Sunday Reads and Listens...They Will Not Stop Censoring Comedians...Punchup.live Says Thanks

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Good morning..

I am back in Phoenix and heading to Coronado to spend the week with Max who is on spring break. Max and I are working on a few golf investments together which he is helping me research as well as strategizing for the first ‘High Stakes Par 3’ Grass Clippings tournament April 17-20.

I was in NYC and had the Stocktwits executive team come together for a few days of planning as well as a sports media and gambling show. My friend Corey Leff John Wall Street (my go to newsletter on the business of sports) invited me to speak about ‘The Degenerate Economy’ and Grass Clippings. I was joined with my good pal Roger Ehrenberg and his son Ethan on stage. It was a blast riffing on how we see it all playing out. Over the last 18 years I (Social Leverage too) have done more investing with Roger (now his sons Ethan and Andrew as well) than any other person (Roger has been an LP in our funds and an investor in Wallstrip and Stocktwits as well) so I love when we are aligned on where the puck is headed.

Corey organized an incredible sports media dinner the night before where I met many legends in sports media world.

My fave moment was meeting Connor Schell the creator of ESPN’s 30 for 30. I did the very Howie thing and pulled up a chair, introduced myself, mentioned my friend Ryan Spoon who worked for him and pitched my own 30 for 30 on the best Stocks/Companies/Trends of All time. He liked it so I have some follow up to do. A reminder to always be pitching. I grabbed a picture of Connor and another ESPN legend now entrepreneur Matthew Berry as well as Stephen A Smith…

Onward…

Comedy and censorship are back at top of my mind again today.

As you know, I think the explosion in comedy is upon us. John Stewart is back every Monday because of it. In technology and business the tech bros, the monopoly power and the extreme wealth are easy targets as are the crypto bros and grifters from the new wave of wealth. The ‘center’ which I just call the space for silly and common sense went from being this tiny scary place to being a giant ‘white space’ that is up for grabs.

YouTube, Netflix and Spotify are the huge benefactors in comedy so far but only Netflix does not censor comics.

Social Leverage invested in a comedy platform PunhcUp Live that aims to fill that void in the center with tools that matter to comics and eventually all entertainers.

Every week it becomes more apparent that the distribution, pipes and tools of Web 2 are broken.

Fahim Anwar tells his story about his recent special on YouTube and the lengths he went to NOT get censored but got still got censored…

Fahim won’t stop using YouTube (I would not either), but it is only a matter of time before he puts most of his fresh effort and best fresh material on Punchup.live. Fahim should own his email list, control his deliverability, own his data, profit from driving ticket sales and help grow and promote the comics/friends he wants with his email list.

Here is comic Mike Binder diving deeper into the subject at hand…

Here is Sam Morril with his lates on the PunchUp platform/site ‘My Ex Is Here’. He is hilarious and knows that on PunchUp he can share whatever material he likes and get it immediately to his fans via email.

This is really an exciting time for creators and entrepreneurs in the media and creative world.

Have a great Sunday