 Yeah, so Yancey and Sally, why don't you join us up here on the stage and In 2007 Sally, I Know in your background as a foreign correspondent and as a journalist in some of the world's Troublespots. Yes. I Feared that you may have been in one of those in 2007 which you can tell us a little bit about that and Yancey We're really looking forward to you telling us so much about how you got Kickstarter started So I guess in 2007 I was based in Cairo. It was before the revolution in Cairo And it was responsible for coverage of all of the Mideast including the Iraq war. So I think From that time to this time. There's a couple things I found a lot of resonance in what? So after I did that I went to what is probably as far away from that as you could possibly do which is to be Washington Bureau 2 for the AP did that for a couple years through two presidential cycles and Now and based in New York. I think that there's just been so much Change so much of it bewildering but also so much of it deeply optimistic in journalism And so much of it completely tied to digital transformation Technology I found a lot of resonance and a lot of what Paul said about how journalists actually use technology these days I think it is So different than it used to be I kind of think there was a time back in 2007 where you thought of data is like this sort of You know rabbit hopping around the newsroom or something, right? It was a thing, right? And what I have found the most transformative is that ordinary journalists now use technology and and And use data just simply as one of the other tools in their reporting toolbox I mean I we tried a couple years ago in Washington to just completely try to demystify this as much as possible You have tools as a person trying to get information Those tools include your ability to get people to talk to you and they include the ability to look at numbers and other Information and get information usable information of that. I still think there's some work to be done on that I think that there still is a little bit Of a I'm fascinated by one of the grants I know Columbia has worked really hard to try to get the connection between You know what you think of as people who understand news and journalism and people who can use technology and When I go out and talk to People at schools or whatever. I say that's what needs to be focused on right? I mean that is the real critical thing in some newsrooms There still are divides between the people in one corner who can code and the people who have the news instincts But everything that we've been trying to do the last ten years has been to break down that That boundary and create cohesive teams where people are teaching other the stuff because it's it really makes a huge difference We have a story on the wire today on our app today. That's about a hospital in Psychiatric hospital in Hawaii that has a really big walk away problem and somebody walked away in and did a bad crime And you know, I don't think that my state reporters based in Honolulu Ten years ago. We're using data to break news and and now they are and that's just such an important breakthrough because that means that And it's not just you know us. It's it's it's If anybody went to the committee to protect journalists dinner last night A lone blogger with a little bit of training in Yemen who can who can be an important voice of information for her country Now in London. So I I think there's a lot of negative things happening in the media Obviously the rise of fake news is an incredibly difficult challenge for all of us But there's a ton of I feel very optimistic personally So what I heard there was not just tools, but but culture change absolutely like a real shift on On a change in the culture right in in newsrooms and just the way of thinking and when you look at Fundraising my goodness like Kickstarter really just changed the way that So many people are now supporting startups and social good Yeah Well 2007 I was actually working as the editor in chief of a music magazine So that's what you expected to hear. I'm sure Yeah platform called the music. It was the first music subscription service in my life before Kickstarter as I was a Music critic for eight years writing for the voice and city pages and spin entertainment weekly things like that Just reviewing records and so that was my that was my life at the time But a couple years before that in 2005 I had met Person who's my co-founder and Kickstarter one of my two co-founders Perry Chen when he was working as a waiter in a restaurant Where I was a regular And he had had this idea of a new way to fund creative projects. You propose an idea online People put up their credit cards, but no one is charged unless it sells out And so we decided to start working on that but I came from that as a as a writer and as a person who cared about those things and Yes, so I think I'm representing the I'm standing in the utopian corner for the internet I mean I think Kickstarter is a very utopian product, right? Like anybody with an idea Anybody can put up the money. There's like verification systems, etc But it's largely based on trust and an honor system and it works fabulously, you know, three and a half billion dollars changing hands based on trust and enthusiasm for new ideas, so, you know, I think that the utopian Dream is alive and well. It's just overshadowed by monopolistic corporatization and heavy control and that Is going to undo us unless we think of a way out of it We were talking about this on the phone a little bit the other day about this idea of whether To me what has happened in the last ten years seems to make Very much sense and I don't come from a tech background to be perfectly frank about it But if you open something up and you have an optimism that this means that people can communicate more with each other Dark corners of the world can can actually Information can come from there people can connect in different ways Those are all very great things and I think a ton of that has actually happened over the last ten years But but those same that same power that's inherent in that obviously people who want to spread misinformation and people who want to Manipulate information they have the same access to that and so to me it's much more the last ten years are Like the battle is joined right much more than there was going to be utopia And that was just going to be the absolute sort of outcome of it I mean I I find that my own organization is Incredibly more transparent than it was ten years ago. It's probably not Nearly as transparent as it needs to be but in terms of whether the folks who interact with our journalism Whether they have more of a say in in what we do and and if they have more influence on on how we think Absolutely 100% it's like night and day to me and and I think that's what the point of it was was to give a bigger voice To everyone. Yeah, it's funny that I don't think that you were saying this but I think that there is a sense that Like there are wrong voices out there or right discourse is broken, right? Which is amazing considering like these are just all ideas that live in the minds of human beings and the idea of like some of those things It's just it's a hard it's a hard place to draw a line And we're just simply being exposed to what's actually there and you know, I was thinking about this today like Like these ins like institutions are very all of our institutions in America are based on a Shared sense of values that is either implicit or explicit like every institution depends on like there's six things We all agree we're gonna do here. We don't lie. We don't whatever. We don't murder each other. There's some basic set of things and Right now it feels like we're lacking that and culture completely and In American culture in particular, but then it's thinking actually well Well, we look at our the Constitution as our values Actually, maybe we're killing it according to our values What are the top two American values according to the US Constitution freedom of speech and right to bear arms? Maybe this is America at its most America's You know like number three. No soldiers are living in our homes like check on that too. So maybe Maybe this is the plan and maybe and maybe it's just that The folly of mankind the way that we build systems the way that the way that we try to force order and a simple model upon a world where there is no such thing is Again to produce these things that are very uncomfortable for us very challenging for us, but they're all true I mean, I think I think I think that's a really good point and I also think that you know When you talk about something like do people believe in facts anymore, right? And I've been in a sure you all have to a lot of seminars last year where it's like facts No one no one in the world believes in facts And I mean there's a lot of people in the world who believe in facts, okay, and and there's clearly a couple of folks right now who? For various reasons have decided that they don't want to believe in some facts or something like that But that's just the truth of our that's just like the truth of our world. That's that's not to me something that means I I'm not expressing myself very well, but There are a lot of people who Seek out factual information when it is important to them, okay? And I mean if you go and buy a car You want to know what the car's price is what the loan bill, you know Capabilities that you can get you seek out factual information And so it's I don't see much evidence that people don't seek out facts I do see evidence that that sometimes they don't believe the messenger and and and they don't They want Or for some reason they decide not to believe specific facts often those are for political reasons But to me that's sort of I kind of get a kick out of the idea that you know We all worry that trust in institutions is falling. I think it's good for institutions to have to to Regain that trust every minute, right? I would rather work for an institution that every day has to go out there and say this is why you should trust Us today because this is what we did today, and I think that's a healthy thing It's got there's a lot of pain around it, and we've all lived through a lot of pain There's no question about that and there are a lot of folks who are actively trying to move around dangerous misinformation in our world And we're very focused on America, but there's a lot of I think the Rohingya thing that's going on right now Is a is a fascinating and very scary, but also illuminating example of The dangers loose in our world in terms of do you believe in eyewitness information? How do you need to know that it's eyewitness information? What is the level of proof that you need to know that it's eyewitness information? But those are all really interesting and important questions for us to grapple with going forward I you know what I what I when I think when I hear you say these things is about That I think there's a difference in attention between fact and truth and that You can you can read you can read an article that is full of that has all facts and contains no truth and I think truth is more emotional Truth is more melodramatic truth is not just Rationality truth is feeling truth is history truth is acknowledging whatever the broader scope of things and I think truth is more important than facts, but it's harder It's harder. Definitely. It it it exposes the relativism of all life, right? And and and and like I think a lot of the things that we may be saying oh people aren't listening to the right facts That may be true. It's also possible. They might be listening to the right deeper truth Mm-hmm, and it's hard to know where like which is which but I don't like I think if we knew everything Right if we knew every fact in the universe this is no different We're in the exact same position because it's about it's about it's about something deeper than fact Right well, which is why journalism plays such an important role in providing context, right? And so if ten years ago the internet created incredible like culture change inside newsrooms and Just democratize the way that people could contribute and support artists and then startups and now your latest feature at Kickstarter Looking ahead how might the internet help support journalism help support trust in in media in information in news Well, we have a whole well, you know It it begins by getting people out of the feeds Every day every moment that you spend Swimming in a feed of other people's thoughts like you are stuck in mud you are not going to go anywhere Like there's no there's no truth in feeds. There's facts and feeds Like I thought I found myself recently wanting like a an editorial publication that only has like a ten-year horizon Like it only reports on things that started at least ten years ago So we can actually know the reality. It's not just a press release of it launched. It's like what is the what is that? Is that a is that a real thing? Is that a not a real thing? but it's just from it's just it's just a it takes a willful separation from from networks and feeds that are just Creating a hive mind of mushy nothingness in your brain and finding a way to be separate from it And I think that's what that's what great Any great thinking whether it's philosophy or journalism or a great film does but I think that to me is still where we're trying to get people Sounds like the printed version of newspapers I think there's a lot of that already going on. I felt much less optimistic about the future of How journalism was going to make money and keep it will not make money, but keep itself going self fund itself Okay, five years ago, then I did now. I feel much more optimistic about that. I don't feel totally optimistic about it I think there's a lot of completely Rocky roads still ahead, but I think there's some there's like some little shoots shooting up one of them is nonprofit journalism or or or you know Disinterested philanthropies trying to you know push investigative reporting I agree that I think geographic diversity and in like states in the US and Pockets of overseas are the are the neglected places and the places where hopefully a lot of the future Sort of you know interest in this goes. I had this fascinating sort of fight with two of my Relatives a couple years ago at the Thanksgiving dinner table. This was before our families had fights at Thanksgiving during time We always had them anyway, but they were they both work for Very prominent technology companies in America and they were both essentially internet utopians and I love them both very dearly but they were Talking to me about how all information should be free and at that point I was in Cairo and I was trying like mad to take my tiny little news budget And cover a war that the United States of America was involved in in Iraq and I was like information is not free good information Is not free. I'm sorry I've got to keep people safe in Baghdad And I have to be able to get them to report news for you to know what's going on in Baghdad And if you think that you don't need me and you just need a blogger than that blogger needs to be have You know, I'm not I'm not speaking that you have to believe in old-fashioned news organizations But someone's got to be there as an independent observer and an independent voice and tell you what's really going on in that country Because if you think that either the Iraqi government or the terrorists or the US government are giving you the full truth That's not the case Okay, and I was really angry at them that they thought that they could get information And they didn't understand that it actually created it needed resources to create information So in the last year both of those relatives have said to me that they understand the different there's a difference now between I Call it good information and bad information. Let's say something Let's say fact-based journalism and non fact-based journalism was I agree that there's a difference between facts and truth But I think facts are an incredibly important underpinning to truth as long as there are billionaires in the world Media will be easy to fund Right, I mean why not why not buy your own newspaper or publication or whatever they might want their own They might want to influence it in ways. Yeah, exactly. Of course. That's why that's why we'll do it But I think about like what is like what it like how about You know, how about Gawker and Gotham is in DNA info Like how about three of like the early pillars of web publishing? You know murders Murdered not because that they weren't providing value because they were providing value or be, you know, or they agitated for something more But just gone Like that just happens. We're all going like, oh, that's no big deal. Gawker was terrible. Whatever got the mist It was clickbaity sometime whatever I can find Tompkins Square dog parade Halloween pictures somewhere else but Yeah, I mean that's coming that's not stopping that's like oh that just happened those couple times in 2016 2017 No, that's that's a wave that's going to continue But yeah, and so you can just share with us like tremendous insights about what you've learned about crowdfunding at Kickstarter and and how might what you've learned since 2007 about the way and what People will support What what lessons might be applied it's a to support quality journals, you know crowd crowdfunding is a solution of many solutions I Would I would maybe take a step back and think about What you get out of that and what and what Kickstarter has which is just the lesson is you you know You have to be your own bitch Like someone's gonna control you someone is gonna write a check for you like as much as you are in control of that And not someone who you're not you know close with like that makes the biggest difference And so I think that means that doesn't mean charging for things that does or it just means not paying yourself Or guess what y'all like none of us are making money on this We're just doing it to do it But there have to be a trade-off there if the trade-off you're making is oh no We're gonna get a lot of money and we're just gonna like grow ourselves away to where we can be powerful and do whatever you want You know that's never gonna work You're always selling something and if it's your soul you should know it from the beginning so as it so So you came to Kickstarter as a as a music critic as it as an artist with a real appreciation What might journalists and journalism learn from artists? Well, you know, I think it's maybe It's about having a clear vision of difference You know as an artist your practice is about like what it what is unique about you, you know You're in a market of there's like okay, there's a billion painters who cares but like what what is that for specific angle and then like Just owning that so hard, you know just it only becomes about difference And that's how you build an identity and that's how you build a brand and you could try to do that by saying like Everything to everybody come whatever like no one believes you weirdly the more specific you are charging $400 a year for the information Like that's attractive like oh that person seems so confident. They know what's going on I want to be a part of what they're doing so it's like taking a harder bolder stand and being willing to sacrifice There's a the law of sacrifice is something I believe in if you want to get something for people You got to give something up and and so if that's trust then that means there are other things You're going to have to trade on and maybe that nice office and flat iron and the nice 20 inch Monitors for your designers is something you're not going to be able to afford and Sally we just have a Minute or so left looking into the future Let me see Yancey looking into the future. You're stepping down as CEO of Kickstarter is there a newspaper in your future to own and to guide The Yancey Gazette publishes daily It will have a big music no, but but I I'm convinced we Are even our new ideas are too old And and and I I I believe very strongly we need we need very different ways to think about the future and And that is That's what I'm about and so there's more to come from you on that Great and Sally and a note of optimism as the last panel I would express that I I think that What I think is important going forward is I agree completely that the pace of change almost has to increase more dramatically than less dramatically and But what I've been trying to think and and to somehow find ways to express is that the values of Organizations like my organization stay exactly the same. I don't want to change the values of my it's it's accuracy. It's facts It's fairness. It's it's those sorts of things and I don't want to change my the values of my organization But I want to change the nimbleness and the and the way we communicate the Accessibility the all the things that are that you're sort of talking about the approach to the world all of that I think is the place where we need to Put our best folks in our and think and change and and I found that that you know I don't know I'm curious how to express that the best way so that it really captures that that's sort of the Very optimistic but also difficult challenge that I see ahead of us though Thank you very much for joining us today