I'm not totally sure which side of the coin this question is referring to. Can it be automated on the brand side or the influencer side? Let's talk about both of them. When I started the company, I thought that we would get to a point where we could almost make influencer marketing programmatic. If you're not aware of what programmatic marketing is, it is machines that buy ads based on algorithms to get the best deal for the people that are buying those ads. It's completely taken over the media buying space. It is one of the top innovations in marketing in the last 20 years.

That was the idea. It doesn't work really. We have a lot of tools that get us as close as possible to automation, but what I've found, and this is true in the influencer side as well, much more true actually in the influencer side, but as things near automation, they lose spontaneity, they lose creativity, they lose authenticity.

I think that the big difference obviously in influencer marketing and other types of advertising is in traditional advertising, I create an asset, I'm an advertiser, I create an ad, and then I'm using machines to purchase space for me to put that ad in the most efficient way possible. Obviously, what's different in our space is that you guys are creating the ad and you are the ad space where that ad is being served.

The thing that makes influencer marketing so great is the human element. It's the stories, it's the personalities, it's the connection that you have with your audience. You're not just buying a piece of real estate that eyeballs are going to see, you are purchasing a person's point of view, and while efficiencies are possible on the brand side to make that easier, it is actually the lack of automation that makes it interesting on the influencer side.

I think that creativity continues to be a defensible position in the world. A quick, easy example for me is that like our life is being run by algorithms, more and more. Something that I feel is kind of scary is that I love music, right? Passionate about it my whole life. I don't have as much time to devote to finding new music, but as Spotify's automation and algorithm starts to take over your music taste and tell you this is what you would like, you lose that chance. You lose that spontaneity, you lose that time that you read an article about this new hardcore punk band and even you don't listen to hardcore, maybe you went and listened to this album and you really liked it. That album would never come into your feed through a Spotify algorithm.

My concern with the world is that as algorithms drive our tastes, those tastes will just continue to narrow because what the computer wants to do is it wants to keep you on this track. A lot of times, especially with creativity, the things that are most impactful are not things that you like right away, but algorithms are going to favor things that you are going to instantly like.

The first time I heard Radiohead I thought it was complete trash because I just didn't get it. I listened to like- I was really into hip hop, and so someone threw Radiohead at me and I was like, "This is not the kind of music I like." Then, you listened to it over and over again, and you start to understand new things about it. Great creative work challenges people. To be able to do that, algorithms automation have no place in that.

The thing that makes influencer marketing so great is that chance. It is that creative spark, the spontaneity, the way someone tells a story that you would've never expected that sticks in your mind. That is what makes it so valuable, and that's why I don't think it can be automated and why I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon.