Adam Torres and Don Allen III discuss the creator economy.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Don Allen III, Creator, explore the evolution of the creator economy.
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About Don Allen III
Don Allen III, a visionary XR and AI futurist. Known as the “Bob Ross” of the Metaverse, Don has carved out a unique niche in the intersection of art and technology, with a prowess leading him to prominent platforms like TED 2023, MIT, and Cannes Lions to share his insights on the future of creativity. Don honed his skills and understanding of the industry working at DreamWorks Animation, and now collaborates with major tech and entertainment companies such as Meta, OpenAI, Universal and more, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the digital realm. But it’s not all about technology— he’s a strong advocate for balancing health, finances, family, and community while living fully in accordance with core values and life goals. His values and pursuit of excellence are apparent in his work, and his passion for empowerment and creativity is truly inspiring.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres and I am in Santa Monica, California today at AI Vibes. Tal Navarro and her team are putting on an amazing event. And today I have, I snagged from the stage right after his panel Don Allen, who is a creator. And first off, hey, Don, I just want to say welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be here. All right. So first thing first how much fun are you having? What’s going on? I’m having a lot of fun. Yeah. What what was the panel about that you were just came off of? Well, the panel, we just talk about the creator economy and how it relates and how we think about it with regards to AI.
How does that impact it? Yeah. What what were some of the highlights or the things that you took away from it? Cause I know when I’m on a panel, I’m always learning from the other panelists too, like, like, what’d you get out of it? Yeah, for me, I got out of it that there’s going to be a mixed approach to how the creator economy goes.
I was thinking that there might be kind of a split. Some people are going to go. More into the AI world and others are gonna diverge strong from it. Oh, sorry. You’re fine. There’s a do you hear that? Sorry, my glasses we’re talking. Oh, no, that’s great. I actually don’t want to cut that out. So you’re a creator.
So I want, tell me about the glasses too. Like I want, I want everybody to hear about this because this is cool. It was awesome. First time that I’ve seen some people do it, but I haven’t seen anybody actually actively use them. So I love that your glasses were talking, but circle back to what you’re saying.
You were saying some people are going to go into it. Some are going to go away. Yeah. So. With regards to the creator economy, I think the conversation landed on how there’s going to be a need for current day content creators to show more of their human side online because there’s going to be an oversaturation of synthetic.
So whether that means showing more of your human process, more of your human errors and imperfections and flaws in your work versus just trying to make things look super perfect and precise, which is going to start looking more synthetic. Where do you, where do you fall in line as a creator? Like on that continuum, if you I dance between the two.
Yeah. So you’re in the middle, a solid middle? No, I’m just dance between the two. Oh, you dance. So it depends on the, on the project. It depends on the use case. Yeah. Sometimes I think it’s really important to be fully human and not have any AI in my process. And other times I think it’s better to have, All AI in my process, and then sometimes I think it’s good to do a little mixture of the two.
Yeah, I think as I’ve gotten further and further in it all, I think that it’s, it’s interesting. So we’re shooting, by the way, for everybody that’s watching this, this is the first time I’ve used this camera. This is an AI camera, so this is my first AI camera. Sorry, I’m going to take these out because they’re cute.
I don’t want them to hear my private messages. Oh, got it. So would I have ever thought that I was going to I was going to be using an AI camera. I mean, of course I’m in, like we’re going to use one, like I’m in. And now after I’ve done it, I’ve seen some of the benefits, I’ve seen some of the limitations, but overall, like for certain events, like this is the way I’m going.
So the AI side of things, and then I can see what you’re saying, like other things where you wouldn’t want to use it if we’re at a different type of event where I’m like no, I don’t want, I can’t, like, it’s got to be a little bit of a different feel. It’s great. But I think it circles back to me for like authenticity on the, on the, on the project, right?
Like what it calls for, like, what, what do you think? Like, how does this affect authenticity overall? Well, I think at least for me and like my, my brand, it’s about being authentically me. So the person you see on Instagram is the same person you’re going to meet right here. There’s no difference between the two.
Hold on, for better or worse, right? That’s what I tell other people. I’m like, for better. No, I mean, for me, like for better or worse, like flaws and all right. Like that’s what you’re going to see. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it should be, I think in my personal opinion, I think it should be the same person that we’re seeing.
Yeah. But then I’m also running different and generating my own AI avatars that amazing. And on my behalf, I have an AI lawyer that I made that reads all my contracts and reviews things for me on the first draft before I sign, you know, Sign off a thing. So it’s like, how much time has that saved you? Like, that’s a great use case.
How much time would you, would you say I’m not holding to the hour, like being able to do that and not having to do that. What would you say that saved you in time? I mean, maybe it would have taken me a day to review a contract. Wow. And now it takes me about. 15 minutes. Oh my gosh, maybe less. Oh, so now come on So all the people out there that are hesitant and they’re just anti anti You just heard you save a day for contracts.
I’m, sorry, but and i’m not to the lawyers out there I’m, not don’t I don’t need any emails nothing like that But like, I don’t personally get inspired creatively by reading contracts. Right. So if that’s your thing, by the way, not judging anybody. Right. But like you found a way to get out of and not have to do it quite as much as and spend a day on it.
And now you spend 15 minutes reviewing. Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So that’s a great use case scenario. And so what does that free up your time to do specifically? What kind of projects, like what kind of things do you like to work on and create? Yeah, I mean, I like to make a lot of concept videos where I show people I make videos around like two or three technologies that exist today.
I try to make a visual example of what happens when all three of those converge at some point in the future. So now it’s more time for making those fun, experimental short films, more time to write the stories, more time to like find a fun location. I mean, I would say I changed my job title every three weeks.
I’m not even doing the same stuff I was doing three weeks ago. Wow. So, it’s hard for me. It’s like, oh, like, what are you we asked you when you came in, Hey, do you got, what’s your business card or whatever? Like, you’re laughing. You’re like, Man, I’m not swapping out business card every time. I love it. I love it.
Well, I don’t think you should be anymore. I don’t either. Like, I mean, like, if, If you’re in this idea that who you are is tied to a card, then that’s like a dangerous spot to be for the creator economy. In my personal opinion, it should be something that’s adapting and changing. If your card has the ability to transform, I’m all for it.
Yeah, I agree with that. And it’s funny because every time we print new cards for me, it’s always a different design. And now at this point we have like probably like 10 different cards, depending on what type of event or where we’re going. And then we also have the digital one when like a link tree or something like that, like QR type thing.
Deal, but it makes sense. So for when somebody is like stat to me, I’ll use the word stagnant, not putting this word in your mouth, but when they’re stagnant and they got themselves in this box, like you said, that part you did say when things start moving fast, it’s going to be very difficult for them to keep up.
We do a lot in publishing and I like to talk about this example, Amazon, and you may know this or you may not. But Amazon for their audio books were part of a beta and they just literally maybe like a month or two ago, we, we, we did an experiment. We do a lot of books and and literally I think we did our audio book for something we already had published, 10 minutes.
The whole thing it was literally put in it didn’t have to take 10 minutes But I just wanted to be a little bit more thorough and look at it could have been five minutes And then you get to pick the voice you get to do this you get to do that and it was and okay It was it for this particular book. It was a business book It wasn’t something that needed like a lot of acting or they’re probably it was just gonna be straight delivery Anyway, it was gonna be pretty simple Study.
It was that niche where AI made sense. Would that make sense maybe for a book that has a particular like high bit of energy or the special diluted, maybe not. So I’m not saying that they like replaced humans on that, but I can tell you that my company, we stopped we said any marketing or anything that we have to do, that’s going towards growing our audio book division, kill it.
Yeah. Right. In one email. Yeah. That was done. So years of planning otherwise, but it’s okay. Cause then you take those same resources and then you use them other places. Like you figure out like other things and other projects and other ways to keep it now. Yeah. So like my wife, she actually used to be a voice actress and she did a lot of audio books man.
Wow. Had a whole microphone set up, converted like a whole closet and microphone set up for good sound would have these seven, eight, nine hour day recordings trying to do an audio book. And as she started learning about AI and I would show her stuff and she’d see stuff on her own. She’s completely pivoted away from audio.
She’s like, wow, that industry’s done. Yeah. You know, if you’re doing like long form audio content, like audio books, yeah. Like, and you said, you know, maybe you can’t talk about like the you know, a lot of acting and stuff. Yeah. That’s already changing. Yeah. Like this week I’ve saw a tool that actually has very, very impressive emotional states that you can hear in the generated audio.
They’re not, they’re not bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone might just think it’s a good, it might be like a good performance. For sure. But it was just text as the input. And then the output is an emotional audio performance. So we’re already, already past the idea of it just being for the, the audio facts and very clear, stable, monotone delivery.
Yeah, that’s, that’s already last week. Yeah. What excites you right now? Like you have a, you have a, you have a unique vantage point, like being a creator and like in, in AI and because you’re on both sides of it. For me, I’m, I’m a little slow. I’m a slow adopter only because I, it’s more of a tool to like, but I’m not proactively, my team does.
My team, they, they figure out things and like, Oh, we should be doing this. We should be doing that. But like, like what excites you right now? It could be technology. It could be otherwise. Like what gets you fired up? Just the fact that people are going to be forced to adapt. Yeah, I’m excited. I try that.
Yeah, I’m like cool I feel like there’s a lot of things that I wasn’t thrilled with in reality that have not adapted like the education system legal system political systems and I feel like now Whether or not they like it, it’s all gonna be forced to adapt. Mm hmm. When did you kind of take that, that role of creator?
Were you always like growing up as a kid? Were you always like, like when did you kind of walk into your shoes as a creator and be like, I’m a creator? Like, or was, is it natural? Like, was it a progression? I mean, honestly, you know, just to repeat, I changed my title every three weeks. Yeah. So maybe this week, it’s, you know, it’s important to be a creator.
Last week, I would have said like Bob Ross of the metaverse. And maybe a month before that, it would have been like AI consultant. And a few months before that, I would have said more like 3D you know, 3D asset creation. Wow. So, I really don’t like having a How about entrepreneurial? Do you think, is that a type of something that you would call yourself?
Like, entrepreneurial? Yeah, that sounds more aligned. Yeah. Have you always been entrepreneurial? Like, when you’re growing up, or like Yeah. Yeah, I would think so. What was your, if you don’t mind me asking, what was your first business? Do you remember? Yeah, I’ll tell you mine. I’ll tell you mine. I was, I was, mine was baseball cards.
Like I used to sell baseball cards at school and like, I wasn’t the kid. My friend was the candy person, like he sold the candy. And, and then another friend was like the, the comic book person. Like, that’s how I grew up. What was your first business? My first one is I learned how to use Photoshop and I used to edit people’s MySpace profile.
Come on. Come on, really? You were that far ahead thinking of that? That’s amazing. I was a little kid. Wow. I was like, I was like, very little. I wasn’t even in high school yet. So you had, do you think you had an eye for it? And like, like how, how does that happen? Like, that’s amazing by the way. Cause if you, and just for perspective for everybody out there that doesn’t know the younger people that may watch this, that don’t know what MySpace is.
That’s the beginning of it all. That’s the beginning. I would argue it’s the beginning of social media. I don’t know anything else that was before that. Maybe there was something else and it wasn’t social media then. But but to be thinking, people weren’t really thinking about their picture or their representation of how they looked online back then, like there was no, so that would have been like a big ordeal to be editing a picture or for somebody to have the thought process to do it.
I think that was around 2006 for me. Wow. Were you into photography before that or like kind of know I was a I was a little kid in elementary school What yeah, and you and you did didn’t did my space kind of like speak to you like did it? Did you just understand kind of like it or did you well? No, I just like actually, you know It was illegal for me to have a business.
So yeah Thank God that year, I think PayPal came out. So I’ve made a PayPal account and I was able to take money so that I can edit people’s profile photos. I acted like my, I made a website using an old app that’s expired called Dreamweaver. I learned how to use, Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. I made this Dreamweaver website where you can basically see what kind of photos I’ve edited before and after.
And if you like it, you hit this button and it emails me. I was a kid. I mean, I was that is amazing made it seem like I was a whole graphic design studio. I was not There was no team. Wow. It was just me behind a computer and my dad my dad, helped me with like Like getting photoshop and like yeah, you know getting that installed and then I was like, oh But he didn’t even know how to use it.
Of course not nobody like all right. Here’s the tool. I think the Yeah. The first version of Photoshop I had wasn’t even in English. Like all the characters on it were not in English. It might not have been a legitimate version of Photoshop now that I think about it. As a kid I was like, Oh, that’s interesting.
I just learned off of all the icons and then used that as like my teaching tool. And then like as a kid I was like, okay, I’m going to start accepting payments from PayPal. And I learned right then, like I guess I started as an entrepreneur right there. I was still thinking. Just finishing middle school.
Mm hmm. I was like, oh people want cool myspace photos and they’ll pay for it They’ll pay actual cash. Oh my god, send that cash. Yeah through PayPal Unbelievable. This is an epic discovery. Like this is you’re a legend as far as I’m concerned You were a kid doing paper selling paper and had it your own graph I know you don’t like titles, but you were a graphic designer your own You had your own studio back then, before people knew what that was.
That’s hilarious. I love it. It’s amazing. Well Don, I know you gotta get back to the conference. I just want to say, I appreciate you coming on the show today. I want you to look into the camera and let people know how they can follow you, how they can connect in and see your creations and what you do.
Sure. Hello. Thanks for having me. My name is Don Allen, I I I. If you type that in on any social platform, I should pop up. Fantastic. And for everybody that’s watching, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day.
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