Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube)

**Camille Hearst** (0:00)
So Steve Jobs' lore was that if you were in an elevator with him, you better be prepared to talk about what you do at the company, because he had a habit of getting in the elevator and looking at you and saying, what do you do? What do you do here? And there were also rumors that people had not given him a good answer, that ended up being their last day at Apple.
So there was someone who I didn't know personally, but worked in my department before I got there, who got in an elevator and looked up and Steve was approaching him. And so he went to press the button to open the door and accidentally press the one to close the door. And it's like doing this, you can't see me if you're listening to a podcast, but like frantically pressing the button trying to open the door, but accidentally pressing the closed door button and the elevator going to its destination. And apparently he got off and just bolted, like right straight up ran down the hallway.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:00)
I'll never remember my face.

**Camille Hearst** (1:01)
Yeah, exactly.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:07)
Welcome to Lenny's podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today, my guest is Camille Hearst. Camille is head of fan monetization at Spotify. Before that, she was head of product for creators at Patreon. She was product marketing manager at YouTube and the second PM on iTunes. She's also a former founder. She started a company called Kit that she sold to Patreon. And this episode is for anyone who's curious about the creator space, either from the creator side or the platform side, or if you just like to hear a bunch of fun stories from an awesome product leader. We chat about the future of creator platforms, how to be successful as a creator and also as a new creator platform, the downsides of creator life, plus frameworks, stories from Steve Jobs, ways to monetize being a creator, and so much more. Enjoy this episode with Camille Hearst after a short word from our sponsors.
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Camille, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

**Camille Hearst** (4:27)
Thank you so much for having me Lenny.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (4:29)
I first wanted to just give a big thank you to Adam Fishman for introducing us who had just so many nice things to say about you. And so I'm really excited to be chatting. I want to start with talking about your current role at Spotify and I believe your role is head of fan monetization.