On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Todd Spangler weighs in on the collision of AI and Big Tech jobs as layoff notices fly. And Jennifer Maas discusses the growth of indie streamer Dropout.
Spangler explains that Big Tech is making cuts not because of financial pressure but in an effort to anticipate an AI-fueled future.
“The tech companies are trying to get ready for what they see as just this future wave of AI coming. So they’re investing heavily, including Amazon — billions and billions. Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon — they all raised their capital expenditure estimates for the coming year because they’re investing more in data centers to power AI applications,” Spangler says.
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“At the same time, Amazon said that they’re cutting, about 4% of their total white collar workforce — 14,000 jobs. That’s a big number. And this came after a memo that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent to the staff in June, saying ‘We’re going to get efficiency from using AI, and that’s going to result in a net reduction in our corporate headcount.’ So that’s how this came down. And then on the earnings call three days later, Jesse maybe had second thoughts about being looking like the the vanguard of AI-driven layoffs. He said this is about culture, basically saying that they overhired during the spike in demand that they saw during the pandemic, and that produced more layers of job functions that they can make more efficient,” he says.
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As for Dropout, the company has a base of subscribers who are so dedicated to the indie streamer’s particular brand of humor that they want to pay more per month without getting anything in return. The company, built up from the ashes of College Humor, has reached about 1 million subscribers.
Maas explains that Dropout made effective use of their most ardent fans in the marketing that accompanied news of the price hike to $6.99, from $5.99.
“And so they actually then used in a marketing announcement to announce this new tier. They used all the social media posts where people were saying, I would love to pay you more money. I would love to pay more for this. This is great. Your content’s great. So they said, OK, we’re launching a superfan tier. It will cost you $129.99 annually. You will get a few extra things here and there. You’ll get access to exclusive merch. You might get like early access to ticket sales,” Maas says. “They’re just giving you an opportunity to pay more as you asked for because you won’t get any exclusive shows that someone on the regular tier doesn’t have access to. You could get maybe like a behind the scene look here and there. But they’ve made the promise that what you get on Dropout is what you’ll get on Superfan, and you’re just getting the opportunity to pay more as you asked for.”
(Pictured: Dropout CEO Sam Reich)
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