Interview with Simon Brown from the podcast “MoneywebNOW”

Episode 48 Interview with Simon Brown from the podcast “MoneywebNOW”
English (US)

01:00:00.000 — 01:00:02.280 · Speaker 1
Podcast. We’re going to kill radio. Did that happen?

01:00:02.320 — 01:00:05.960 · Speaker 2
And brands are starting to realize that there’s significant value.

01:00:06.240 — 01:00:08.160 · Speaker 1
How on earth do you do your daily?

01:00:08.200 — 01:00:20.680 · Speaker 2
I want to ask questions that that that the answers come back and we’re like, huh? Didn’t know that. Hadn’t thought of that. That makes me think of something else. That bottom line makes me a smarter person.

01:00:23.200 — 01:00:29.240 · Speaker 1
Welcome to Higher Studios. And today with me is Simon Brown. Simon, welcome to the podcast.

01:00:29.280 — 01:00:31.120 · Speaker 2
Hey Kyle. Appreciate it man. Always my pleasure.

01:00:31.160 — 01:00:57.120 · Speaker 1
Great, great. Simon, you’re you’re a bit of a legend in the industry. You’ve been around for a while. Um, and you’ve seen it all. You’ve seen it go from radio to podcasting. From, um, yeah, from television to YouTube. All the all the different changes in the industry. Um, so a few years ago, we thought podcasts were going to kill radio.

Did that happen?

01:00:57.840 — 01:01:41.670 · Speaker 2
No it didn’t. I don’t think. Although, I mean, to be clear, I don’t listen to terrestrial radio anymore. Now that I think about it, I do occasionally. Um, I don’t think it’s gilded. I think there are people such as myself who probably listen to way more audio or consume more audio than maybe I ever did before, except when I was a teenager and listening to, you know, the music shows.

Yeah. Um, but I think it’s just widened it and I, you know, no doubt it’s tough being a radio station. You’ve got a lot more restrictions. Perhaps podcasting has got a lot more freedom, but I don’t think it’s dead and I don’t think it goes anywhere. I think it just sort of expands the medium. And if anything perhaps gave some of the radio opportunity.

01:01:41.790 — 01:01:47.110 · Speaker 1
Yeah. For sure. And and do you think it’s getting bigger or do you think it’s hit its plateau in South Africa.

01:01:47.190 — 01:02:50.300 · Speaker 2
Ah I think it’s growing I think you know, it is. It is. And we will talk about this a bunch. It is immeasurably easy to start a podcast. You’ve got any one of these, uh, smartphones. You’ve got the kit you need for a podcast can host it. Yeah, it’s just become almost frictionless to start with, but I think we’re always going to be having new ones coming.

I think it’s the big hits. It’s the ones that sort of rise to the top. And I think if anything, I think we’re probably going to see more of that. I think because people are starting to realize that, that there’s something here. People and brands are starting to realize that there’s significant value, that there is something which which consumers do like do one, do consume.

I think we’ve probably got some ways to go. I think the distinction between, you know, how many podcasts are going to be profitable versus how many are going to be out there. I think we’re still going to see very few being profitable, but I think there’s still a long way to go and there’ll always be shakeout.

There’s going to be a lot that sort of fall by the wayside. Yeah, that’s just sort of 1 or 1 of anything.

01:02:50.340 — 01:03:00.480 · Speaker 1
Yeah. And I want to pick up a little bit on just what you mentioned about the brands. Um, are you seeing a shift in brand awareness on podcasts and their effectivity?

01:03:00.600 — 01:03:12.440 · Speaker 2
Yes, absolutely. And you know, they love it because of the measurability. They’re terrified of it because it’s, you know, free flowing. And there’s no there’s no, uh. What’s that? Complaints. What?

01:03:12.480 — 01:03:14.800 · Speaker 1
Broadcast complaints and complaints commission.

01:03:15.960 — 01:04:14.310 · Speaker 2
Yeah. There’s none of those. Um, you know, it gets out there and people can comment on it and, you know, leave reviews and stuff. I think the brands are are terrified. But but, but but putting their toe and and for example, a podcast that I had a decade ago with Christina van Heerden that went off air five years ago.

Um, and during that five year that we were on air and doing weekly shows, we got no love from the brand. None whatsoever. We’re suddenly getting love from brands. Um, like like quite a bunch of it. So I think things have changed a decade ago. I think podcasts were kind of viewed as a bit hobbyist, a little bit sort of tech centric, but I think these days it’s much broader than that, and we are seeing a lot.

Try it, you know, see what works, see what what what you can do. Maybe that’s part of the beauty of it, is that you can dip your toe and you can try things. You can do a season, a couple of episodes, tweak it, change it, cancel it if it doesn’t work.

01:04:14.510 — 01:04:29.830 · Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s a great experimental place to be, you know, and you can build your audience and you can niche your audience, and you can split your audience and you can. You’ve got so much control. Um, which also brings me to point is, do we really need the radio stations anymore?

01:04:30.310 — 01:05:50.970 · Speaker 2
Well, someone’s got to give us the news on the hour, right? I mean, I don’t know, I you know, when you ask that question up front, I mean, if I think back to me as a kid now we’re going back to the 80s, right? And I had a wireless with a with with the batteries in it and an aerial. And I used to turn the dial and get my favorite radio station, um, and listen to, you know, squad cars and the like in the evenings.

And then, uh, as I got older, listening to the music shows and the, you know, top 40 from Capitol Radio and Saturdays, etc., I was all in on radio. I’ve always loved it as a medium. Um, I’ve spent careers. I’ve had jobs where I spend a lot of time in the road radios was was what I would do again in the evening. You know, how did I learn about the markets?

I would listen to Alec Hogg or Bruce Whitfield. Um, in the evenings. I don’t do any of that anymore at all. I don’t do any of it. If I want to listen to music, I’m playing it from my phone, through my speakers or my car or or at home. It’s it’s I might be playing my music and it’s my collection, but I’ve got it saved on the cloud.

I might be playing it via Apple if I want, you know, news or anything like that. I’m getting it from in an audio perspective. I’m getting it from from from podcasts, uh, or YouTube. I probably I’m spending a lot more time on YouTube then than than ever before.

01:05:51.090 — 01:06:24.850 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I think we all are. It’s it’s a pretty big transition, but but what do we think about, you know, the, the talent generation radio did. I mean you mentioned squad cars. It’s Malcolm Gooding if I remember. Um, yeah. And we think about talents like Malcolm that’s, you know, been through it also been through it all and been through the BBC and, and all that training.

And he’s a master at his voice. Where are the young guys going to get their training from if they open their laptops and their cell phones? What do you think? What do you think? The route is there?

01:06:24.890 — 01:08:38.259 · Speaker 2
I don’t think they do is the honest answer, and I think that is it means that we get a lot of really bad content is the truth. Because I think you’re right. You know, it’s that starting in probably the cutting room floor of the BBC with reels of audio and, you know, starting you might end up as a voice on radio, but many times you would start behind the scenes, you would be a producer or an editor or whatever the case may be, and that helped you sort of craft your skill.

You weren’t given a microphone for years until, you know, you’d kind of proved yourself and gone through the wringer. Now there is absolutely none of that which means which in some sense this gives us freedom, right? It oftentimes the the process was was more about control and restriction than, than really process.

And yes, in many cases it did mean we got better quality and we created a, a standard. Um, but I’m not really sure we necessarily need that. But it does mean that we have to sort of, you know, accept that there might be content coming out of that. That’s horrid. The difference, of course, is that, you know, even when I was a kid, I don’t know how many radio stations there were.

I was down in KZN, you know, maybe a dozen or so, you know, these days they probably, I mean, literally thousands of podcasts starting every day. So that turn the dial has become infinite. So if you’re not giving me a level of quality and the quality might not be necessarily production quality, it could be content that could be my level of quality.

But if there isn’t a level of quality there, I move on very, very quickly. And I, you know, there’s some podcasts that I’ve been listening to. I mean, there’s one I’ve been listening to for for over 20 years there a few that have been around that long. But, you know, it happens to be a tech one that I have been and will try podcasts and very, very quickly move on.

And when I say very, very quickly move on. And you’ve got about 30 or 40s to sort of convince me that the quality is manageable and that the content is is worth my time. And there are cases where great content, but the quality is just not there and it’s just not viable. But I do think that, you know, perhaps sort of lowered the

01:08:39.539 — 01:08:58.130 · Speaker 2
standards down. Is that a problem in some cases show more broadly, perhaps not. I think we will look back at the sort of glory days of of radio and sound stages and, you know, the, the doctor who on, on, on, on, on wireless as opposed to on our, on our, on our YouTube screen.

01:08:58.210 — 01:09:27.210 · Speaker 1
Yeah. I suppose there’s a little bit of a nostalgia in us that’s been around a bit longer, which the, the younger guys don’t care for much either. So I suppose it’s we’ll, we’ll wait and see. But I agree with you the I think the quality stuff will float to the top. You know, and with, with the bigger studios getting involved with podcasts, they will set the bar again for that kind of thing.

But I think content quality will drive it drive popularity.

01:09:27.370 — 01:09:46.520 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Quality always does. And you know what? I think it’s partly what the internet does. It’s a very efficient voting mechanism. Um, whereas truthfully, the old days of radio wasn’t really I mean, sure, there was feedback and there were producers and and smart people, etc. but but now it is. It is instant and measurable in a moment.

01:09:46.800 — 01:10:07.480 · Speaker 1
And our audience tells us whether they like it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Let’s talk a little bit about what you do. You do a daily podcast. Um, what is that like for most of us sitting at at home thinking about podcasts and things, we’re thinking about maybe once a month, once a week. How on earth do you do your daily?

01:10:07.520 — 01:11:49.130 · Speaker 2
Well, I mean, there are a couple of things to it. The one is that I’m fortunate that I’m in an industry investing, finance, money, economics quote at what you will, which is probably producing more content than any other industry in the world. You know, second would perhaps be sport. But if you think and if you look at, you know, and I’m going to get technical here, but, you know, a live price for gold or bitcoin or pick and pay that’s changing by the second.

I mean, you know, it’s sometimes multiple times a second, but there is just content being produced like there is no tomorrow, so there’s always something to talk about. Um, you know, again, is it something that the rest of the world wants to hear about it? Is there really a story there? More importantly, is there is there a learning there for for for people?

The answer to that is, well, it depends, but I think there is, you know, unfortunate. I think it would be much harder if I was doing it in, you know, traditional book publishing. That would be a much harder ask to do a daily. So I’m fortunate in that regard that it is just a case of there’s just so much content, and this is an industry which has, you know, sort of grown up on, on turning that content into, into a, you know, published works, whether it be written TV, whether it be audio or whatever the case may be.

So I didn’t have to invent any wheels. And there certainly is. You know, there are times we’re in one at right at the moment where it is results season where I am turning away guests. I have too much on my show, which is a great place to be. Be clear there are times when it’s tougher, when things get quiet and you know.

My producer and I are scratching our heads and thinking, yo, you know, we need another guest. Where do we possibly find them?

01:11:49.330 — 01:12:01.890 · Speaker 1
Yeah. And I suppose reputation really helps with the guests that that you’ve conducted really good interviews, really fair interviews. And, and they get a little bit of a voice. Is that the big attraction for the guests?

01:12:01.930 — 01:13:40.630 · Speaker 2
I think it is. I mean, some of them, you know, are I mean, some some if we think of, you know, Vodacom head results out on Monday and everyone wants to speak to Vodacom. I don’t because you know what they’re going to do 20 interviews the CEOs media trained to within an inch of our lives. What am I going to get out of that interview that that that isn’t going to be from 20 other people as well.

But absolutely stay away from it. And then I sort of try and find the more niche, the more, you know, less well known and the like and surface that and it does. I think it helps in two things. One, they they will in many cases have heard about the show. They will know the show or in some cases they’ve tried it, they’ve been on the show and they’ve actually kind of enjoyed it.

And, you know, there are guests from particularly in the listed company space, you pretty much only do a media event twice a year. That’s when they have, you know, mid-year and end year end results. They only do one media each time. It’s me. The first time they did it, they were, you know, nervous and unsure of it.

And over time they actually start to kind of enjoy it. And in fact, when my guest this morning, who when I first interviewed him, was very much one word answer type of guest this morning, he berated me because I started with the bad news. He says, no, there’s good stories here. We should talk about that. Whereas he’s sort of grown in confidence and, you know, almost in a sense this is like a fun thing to do rather than a scary thing.

So I think it does help. I think it’s my reputation. I think it’s the more broader the money where brand as well which, which, which which helps. Um, and you know your first media when you’re being interviewed is scary, but quickly learn that there’s no real pain here and that it actually can be fun.

01:13:40.710 — 01:14:06.990 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I think I think that’s also maybe a reflection of the whole industry that’s changed a bit, you know? Um, talking about that media training where where agencies used to hammer into people don’t answer the question the journalist asks. Tell them what you want to say. You know, that used to be the old thing to try to get around.

But is that disappearing? In a sense, people are getting more comfortable with it, embracing it more authentically, maybe.

01:14:07.990 — 01:14:10.310 · Speaker 3
I think yes.

01:14:10.390 — 01:16:22.840 · Speaker 2
To to a fair degree. I think there’s still some of that. You know, it’s your story and you don’t care what the journalist actually says. I also think that fairly quickly, both the, the, the person conducting the interview and the, the brand in which they’re being on TV, radio, podcast, print, whatever quickly realizes that actually no one’s particularly enjoying this and moving on from it.

I think there is a lot less of it, but I still do think that there is. Yeah, I still, as I said, I stay away from the largely big stocks because I think they’re overdone. Um, we are an industry where there’s just perhaps too much chasing the news. And I said while ago that there’s a ton of it. There is a ton of it.

But, you know, we’ll get the Vodacom numbers and we will get more or less the same conversation from every single person, rather than perhaps the conversation of why did you take 20 years to pay the please call me guy? And how much was it? You know, stop trying to hide behind the, the, the courts. And I think it is, you know, sort of falling into the rote which is, which is too easy.

And, and that’s one of the things I think in podcast and radio, there’s very much sort of established guidelines and processes. I remember I had a show on classic almost 20 years ago, and Dominic Kinsella, who owned the station at the time. Set me down and said, right, you’ve got to design your shows into quarters, but not quarter on the hour.

You know, run it to 14 minutes and then change because audience metrics and numbers and stuff like that and sort of very sort of formulaic and how it was put together. And I think a lot of podcasts copy that, but for no good reason, because, you know, we don’t need to. We’ve got absolute freedom. There’s a podcast, which I love, but I’ll be honest, I’m selective at listening to it because they come with shows that are four five hours in duration, and I just don’t have that much time.

I don’t, you know, when I used to travel a lot and spend a lot of time at airports and airplanes, sure. But I don’t do that anymore, and I don’t have that much time to, to listen to, to, to their content. They can do it though. And they’re, you know, hugely successful and got big brand support.

01:16:23.160 — 01:16:50.070 · Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s one of the things I wanted to bring up is the duration. I listened to one of yours recently the Baldwin interview. And. And I was actually quite pleasantly surprised that I could sit down and listen to the whole thing in a short amount of time, get get some interesting insights, and move on. You know, I didn’t have to spend 2 or 3 hours.

So where do you think duration is going with podcasts in general? I mean, not just yours, but but in general.

01:16:50.350 — 01:18:42.370 · Speaker 2
I mean, I think I think there is a, you know, the traditional radio. So TV would be, you know, half an hour, maybe an hour. Radio was traditionally you got an hour, although the shows would often be three hours, the sort of 9 to 12 and the sort of classic move through the course of the day. Um, and podcast and certainly, you know, when I took my radio show in 2011 and moved it into a weekly podcast instead, the first thing I did, I made it an hour long and I had my intro and I did.

I basically took the podcast and the radio show and put it on, on, on, on a podcast. And it was years before I realized. Hang on a second. I could do whatever I want here. To your question. I think there are actually moving kind of in two directions. One is two short. You mentioned the Baldwin. So so what we do is we take my shows 20 minutes in the morning, and we’ll come to you in a moment if you want.

Why we chose 20 but, you know, it’s nice. It’s sharp. You can listen to me at one and a half time speed. I then take one of my interviews and I put that out there, which is, you know, seven minutes perhaps. And it’s that, that ability to quickly get something. So I think the move towards shorter, although I’m not sure that we’re going to get to the point of sort of TikTok or Instagram Reels shorter, I don’t think we’re going to head to, you know, 30, 40, 52nd podcasts.

I’m not sure that’s viable, but I think on the one end we get shorter, and then on the other end there is that ability to say, well, you know, I want to do a 4.5 hour podcast on the evolution of F1, and it needs 4.5 hours because this is a 75 year story, and we’re going to go so deep into the weeds that we’re going to half drown ourselves.

But the formula one nerds are going to come flocking for. And I think we can kind of do the two extremes almost, which is the ultra long, and then the sort of really, really short.

01:18:43.130 — 01:19:11.370 · Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s lovely. It’s for the different audiences we want to attract and it’s essentially right. Um, yours works in the 20 minute bites because you’re talking to busy people that want to listen to a whole bunch of different interviews that the F1 example you gave, like you said, the F1 nerds are totally be there.

I would on a Sunday afternoon after a race. I’d totally listen to that. So yeah, I suppose it is our audience that that kind of drives it. Um, and.

01:19:11.370 — 01:19:39.640 · Speaker 2
It’s also it’s the ability to jump in. It’s the ability to repurpose, to take my 20 minute show and cut out a six minute interview, take a four hour show, and I imagine they must cut out tons of different pieces to repurpose in different places. You know, whether it be the the social medias, whether it just be a smaller and I haven’t found it, but maybe there’s a ten minute version somewhere floating around as well.

And that comes back to that flexibility that podcasting gives us.

01:19:39.720 — 01:20:40.340 · Speaker 1
Also, something people don’t realize is how much we repurpose podcasts. You know, I heard someone say to me the other day, you know, a podcast is watched more in shorts than it is the long form. Um, and I think for some entertainment platforms, that’s probably true, that people watch more of the outtakes than they do the actual content.

Um, so, so it is very flexible, incredibly lovely, medium actually to work in now that it’s so easy. Um, and I mean, my background is television. I’m not a in front of camera person normally, and even I can do it. You know, uh, even a producer can can do an interview. I used to criticize interviews. Now I’m trying to do it myself, which is not so great.

Um, but let’s talk about that for a second. Let’s talk about the craft. You know, what would you give advice if you had to give advice to a young podcaster that wants to do in-depth interviews? What is your approach to interviews and what how would you advise that person to get good at it?

01:20:41.420 — 01:23:27.670 · Speaker 2
And to me, and the angle I’ve always taken, rightly or wrongly, is that at the end of an interview, I want my listener and myself to both be smart. I want to ask questions that that that the answers come back and we’re like, huh? I didn’t know that. I hadn’t thought of that. That makes me think of something else.

That bottom line makes me a smarter person. And that’s always, you know, when I’m crafting an interview. I mean, you know, there are times when, you know, I did an interview recently and everyone’s like, oh, but why didn’t you ask that question? Not because we all know what the answer to that question is.

The answer is going to be in this particular case, a no comment, but it’s going to be a long worded gobbledygook. No comment. You know, I don’t have time on my show for gobbledygook. Longwinded, no comment answers. I want proper real information coming back. And I think that that is at the heart of anything.

Right? We we want to get something from it. Sometimes it’s just pure entertainment. It might be. We are watching Trevor Noah and we are just there for the loft. No. Nothing more, nothing less. You know, Trevor, make me laugh. Uh, there are times when we are there for the the the political commentary and the like and maybe humor with that as well.

The late night shows, the John Oliver’s of the world. But there was needs to be. Why am I listening? Yeah, radio was passive. My sister does it. She has the radio on this FM on her house. She wakes up in the morning, turns it on, turns it off when she goes to bed in the background. And that was always the thing of radio, was that it was a passive that you could have the radio while cooking, while driving, while telephoning a friend, and you couldn’t do TV or print or any of that.

At the same time. Those weren’t passive. Those wanted your full attention. Radio was that background, but with podcasts, someone is making an active decision. They they have mind plays out live as well as RSS. They’ve listened live. They’ve purposely gone and said, you know, I’m going to give you 20 minutes of my time.

You know, time is fine, time is valuable. You’ve got to give me something back. And in my world, that’s something back is let’s be smarter at the end of it. I’m not going to get you to laugh. Maybe I do, but that’s not the intent of the show. For me, it’s around. You know what? What is the listener one for? And what they want is to be smarter.

Um, and again, in my particular industry, actually, I think in most industries there, there are insiders such as yourself, there are or, you know, that ability to to look at it and say, well, what can we get from this which which my listener will be like, ah! I hadn’t thought about that. And it doesn’t have to be 100 of them.

You know, if I can get in the 6 or 7 minute interview at one point, that makes us smarter. 6 or 7 minutes well-spent.

01:23:27.830 — 01:23:43.790 · Speaker 1
Okay. I’ll really love that. I’m going to remember it and use it. I think you’ve just given me my aha moment as well. Excellent. And how much prep do you do? I mean, you’ve got a daily. So how much prep do you do. How much prep does your producer do and how do you work together.

01:23:44.950 — 01:26:00.480 · Speaker 2
So we’ve I mean we’ve gotten to. So for me a daily show is it’s 15 guests a week. It’s actually 14. So it’s three guests Monday to Thursday and then uh, two on on on on Friday. Because on Friday I take the opportunity to give my thought a monologue. And, you know, one of the guests is always a market commentator.

We have our preferred and also folks who are available live 630 in the morning. Some are sleeping, some are doing school runs, some are a gym. I mean, it’s not a given that everyone is available at that time, which was a mistake. I just assumed that no one was doing anything at 630. And of course, that’s the ignorance of someone who doesn’t go to gym in the morning or have kids.

Um, you know, so but I mean, I mean, for me, the prepping is not hard. Invariably, there are there are few things in this industry that are truly new and different and which I know nothing about and have to read up. There are. This morning I was having a conversation around private credit, particularly referenced to, you know, emerging markets of Africa, perhaps maybe more towards SMEs, etc..

So it was certainly new stuff for me. But you know, I know I’ve talked around and I’ve spoken to SME funders before. I know about private creditors. I understand a lot of the distinctions between emerging markets and developed markets and stuff. So although it’s a new angle on a topic, although it’s a guest I haven’t spoken to before.

Um, it the prep work for a seven minute interview. It’s probably no more than about 15 minutes or so of of maybe 20 minutes of prep work. Um, and in this case, part of that was it was a new guest. So I went out to try and find previous interviews that they’ve done because all of my interviews are done telephonic.

So I’ve got no visual cue. Um, so I’m trying to get cues of, you know, do they pause to think, to speak, or do they pause because they’re finished? Yeah, stuff like that. I’m trying to get that sort of cue. So some of my one of the interviews I had this morning took a fair bit. The other one was a set of results. I read through the results.

I proffered my, my, my my questions that I had. I was trying to have more questions than I need, just in case.

01:26:01.720 — 01:26:38.390 · Speaker 2
Uh, excuse me. And then my my first guest, which was the third in the way I’m presenting them is my, my kids guest, and that’s really easy. Um, because the pressure’s on them. You know. Hey, there have been some Toco results. MTN and Vodacom. Let’s talk. Uh, the smart stuff comes from them. I just asked the question, so, you know my 20 minute show.

I mean, it’s depending on guests anywhere from 15 to maybe 30 minute prep over a course of a of a day. And some of that prep the morning of I get up early or 30. I’m at my desk at 530. We arrive at 630. So I’m doing some of that very, very early in the morning.

01:26:38.510 — 01:26:49.790 · Speaker 1
Okay, great. And then your producers really just managing diaries and calendars and contacts and helping you produce get, get this show on. Yeah.

01:26:50.230 — 01:28:07.090 · Speaker 2
I mean, and so she’s not in studio in the morning because there’s no need for all of us to get to studio at 6:30 in the morning, particularly in winter. Um, and, you know, she is remote and sometimes that remote is Joburg. But it needn’t be Joburg and isn’t always Joburg. She is. So there’s two things, I mean.

You know, the one is I’m sending her ideas. I’m saying to her, you know, Monday you mentioned Baldwin. I was unaware, I knew the results are out sometime around about now. I see them come out on the newswire, and I messaged her and said, I want to speak to Steve Brooks if he’s not available. Next draw Becks, because I’m interested in them as a conversation as well.

So, you know, and we’ve already got and I think we had redefined already. So redefine was scheduled. So it’s me saying, I want to talk this. I get pictures from various people and if I like it, I send it to my producer and say, cool, keen for this. And then she’s doing the inverse. She’s getting stuff as well that she’s like, you know, this company contacted me, they’ve got results.

You want to talk to them? We’ve got this idea from so-and-so. Do we want to have that on the show? So running both ways, and then she ultimately manages the calendars. Who’s in, who’s not in, who’s next time, you know, etc., and that sort of thing. So she’s sort of doing that pointy calendar pot. Otherwise, it’s collaborative between.

01:28:07.130 — 01:28:18.850 · Speaker 1
Amazing and it allows you to do what you love doing, which is doing the interviews, talking about what you know very well, the subject matter, you know. So that’s that’s what makes.

01:28:18.850 — 01:29:13.630 · Speaker 2
It and that’s an important. Yeah, that’s an important point. I mean, could I produce? Sure. I mean, sure I could. Would I be any good at it? Yeah. Would I be as good as my current producer, Lisa milani? Not a chance. He’s a pro. What she does. Let the pros be pros, you know. Could she do my part of the gig, or would she do it as well as me?

I mean, I hope not, otherwise, I’m unemployed. But it. You know, it’s. Don’t stand on toes. Let people have their expertise and, you know, get experts in the space. When I did the show and there was, you know, people were like, getting a producer. It’s a 20 minute show. I’m like, you bet. Yeah, I’m getting a producer.

I’m getting an expert. Do it. Same with my audio. Can I do audio? Yeah. I’ve got a whole mixing desk here. Am I the audio pro? I actually weirdly studied film and video and quite enjoyed audio back in the day. But that’s not my gig. That’s what editor does. He’s the pro in that room.

01:29:14.110 — 01:29:30.510 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Stay in your lane and let the pros do what they do best. I love that. So here’s a question. Why haven’t you gone to video podcasts or podcasts or whatever you want to call it? Would it do anything for you if you did?

01:29:32.390 — 01:32:38.760 · Speaker 2
I think it might. So so let’s distinguish. I do a weekly show with just one worldwide market, which is also which came out of classic from 2008. That’s been a podcast now for 15 years. And then I have recently pivoted to video. Weird thing. I didn’t lose audio listeners. I just picked up video listeners. I expected to lose audio and then pick up video.

I didn’t. My audio listeners are still there. I just picked up video. Listen, with the money we have now, show it just. It changes the dynamic. I mean, let me run you through the process. So we arrive at 630. So this morning is my my market guest. I phoned him at six 2930. And I know that seems precise, but I literally phoned half a minute before we start.

I phoned him on my mobile because we’re using WhatsApp, because it gives us the best quality. I plug them in, we’re off to the races, you know, he answers. Sometimes there’s a tech issue and they don’t answer all this, but 99 times out of 100, I get the answer. I’ve got a quick ten second conversation. I’ll put them on hold.

I do my intro, I come back to if I’m doing video now suddenly. I mean, for all I know, Sean’s in bed still because it was cold this morning. Or he’s, you know, sitting at Jim or in his car waiting to go into the office. Now we do video. It changes everything for him, changes everything for me. My next guest, it just suddenly adds a layer of of of complexity, but a fairly significant layer of complexity.

And what does it give us? Well, it means I can see Sean’s face. That’s nice. Sure. Okay. Laca. Um, it does mean we could add some visuals, either live or in post if we’re talking, uh, MTN and Vodacom this morning, we could overlay some charts. We could throw some logos, you know, some some screenshots. Whatever the case is, we could certainly add some more flavor to it that we could do.

But I think in terms of the production in the process, I think it would just get in the way. Um, and what we do do is we take the audio and it does go onto YouTube, but it’s literally just the, the, uh, the square image that we use for the, the podcast, download the RSS feed image so you know, it’s there. We actually get some traffic.

Not a heck of a lot. A couple of hundred, maybe a thousand or so, uh, listening to it. Um, but but we are very much a, an audio first. And part of our old processes is to get quick turnaround, um, to 20 minute show. And part of the reason is so we finish at 10 to 7 so we can clip it, edit it, get it out into your RSS feed.

Okay. After 7:00. If it was a 30 minute show and we were running until seven, now we’re only getting it up to you at quarter 7:20, and we want it on your phone. When you go to work. Either you’re listening live or on your way to work or gym or whatever it might be. You want to run your phone already? Um, and, you know, we could solve that by starting at six, but that starts to get a little bit early.

Uh, so for us, it really is the case of getting it out there to our audience. And part of that is video would just make that so much harder.

01:32:39.000 — 01:32:59.540 · Speaker 1
Yeah, infinitely make it more complicated. Your turnaround is more important for your audience than seeing what you look like in that sense. Yeah, they already have credibility with you. Your your credibility is not a problem. You know, video sometimes helps with that. But what’s important is the turnaround, and that’s why you do it that way.

01:32:59.660 — 01:33:06.180 · Speaker 2
So and I mean, we’re doing a video here and we logged on in the tech just work. Tring Tring. Lovely. It doesn’t always.

01:33:06.220 — 01:33:06.500 · Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:33:06.540 — 01:33:36.420 · Speaker 2
Every time you add an extra layer. So you know and you know this is Riverside. This is awesome tech I use it all the time. And again it works 99.9. Yeah that .9.1. You know I’m live on air I ain’t got time for. Oh try this. What about a reboot? Like as it is we found we know literally we’re finding people about, you know, between 40 and 60s before they live on it.

We need them to answer, confirm that they’re alive and put them on hold.

01:33:36.660 — 01:33:54.410 · Speaker 1
Yeah. No. And to your point, I mean, yes, ours starts it up immediately. Fantastic. We could get going immediately. Everybody gave me a thumbs up, but that isn’t always the case. You know, all of a sudden there’s a feedback somewhere and you’re going, what? Did it work five minutes ago. Not anymore. And you just got it.

01:33:54.610 — 01:34:16.770 · Speaker 2
And to be clear, that sometimes happens with audio, too. I mean, you know, I interviewed Professor Adrian Saville a week or two ago, and we just had horrid audio. It was just really, really bad quality audio, just one of those unlucky times. But every time you bring in a new element, you bring in more potential risks.

So, you know, we’ve got risk with audio as it is. Let’s let’s keep one risk metric. Adam.

01:34:16.810 — 01:34:39.970 · Speaker 1
Yeah. But also to your previous point, you know, let the pros deal with the audio and at least have someone that can sort it out and knows what the issue is, has got some experience with it, you know. Okay, great. So, Sir Simon, where to from here for you. I mean, are you are you planning anything big or are you writing a new book?

What’s what’s going on with you?

01:34:40.770 — 01:37:36.780 · Speaker 2
I mean, you know what I am doing, actually. I mean, I’m trying to get back to KZN and down by the sea. And truthfully, I no longer do any TV work so I could really get back to the sea. But my wife has now decided to go and be a student again, so that might get kicked down the road. I’m from KZN. Love KZN weather, I love KZN summers and winters.

I love the ocean. I need to get back what I am doing. I mean, you know you mentioned the book and I mean notwithstanding, I have a 630 show every morning and have done it with just over six years old and never, never been late. Never mind Mr. Show. Um, the whole idea of the discipline of a book just terrifies me.

And again, it comes to the point, you know, I’ve often sat down and started a book, and then I’ve realized I’m just rewriting somebody else. What am I saying that hasn’t been said? Now, that quite possibly reflects on me more than anything else, but so be it. I mean, it reflects on me, then it reflects on me.

Um, what I am doing is I am going down the, the I repertoire. Like there is absolutely no tomorrow, I think, I think in you know, I’m not particularly interested. I mean, there are bits of a, you know, could it write me a book? Sure. I’m not sure it would be any good. But in our industry, I think AI is going to be hugely disruptive.

And what I’m currently playing with is research report. So one of the things is the big finance houses, banks, investment houses, etc. they do these giant high quality reports on listed companies, their voter comms and the mtns. And they at the end of it, you know, 50 pages of report by people who earn vast amount of money and have got, you know, real significant, high quality degrees.

Um, and at the end of it, they tell you it’s a buy or sell or something, and then they don’t. They keep it to themselves. They also don’t do the small company. You mentioned Baldwin. Baldwin’s too small. No one’s going to make money from doing a Baldwin report. My question is, can I do that institutional grade report, but can I do it on a Baldwin stock and make it available to, you know, Mom and Pops and suddenly give us institutional grade research.

And the short answer is when it seems like I can. I mean, the AI is just astounding. I mean, Claude and in particular a coworker and what they some of their financial metrics that they released back in February, um, are staggering. I’m a source of stress. You know, I’m playing with stuff here that’s like four months old.

I don’t know where it all. You know, the coworker came out and Jan, the financial analysis stuff came out in Feb. And I’m telling you, it’s the greatest thing ever. Well, we must temper that because it’s also only three months old. Um, and, you know, everyone’s like, how good is the report? I’m like, well, no, any year, because that’s our view we’re taking.

But I just think there’s something there. A lot of what I’ve always done. You know, investing sounds.

01:37:37.940 — 01:38:48.230 · Speaker 2
That doesn’t sound. People in the industry make what we do sound hard and complicated with jargon and I can tell you about the hips was up with the revenue. I can I can confuse you. And that’s the design, right? Because if you’re confused, what are you going to do? What are you going to listen to more shows.

And you’re going to get professional advisors to manage your money. And ergo, industry makes money. Confusion is a feature, not a bug. Um, and what I’ve always done for the last 20 odd years is trying to say no, no, no, no. This is not rocket science. This is simple stuff. You know, I’m I’m not the CAA. I don’t have these fancy degrees.

Everything I know is because I made the mistakes, asked the questions, learned the hard way, read the books. You know, the old fashioned ways. Um, and I just think that there’s potentially stuff here in the AI world which does that even further, which sort of point of a terrible phrase democratizes the access even more, um, where that leaves the industry and whether it’s good for the broader industry.

Uh, Tom will tell. I mean, I’m not there’s some yeah, I’m loving AI, but I’m not. Not immune to the fact that there are parts of it that frankly terrify me. But that’s my current focus.

01:38:48.270 — 01:39:15.790 · Speaker 1
Okay, not amazing, I think. I never thought of applying AI into your field. Obviously my field is different, but what it is really good at is processing data, you know, and especially if you can ring fence that data and make sure it doesn’t hallucinate and do all those weird things, and then you can get some really interesting stuff really quickly out of AI.

Um, so yeah, I’ll definitely be watching what you do with it. It sounds.

01:39:15.830 — 01:40:46.370 · Speaker 2
So to be clear, it hallucinates and you’re polite. It’s lying. It lies to me all the time. Um, part of what you’ve got to do is set up the the controls. Um, so one of the things I loved was notebook LM, which was a Google product. And what I liked about that was you gave it the content, you said, yeah, is the universe.

And that kind of helped you to a degree, not completely, but to a degree. Um, here we’ve got way more scope for for hallucinations and lives. So what I’ve spent time doing is I have, you know, you get a report, and then I send it to my fact checker to check the report, and then I send that back to the originator of the report.

And the whole time I’ve got ChatGPT verifying and checking to make sure, you know, there’s no collusion and etcetera, etcetera. So a lot of it is, is, is actually that, that, that uh, making sure the qualities are there because to your point, wrenching data is what they’re good at. Um, you know, making mistakes, which we all do is the risk.

And they can get it really, really wrong. Sometimes they they made a mistake where they had a, a negative instead of a positive, which is a small little typo error. But man, you know, once it played out over the entire process, it was an absolute mess. The beauty is, is that we could find it literally within five minutes by putting in the, you know, getting the fact checker on the scene and saying, why does this look wrong?

01:40:46.690 — 01:41:11.050 · Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I, I agree with you. I mean, I’m very excited about AI. To be honest, I’m not afraid of it, but cautiously excited and yes, of what it can do. And I normally describe it to people as, you know, it’s that really smart in turn now, you wouldn’t let the intern publish anything directly. You would check it, you know.

So please treat the AI like an intern. You know, really.

01:41:11.290 — 01:41:58.110 · Speaker 2
I think that’s a great analysis. And the truth is, we make mistakes. The intern makes mistakes, but even the expert makes mistakes. Mistakes on the, you know, on the the the the are mistakes. I’ve never seen a mistake before. Mistakes are part of, you know, humanity and society. Um, I suspect that we just.

And it’s something I’ve been pondering. We’ve kind of got used to what? Computers are always right. Except you know that to also not be true. And we know that when a computer goes goes rogue and it can make more mistakes in a minute than we can make in a lifetime. Um, and much as we’re, you know, there’s a, there’s usually processes around fact checking, you know, it’s why we have copy editors and and all the rest.

And it could be no different here as well. Yeah.

01:41:58.230 — 01:42:08.350 · Speaker 1
Simon, it’s been amazing chatting to you. Um, I have to wrap it up now, but do you have any other final words about podcasts and how you feel about them?

01:42:09.390 — 01:42:41.540 · Speaker 2
I mean, my thought is make a podcast. Absolutely. Do, uh, you know, you’ve got a smartphone, you’ve got your podcast. Make a podcast. But but before you jump in, give a thought to the why, the how and what is your promise to the listener? That’s what is it. You know, my promises. Every morning, 630 I’m going to ask questions that you and I will be smarter.

Um, and it’s an implicit and it’s there and we do it. And I always say to folks, whatever your promises, your promise might be, I’m going to give you one podcast a month. That’s fine.

01:42:42.740 — 01:43:12.020 · Speaker 2
Figure out what it is. Figure out what you’re passionate about. If you’re a brand, figure out what your brand is passionate about. But that’s the key point. Don’t just do it because, well, everyone’s got a podcast. Do it because there’s a promise, a commitment and a passion that you can have. And I think, you know, to your very earlier question, you know, do we do we need more podcasts?

Oh, yeah. We need more podcasts. And a lot of them are going to be rubbish. That’s the beauty of it. They will fall by the by the wayside. But there’s going to be some epic ones that are going to come floating up.

01:43:12.940 — 01:43:29.540 · Speaker 1
Thank you so much Simon. It’s been awesome chatting to you. And if you guys want to check out Simon’s podcast he’s on Moneyweb now. Don’t miss it every day. Really cool info going through there. And if you want to let us know what your aha moment was from this episode, let us know in the comments. Till next time.