Full Transcript for Filtering the Breakthroughs: Emma Barker Bonomo on How TIME Defines the Best Inventions

to time, and when I was at first hired, at the time, I was the features editor, which, you know, we cover were global publications, sort of general interest news. So the cover stories each week are across the board, any topic. I think the first issue that I worked at time for, I was editing a story about drones on the front cover, and from there, it's just been a really wide range of types of projects. And that's part of why I really love Special Issue, the special issues that I edit now, it's really deep diving into sort of these themes for each issue. So I get to really get go deep on an issue. And then when that project is over, I get to talk about something, look into something totally different. At this point, I'm doing the same issues year to year for the most part. So it's sort of I've been able to build up my teams on those specific issues over the years, but it's I would say it's now more business focused, and that's sort of been a theme throughout my career. But yeah, I think this breadth of kind of experience of topics has really set me up to be able to do things like this where I'm, I'm editing across a really wide range of things. I noticed that, you know, business obviously can be cyclical at times in terms of the timing and, you know, it can you kind of have an idea of when certain issues will be published? But things can change, like, for example, over the past weekend, there's a big news coming out that Spirit Airlines have been defunct as of now. So these things may change. But do you think it changed the way that you write special features, or do you think it's just pretty much standard? You know, there's some nuances here and there, but do you think it's just like, you know, a complete change or something that, you know, should be fixated and focused? Yeah. Well, we always reserve sort of some, some cushion for news essentially in our projects. These are projects that we're working on for like six months. So there is some level of we have to pick the list in advance and we don't know what's going to happen necessarily. That said, you know, usually there's sort of inklings of most things happening. Nothing's totally out of the blue. Spirit has been on the rocks for quite some time. So certainly, you know, we knew about that going into our time 100 companies issue, which just came out this past week. And we're sort of aware of of what might happen, although that issue did come out, I think two days before spirit went out of business. And so, yeah, I mean, like if spirit had been on that list, that would have looked really bad. And, and there's always that chance that something like that can happen. But we have enough sort of editorial buffer in the last two weeks before we publish, where we're able to make like kind of last minute swaps or, you know, bring in something that suddenly is relevant, that wasn't before, cut something that went out of business or had a really big moment. But yeah, really just a few. So it kind of relies on us being a little bit prescient about the news. So I did have a question, given everything that's been happening in journalism and in the newsroom. What would you say to students who want to study or who are studying journalism and who want to who want to kind of chart a similar path as you, but they see what's happening in journalism and how a lot of different publications. I know Forbes, I write for Forbes, but I'm an independent contractor, but they just cut a bunch of jobs. You know, a lot of different publications have been cutting jobs. What would you say to somebody now who maybe in school setting journalism, who wants to write for the cut or these big name publications, but is worried and scared about, you know, the impacts of AI. People are using AI to write all of these things that are going on and that are relevant right now. Do you think that the traditional path, or even maybe the path that you took, is still something that people can, can take and be successful? Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, I graduated at a time of big upheaval. I think when I my first internship at a publication, two weeks after I got hired, my boss and the entire department got laid off, that was at Meredith Corp I and, yeah. So I, I don't think this is, you know, it's a new reason, but I don't think the people in journalism is necessarily anything new. There's always something. AI is certainly a perhaps a bigger threat than, you know, the pivot to video era or other areas where things were changing a lot. I think when I graduated it was yeah, it was around like, you know, every reporter had to be able to go out and shoot their own video and edit it. And that was the thing that we were talking about, and that didn't totally play out. I mean, a little bit, but, I think in terms of what I see now with young people graduating and what I find helpful when I'm editing people is, you know, editors can tell when you used AI. I've definitely severed relationships with freelancers who filed poorly written AI content that I could tell. And I think it will be a huge advantage to people who have the skills to do good quality writing themselves and gain the trust of editors to be able to do that. And I think freelancing is a great opportunity for students graduating. So I think just reaching out to editors, trying to establish that relationship, being really open and honest about the fact that, you know, you're doing original writing, you're really out there trying to get original information I think will gain you a lot of trust in this industry. So maybe pursuing maybe these students should be using outlets like Substack, like, how do you feel? I'm always curious about how editors feel about because Substack is now like the new thing, you know, is that the type of thing that is attractive to you, to see students who have a lot of writing on Substack or, you know, other places on social media. I like to be able to check out a person's

writing, and I think it's obviously hard to get those first clips. And so if you don't have a lot of clips, I think it's great to show good writing somewhere. That said, I think, the power of an editor cannot be understated. And so if it's writing that you're planning to show editors, have someone else look at it before you publish it on Substack, even if it was, you know, I would I would think of Substack as your publishing platform as opposed to like a blog as we used to, where you're just writing your kind of stream of consciousness thoughts really try to make it polished work that you're proud to show editors.. I know it knows also the same principle you apply to podcasting or recording and on air talent, right? Or is it pretty slightly different, or it's pretty much the same principle. Make sure you get your reps in, make sure it's authentic, and make sure you're also growing your audience as well. Yeah, I don't have as much expertise in in podcast work as honestly, but I certainly value, you know, if I if a reporter is doing that work really well and getting original data and it shows that they're a really great interviewer, I think that can be really valuable to show as well, for sure. Now, I wanted to segway into the most recent publication that you put out, and last week was the most influential companies here I wanted to know, and this is out of curiosity, personally. Personally, what is your favorite company to cover? Oh, okay. So I'm always a fan of the underdog or sort of the the surprising story. You know, obviously the most influential companies is going to have Amazon and Alphabet on it. And those aren't always the most surprising stories, although I will attest that we had to cover with Sundar Pichai of Alphabet this year, and I think that ended up actually being a surprising story. They kind of started the AI race earlier than everyone else, he declared the company fully dedicated to AI in 2016, which was like eight years before ChatGPT came out. And before anyone was talking about it. And it was seen as kind of weird at the time, and he's been kind of pulling these different strings together at the company to build this sort of AI engine for ten years. And it really finally just paid off. They were seen as kind of like behind the times on AI, I think since 2018 or so, and they've kind of caught up. And now Gemini is definitely at the top of the leaderboards. And so there was kind of a surprising under surprising underdog story of Google there. But for the most part, I love the stories where it's like, you know, Tiny Company comes from behind and somehow has huge influence. One of my favorite ones from time 100 companies this year was Corning Glass, which is a glass company. They literally make glass, and they've made it for 175 years. Their based in upstate New York and it's like a really small company. You can. Something I love about I live in New York. You can go up to the Corning Glass Factory, and they have a glass

museum where it's like artwork made out of glass, as sort of a tribute to glass. That's how much they love glass. Wow. It's a really cool museum. That Corning Glass museum. Anyhow, in the past year, they've signed billion dollar contracts with meta and other big tech companies to provide the fiber optic cable for all this high speed data that they need to power AI, which I think is a really interesting pivot. And now they're kind of part of this story of of on shoring big tech and the tech supply chain, which I think is, is really cool. I know this is a big story as well that broke recently with the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, stepping down. I think that was was that a major focus within covering a company like Apple? I'm assuming Apple made the the cut as far as one of the most influential companies. So Apple did we actually featured them. So I haven't been so inspired by their recent product releases, but we actually featured them for Apple TV and for their influence in Hollywood around programing, which is maybe a strange way to feature Apple. That's not really what they're mainly thought of, but I think they've had really big influence in terms of having like a small but really well curated set of original programing that that's not really the style these days. Like most, most studios are going for, you know, just tons and tons of content, just volume over quality. And, and that really hasn't been their tactic. And it's paying off big time. Like Apple TV is doing really well. And I think they've been making really big strides. And it's part of sort of their pivot from products to services, I guess. You know, certainly Apple TV is one of their services, but it's positioned them really interestingly, sort of more in the high end entertainment space over big tech necessarily, which I think is also smart of them to sort of a little bit distance themselves from big tech at this, at this moment, there's a little bit of the poison that I feel like they've kind of ducked around by doing that, which is interesting. And I, you know, we'll see if the new CEO is continues on that path. So I'm really curious about this idea of creativity, because with the rise of AI, everything now feels like it's like super cookie cutter and everyone is saying the same thing and doing the same thing. And, you know, as someone you know, your work covers the best inventions. You know how important something like creativity is. So what do you think are the ways that people can students watching this, or just anyone watching this, can expand their creativity or become more creative in a world where it feels like everything is kind of like the same, AI has made people, you know, it feels like everything is the same. Yeah, and I think, at least for me, editing this, this issue and I hope reading it feels like it a little bit freeing in that sense. It's very inspiring to see, you know, 300 inventions that people came up with, you know, perhaps definitely some of them with the help of AI. But ultimately people created these things and came up with these ideas for products that are some of, you know, that are just so ingenious. And it really kind of gives you faith. And in the ingenuity of humanity, I think there's certainly a lot of stories on here that are a single inventor created this product out of a problem that they were looking to solve. And that's really a key that we're looking for when we're vetting the list is what is the problem that they set out to solve, and did they solve it or are they like well, on their way at least to solving it? And I think that is the also the key to creativity is what is the problem here. What are you trying to solve. And finding a way to to answer that question for yourself. And, and maybe AI is going to help you in some part of that journey in terms of research or in terms of organization or something like that. But ultimately, I think you only humans can solve our own problems on some level, even even these, you know, AI's that are working in medicine and, and finding doing drug research, ultimately people are putting them on that path to do it and sending them in the right direction. And I think they can just do the work faster sometimes. I noticed that, you know, over the over the years we have I've noticed that when I'm reading the best inventions list, you guys increased from, I believe it was 100 to now we're featuring 300 inventions here. I wanted to talk about the the amount, the volume in which, you know, so many companies or even individuals are now being creative and starting and trying to solve problems. Have you also noticed that change or that trend? Yeah, it's super rapid, super rapid increase in innovation in the past five years or so. I would say for sure. A lot of it is certainly AI fueled, but also other technology fueled, not just AI. There's just it's so much faster. The, the process by which a single person could iterate and design something and get something made, get it prototyped, and come out with an end product has just shortened by so much over the recent years. You know, even with 3D printing alone and the technology that has advanced there and how much cheaper it's become so that people can have their own 3D printer that they're doing by themselves, someone could really start. It's it's a lot more possible to start a much more professional feeling business by yourself or on a small scale than I think it was even five, ten years ago. Yeah, I was going to ask why, but you mentioned things like 3D printers and and I think also maybe I don't know if Covid made people more creative because so many people were at home just thinking about like, different things. And I think we had more time to think and to ponder because it just seems like in the last few years, maybe it's just I'm more aware of more inventions and things. You know, my parents love Shark Tank, so I see a lot of stuff on there as well. So I just it feels like people are more

innovative now. But I do think the rise of things like 3D printers have made that much easier for people. Yeah, and just the accessibility of of technology, I think. But in addition to people sitting around and having more free time on their hands, maybe to to do projects, I think Covid also, you know, there was kind of a pause in investments for a while. And in terms in terms of people supporting other businesses and other inventions. And then I think there was kind of like a catch up phase afterwards where we saw a few years where it was really a big boom in products coming out. So I think that also contributed to it feeling like, oh, everything's happening now, you know, starting in like maybe 2023 or so. Do you, when you're editing these lists, do you find it difficult to judge. And we can talk about the, you know, process of judging these inventions here. But the vaporware type of products, products where, you know, you have the idea, you have the the patents pending, but it's not out there in the market yet and we're not using it and we don't plan on using it in the next few years. Do you do you find it difficult to judge these type of invention, these inventions, or do you think it's easier to do so? Yeah, no, it's definitely difficult to judge, especially tech products. I think so many tech products are extremely hyped, hyped before they have any evidence behind them. And it's really hard to get beyond that hype and look at the actual evidence and find out, especially when companies don't want to give it. A lot of companies are also very locked down about what information they'll put out there about a new product, and they're really relying on the hype to make sales. And that does make it very difficult to vet things. You know, I think we've certainly. Featured products in the past that were really exciting when they first came out. And now, years later, we're kind of like, everyone forgot about that. And, you know, we can look back and say, and notice that I think one that comes to mind is two, maybe two years ago. I forget if it was 2 or 3 years ago, there was the AI pin, remember, from human human AI, and it was going to be essentially like, in Star Trek where they can just talk into their pin. It is kind of like a smart assistant in a little pin. And we included that. It was new and we included that on the list. We did. We had sent a reporter to try it out in their office, and I thought it worked quite well for what I was expecting, which is why we included it. But. I think it just, you know, as much as your smart assistants get things wrong, it's the same technology, essentially. And no one, you're not going to wear something that gets things wrong sometimes. So it just didn't really didn't catch on. So there's always products like that. I think there's two ways I think about a product coming out that's getting a lot of hype or feels groundbreaking in the moment, but you're not. It's so new, you're not sure if it's really

going to catch on. I think those products can have really big impact. If they do catch on, certainly they can have societal impact. And you know, when the iPhone came out, now we're all using iPhones all the time and we're totally addicted to them. That's certainly had societal impact. But also in terms of just getting a new idea out there and showing that something is possible. So even if something doesn't catch on, sometimes an idea is new and interesting enough that it will inspire other companies to sort of pursue similar projects. It's getting people thinking about, oh, this is maybe a direction that technology is going. We could try something else like this, and it'll be influential by sparking new ideas in that way. And so I kind of think about the hype cycle in that way of like, is this truly just type and there's nothing behind it. Is it innovative enough that it could inspire other innovations, or is it actually going to catch on? And those are kind of like the three ways I think about these super overhyped products. Do you ever. There are a lot. Were there any innovations that you feature that you regret that you were like, that wasn't maybe it was like innovative. But then I think about, you know, the long term implications of something like, you know, ChatGPT or OpenAI. I wonder if when we look back in 20 or 30 years, we're going to say it was a good thing that those things were created because they, you know, large language models have been helpful in many ways. But I could see, you know, all of the detrimental sort of outcomes. But has there been any innovations that you were like, I don't know how that that one will turn out. Yeah. Well, there's certainly innovations on here that I personally don't like. There are things that I think, you know, that's probably not the best thing, you know, for society as a whole or for a certain industry. It's going to be really challenging. That said, I, we try to keep the list very positive for this one particularly. You know, I'm not including any, you know, defense inventions really, or things that could really harm people. And so I'm, you know, I, I guess I take that angle with it that said, I think every innovation as you talk about creativity has something to contribute to society, even if the end product ultimately, you know, we don't think is great. Things are so nuanced. There's always like a large number of people, something helped and a large number of people, maybe it didn't help. And, I can't think of one thing that we had on that I really regret. You know, I think there are things that probably I wouldn't use, but these are all interesting products that are the result of of amazing human creativity. I have a I have another question to piggyback off of that one. What's your favorite invention? Oh, that's a good question. Well, you know, it's funny, we so this past year was our 25th year of doing best inventions. The first year was 2001. And there was a there was an invention

in the. So we were looking back at the very first edition of Best Dimensions, which was just a small package I think of maybe, you know, it was like 15 items or something. And one of the things they had in there was a bicycle with two, like floating boat things on the sides that you could bicycle on water, which I just thought was so funny. You know, the fact that there was a moment in 2001 when people were like, we're going to be vacation, definitely, which I love, but I also love, you know, looking back at that first edition, there was a first, take at the deep brain stimulation device that we then had the new version of on this past year, 25 years later. And the very first one was in the first edition of of Best Inventions. So it's also really a cool opportunity to be able to kind of track innovation over, you know, decades when we're looking at how a certain type of product evolved. So, yeah, I love all of those. I mean, I my personal when I'm, when I'm writing the list, I always love, like a new food. There's always a new food in there. You know, oftentimes it's like a, some sort of genetically modified fruit that is really interesting. There's always these kind of like two years ago, there was something that was like a sweeter version of garlic that they had created that I thought was really fun. And it was just supposed to be sort of like the shallots of garlic, you know, which I love the food, food innovations. When people get really nerdy about that, I think that's a lot of fun. When it comes down to featuring institutional invention, I know you guys feature Columbia University's. I think it was a hand. Yes. how much of in terms of vetting out that process, you boil down to the research of it. I know Columbia probably have a ton of research papers predicated on that hand. Do you also take that into consideration when it comes down to bending out these inventions? Yeah, especially the medical ones were really looking for, you know, clinical trials, FDA approval. We're looking for things that are really going to be accessible to the patients so that they're intended to reach already. So, you know, I'm mindful that a lot of these products have like potentially decades between when they're actually invented and when they're accessible to the patients they're supposed to reach. But we're because we're a, you know, more consumer focused magazine. We're really trying to show people things that they could go to their doctor and say, I want to try this, and that it might potentially be accessible. And so, yeah, we're usually by the point at which we're including something medical, they have just tons and tons of research behind it and usually multiple approvals. So typically we're not like trying out a new medical invention or having to see it for the first time. It's often something that's been out there and just more recently, kind of passed some of the approval benchmarks. I I'm sorry I have so many questions here. No that's okay.

When it comes to looking at companies. Right. You guys listed the, you know, the most influential companies. Do you find it? It's a correlation between those who are influential and those who are also innovative, and putting out new inventions and new concepts out. Yeah. Yes. We have some overlap, certainly between the two lists in terms of a product that's on best inventions. Oftentimes the company is making 1000 companies. I think best inventions is sometimes a first entry point into time products or time lists. And a lot of that is because, you know, for best inventions, all you need is one great product. Whereas Simon hundred companies is really looking at company wide impact and broader impact. So a lot of times we will see a company have a best invention, and then maybe a few years later, we're looking at them for time 100 companies, once they've sort of expanded their repertoire a little bit. But there is definitely a lot of overlap. I think especially in spaces like sustainability, we'll see a sustainability invention that's really cool. And then a lot of times those companies are really, you know, they scale up fast and they're having broad environmental impact by partnering with large corporations to help make them more sustainable. They can have wide impact really quickly. And so we've we've seen a lot of crossover in that space specifically. I'm so curious as far as the 100 companies, are there certain factors that you weigh more like as far as when you're evaluating the companies, or is it just essentially like a list of criteria that's important? You know, maybe like how they treat their employees and, and sustainability and other factors? Or are there certain characteristics that are more important when you're evaluating these companies? Yeah. Time under companies is a little more. It's focused more on influence as opposed to Innovation. And so with best inventions, as I said, you know, we're really trying to keep that mainly positive. These are innovations that are most, for the most part like positively changing the world in some way. Obviously we can't know all the downstream impacts of something later, but that's the goal with time and under most influential companies, certainly also largely positive, but we're really looking at influence around the world. And a lot of these companies are a lot have a lot more nuance in terms of their positive and negative impact. You know, for example, we have two big oil companies on the list this year. The reason they're on is they're both having huge impact on on major news stories in the world. We have Saudi Aramco, which is largely controlling the Strait of Hormuz trading right now. And then we have Chevron, which controls is the only operator in Venezuela, which was a huge news story of the year and was able to kind of pull the purse strings around the Trump administration, which no other company can do. And so we're looking a lot more at the companies sort of driving the news stories, changing our lives, whether that be for, for good or for ill. So I'd say the focus there is, you know, the focus on both is impact. I think ten most influential companies is a lot more probably news focused and focused on as as corporations have had a lot bigger role in global politics and geopolitics. I think it speaks to that a little more as well. It's almost like the I know time has the most influential people of the. So it's almost like that where whether you like the people or not, it's like the impact, you know, and whether people have been talking about them. So I kind of, I guess after you explain that, I see it as similar to that. Yeah. And they sort of feed into each other. Typically the time 100 companies issue comes out just after the the time when people issue and we invite the CEOs from the list to the time of gala and summit, which is around that time as well. And so they're sort of they're a little bit two parts of the same project I would call them. I have a question here. Now, I want to know or I'm pretty sure the artist would want to know, what are the two most oversaturated industries or categories to include into the time best inventions, and what are the two least saturated categories? Definitely number one saturated is AI. We have we do office hours for the application period for best inventions. And, it's sort of an opportunity for for companies to join and ask questions about how they can make their application better. And, my advice often is if people are choosing, you know, say they have a product that is, educational and uses AI, I always say apply in deciding which category. I always say apply in education like everyone thinks their product is. An AI product, wants their product to be an AI product is marketing it that way. But in terms of best inventions, we're not. We're not looking at the bubble. We're not part of the bubble. And so we're really if you apply, you know, if you're trying to market yourself as an AI product and you're not making the AI as more of a plug in or, you know, some kind of smaller aspect of your product, it's almost never advantageous to apply in that category because it's just so crowded. So that's definitely the the most hyped one. And we're starting to see that fall down a little, which is interesting, something that we saw with the apps and software category is now happening with the AI category, which is that for a while, apps and software was the biggest category for sure, because everyone was trying to make an app and everything had to be an app, and then it got to sort of the saturation point where literally everything is an app. You know, anyone could apply in an app, and also another category. And now absent software has actually become one of our smaller categories. And the reason is because it's not the unique thing about anyone that they have an app. And so I think we're going to see something similar with AI, where it sort of reaches the saturation point

where just everything is AI, and then we'll see that category shrink again. I, I hope one hopes we'll see. So that's the biggest one. Second biggest is actually medical. We see a ton of innovation in the medical space. And we get a, you know, time is also well known for our health coverage. And so I think a lot of companies think to apply in medical. But we see a lot of medical invasion and health related innovations, which is really cool. The smallest ones. That's interesting. We see let me think about that a little bit. It might be food and drink is pretty decently big. It's definitely some of the more lifestyle lifestyle ones, probably outdoors. We don't see as much in outdoors, although I love outdoors innovations. When we get like a camping invention or something like that. Oh, crypto and blockchain has really fallen off. We used to have a big, you know, we obviously went through a big boom with crypto and blockchain and and that fell a lot. yeah, things like household, outdoors, parenting, these are toys. We don't get a ton as much in that sort of the lifestyle space. But when we do, they're I'm so curious. Are there any students or young, really young people that submit inventions, or is it do you tend to get companies and groups of people? Because I'm just thinking of a student who may be watching or listening to this who, I don't know, maybe made something in their class or something and is thinking about, you know, submitting it. Are there do you find that there are a lot of really young people who end up submitting, or maybe even getting their inventions on the list, or you don't have as many? It's hard to know, because I don't have data on the specific inventor all the time. Usually it's a company submitting, but that said, you know, people put a company name on their company that is just them in their garage. So, you know, oftentimes in the reporting process, we're calling people back. We're talking to the inventor. And then we get a little more information. But for the most part, we're getting information about the product, about the company. And we don't talk to the inventor as much or we don't know as much about them. So I don't have like demographic data, although I would love to. And that sounds fascinating. I'm sure a lot of these are young, young folks and a lot of them are young companies. So if that says anything about them, recently founded. But yeah, I'm not I'm not sure on sort of the demographic range. I think we also we do have a really big range between sort of large corporate inventions like, you know, a new Samsung phone that is very innovative, that's coming out of a R&D team, you know, and something that was created by one person, which we have a fair number of, I think the challenge for an independent inventor is getting to a scale that we can look at impact of. You know, some of these things. One person created something, they sold it on Kickstarter, it went viral, and then they did have enough sales to

be able to show the impact of something. And we we had enough sort of evidence to go on. But oftentimes if sales are pretty still pretty small, they don't really have any studies behind it. You know, sometimes we don't quite have enough evidence to base anything on. When looking at the trends of. You mentioned that AI is now starting to fall off the most popular, category, I was wondering, in the next five years, what category do you think? Or do you see is going to emerge onto one of the top saturated categories to assess in this invention to list? Oh my gosh, I don't even know if I am qualified to predict that. I do think wearables are going to continue to rise. And I think, you know, swallowing my own pride after the humane AI pin incident. I understand that did not get done, but but I do think there's a boom going to be a boom in wearables coming up. You know, we're seeing a lot of companies, including Google, going back to glasses in the coming years. You know, I don't know if those are like quite there where they're going to be really widely adopted, you know, next year. But I think in, in the next 5 to 10. Yeah, maybe, maybe lasses will get there to the point that they're small enough and light enough that people will want to wear them. I think screen free tech has been we've seen that really rising. And we don't actually even have a category for that. But like the hoop band, the aura ring, these are things that give people those are both wildly popular. And I think a big reason is to give people the data, but they don't distract you with a screen. And I think people are really pivoting towards that, type of tech in an interesting way. So maybe we should create a category for it. We'll see. I have one last question here. Yeah, I know, I know, we were probably pressed with time, but I have one last question. The question is if you were to if you were to provide an advice to an intern who may be interested in becoming a features editor or a features writer at a major company like time, who has huge impact, what would that advice be? I think doing as much writing and original reporting as you can, and getting your work out there, I think is it's going to become an increasingly, rare skill to be able to go out. I already see this quite limited in terms of people being willing to go out and talk to people on the street, make cold phone calls like, call up a CEO, just call them up. You know, that doesn't happen a lot and not a lot of people have. They have the guts to do that. And that's how you get good, good interviews. That's how you get new information. And that's information that AI does not have yet. AI only has access to what's on the internet. And so, you know, being being able to be a good interviewer, having interview skills, being able to talk to people and doing that, reporting, getting that information. And then as you said, Substack or publishing it somewhere, making relationships with editors. I think the human side of

journalism is going to become an increasingly rare skill that that students now can really get ahead by fostering and being really good at, and they can stand out that way. Okay, I have one last question that sparked. So there's been a debate online. I don't know if you've been following it, but with a lot of these award shows, sometimes they invite influencers to interview people. And so there is one side of the internet that's like, why are you inviting influencers who have no journalistic integrity or no background? Some of them aren't good interviewers, and but they just have a large following. So what are your thoughts on if you had people that were applying that had no, you know, background in journalism, but maybe had a large following and they started blogging and they, you know, had a popular blog and people were reading it. Do you feel like there's still priority placed on that traditional educational experience of journalism where you're not, you know, an influencer who has no background isn't necessarily learning? Maybe the important things that you need to learn as a writer, as a journalist. So what do you have any thoughts around that? Yeah, I think you could do both. I mean, having a lot of followers will get you quite far, and I think that's really important currency now, and so that never hurts. But it's not a skill. It certainly building up a following can be a skill. But I think. It's something like building up your resume where it's something that's going to help you in your career path. And the best thing you can do is have the skills to back that up. So, yes, in short, I think there is so value. You know, I went to traditional journalism school. I had one class in internet journalism. I'm not even that old. You guys. Like, I'm not even that old. And I only had one class in internet journalism, and everything else was print related. And I've learned everything about digital journalism on the job as I've been working the past decades. And, I think, I think I still feel a lot of value in what I did learn in journalism school. And a lot of that is around just like the ethics of reporting a story, giving someone a platform, what you have to take into consideration when you give someone a platform, making sure they have informed consent about participating in in media, things like that, that are just these sort of like ethical questions, I think are things that you can't, it it's a lot harder to pick up on the job. And that's the kind of important thing that you're learning. thank you so much for joining us. You had so many great insights. So I'm sure the listeners will really enjoy this episode. We are so grateful to have you sharing all of your insight. So thank you for being here. And I look forward to just following, you know, the list and seeing all of the amazing inventions and companies that you all continue to to share with the world. So thank you so much and we appreciate having you. Thanks. I appreciate you guys having me. It was great talking with you. Let's check in. We'll check in when the issue comes out in October. Exactly. Thank you so much. This is the academic boardroom and we are checking out right now. [Theme Music] scholar and a business minded soul. We at the academic forum. Yeah, we keeping it 100. If you're looking for the truth. Well, you finally found it. Take a seat at the head. Let the dialog flow. It's a masterclass. Five. If you did it now you know.