Good morning,
Jay-Z vs deepfakes, Segment on the long-term solution for short-term problems, a letter from Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky & 50% off of Revue if youāre in health or science. Hereās your weekly GrowthPulse.
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Grey hat deepfakes
A few weeks ago Jay-Zās label Roc Nation tried to take down a video on YouTube. This video was a deepfaked audio recording of
Jay-Z reciting a Shakespeare monologue and a Billy Joel song. Google initially took down the video, but then Google decided that Roc Nationās takedown requests were incomplete. Google cited that: āThe YouTuber labeled audio clips to indicate theyāre synthetic speech.ā
DeepfakesĀ (aĀ portmanteauĀ of ādeep learningā and āfakeā) areĀ synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone elseās likeness.
While itās astonishing to me that they audio actually sounds like Jay-Zās distinctive voice, it also opens up to a weird opportunity.
If an individual can replicate Jay-Zās voice and can get away with it, you can do it too. If you should is another question, but hey, that oneās up to you. A 2-minute Google search revealed that there are many deepfake audio tools out there. Upload a 1-3 hour video of a voice you want to mimic and
this SDK letās you play with it.
Retention for short term problems
We all know that retention is a tough cookie to crack, but also one that ensures your company has a future. With saturated ad platforms, rising CACs and the level of competition the need of basic level retention is critical to survive.
Segment wrote a good article on how to track early warning signs. Itās definitely not new information, but sometimes a bit of inspiration can bring you quite far.
I would include a data scientist from day 0 to help you with the analysis and to get a solid understanding of your challenges. From there onwards analyse your product improvements against subsequent cohorts to measure short-term solutions and the long-term impact on your improvements.
A letter from Airbnbās CEO Brian Chesky
Iāll close this weeks GrowthPulse with the letter that Brian Chesky send to his staff. To let go a big % of your staff is one of the toughest decisions to make if you heading a company. For that one tough decision are a dozen of possible - and most of the time - not pretty endings. The direction that Airbnb chose is memorable. How they go to great lengths to ensure their teammates end up well is inspiring to say the least.
With that said this GrowthPulse is coming to an end. I wish you a safe and lovely weekend.
See you next week!!
Gino š¤š½