The Creator Economy’s Abundance Crisis

**Colin** (0:00)
All right, 2026 We've now been doing this podcast for eight years, Colin.

**Samir** (0:06)
Yeah, which is truly incredible. And the fact that this is year 10 of Colin and Samir on YouTube, year 15 in total of making YouTube videos.

**Colin** (0:17)
Yeah, that's crazy. And there's also a lot of big milestones, like Smosh. It's year 20 for them, right? We are entering the truly crazy era of our industry, and it does feel like 2026 is a year where things have arrived in a very specific way. Of course, we talked about this in the last episode, but really seeing how the streamers are taking to creators is very eye-opening to me. Like the Netflixes and the Hulus and the Disney Pluses, there's a lot of stuff that we hear that isn't public yet, but there's a lot of creator streamer deals that are about to hit.
And that is a very substantial moment. It's very different. It is finally the moment where it's creators are entertainment.

**Samir** (1:06)
Yeah. And it's going to be interesting to follow and really see, like, what does it mean to be a creator? When I think of creator, I think of Instagram, I think of YouTube. I don't think of Netflix, but maybe I will in the future.

**Colin** (1:20)
Who knows? All right. So we are here in Montana, Big Sky, Montana, the site of the fourth annual Spotter Creator Summit. It's something that we do every year, get together with a bunch of top creators, have a week of brainstorming, of workshopping problems, of hearing from really interesting guests. And we're going to tell you a little bit about what we're hearing and what we're doing at the summit. We're also going to talk about some New Year's Eve reading that I did, which was Adam Mosseri's Instagram post about the future of Instagram.

**Samir** (1:52)
If you're listening, I imagine you're like, Oh, Samir, I also spent New Year's Eve reading Adam Mosseri's Instagram post. Of course.

**Colin** (2:00)
You know what? I'm going to say, I bet you there's other people out there who did that.

**Samir** (2:04)
New Year's Eve?

**Colin** (2:04)
Yeah, comment on this on Spotify or send us a tweet. If you were like me, cozied up by the fire, swiping through Adam Mosseri's 20 slide Instagram post about the future of Instagram.

**Samir** (2:15)
Maybe one of you printed it out.

**Colin** (2:16)
Truly riveting.

**Samir** (2:17)
Made it into a book.

**Colin** (2:18)
It was it was riveting.

**Samir** (2:19)
It was riveting and we're going to dive into it.

**Colin** (2:20)
All right. So let's start with what we're doing here in Montana and some things that we're learning from other creators.

**Samir** (2:26)
So every year for the last four years, Samir and I with Spotter, we host this summit with a ton of top creators. And it really is a true gift as a creator to get to spend four days to just reflect on last year, plan for next year and hear from really interesting people. You get all these unexpected creative inputs that sort of have pretty big impacts on what you do. And in the past, we've heard from JJ Abrams, we've heard from the team at OpenAI, I think like a month after ChatGPT launched. And so we've had some...

**Colin** (3:02)
Did you do your ChatGPT wrapped?

**Samir** (3:04)
No, but you mentioned it and I really want to.

**Colin** (3:06)
I did it and because of that, I was in the 0.01% of first users of ChatGPT, which is pretty crazy.

**Samir** (3:13)
Wow. And...

**Colin** (3:15)
Flex, it's just a flex.

**Samir** (3:16)
Yeah, flex, cool. I'll check my wrapped and see if I'm there with you. I don't know. But yeah, we also, this year, we heard from Issa Rae. We heard from author Kim Scott about managing and hiring and how to talk to employees. It's just, we heard from people from different brands that are looking to work with creators. And so it's just a really well-rounded, interesting four days to get to take a deep breath and plan the year.

**Colin** (3:47)
So we set the theme for this, and I want to share the theme with you guys, because it came to me in a vision during the holidays. It came very clear to me, which is the art of being memorable. And this is because I had this vision of a supply and demand graph. Also, if anyone is with me, if they also had visions of a supply and demand graph during the holidays, let me know. But I was thinking about the world of creators and how in 2020, I remember the feeling as we were creating and starting to pick up with the Colin and Samir Show that, OK, there is a massive demand all of a sudden from advertisers because TV was kind of shut down and people were all on their phones and on the Internet. Massive demand from advertisers to work with creators and a very low supply.