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Sam Brooks

Sam Brooks

Berlin-based screenwriter and AI video producer, founder and CEO of Rally News, the good-news app.

Sep 16, 2026

SanaHOST
22:02
So in terms of the financial aspect, where do you see, like, h- is this sustainable or what's the fut- what does the future look like? Would you go for investors or would you-
22:12
So that's a very g- I, I don't, I don't see myself wanting to run a company with full-time employees and a full...
22:24
I mean, full-time employees we'll probably need, but, like, an office with 100 employees and, and a Series B or anything like that.
22:31
Like, that's not something I see myself as being pot- potentially interested in.
22:36
What I'd rather probably focus on is a smaller, kind of leaner and more niche tool.
22:44
What we see kind of in the competitor when we've, when we've looked up competitors in this market is that there is kind of, there is a, there is a, a, a narrow market for this kind of product, but a very deep market.
22:58
And so you see massive amounts of, for these kind of major sites that exist in the good news space, you see relatively small numbers.
SanaHOST
24:17
Yeah.
RiyaHOST
1:20
Sam, before we begin, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
1:24
Yeah, so I... started my career uh working as a screenwriter or working up the ladder to become a screenwriter i should say in los angeles i quickly kind of discovered that wasn't for me and i started i decided to kind of pivot towards tech and i started working um also as a writer and producer for a um digital publishing company in Berkman.
1:57
And that was...
1:58
When I started at the company, I had a very kind of long kind of passion for what I was doing, which was their idea for what they were was that they would help... find underrepresented authors and surface their work even if it wasn't sort of traditionally publishable and through an online app they would publish it and then my job was to look at data for as to how the stories were performing episode over chapter over chapter and rewrite them to provide kind of a better return, a better number, a higher number of users continuing to read.
2:51
And I liked this a lot in theory, but a con kind of The longer I worked there, the more kind of disillusioned with the idea I became.
3:05
And I started to feel like I was kind of just providing at best a net neutral shoe society and at worst a net negative.
3:14
I was feeling really kind of gloomy and lonely and upset in my day to day life.

6 MINS LATER

RiyaHOST
9:29
is and what you think about these notions.

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