Wondery

They make more than 3,000 AI podcasts a week.

In the article and interviews that followed, the company's CEO, Janine Wright, a former executive at the podcast maker Wondery, was clear and unapologetic about the company's model.

By automating the podcast production process with AI, from market research to idea generation to scripts to voices, they'd reduce the price to make an episode to a dollar or less and the time to under an hour.

They were making them by the thousands.

When I'd emailed Janine a few weeks before, she'd replied enthusiastically, happy to talk on the record about any aspect of Inception Point's business.

When we sat down, she told me she'd joined the startup not long before the Hollywood Reporter article.

Before that, she'd started and sold a company called Simplecast, then gone to work as the COO of Wondery, a podcast company I had actually made a show for myself, though I never worked with her there.

By 2024, she'd left Wondery and begun searching for a new startup idea, together with a small team of colleagues.

And I think one reason why they picked Nathan Fielder was simply because they truly believed that they could – outsmart him in some way which is not the case um so for those that don't know elizabeth holmes former like i said former founder of theranos i would highly recommend watching the dropout on hulu to know more about her or watching the inventor documentary on hbo i have found Elizabeth Holmes, incredibly fascinating.

Like, since 2019, when the Dropout podcast came out – it was a podcast originally with ABC News and Wondery, exposing – and it was around the same time that, like, she was getting, like, exposed for all this shit.

There was a huge article in the Wall Street Journal that came out about Elizabeth Holmes from two of the whistleblowers saying that all the stuff she was doing at Theranos was – Was fake.

Was a fraud.

And so at some point we kind of started pruning.

That sort of coincided with our deal with Wondery.

So we're at Wondery right now, have been for the last two years.

And we started video once we went to them.

And we knew we were doing that.

It's a different beast.

A hundred percent.

If we had not moved over to Wondery, I mean, I can't say this for certain, but they required us to do video.

and sent to you by

Wondery.

And so we'll indulge the ego of the presenter that isn't a presenter.

I think that's the problem is when you get podcast publishing companies... like big agencies like your Wondery's, your Spotify's, and they don't necessarily have those experienced people that can go in and go, look, okay, I get that you've got Mayim, whatever her name is from Big Bang.

I get that you've got her.

I get she's a big name.

Only yesterday, I showed Spotify advertising podcasts on Spotify, and they weren't Spotify podcasts.

They were podcasts from all kinds of people, from Wondery, from all kinds of people, and they were advertising those on the New York subway.

Where's Apple Podcasts advertising Apple Podcasts? Where is any...

marketing for Apple podcasts outside of the Apple ecosystem and perhaps on Instagram or something.

And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them.

You can send us a voice memo at hibtid.wondery.com Or call us at 1-800-433-1298.

Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you.

And we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.