john pollard

early stage operator and founder
now: building tools for music communities @ninaprotocol
prev: Atoms (fka CloudKitchens)

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

I spent three years working for Ben at CloudKitchens - he always obsessed over building our business like the perfect machine... I think he's done it for everyone's business this time around. Congrats, Ben! Excited to see this next chapter of Polsia.

[Ben Cera @Bencera]

Polsia just raised $30M at a $250M valuation.

Approaching $10M annual run rate.

One Founder + AI. Zero employees.

Polsia runs companies autonomously.

It also ran its own fundraising.

I just showed up for signatures.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

Is Mr. Saylor's scheme running out of steam?

Smells like late-stage railway mania.

[Watcher.Guru @WatcherGuru]

JUST IN: Michael Saylor's Strategy proposes selling some Bitcoin to pay dividends.

"You buy Bitcoin with credit, you let it appreciate, and then you sell Bitcoin to pay the dividend."

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@houmanasefi @Bencera Yeah another interesting question is whether the LLMs will behave like Amazon did with ecomm - let people build winning products on your platform/infra, then copy and outcompete the winners.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@metapreston From my time at CK, it was a clear strategy: throw energetic, smart people at problems to become deeply familiar with workflow/processes and brute-force solutions, then once deeply understood, begin productizing for scale. Ops came before product wherever possible.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

hey Sam, appreciate the earnest follow up.

That is valid pushback on the study, and makes sense that headline is easily skewed. Thanks for the added context. I am very familiar with the reporting Spotify does, which deserves kudos for setting a standard in transparency.

I suppose what concerns me is the stated mission seems at odds with various monetization / product-level decisions:

There's Liz Pelly's research into royalty-free music jamming up playlists and algo recs, there's songwriter royalties shifting to audiobook publishers in the new bundling schema, and @musicben_eth's recent post (https://t.co/mLHMXneY0B) on Spotify's Q4 earnings call adds further clarity on where the business and product are headed.

The actions seems at odds with the mission, atleast as it pertains to indie musicians needs - clearer monetization / audience ownership / D2F merchandising.

This is not to say Spotify isn't trying to satisfy those artists' needs, just that it doesn't seem to be the priority from what people on the outside can decipher.

Would love to connect and chat more about it.

[musicben 🎧 @musicben_eth]

https://t.co/RvJ1jDhDBc

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@thebryanjun @travisk 🤝

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@tbpn @GustavS @GustavS + team seem focused on finding margin-expansion outside of trad music rights holders (podcasts, audiobooks, ai-gen playlist-filler, payola, fan-powered remixes) as they grapple with maturation of streaming market. Should return to the basics of fandom + lift all ships.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@tbpn @GustavS 92% of full-time artists surveyed by UK Artists Union said they make less than 5% of their income from streaming. Spotify will eventually get ditched by artists if it continues to function as an advertisement for artists' core business but gives no tools to drive fan conversion.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

Spent 3 years working for him at CK. Gave him a presentation on a new product line and he used the full hour tearing apart the 4-word pitch for the product on the first slide. "Those 4 words will determine whether you get the investors, employees and customers, or your competitors does." He's goated.

[Landon @landon20s]

Can’t wait to share this on Monday!!

Spoke with @AldReilly about his vision for Cook County on @chicagofuturist

We covered why policies like a “cloud tax” send the wrong signal to startups + what it’ll take for Cook County to become a hub for tech 🚀 🚀 🚀

Bullish on Chicago

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@landon20s @UChicago @NorthwesternU @UofIllinois Especially for early-stage consumer. NYC understands behavior is downstream of culture in a way SF seemingly overlooks.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@TKPPodcast Very true that it all starts with hiring process. Pricipal-Agent Problem and Chesterton's Fence are both super interesting lenses for thinking why organizations have a hard time building a culture that weeds out low performance.

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@alexisohanian Timing looks prime

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@solluntary @EliLikesRice It's a learning companion I'm building. Happy to share access once it's live if you'd like

[john pollard @jpegjamesdean]

@BarefootStudent Smart move, interesting dynamics at play here.

[hashimotosan @hashimotosan122]

こちらはNina Protocolという音楽プラットフォームが立ち上げたGenre Icebergという機能で、気になるジャンルをクリックしてそれに該当する楽曲を聴くことも出来るので、よりマニアックな音楽を深掘りしたい人にはおすすめかも。
https://t.co/tXX4nOdAvM

[musicben 🎧 @musicben_eth]

Big crypto music success story no-one talks about: Nina Protocol:

• 20,000 songs / releases.
• All stored permanently on Arweave.
• Payments on Solana.
• Artists keep 100%
• Reaching real music fans via editorial + IG content
• Just secured a deal with Merlin (licenses 15% of all record music)

well played @ninaprotocol

[JAMES FERRARO @LIL_ICEBUNNY]

Sanctuary OST - available exclusively on Nina @ninaprotocol

https://t.co/6oi32Qy2m8