What do you think the quality?

Uh, it wasn't the most thrilling game.

I thought the quality of the soccer Spain played for soccer purists was r- pretty incredible.

The way they kept possession, uh, the way they stood up to some of the, I, I don't wanna s- use the word bullying tactics of Argentina, but, uh, you know, getting very close to the line tactics of the Argen- some of the Argentinian players, uh, was great.

Uh, but not, not a classic game, but World Cup finals often aren't, because every one of the 22 on that pitch at any one time are terrified of being the player that makes the mistake that gives the World Cup away.

So I think everybody's always a little nervous in those games.

But, uh, by far, the best team in the tournament ended up winning the tournament.

And I think they, does that help, uh, Steve Hilton maybe have at least an outlet?

So can you explain, knowing that what you know about Israel and what they've been up against, uh, since the attack on October 7th, the change in sentiment towards them here?

I, I think it's inexplicable.

Um, I, I think they have lost the PR campaign certainly.

Uh, why that has happened is much more difficult to explain.

Uh, but I think you look, you look at what's going on in American colleges.

Uh, you, you look at the anti-Israel sentiment there, uh, the anti-Israel sentiment being put forward by a lot of professors in American colleges.

And, you know, I've seen it, I've seen it with my own kids, to be perfectly honest.

And how has the US done?

From what you know about the topography there, and knowing that how easy and convenient and, uh, drones are, do you think that's possible?

I think it's really difficult without putting troops in, uh, in f- much more in harm's way.

I, on Kharg Island, et cetera.

Uh, it's, that is a huge stretch of coastline.

Uh, it's about, I think it's about equivalent to the entire west coast of the US in terms of the length.

As to how you control that completely, and you can keep taking out, uh, Iranian assets along the strait there, but they, all they need are these tiny boats.

And also, you've got a bil- a, you know, a multi-million dollar tanker.

And how has the US done?

[laughs] And, and be like, "Here's why we do all that YouTube stuff." Like, "Here's how, why we have all these creators." How do you talk about it at that level?

Someone asked me this, like, at a thing the other day, and, and my response is, like, you have to come prepared with the business rationale and the thesis and the measurement plan.

Like, like, even if you don't have it perfect, like, you have to have a point of view on that.

And so how we've historically thought about it has been very much leads driven, right? As, like, first a leading indicator of what's working and what's not, but then ultimately a, um, a metric that we can easily optimize against, right? Because it's, like, immediate, you know how to, like, interpret that data and use that to inform subsequent content you're producing.

But over the time, we've gotten a lot better at just measuring further down funnel, so from a lead to a QL to a net customer add to MRR to lifetime value, et cetera, et cetera.

And having, like, a pretty good point of view on that, even though it's not exact science and can sometimes be a bit more inferred.

But then also the brand value, right? Like, to go out and buy 50 million impressions or 60 million impressions every single month, like, that's not an insignificant amount of cash, right? But we generate that organically through our program and headcount investments, and that compounds over time as it continues to scale.

[laughs]

Do you think they should try six new starters? Anybody on a yellow card, do you think they should rest?

Yeah.

Uh, so I think, first of all, the yellow cards.

Uh, Balogun, Richards, Robinson, and Adams, I believe, are the four on one yellow card.

I think it's a no-brainer to rest those guys, because if they pick up that second yellow, they're out of that first knockout game.

Makes no sense to take that risk.

They don't need to.

... end up spreading them out.

How much are you pushing the edge when it comes to automation for whether it's content production or behind the scenes stuff?

Yeah.

What we're seeing the bigger unlock is from all the time intensive laborious production stuff that used to take people a long time to do that can be automated.

for anything that we produce, there's always a human at the very beginning that is creating the strategy and sort of setting the creative vision and a human at the very end that is saying like, is this actually good? And if it's not, how can I make it good? And to make sure that like, it's something that, you know, an actual human being would want to watch or read or listen to.

So that middle part is where I think we've seen the biggest unlock.

And so, you know, think about like, localizing videos into different languages.

Traditionally, you know, you would have to take that same video script and outline, ship it off to someone and have them reproduce it or it would be subtitled, right? Or you would have to pay someone to dub it.

So what are you thinking about from an acquisition standpoint where it makes sense to expand?

And then how does it change in a world with AI?

Yeah, I would say it probably becomes even more valuable in the age of AI, especially whenever the ability to create content is easier than ever.

But the bar for quality has obviously increased as a result as well.

Anyone with cloud can create content, whether that's great content or not, is definitely more of a subjective thing.

And so what we've seen is that in the age of AI, where AI-generated content is now pacing human-created content, that people are looking for things that feel a lot more genuine and authentic, that are coming from real human beings that have lived experiences and have points of perspective and expertise that Cloud or ChatGPT or Plexi just don't have.

And so I would say that's been a huge impetus for us to do recent acquisitions, to be able to create more moats around these areas of expertise within content verticals that are important to HubSpot Media.

The thesis behind the Hustle acquisition was a little...

So I guess I would say what's been the main thing you've learned about owning these brands and operating them that you would advise? Well, advise both other um b2b made ups maybe uh software brands that might be interested in going this place but also like media brands yeah um who are interested not done just being wired but like having better relationships with the tech industry

So, like, what makes a media property or a creator worth acquiring? Like, why would-- when would they be a good fit? Um, and then how do you successfully integrate them? How do you direct these audiences and these brands to actually add value to HubSpot?

I think it's first probably important just to kind of like, um, talk a little bit about our editorial strategy, more generally speaking, which is really premised around the fact that there's a lot of information out there.

Um, like there's a lot of, uh, content that tells you what's happening in the world, news, thought leadership, op-eds, research, et cetera.

But what's increasingly rare is content that actually help-- like helps you do the thing you're hearing about and implement the strategy or the tool or the process that you're trying to master.

And so if you look across our entire media portfolio, across our seventeen YouTube channels and six newsletters and a hundred and fifty creator partnerships, everything that we do is really focused on how can we just help people excel in their careers, whether they're, you know, uh, associate marketers or CMOs or CROs or, um, solopreneurs that, you know, don't even have employees they work with, uh, and are starting a business from scratch.

Or maybe you are a business leader of a company of a thousand.

Uh, it really runs, you know, the gamut, um, you know, of who we try to speak to.But it's all centered around how can we just help you do something that really excels your career, uh, professionally speaking.

There's a lot there to unpack.