play fair like we will do that all the time and you know we we'll make sure that we look out for people that are playing by the rules and not taking those shortcuts and longterm you know I'm yeah I'm positive it'll work out better for everyone involved so that's interesting so you know you could track people's channels and you know how much everyone's botting yeah it's it's not that complicated right the difference between a real viewer is there's so many ways to what a real viewer looks like um but the thing is right and everyone then says oh why do you not show the real view Camp then because yeah we of course we can show the real view camp but then the Bots become more sophisticated they start guessing and checking they start understanding they don't know how we're tracking them right now obviously it's a game of cat and mouse right if you continue to get stricter and stricter soon enough everyone would just be yeah soon enough people would just be paying people in in you know poorer countries to actually watch the channel right like that's where it'll end up being right like that will end if you get strict enough on view boarding that's where it ends up going to the point where you can't detect it right but it's yeah it without giving away too many Secrets I got to be careful how much I talk about how we track all this kind of stuff but yeah it's it is it is something which every platform can see so easily if you think about what a viewbot is it's just like someone hitting a connection from a uh a bunch of proxies right the traffic looks very different to what a real person looks like um from most basic computer science perspective it's not a hard problem to solve yeah and it's sne sneaker just to add that imagine being that platform that knows your the inflation right and then passing off that inflation as views to your advertisers and then charging your advertisers for those eyeballs that's what's crazy man that's what's really crazy the other thing is another Telltale sign that has piped down a lot more because people have started realizing that kick is only paying out for organic views is dude I would say like four or five weeks ago maybe two months ago when kcip was like cooking um that people would just go take the social media and be like I have 600 viewers why am I making $3 an hour it's kind of like because we're only paying you out for your authentic views you're only making this more Awkward by by posting these things right and it was a flurry of that it was just kind of like you're kind of answering your own question in your posts uh by by doing this so um but yeah the uh to Eddie's Point like um all platforms have the resources yeah that's uh that's a good way to put it's like they're all trying to defraud the government and Eddie kind of described uh a very dystopian very possible future where it's like some guy gets a $500 million gambling deal and then pays a bunch of like people in Pakistan and India to just watch the stream inflate the viewers get the adverti like that money is there like someone could get someone could definitely afford doing that um well it's funny me the best way to viewbot right now is to run like a say maybe like a $3 giveaway every uh every like few minutes and you can get some lot of real viewers doing that you can get into some unique situations maybe I don't want to give away too many uh Secrets here but yeah there there's some very creative ways of doing it and people are very smart at it and the way you describe it is like

identical to like it's first it's a drip and then you're doing it you're not viewbotting anymore because you wna like boost yourself you're just doing it to maintain it's identical to heroin and even the guy that hit first time he did the same thing that a heroin dealer does he botted one of my streams like my first or second kick stream for free without me asking him to do it he's like you want this again now you're going to have to pay and it was because I remember the stream it had like 0 it had like 36k views and I'm like that was dope like that felt great if I had that all he gave me the high for free and I had a little bit of the I got addicted a little bit you know I really wanted I was tempted so it's it's identical um but it's just going to take time I think that and you did say it but the kit culture is compared to other websites definitely is more hyperfocused on viewcon compared to others but I think in time it's going to wear off and I think definitely in the beginning I believed a lot of it in 2023 I'm like 70,000 viewers like that's and now I'm like okay relax Guy come on man so I think I think in time in 2025 people are going to start to see it and it's just going to become kind of cringe to view by when everybody knows it so it'll wear off I think so I hope so I think it's also just about having these discussions openly as well I think like the whole Bing problem has been something people have pretended doesn't exist and no one wants to talk about it and like you know you never hear any company even discuss it whatsoever like I remember like obviously when Elon was buying Twitter or something it was something they brought up and it just became this thing that no one wanted to even address whatsoever or dive deep into but you know kick right now we're happy to have these discussions I think we've been very heavily you know discussing like how we even like look at it and the simple fact that we know what's going on and you know I think just yeah getting people more educated I hope that there's a few streamers who even watching this go hold on a second rather than going ahead and you know taking that free hit of heroin and as you called it or that free sort of dopamine hit that they can get from these these view BS they avoid doing it because they know ultimately they're not going to be kind of getting away with it right I know I think open more transparently speaking about the problem in general is going to help to shift that uh you know shift that mentality for sure yeah look forward to definitely look forward to seeing all that I think 2025 is going to be a great year for kick you know regardless if I you know if I still stream at the same level or whatever happens I I think there's a great future for kick what makes you say that I mean the direction I mean obviously they they've said things about the staff and the moderation and um yeah i' I've heard things about you Santa M of course but it seems like you guys have a good vision and you know you definitely have belief and uh everything seems like it's going to make sense and also it's just the best alternative to Twitch right now I like the website I like the kick chat regardless if I continue to stream on Kick I'm going to continue to watch kick I mean I I like the website um and I think twitch is in big trouble I think they're you know they're on top right now because they have uh the new phas guys are doing well but I they facing a very major problem because they're completely reliant on their advertisers which are politically held so if they don't ban Hassan they're going to lose like 70% of their advertisers they're caught in a weird spot so and that that's going to expose all they thought that they can just get away with that so they basically they were face that's why I was banned they were faced with pressure to ban him and so instead they just like take sneo and they just got rid of me for no reason keep this guy he's got you know he's only been on you for a month so they gave me as like a little snack but they want the they want everything and have you like confirmed this or is it kind of just what you reckon the most likely outcome is that's what makes the most like why else would I be banned at that time when they were facing pressure from the ADL and like off platform Behavior Perma ban still hasn't been explained at that and we've seen them the ADL has put out a list of streamers that they said were like raging hateful anti-semites and all this cand Owens win it all or something like that like K of stes won um yeah top of 2024 so yeah and I was easier so if I'm Dan Clancy even though at twitchcon which I went to Dan Clancy gave this big speech like we're gonna describe exactly why you were banned yeah fraud why was I banned it's been how many months now off platform Behavior no one gave me an email that like off FL that is the most ludicrous B ever and it that's the only feasible reason they just they needed to give the lion something to eat I think I was I was calling the Crossfire we we've kind of had these discussions a little bit when um you know off platform Behavior happens right and we get pressure to say like act on it right and it's a

scary rabbit hole to kind of go down because the moment you start Banning people for off platform um Behavior it basically is a right to ban people for whatever you want right like you said like it could be for anything at that point it is sticky I see Merit fruit in a lot of situations don't get me wrong like there's there are situations whereby it kind of direct links to the live streaming culture and having that negative effect on the platform but you know when you do have that freedom just to hand out that ban it is basically a you know fail safe to ban whoever you want if needed right so you know if indeed that was you know you were kind of the snack for the you know whoever it was wanting answers then yeah I guess that's the ban you're going to be given um and it's a way to get rid of anyone um so yeah it's a dangerous path to go down I guess you know the proof and the burden around supplying that isn't even required so um yeah I think you know let's see let's see how the next uh the next sort of 12 months plays out you know we're pretty confident we can uh we can give the big guys a run for their money up there I think it's uh I think it's going to be a shifting sort of landscape as as time goes on there's obviously some really great creators um on both YouTube and twitch and I think you know as long as Ki can start to attract a few of those right people um and start people start seeing the upside and start wanting to take the risk of moving platform um because it's it's scary moving platform it really is you got to start from scratch right um I think we can start to shift the tide a little bit yeah it is for a lot of these established creators like it seems like you're moving to a new country it's something that I'm kind of used to I never I've just been floating around social media like you have been a you know a Wandering whatever for however how long so it's been easy for me but for a lot of these people it seems like it's I always thought it was like very natural just go just you go to this website and my audience is used to it they all right we'll migrated we're going here now we're going here for other people it does seem like a big jump but I think a lot of them uh will definitely see that and it makes I mean I don't gamble but I would place bets on Kick I one thing that you said in this conversation that makes a lot of sense is that the fact that you're in Australia and you remain apolitical is really the best way to establish a new website right now that because you're not caught in the twitch is very clearly left leaning uh YouTube and Rumble is obviously right uh right leaning you know Aline with Trump but you're no one can really say that kick picks any sides and that's a nobody can unfairly accuse it of that and that's the number take it deeper though take it deeper because I when I hear you say that I hear that these other PL platforms are bought all right that they're in people's pockets that's my opinion all right whether it's the left or the right I think that people come knocking on doors and saying hey there's this and there's that and we don't like the where this is going and I think that that's dangerous on any level what I love about kickman is that Eddie and Bon they don't answer to anybody man they they're strictly here for live streaming and them taking out the politics out of everything is highly refreshing because people just can come on and be themselves talk about whatever it is that they want respect each other's communities and things that nature but digging deeper in what you're saying like if you're saying left leaning and right leaning what I'm hearing is like [ __ ] I I'm hearing like you know organizations and super packs and all that [ __ ] that influence because media influences culture man like what's great about kick is it's in my opinion it's void of all that [ __ ] so uh did you used to work at twitch right yeah I worked at Amazon for about three years so you okay so you have like firsthand experience with um with that I know yeah kick is listen man I walked around those Halls with a [ __ ] bullseye on my back man because I I thought a little bit differently the only reason why I was there as long as I was is because I had ideas I was an idea man right and it was my results was always spoke for itself but it was it was tough being there for a while because it was like you know if you spoke out a turn you know the eye of gamor would look at you right but at the same time you always had to put yourself out there in order to be Progressive within live streaming because that's what I would always argue I'm like guys live streaming changes like every 3 months man like there's a new Creator doing something wild there's new technology that comes out there's a new meme that's out there that we have to understand um and sometimes when you try to adapt with the market um corporations don't like that

so much so when is kick going to inevitably establish advertisers because well one of the reason the viewing experience is so good is that you don't have to I can't even watch Twitch like I'm not going to pay for this website and you get ads every like two minutes and just s some garbage when is Ki going to do that um yeah advertising is inevitable right um you know Ki runs at a loss right now it doesn't make money which is fine we're cool with that um we never expected to make money in the first 2 3 4 years whatever it is but yeah at some point we need to start offering that and I think it's also going to be a positive for creators right I think it's just about finding that balance I think you're right now um people are incentivized to run way too many ads and I think it's becoming too normalized I think yeah once you kind of come to kick and watch kick for a bit like kind of going back to you know watching 15 minutes worth of ads every hour is pretty hard um so we want to utilize that Advantage for as long as possible um you know I'm prepared to leave kick without ads for as long as required to take the market share um to continue to make sure that when we do have ads we have the right advertising platform you know as you're aware right um just cuz you have ads doesn't mean it ends up being the best um version of that right I think when we get that when we get to you know implementing advertising it's how we implement it it's not just implementing it you know Bare Bones um just sending the most irrelevant ads to people we want to make sure it's well targeted and done properly and you know I think that's going to take a lot of time to build out as it is um to make sure it's you know again it'd be impossible to be anywhere close to YouTube right but that's kind of your North Star right in terms of how you do advertising and how you get that proper return on investment for every hour watched um so joh to answer the question though it's a while off to be honest with you we're going to need a bit of time and I think for that time being we use that as a great unique selling point um but you know when it does come time to add ads I think it's about making sure it's done reasonably and in a way that doesn't just completely destroy the viewer experience because I think at this point in time you know if you are so far ahead of the competition you don't have to worry about the customer so much because um you know you have that massive stronghold that massive upper hand um you know I think it get to the point whereby we will implement it in a way which we have to think about the customer and how it's going to be done in a way which is actually friendly towards the viewers um I don't think twitch is really having to worry about that too much right now because they're you know they are so far ahead they they're crushing it they have almost a monopoly on live streaming right so um you know I think that's going to hopefully help us to push them to give a better viewer experience back to people like yourself too yeah but I think what people don't realize or the average uh live streaming viewer doesn't know is how expensive it is to host streaming people tell me because I get banned so much like why don't you just make your own website do you know how expensive it is to hold the bandwidth argue back on that one it's expensive but not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be right I think you're looking at like the public rates right you know I can't tell you exactly how far it goes down but you know you can slash those rates by a lot um I think that's the biggest misconception with live streaming and that's why when we kick first launch everyone's like it's going to fail it's going to die because it costs so much to live stream you know those numbers there once you once you're sort of dealing at bulk they come down a lot I think technolog is getting a lot better um you know the ability to transfer data the cost of doing so is is coming down um so yeah whilst it is expensive it costs something it doesn't cost nearly as much as say a public calculator you'd use to kind of average out what it would come to um you know I think why is kick launching at a or why is kick at a loss operating at a loss from all the paying creators well no the the live streaming technology that costs money of course right that that's multiple Millions a month um and then yeah then we're paying credits on top of that we've got kcip right but yeah kick loses money but of course it's not something we've set aside we understand that it's going to be losing money for whether it's the next year two three four we don't know right I think it's about being prepared to take that um that position um but yeah there's there there's staff expenses too there's a whole bunch of stuff that get bundled in I think the server expenses and the bandwidth it costs for live streaming that there is heavily exaggerated overall though it really is compared to the actual cost of it actually turned out to be a great marketing Ploy for us too where at the time of kicks launch the narrative around the reason why twitch was taking 50% was well gosh it's so expensive to operate this site yada yada we've got to take money from the Creator right the Creator got to be the first one to pay up and then when kick came around with 955 that was a very strong statement in saying well actually we're using the same IVs product you know our

argument is is this a case of mismanagement or like do you really just need to take the Creator's money so why did you even start kick Eddie if you could have just coasted off the stake webbsite I why get into this project to begin with um well we we got really close with live streaming through stake right um it's no secret we worked with pretty much all the largest creators on Twitch peeps of really big people in YouTube Facebook gaming the like of it and we we created like a whole bunch of really good connections with them and obviously yeah one day you know twitch turned around and said hey look you guys aren't welcome here anymore um which was you know at that point we could either be like all right we're done here we we'll finish up live streaming but like [ __ ] this we've already got these great connections we've heard all these people out everyone was complaining time and time again like we want better like we're not treated well here like you know we had these such close relationships with all these really big streamers um and you know we felt we were hearing them out more than the platform was right so we already had this like leg in the door this opportunity to enter what is you know there's public valuations of twitch of like you know 30 billion 40 billion 20 billion like there's a big you know potential value Enterprise Value out there the gain right this isn't so much about making profit in the short term this is about capturing that you know 10 20 3040 billion do worth of market share right that's the goal it's not the goal to make money in the next one year the next two years the next three years and I think obviously with everything that happened with us you know potentially being forced to give up our relationships with these creators that we've built on for the last 2 3 years we said [ __ ] it we'll enter this industry it can't be that hard um you know I always joke that you know [ __ ] it was a lot harder than we expected and has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life thus far but at the same time it's been a it's been incredible right um I think also just due the fact that I've i' I've grown up watching live streaming right since I was like 12 or 13 like you know live streaming is goes back as far as I can remember it's just been a part of growing up on the internet and I've loved it I'm a fan of live stream as always have been um so being able to be a part of this is just amazing not to mention the fact you get to go up against the likes of [ __ ] Microsoft and Amazon or whatever right like for a business person that's like the best thing you can possibly do it is the most exciting thing you can do stake is already the biggest gambling site in the world we've kind of won that battle like we're by far the biggest gambling site in the world right now I believe in terms of just like traffic um and but you know this is a new Venture opportunity this is a new path to say hold on we're bigger than just you know gambling we can do other stuff too and it's you know it's uh it's a competitive industry and I'm a competitive guy I everyone says this to me all the time I'm just [ __ ] crazy competitive always have been my whole life and it's just like you know now that we're already like you know two years in it's like now we may as well go 50 years in like it doesn't matter whatever it takes to win this we're gonna we're going to win this um but yeah I think the the main reason is to yeah to win the market right and see how far we can stretch this industry if there are valuations publicly out there of 5 10 15 20 30 40 billion for the competing live stream platforms why can't we have that that sounds great let's go for that let's not and you know like I said before what defin success you know if let's say twitch is valued at whatever billion dollars today I think if they truly capitalize on what live streaming has to offer it could be tenfold that it could be more than that right so that's kind of you know from a business perspective like a profitability perspective where I see the real gold value um but in the interim it's a hell of a lot of fun as well uh it truly is it's you know sometimes stressful sometimes you deal with a you know the good old drama that comes with live streaming and the whole content creation industry but it's still so worth it nonetheless so now that stake is already number one in gambling can you tell these Twitter Clippers to stop I if I have to see one more clickbait clip with the stake logo I'm just gonna it's I'm going to lose my mind we I had enough of that and then you get the community note this fun post is illegally promoting no more stake no more stake on logos on the Twitter clippers please yeah so stake doesn't actually run that campaign but yeah I think at that point it certainly saturated a little bit right um I don't yeah it's a hard one to quantify I guess yes stake stak's whole marketing team is quite it's quite big and the amount of things we do is quite impressive but yeah I must say yeah the the whole Community notes side as well I don't I think the community notes actually end up doing stake more of a favor right like I don't think the really they give it more yeah I know

they highlighted even more but they put it everywhere it's yeah I feel like Twitter's gonna get rid of the stake all but the thing is right if stake doesn't do it right someone else will right you know that all these pages are now like [ __ ] there's money to be made like this clipping Surge and how these groups operate and how this system works is going to exist with or without say stake being involved or with or without huh yeah you're right if you don't do it then rubet or whatever they'll step in and take the spotlight and Twitter Clippers have become influencers it's funny like you can become a celebrity like fear buuck and scuba Ryan they're basically influencers now they're like on the level of notoriety as you know top streamers just from clip so I mean you're right yeah if stake stops doing it to someone else yeah [ __ ] scuba Ryan and feed Buck are like control the news cycle now it's [ __ ] insane like feed Buck posted this like completely misinformation like a picture of me next to Drake or something saying like we had a falling out and his account was banned or something and now that's apparently gospel it's like [ __ ] crazy like this guy could just like choose his own news it's [ __ ] nuts like it's to be fair that's the great it's I guess that's what free speech is all about right everyone can kind of pick and choose what they want to say um they got to be careful with that though man they're going to turn into C they're GNA come out with the same lens that CNN and Fox News came out with because No One's Gonna believe him anymore because it's gonna be so desensitized with the [ __ ] they run I know sneako updates got uh I think he got a seasoned assist my boy kick champ people are getting there might be a Rico for these Clippers soon wait what happened to sneaker updates he got a seasoned assist from like Pokey man or something last year if I'm not M I can't remember he's pushing he's pushing well yeah he he's a good one he's up there sneo updates is like I would say he's top five on X he does really well okay no okay any know sneo updates can I ask you I don't know if anybody has clip fed you on this but did you say you're well maybe ask Santa Maria first you're you're Mount Rushmore of streamers oh [ __ ] my Mount Rushmore streamers I'm gonna have to go with uh neon Jack dhy um I'm gonna have to go with um let's round it out with zura and heel Mike okay 2023 Eddie who's your I would love to see Zer back zerker back you know honestly I look at it from the perspective Ive of who's putting in the most effort who has the most impact on the live streaming um you know world right now I certainly put Kai up there speed right there Aiden up there and xqc like they were the four people like when we start a kick it's like we want these four people it's no secret um obviously we're very fortunate to have Aiden and xqc here Ken speed they'll be here one day I'm sure I hope so um but you know I think they're doing I think they're all doing great stuff I think you know behind them I think there's a whole lot of other names that come to mind but they're certainly the four people at the Forefront um of of live streaming in my opinion Chad like now you're I'm checking chat now did I miss anything I don't know you got to be careful with those ones but um sneaker I tell you what I think it's been a really awesome conversation I appreciate you uh coming in it's getting to like 4:30 here I'm conscious I'm going to end up saying something I regret if I don't uh if I don't get some sleep thanks a lot to the Santa Maria thank you Eddie I appreciate you having me on this is I think it's a good conversation and I look forward to seeing uh what kick has in store in 2025 all blessings to you and to this platform I'm looking forward to some IRL New York City streams maybe I think that's uh that's going to be in the worst awesome have an amazing day bye catch up awesome that was a good kick talk that was great episode yeah with tips out and around otk and everything that's happening there that was um that was amazing chatting to chatting there and looking forward to continuing that discussion and then completely bit of a 180 towards sneo and moderation and free speech and sort of more of these like sensitive subjects and you know how kick sort of sees itself in the bigger picture of the live streaming space you know really great discussions Eddie man we got Range the live streaming is

is so wide open man so wide open um and kit can take it in so many different directions man and what's great is having a forum like this where we're not in some Echo chamber in a in a meeting room trying to guess we're just out here talking and hearing it firsthand no matter if it's good bad or ugly man yeah no no for sure I think um you know with sneo coming on he could have said a whole range of things to us right you know like he got banned for three times for what he believes to be relatively unfair which you know again I can have my own opinion on I think you know I somewhat lean towards what his sentiment again I think you know anything could have been said at that point but that's what the the great thing about live streaming is that's what tipsat was talking about as well like you know you can put all this time and effort and money into like these huge Productions but nothing will ever beat the authenticity of something live and unscripted and something which you just go into and enjoy yourself and I think it's uh yeah embodying kind of the mattera of live streaming whilst actually diving deep into live streaming itself so yeah I think we're on to something pretty cool here with kick talk and I think it was uh that one that episode there was definitely up there yeah man and one other thing I want to call out for anyone that's out there listening or might come across this like listen sneo arguably produces content on X and he streams on Rumble and then you have tips out who is arguably a twitch streamer right he is he that he is part of a twitch org that is predominantly on Twitch so you're talking about kick to Bringing on people who may not think like them you know because they're not on platform and hearing it out like I think kick talk should be doing more of this stuff to hear what other people off of other platforms think about Ki man that way we can continue to adapt yeah no I was you know I think what tips out kind of mentioned a little bit in that um in that metaphor he kind of gave was so interesting to see kind of how he perceives kick and you know I think how a lot of people do right and I think being able to take on the feedback from people whether it's tips out or whether it's sneaker right we're getting feedback from two very different angles but I think you know helping the to sort of curate the platform and make changes based on these inputs and these discussions is great of course it's uh you know the best part about it as well is the sentiment from the chat like I'm always watching the chat right and I know we don't talk to the chat during the streams to try to keep the Cadence of the podcast or the talk running but you know you can definitely tell when when the community agrees with something as well obviously got to be a little bit careful of that I think we've got you know certain community that spend more time on Kick talk than others but um but you know you can really get that gauge for where kind of the kick sentiment lies and whether people agree with stuff and whether people want to see more of something it's uh I don't know it's certainly one of the best ways to do what You' consider user testing right it's it's about as real a user testing as you can possibly do in terms of the product 100% man I know it's late over there man so we should wrap it up but uh thanks for always being you know willing to put yourself out there and doing this every week man really appreciate it not no worries at all I think um next two weeks we've got uh we' we've got a break right um I'll be away for the next two weeks and I think yeah we we'll be putting kick talk on pause but we back on the uh the 20th is it yeah I think the 20th yeah