The Exchanges

Q want to talk to both of you about two things. One, the design, like all of the decisions that you had to make about exactly what she looked like, and then also the narrative. But Isaac, like talking about that, that design and actually making this real, what were your first steps? And like, what are all the little things that maybe sound simplistic, but maybe were actually really hard?

A Yeah. I mean, I think it's always really hard, but I think we got lucky in a lot of ways, um, in terms of Mikaela's design. One is we had a CEO in forever who actually dove into some of like, he found DAS, three D and these softwares and kind of like started making that design. So when I came in, it's really just like taking that, like looking at what's kind of working already and saying like, okay, now let's triple charge that. Let's make this able to be look realistic. Let's make it able to be animated and all these other things. Right. So I think for us, it was a little bit of like having a A really good sense from, from Trevor and from some of the cultural, uh, savants we had on the bread team that really understand internet culture and kind of like how to connect with, with the audience that they were targeting. Right. And, you know, luckily we found something that obviously resonated with a whole lot of people.

AI assessment note: “when I came in, it's really just like taking that, like looking at what's”

Q want to talk to both of you about two things. One, the design, like all of the decisions that you had to make about exactly what she looked like, and then also the narrative. But Isaac, like talking about that, that design and actually making this real, what were your first steps? And like, what are all the little things that maybe sound simplistic, but maybe were actually really hard?

A Yeah. I mean, I think it's always really hard, but I think we got lucky in a lot of ways, um, in terms of Mikaela's design. One is we had a CEO in forever who actually dove into some of like, he found DAS, three D and these softwares and kind of like started making that design. So when I came in, it's really just like taking that, like looking at what's kind of working already and saying like, okay, now let's triple charge that. Let's make this able to be look realistic. Let's make it able to be animated and all these other things. Right. So I think for us, it was a little bit of like having a A really good sense from, from Trevor and from some of the cultural, uh, savants we had on the bread team that really understand internet culture and kind of like how to connect with, with the audience that they were targeting. Right. And, you know, luckily we found something that obviously resonated with a whole lot of people.

AI assessment note: “he found DAS, three D and these softwares and kind of like started making that design.”

Q You were part of the team that actually helped this come to life. Like, okay, Michaela's Apparently now dating this one person. Like, how do we actually execute on that? And should we change it? And I think at one point Mikayla was dating a real life person too, right? So there's all these, like, dynamics. And yeah, tell me more about, like, operationally. How do you make that happen?

A Yeah. I mean, early days we were really small and it was crazy fun. We tried to do things that were just like way beyond what a team of that size and experience level is like, you know, should be trying to do. But I do think, you know, Trevor's earlier point, like this really quick feedback loop between like, when you're starting off, you have the ability to like do this quick thing and get that reaction immediately. And like you said, steer that character and her narrative to the fans that are engaging. Right. Which then informs what you're going to do when you start to do more medium and long form stuff. And I thought that was a really cool thing that I learned from Brud is It's kind of this reverse pyramid that Trevor talks about. It's like, if you start with a movie, you're kind of like, here's a script. We're going to take a shot and see if it lands. Right. And if everything hits perfectly, then maybe you go from there. But this is almost like, let's introduce this character super early and the lowest form possible and see what resonates and what, what hits and kind of build the story out of the fan engagement, which is just like kind of this radical idea. At least it wasn't me at the time. I had never really seen that. So using that then to inform The longer form content and kind of like having this pretty good idea that, okay, this is going to work now. So now we can go …

AI assessment note: “build the story out of the fan engagement, which is just like kind of this radical idea”

Q the technology side, I just want to ask you super quickly, because you're building a company here that enables some of this, right? From my understanding, your company is not taking the, like, full generative AI approach, right, where you just, like, go into something like mid-journey and spin up a net new image. So how are you thinking about that, the different ways these new technologies are coming together?

A Sure, yeah. I mean, I think right now, I think that there's understandably a lot of excitement about mid-journey and really tools that I call pixel pushing at the end of the day. If you're doing Morphing of images than I feel like in a more immersive world. So use the dirty M word metaverse or spatial computing. Like that to be immersive world when you create three D avatars or three D things and three D worlds, like they are fully immersive and they have like, they're able to not be interoperable within a more virtual world. And that's what I think is coming. Um, not necessarily the metaverse in terms of like what we might think of it now, but just this, this world that's going to come more and more out of gaming where things are going to be more three-dimensional. Um, and working in three D for like a decade, you start to understand like how much we underestimate what another dimension means when you're adding it to something like, especially technological. We, we don't think exponentially, we think additively. So we're like, oh yeah, you add that, that third dimension. And it's like, yeah, just another layer. And it's not, it's completely a whole order of magnitude shift. I also, I really like what Trevor said earlier, um, about rather than building like this metaverse worlds and focusing on that, but like focusing on the character and the narrative and having them be the in…

AI assessment note: “tools that I call pixel pushing at the end of the day”

Q You were part of the team that actually helped this come to life. Like, okay, Michaela's Apparently now dating this one person. Like, how do we actually execute on that? And should we change it? And I think at one point Mikayla was dating a real life person too, right? So there's all these, like, dynamics. And yeah, tell me more about, like, operationally. How do you make that happen?

A Yeah. I mean, early days we were really small and it was crazy fun. We tried to do things that were just like way beyond what a team of that size and experience level is like, you know, should be trying to do. But I do think, you know, Trevor's earlier point, like this really quick feedback loop between like, when you're starting off, you have the ability to like do this quick thing and get that reaction immediately. And like you said, steer that character and her narrative to the fans that are engaging. Right. Which then informs what you're going to do when you start to do more medium and long form stuff. And I thought that was a really cool thing that I learned from Brud is It's kind of this reverse pyramid that Trevor talks about. It's like, if you start with a movie, you're kind of like, here's a script. We're going to take a shot and see if it lands. Right. And if everything hits perfectly, then maybe you go from there. But this is almost like, let's introduce this character super early and the lowest form possible and see what resonates and what, what hits and kind of build the story out of the fan engagement, which is just like kind of this radical idea. At least it wasn't me at the time. I had never really seen that. So using that then to inform The longer form content and kind of like having this pretty good idea that, okay, this is going to work now. So now we can go …

AI assessment note: “using that then to inform The longer form content”

Q the technology side, I just want to ask you super quickly, because you're building a company here that enables some of this, right? From my understanding, your company is not taking the, like, full generative AI approach, right, where you just, like, go into something like mid-journey and spin up a net new image. So how are you thinking about that, the different ways these new technologies are coming together?

A Sure, yeah. I mean, I think right now, I think that there's understandably a lot of excitement about mid-journey and really tools that I call pixel pushing at the end of the day. If you're doing Morphing of images than I feel like in a more immersive world. So use the dirty M word metaverse or spatial computing. Like that to be immersive world when you create three D avatars or three D things and three D worlds, like they are fully immersive and they have like, they're able to not be interoperable within a more virtual world. And that's what I think is coming. Um, not necessarily the metaverse in terms of like what we might think of it now, but just this, this world that's going to come more and more out of gaming where things are going to be more three-dimensional. Um, and working in three D for like a decade, you start to understand like how much we underestimate what another dimension means when you're adding it to something like, especially technological. We, we don't think exponentially, we think additively. So we're like, oh yeah, you add that, that third dimension. And it's like, yeah, just another layer. And it's not, it's completely a whole order of magnitude shift. I also, I really like what Trevor said earlier, um, about rather than building like this metaverse worlds and focusing on that, but like focusing on the character and the narrative and having them be the in…

AI assessment note: “tools that I call pixel pushing at the end of the day”

Q So, I mean, seriously, how do you create that? I guess today the technology is getting better, but like, what are the technologies that are going into creating little Michaela and then not just look Michaela on Instagram, but these music videos, I think she's on Spotify. Like what technologies are you actually using to accomplish all this?

A Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ones. I think that there's a huge, um, I would say an order, order of magnitude difference between like the still images on Instagram and doing actual walkworm animated content, right? That's stuff that's typically reserved for really high budget films and, you know, AAA games for like a hyper-realistic digital human to be doing that stuff. So that was really challenging. I mean, I think we, we broke a lot of ground there and the technology was coming along, so we were able to do it somewhat, but like we're now in a phase where it's starting to become, I think even referring to this stuff that it's, it's It started to become more and more realistic for smaller studios to be able to do that, but it was still a blocker. You know, I think what we were really, what we're hoping to do was somewhat blocked by the ability to like create really expensive, like long form content of animated digital humans that are, that's really expensive. So we want to make more characters and create more content and do all these things. When we ran into like, you know, you get stuck in a certain platform when you build out this technology piece, right? It's really hard. You can't just go be in a video game instantly. Can't just like go to HBO and euphoria and be like, yeah, sure. Here's Michaela. Put her in your film. It's not easy like that. It's expensive and…

AI assessment note: “there's a lot of different ones. I think that there's a huge”

Q So, I mean, seriously, how do you create that? I guess today the technology is getting better, but like, what are the technologies that are going into creating little Michaela and then not just look Michaela on Instagram, but these music videos, I think she's on Spotify. Like what technologies are you actually using to accomplish all this?

A Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ones. I think that there's a huge, um, I would say an order, order of magnitude difference between like the still images on Instagram and doing actual walkworm animated content, right? That's stuff that's typically reserved for really high budget films and, you know, AAA games for like a hyper-realistic digital human to be doing that stuff. So that was really challenging. I mean, I think we, we broke a lot of ground there and the technology was coming along, so we were able to do it somewhat, but like we're now in a phase where it's starting to become, I think even referring to this stuff that it's, it's It started to become more and more realistic for smaller studios to be able to do that, but it was still a blocker. You know, I think what we were really, what we're hoping to do was somewhat blocked by the ability to like create really expensive, like long form content of animated digital humans that are, that's really expensive. So we want to make more characters and create more content and do all these things. When we ran into like, you know, you get stuck in a certain platform when you build out this technology piece, right? It's really hard. You can't just go be in a video game instantly. Can't just like go to HBO and euphoria and be like, yeah, sure. Here's Michaela. Put her in your film. It's not easy like that. It's expensive and…

AI assessment note: “I mean, there's a lot of different ones. I think that there's a huge”