# The Mind Behind Investing in the Experience Economy With Michael Zeisser, FMZ Ventures

An episode of [Travel Trends with Dan Christian](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1689330635), 7 Jan 2026, 1 h 30 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2172036/episodes/18469685-the-mind-behind-investing-in-the-experience-economy-with-michael-zeisser-fmz-ventures.mp3

Send us Fan Mail Experiences - not things - are becoming the world’s most powerful growth market, and investor Michael Zeisser, Managing Partner, FMZ Ventures joins us to explain why. In this Captains of Industry episode, we explore how the shift from goods to meaning is reshaping the entire travel and experiences economy and what it means to play the long game in a world where travelers increasingly seek connection, transformation, and purpose. We look at where travel is headed next as new ecosystems of creators, distribution platforms, and enablement tools emerge. Michael breaks down why companies like GetYourGuide and Fever are pulling ahead, and why true differentiation, not copycat concepts, is what builds category-defining brands. We go deep into how AI is transforming experiences through three major shifts: hyper-personalization grounded in real-world context, productivity gains that expand margins, and time reallocation that ultimately generates new demand. Michael connects these advances to what travelers are seeking most in 2026: agency, connection, and inspiration. The conversation stretches beyond travel, touching on the rise of psychotherapeutic experiences, the early science of experiential medicine, and evolving approaches to legacy and sustainable death. Michael also shares why he is bullish on live events consolidation, what drove his investment in MARI, and how the Middle East is rapidly building cultural and tourism infrastructure at global scale. If you are creating, investing in, or simply curious about the next era of transformative travel, this episode reveals where value is moving and how to design for the why, not just the where. 👉 Listen to The Mind Behind Investing in the Experience Economy 🔥 Special Thanks to our Season 6 Title Sponsors for their Support: Holafly, Propellic, PayCompass, Kaptio, Civitatis and WeRoad The #1 B2B Travel Podcast Globally. Over 100 Episodes. Listeners in 125 countries. New Episodes Every Weds. https://www.traveltrendspodcast.com/

## Chapters

- 0:00 A Thesis-Driven Opening
- 0:35 New Year And Show Roadmap
- 2:35 Captains Of Industry Theme
- 3:20 Introducing Michael Zeisser
- 7:03 From McKinsey To Liberty Media
- 10:48 Alibaba And Experience-Centric Bets
- 12:45 Founding FMZ Ventures
- 15:45 Maslow And The Case For Experiences
- 20:44 What Unique Companies Look Like
- 25:20 GetYourGuide vs Fever
- 28:06 AI’s Layers: Context, Productivity, Time
- 33:40 Shifts In Consciousness And Demand
- 37:45 Agency, Connection, And Wonder
- 41:55 Curiosity As A Superpower
- 45:40 Psychedelics And Experiential Medicine
- 49:05 Rethinking Death And Legacy
- 52:15 Where Disruption Hits Next
- 55:10 Live Events And The Middle East
- 58:00 Wellness, Longevity, And Behavior
- 1:01:00 How To Reach Michael And Wrap

## Transcript

[0:05] SPEAKER_02: I am what you would call a thesis-driven investor.
[0:10] SPEAKER_02: Uh and my thesis obviously is experience economy.
[0:15] SPEAKER_02: I developed the confidence, the conviction that we are in a new era of growth.
[0:26] SPEAKER_02: I was willing to go all in, basically.
[0:35] SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, and happy new year.
[0:37] SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Travel Trends Podcast.
[0:40] SPEAKER_01: This is your host, Dan Christian, and I'm so excited to start 2026.
[0:44] SPEAKER_01: We have a massive year ahead.
[0:46] SPEAKER_01: We're of course in season six of our podcast, season seven will be starting in February.
[0:51] SPEAKER_01: And we are starting 2026 with introducing three episodes every week.
[0:58] SPEAKER_01: So on Tuesdays, you will have our custom series.
[1:01] SPEAKER_01: Currently, we're running our Travel Zoo Best Bets Destinations for 2026.
[1:05] SPEAKER_01: And then every Wednesday, we'll launch one of our new episodes for our season.
[1:10] SPEAKER_01: And then Thursdays, we'll have a special spotlight episode.
[1:14] SPEAKER_01: So we worked it out over the holidays and realized as a team that we are best positioned to be able to release three episodes every week.
[1:23] SPEAKER_01: And we'll also be launching a blog post every Monday that ties everything together.
[1:28] SPEAKER_01: So we've got a lot planned for 2026.
[1:30] SPEAKER_01: We've also announced all the events and conferences we're going to be participating in, which you can find on our website at Traveltrendspodcast.com slash events.
[1:41] SPEAKER_01: And we'll be sharing more details shortly on our Travel Trends Summit for 2026, which will be in October.
[1:49] SPEAKER_01: And we will launch the details to register for that shortly.
[1:52] SPEAKER_01: So a lot to look forward to in 2026.
[1:55] SPEAKER_01: And one of the themes that has been such a hit with our listeners is the captains of industry.
[2:00] SPEAKER_01: And we have also made a decision that we are going to continue the captains of industry overall theme for season seven and season eight throughout 2026.
[2:10] SPEAKER_01: And the reason I highlight that today is because we have a perfect example of a captain of industry episode to share with you today.
[2:19] SPEAKER_01: We just finished our sustainability series, sponsored by our friends over at Intrepid.
[2:23] SPEAKER_01: We have one more series planned in season six, which is on aviation.
[2:28] SPEAKER_01: That'll start next week, sponsored by our friends over at Hayes.
[2:32] SPEAKER_01: And today we have a true captain of industry.
[2:35] SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait to bring this conversation to you.
[2:38] SPEAKER_01: This is one I've been looking forward to.
[2:40] SPEAKER_01: Michael Zeisser is our guest.
[2:42] SPEAKER_01: And to give you some context of his background, and of course, you're going to hear from him directly in a moment.
[2:47] SPEAKER_01: This is someone that grew up in Europe, moved to the U.S., ultimately is in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
[2:54] SPEAKER_01: He worked for McKinsey for more than 12 years.
[2:57] SPEAKER_01: He did his MBA at Northwestern.
[3:00] SPEAKER_01: He was picked out by John Malone, who runs Liberty Media, who's a philanthropist and a major figure in the media space.
[3:08] SPEAKER_01: He recognized the potential that our guest Michael Zeisner had, brought him into Liberty Media, and he was then recognized by Jack Ma, of course, Jack Ma of Alibaba fame.
[3:20] SPEAKER_01: And he then went to work for Alibaba and subsequently went out on his own and launched FMZ, as Canadians call it, or FMZ, as our friends in the U.S.
[3:30] SPEAKER_01: refer to it.
[3:30] SPEAKER_01: FMZ Ventures is the company that he has now been running.
[3:34] SPEAKER_01: My friend Bruce Rozart over at Arrival has often referred to him as the Warren Buffett of the Experience Economy, which is something you'll quickly hear that he refutes and passes back.
[3:45] SPEAKER_01: But this is someone who's on the board of Atlas Obscura.
[3:48] SPEAKER_01: He has been on the board of TripAdvisor, Lyft, and some of his big investments that have resulted, and again, he's going to be very humble in our cunt discussion today about the failures that he's had, that you know you don't talk about those.
[4:01] SPEAKER_01: But the reality is he's had many great successes and two terrific examples.
[4:06] SPEAKER_01: One is Get Your Guide.
[4:07] SPEAKER_01: So he's a major investor in Get Your Guide, and also a major investor in Fever as well.
[4:12] SPEAKER_01: And we talk about those in our discussion, the two different businesses, why he's invested in them.
[4:17] SPEAKER_01: And I really wanted to bring this conversation together because I've gotten to know Michael over the last couple of years.
[4:22] SPEAKER_01: He was on our event spotlight episode from the arrival conference in Washington earlier this season, which I encourage you to listen to.
[4:30] SPEAKER_01: But today you're going to get his entire backstory.
[4:33] SPEAKER_01: We're going to learn more about what created FM's Adventures, why he went into this space, his investment philosophy, and specifically his thesis on experiences, which couldn't be more relevant going into 2026.
[4:46] SPEAKER_01: And many of our listeners would know that I published a blog post on LinkedIn on December 31st to welcome in the new year and highlighted the biggest trend for 2026, which I've referred to as the this is the year of transformative travel.
[4:59] SPEAKER_01: And it's very timely because Joe Pine, the author of The Experience Economy, who has been on our podcast both in a spotlight episode and in last season, he's coming back with Jake Haupert from the Travel Transformation Council to close out season six.
[5:15] SPEAKER_01: So right after our aviation series, we're gonna have Joe Pine back on the podcast because his book, The Transformation Economy, is rolling out in February.
[5:24] SPEAKER_01: So I definitely encourage you to order that.
[5:26] SPEAKER_01: And you'll hear in my conversation with Michael today his overall thesis on investing in experiences, which certainly parlays into the world of transformative travel.
[5:37] SPEAKER_01: So let's bring Michael into the conversation to kick off 2026 and have a true captain of industry.
[5:44] SPEAKER_01: Michael, thank you so much for rejoining us on Travel Trends.
[5:47] SPEAKER_01: It's so great to speak to you again.
[5:49] SPEAKER_02: Great to be with you again, Dan.
[5:51] SPEAKER_02: Always a pleasure to spend time with you.
[5:53] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, likewise, Michael.
[5:54] SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed our time together in person at the arrival conference.
[5:57] SPEAKER_01: It was great to not only get that time together to record, many of our listeners have met you through that.
[6:01] SPEAKER_01: I've had the privilege to get to know you over the last few years at a number of industry conferences, and I'm so impressed by what you've accomplished in your career, and I'm sure all of our listeners are gonna come to understand that as well.
[6:11] SPEAKER_01: But just as impressive for our listeners to understand your background is gonna be where this industry is headed.
[6:16] SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things that I really gravitate to in our conversations is that you have such a uh an interesting grass.
[6:23] SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say a firm grasp because you'll correct me quite uh rightly right away and say, you know, um, you know, you make the best decisions based on the information that you have.
[6:30] SPEAKER_01: You're very humble, but at the same time, you all have an impressive track record of success, and you also have a finger on the pulse of where this industry is headed.
[6:40] SPEAKER_01: So there's lots I want to cover with you today, but Michael, let's give everyone a bit of a background on your career.
[6:46] SPEAKER_01: So if you wouldn't mind, just take us through your journey within the travel space and specifically obviously your time at Alibaba, which I'm sure many of our listeners will find really fascinating, and how you ended up creating FMZ or FMZ Ventures as our Canadians refer to it.
[7:03] SPEAKER_02: Well, uh that's probably yeah, the least interesting part of our conversation, but certainly happy to uh offer a little background.
[7:13] SPEAKER_02: So as uh you can hear, I am an immigrant.
[7:18] SPEAKER_02: I uh was born in France, uh and uh I am uh one of the lucky ones.
[7:25] SPEAKER_02: I uh came to the US uh for grad school and uh never left.
[7:32] SPEAKER_02: I went to um uh Kellogg uh in Chicago for my uh MBA and then uh well literally got lucky and was hired by McKinsey in uh in New York, actually.
[7:50] SPEAKER_02: And um I say got lucky because New York, of course, is the media capital of the world, the financial services capital of the world, and there's plenty of super interesting companies uh in New York, and uh by virtue of being based there, I uh began my career working with large media companies like Time Warner and the New York Times and Nielsen and large financial services companies like American Express, where in particular I spent a lot of time uh in the travel businesses.
[8:27] SPEAKER_02: At the time, Amex still controlled fully its uh corporate travel business.
[8:35] SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously also uh head the consumer travel business.
[8:40] SPEAKER_02: And this was um late 90s, early 2000s, so literally at the beginning of the uh internet era of the digital era.
[8:53] SPEAKER_02: I'll remind people who probably uh weren't active then the industry was born, the internet industry was born in the early 90s.
[9:06] SPEAKER_02: Our first IPO of an internet company was Netscape in 1995.
[9:13] SPEAKER_02: And uh, of course, that's 30 years ago.
[9:16] SPEAKER_02: And so we are a young industry, and I uh feel super lucky that I've been with this industry quite literally since its beginning.
[9:30] SPEAKER_02: Um I uh stayed at McKinsey for 12 years and then uh went to work for a client of mine, a very famous investor named John Malone, and who runs to this day a holding company called Liberty Media.
[9:47] SPEAKER_02: Over the uh time that I've uh been with Liberty, uh the company owned controlling stakes in IAC, Expedia.
[10:00] SPEAKER_02: I was on the board of TripAdvisor.
[10:02] SPEAKER_02: Today the company owns uh Formula One, uh has a very large stake in uh Live Nation Ticketmaster.
[10:13] SPEAKER_02: So my exposure to travel, media, life has continued through 10 years uh at Liberty.
[10:23] SPEAKER_02: And uh at some point I uh met Jack Ma, uh literally the founder of Alibaba Group, and some time thereafter he uh offered me a chance to join uh Alibaba Group.
[10:39] SPEAKER_02: This is a few years before the IPO uh as chairman of uh the investment, the international investment organization for uh Alibaba Group.
[10:49] SPEAKER_02: Um and uh so I uh opened our corporate office in Silicon Valley and uh stood up a uh organization to make uh international investments.
[11:05] SPEAKER_02: And I was one of the early institutional investors in Lyft, for example, um and and at the time it was called Snapchat and uh Steven Spielberg's production company, uh Embly and Entertainment.
[11:20] SPEAKER_02: So kind of continuing on my uh trajectory of uh, you know, if if not directly experience related but uh uh experience-centric uh companies.
[11:34] SPEAKER_02: And I uh I have been, I think of myself as a student really, an analyst, really, an analyst of uh companies and behaviors and trends.
[11:48] SPEAKER_02: And a few years ago it became very, very apparent to me that uh the world was changing, that consumer habits were changing.
[12:00] SPEAKER_02: They're always changing.
[12:02] SPEAKER_02: Uh that in and of itself is not uh interesting, but I felt that there was a step change, uh and all of a sudden people really were valuing experiences in a way that they had never valued experiences before, and they were shifting spending from things to experiences.
[12:30] SPEAKER_02: And at that time, I could not answer for myself a simple question, which was well, if people uh want experiences, then where is the Amazon of experiences?
[12:43] SPEAKER_02: And where is the Nike of experiences?
[12:46] SPEAKER_02: And where is the Warner Brother of experiences?
[12:50] SPEAKER_02: And I thought it just stands to reason that if this is where the spending is going, founders, entrepreneurs, builders will create the content companies, the distribution companies, and the enablement companies of what I have now come to call the experience economy.
[13:11] SPEAKER_02: And I thought I could add value, make a difference, and earn a little bit of uh financial returns by uh finding these founders and helping them build the best companies that they could.
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's such an amazing and inspiring story, clearly an impressive journey.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: I w in the introduction, obviously, that gave our listeners some sense of what you've accomplished, the boards that you sit on, but it was really terrific to hear it in your own words, especially given how humble you genuinely are, the fact you're always learning, but and you were lucky enough to get a job at McKinsey.
[13:48] SPEAKER_01: They were probably very lucky to have you, as was John Malone, as was Jack Maw.
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: And then obviously on that journey, you decided about five years ago to create FMZ Ventures, which is clearly focused on what you were just describing, which is the experience economy.
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about why you decided to create FMZ Ventures and where that organization stands today, because you guys have invested in some of the most exciting high-profile companies in this space, from Get Your Guy to Fever.
[14:17] SPEAKER_01: And I know you get referred to from the arrival team as the Warren Buffett of the Experience Secret, which is a uh uh a great compliment.
[14:26] SPEAKER_01: Um and but you operate fairly low profile, which is one of the things that actually I you know I've come to genuinely like about you is your approach and your style.
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: I also see you often, Michael, too, sitting at the back of the room, listening, processing, taking that all in.
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: And that to me is just a great sign of intelligence, but also just the fact that there's lots of things that you don't understand that are keen to learn more about.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: Uh but tell us about FMZ Ventures, because I'm sure I get the newsletter, and many of our listeners after this are gonna want to follow what your journey and where you're investing, because I also want to highlight some of the things you're doing outside the travel sector.
[15:01] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're you're really very kind to say all of this, and obviously I would never ever uh compare myself to Warren Buffett.
[15:12] SPEAKER_02: But yes, uh I know that's been said, and it's totally untrue and unwarranted and undeserved.
[15:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh but having said that, uh I do basically I did it because uh I could.
[15:33] SPEAKER_02: And uh to me it was obvious that uh this would be an new emerging sector.
[15:42] SPEAKER_02: This is a new emerging sector with new companies being formed to basically address and respond to these new needs that uh I described have emerged.
[15:57] SPEAKER_02: And um as I said earlier, uh it's in the natural evolution, frankly, of mankind that uh we uh address higher level needs as we progress as humans.
[16:21] SPEAKER_02: And we are at the beginning now of I think a cycle where we are addressing some of the higher level needs in the Maslow hierarchy of needs, the needs about belonging and self-actualization, because well, it's clearly not true for all eight billion of us, but uh for those of us who live uh in developed countries like the US and Europe and Japan, not even for everyone there, but for most of us, our basic needs of food and safety and shelter are of course met.
[17:02] SPEAKER_02: And uh so uh as uh as uh Ibrahim Maslow uh basically predicted back in the 60s, uh we are addressing higher level needs.
[17:17] SPEAKER_02: And I'd say my maybe insight or core idea was uh to come to the conclusion that experiences are the solutions to the higher level needs, just like things are the solutions to the lower level needs, experiences are the solutions to the higher level needs.
[17:40] SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, so as you say, I think about experiences much more broadly.
[17:45] SPEAKER_02: So, of course, travel experiences are a very large category of experiences, but other categories of experiences that I follow and that I invest in are psychotherapeutic experiences and uh everything that uh is being invented around uh next generation mental health solutions.
[18:13] SPEAKER_02: We have very serious problems uh in our society about anxiety, depression, loneliness, and the current, I'm gonna call them, uh clinical infrastructures and systems are inadequate to uh address uh these issues.
[18:34] SPEAKER_02: And so it's a clear opportunity for uh technology to uh improve access and outcomes, and so it's an obvious area for me to spend time in.
[18:46] SPEAKER_02: And there are other uh categories around functional experiences or virtual experiences that uh I pay a lot of.
[18:55] SPEAKER_02: And so to me, it's broader than travel.
[18:57] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[18:58] SPEAKER_01: No, it definitely is, and that's why I wanted to highlight that early in our conversation to expand everyone's mind because one of the things that I've always found working in the travel industry is if you look beyond our industry to other sectors, especially in e-commerce, and bring them back to travel, because it is often travel has has typically lagged behind other sectors in terms of technology embracing technology and all the benefits that are coming with AI, there's other sectors that are so far ahead of where travel is.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: And I just I think that's really fascinating your investment thesis, if you will, is that you know when you're looking at uh the the the zeitgeist of today, certainly transformation is where we are headed in 2026.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh as you know, Joe Pine, you've met him as well, the experience economy, as he highlighted to me, that although it's kind of almost taken for granted for uh the last 10 years that we're in this experience economy, when he was coining the term in 1999, very few people believed that there was something other than goods and services, that there was this experience economy.
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: And now you've obviously uh Invested heavily in that sector, but you've also positioned yourself, I would say, uh very effectively for the next wave, which is this whole self-actualization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
[20:11] SPEAKER_01: The fact that you even raise that, it's one of the things we've we talk about when we look at small group travel.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: You know, why do people travel in small groups?
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: Because ultimately they want to come back, change, and impact it in some way to have a meaningful experience.
[20:24] SPEAKER_01: And so people are so beyond the essentials that they're now they're truly seeking out those experiences.
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's been building for the last 10 years, but it hasn't really been coined yet.
[20:35] SPEAKER_01: And I think Joe Pine is probably one of the best people to ensure that we move into that next phase as he publishes his next book and everyone starts talking about transformative travel.
[20:44] SPEAKER_01: So just tell us just why we're expanding our minds beyond the travel industry, and then I want to come back to the industry itself.
[20:52] SPEAKER_01: Tell us about why you decided to start investing in the psychedelics, mental health.
[20:57] SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's all interconnected to your approach of you know realizing how human behavior is changing.
[21:03] SPEAKER_01: So, I guess what started opening the door to that?
[21:05] SPEAKER_01: And clearly I've seen from your latest newsletter that you're investing in in healthcare, concierge health, um, all these fascinating areas of where people are clearly spending more of their time, energy, and money.
[21:17] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because they're all experiences.
[21:19] SPEAKER_02: And uh I think that there is a huge difference between an experience and a service.
[21:27] SPEAKER_02: And I think there's more difference between services and experiences than there is difference between a travel experience and a psychotherapeutic experience.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: And I think that there is a lot of horizontal learning and expertise that can be created and shared by investing in experiences across verticals.
[21:49] SPEAKER_02: So um they're all solutions to higher-level uh human needs.
[21:55] SPEAKER_02: Um and I I just, if you don't mind, I just want to say I think Joe and what Joe has done, I have uh enormous admiration uh for Joe Pine.
[22:05] SPEAKER_02: And I think people who are in our field should read his books and his publications.
[22:11] SPEAKER_02: And if they're too busy, usually the books are summarized in a Harvard Business Review article, uh, which takes less time to read.
[22:19] SPEAKER_02: Um and I think Joe is really the intellectual godfather of the industry and uh deserves a lot of credit for his thought leadership and uh uh the frameworks that he has created, which I think are really useful.
[22:36] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[22:36] SPEAKER_01: No, I completely agree, and I'm sure he'll appreciate that sentiment as as well, because he certainly was ahead of his time.
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: And I think that even the fact that he had coined the transformation economy as kind of the next kind of wave of what was gonna happen with the experience economy, and now is diving deeper to that.
[22:52] SPEAKER_01: So the one interesting thing, though, when uh when I look at both of you as captains of industry, and obviously that is the big theme of season six that you're both a part of, obviously, Joe's coming back uh to help us close out the series, and I was really keen for you to be a part of the conversation, and I'm sure our listeners will instantly, if they don't know you, they're gonna find out about you in this episode and realize why I was so keen because you truly are a captain of industry.
[23:13] SPEAKER_01: And when you look at the portfolio of the company, so here's my direct question to you, Michael, and in return to that.
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: If you look at someone like Joe Pine as the intellectual godfather of the experience economy, you have made a number of wise, savvy investments in the experience economy.
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: And obviously, to name get your guide in fever is just two.
[23:33] SPEAKER_01: What is it about those companies?
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: When you look at these pitches and you look at these companies that are looking to raise funding, how has it been the case that Michael has uh has picked and backed the winners?
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: What is it about those businesses in particular that you knew or had a strong hunch early on that they were going to be category dominant, for example, or that just you know they had explosive growth potential?
[23:57] SPEAKER_02: So uh I uh want to answer this question without being like flippant or generic.
[24:07] SPEAKER_02: So there is a set of questions that every investor, it's the same questions, the same five criteria or six or four that every investor asks about any investment that they ever make, about the quality of the founder, the size of the market, uh, the specific terms of the investment, the quality of the product or the service that's being created, and so forth.
[24:38] SPEAKER_02: So uh a big part of investing is actually the discipline of doing the work of actually taking the time and making the effort to answer the questions.
[24:58] SPEAKER_02: Um so that's not interesting to the listeners.
[25:02] SPEAKER_02: I think the I'm assuming that's not interesting to people because it's very generic.
[25:07] SPEAKER_02: Um I would say uh I am what you would call a thesis-driven investor.
[25:19] SPEAKER_02: Uh and my thesis obviously is experience economy.
[25:24] SPEAKER_02: And I developed the uh confidence and uh the conviction that we are in a new era uh of growth.
[25:42] SPEAKER_02: And um I was willing to go all in, basically, you know, with my time.
[25:52] SPEAKER_02: Uh of course, a lot of the capital is my capital.
[25:55] SPEAKER_02: When you launch a new venture firm, uh your partners, your other investors, they all want to know well, okay, that sounds really good, Michael, but how much of your money are you putting in here?
[26:08] SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I am very vested uh in the success of uh my firm.
[26:15] SPEAKER_02: So I went all in with reputation, resources, of course, the most precious commodity that we all possess, which is our time.
[26:27] SPEAKER_02: Um, and so in that sense, I uh still wonder sometimes uh if I am a fool, because to me it's so obvious that this is what consumers want and what consumers are paying for.
[26:45] SPEAKER_02: I mean, of course, COVID has accelerated, but uh to me, all of these trends existed before COVID and just the reality of our lived experiences.
[26:59] SPEAKER_02: We've never paid more money for hotel rooms, we've never paid more money for uh sports tickets, uh, we've never paid more money for concerts.
[27:09] SPEAKER_02: So it's just obvious that uh people are spending uh more than ever uh on experiences.
[27:19] SPEAKER_02: And so to me, um it makes perfect sense to say, well, this experience economy uh is the term I use is industrializing.
[27:33] SPEAKER_02: So this experience economy is industrializing, it's structuring itself.
[27:39] SPEAKER_02: Um there are, as I said, different kinds of companies, companies that stage experiences, the content companies uh that I invest in, uh companies that distribute experiences, uh, which you referred to two of them, get your guide and fever.
[27:59] SPEAKER_02: Those are fundamentally distribution companies.
[28:01] SPEAKER_02: They are Amazons of experiences.
[28:04] SPEAKER_02: Um, and then there are all the enablement, there are all the Shopify's of experiences.
[28:10] SPEAKER_02: And so I would say I made a deliberate bet to uh go all in with money and uh reputation and time on this sector because the data and the research, and you know, my experience I've been doing this for uh 25 plus years, and so um you do retain you know some learning, uh as Warren Buffett calls it, investing is a cumulative knowledge game.
[28:50] SPEAKER_02: So uh the more you learn, as long as you retain it and are able to process it, you should get better for doing it for longer.
[29:01] SPEAKER_02: And there's pattern recognition, and so yeah, I would say uh that's I would say the the big difference.
[29:10] SPEAKER_02: And luck has a lot to do.
[29:11] SPEAKER_02: I am far from a perfect investor, I've lost a lot of money uh in investing.
[29:18] SPEAKER_02: I'm thankfully I have been able to create more money than I have lost money, but believe me, I've lost a lot of money.
[29:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the things I want to highlight for our listeners too, because in my conversations with Michael, as you're getting a sense now to uh to know him and his personality, he had highlighted that his objective is just not to lose his money.
[29:37] SPEAKER_01: That's the you know, it's not necessarily about getting a thousand X return.
[29:41] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's just about making sure that you know one dollar is gonna turn into two dollars over a period of time, which is more private equity than venture capital.
[29:48] SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned obviously having you know um your share of um uh learnings, let's say.
[29:54] SPEAKER_01: You know, I think uh Jason Calicanas talks about the fact that he's early stage and like one out of 29 has to hit.
[30:00] SPEAKER_01: So there's you know 28 that will uh flame out, but one of them, uh that's his rough trajectory, will be right back.
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[32:25] SPEAKER_01: And now, back to the show.
[32:28] SPEAKER_01: I've got two more questions on this topic because I think it's going to be really interesting to a lot of our listeners, especially those working in the startup space.
[32:34] SPEAKER_01: So there's two things I wanted to ask you.
[32:36] SPEAKER_01: One, let our listeners know where you typically come in.
[32:39] SPEAKER_01: Like is it a series B, Series C, or working towards an IPO?
[32:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
[32:45] SPEAKER_02: That's right.
[32:47] SPEAKER_02: C ideal sometimes be later later stage investor, not seeds, not pre-seed, not A, not that stage.
[32:56] SPEAKER_02: I uh I sometimes say uh our world of investing uh to an outsider might well look like a big blurb, you know, like uh medicine would look to me.
[33:10] SPEAKER_02: But uh if you're in medicine, you know that it's super specialized, that uh there's doctors for your feet and they're different than the doctors for your ears, and you know, to me it kind of all looks the same, but when you're in it, you know, oh my god, no, you this is like highly specialized.
[33:33] SPEAKER_02: It's the same in investing.
[33:35] SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, I'm I'm on the later stage side of things because this is what I have uh basically done for 25 years, and this is where I have uh experience and pattern recognition, and also where I am able to add value uh as opposed to uh other sectors or stages.
[34:00] SPEAKER_01: Because that's where your smart money, a strategic uh investor, and that that's so the pattern recognition.
[34:05] SPEAKER_01: So that's actually a great way to phrase it.
[34:07] SPEAKER_01: And I know you you mentioned that before.
[34:09] SPEAKER_01: I guess that's where when I look at your investment portfolio, even companies like Reddit and blah blah car, I mean, Reddit's one of those ones that's just like continued to uh uh accelerate, especially given AI.
[34:20] SPEAKER_01: But companies like Headspace, or even you know, you mentioned Lyft or Snap, like the and you people could look at you all the number of boards that you're on.
[34:28] SPEAKER_01: And to me, there's something that stands out, which is that there has to be some sort of shared DNA, if you will, amongst the companies you choose to partner with, invest in.
[34:39] SPEAKER_01: And so obviously, you for sure the category.
[34:41] SPEAKER_01: So when you look at a company like Get Your Guide, obviously Johannes Reck, Tau Tao, the other two founders, you know, impressive entrepreneurs, and you just see the way they're continuing to run and grow that business.
[34:51] SPEAKER_01: So obviously, team is one factor, timing is another, the problem they're solving, who are the other investors?
[34:56] SPEAKER_01: A lot of those things get sorted out very early on from pre-seed seed and a series A.
[35:00] SPEAKER_01: But once you're getting a series A, you've got a business that can scale.
[35:03] SPEAKER_01: And then you're coming in to take it from now an established growing business and to kind of go through hypergrowth.
[35:10] SPEAKER_01: And so what if uh what is it, Michael, that stands out to you, if you will, uh in your pattern recognition when you see these businesses?
[35:18] SPEAKER_01: Like I get the sector, but when you're looking at these companies, what is the one, what is it that stands out to you most?
[35:24] SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you can give us one or two, not uh not specific examples, but one or two of the things like is it the team, is it the problem they're solving, what is it that really kind of grabs your attention and ultimately convinces you that this is the one to invest in?
[35:37] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll give you the answer.
[35:40] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but the answer is not gonna make you happy.
[35:44] SPEAKER_02: Uh uh so uh this is obviously a question that everyone asks and has been asked forever.
[35:54] SPEAKER_02: You know, what are the success factors and so forth?
[35:58] SPEAKER_02: And it's a question that I think serious investors would have dedicated a lot of their own time uh to answering.
[36:09] SPEAKER_02: My answer to the question is uh the one characteristic that is similar across all of the companies is really their uniqueness.
[36:22] SPEAKER_02: And I think what makes frankly a person uh special is not how much the person is like everybody else, but it is how much the person is unique and different from everybody else.
[36:43] SPEAKER_02: And if I were to trivialize it, I think all the companies are unique snowflakes.
[36:50] SPEAKER_02: And uh I actually look for that.
[36:53] SPEAKER_02: Um I uh speak uh to a lot of founders and entrepreneurs who tell me how much they're like something else.
[37:07] SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm like the Airbnb of this, or you know, the lift of that.
[37:13] SPEAKER_02: And and actually, to me as an investor, this you're asking me, so I'm giving you my answer.
[37:21] SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I'm not a professor here.
[37:23] SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying this is this is Michael's view is the more you're like others, the less you're interesting to me.
[37:36] SPEAKER_02: And the more you're unique, the more you're like no one else does what I do, and the more I'm intrigued.
[37:44] SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously it's in a context, right?
[37:48] SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously it has to be in a context where you're addressing a consumer need.
[37:55] SPEAKER_02: Uh in and maybe you're addressing it in a new way or with a new angle, or uh it's a new mindset, uh a new framing of uh so you know, just just being weird for the sake of being weirds, that doesn't earn you an investment from me.
[38:18] SPEAKER_02: But uh being unique in uh who you are and how you're doing this, that to me is very interesting, and I believe is actually the one common attribute uh of all the great companies.
[38:36] SPEAKER_02: Like uh I've missed investing in way more great companies than I have invested in great companies.
[38:45] SPEAKER_02: But if I think about all the great companies I know, whether I'm an investor or not, the one thing I would say uh is similar across all of them is they're all they're unique snowflake.
[39:00] SPEAKER_02: They're really one of a kind.
[39:03] SPEAKER_02: I think greatness, just like in artistry, is uh anchored in one-of-a-kindness.
[39:12] SPEAKER_02: Does that does that give you something to work with?
[39:15] SPEAKER_01: More than.
[39:16] SPEAKER_01: Actually, I um I love the answer to that question because one of the things that I constantly ask when I'm interviewing executives, and it's it's something that I've learned from working with Stanley Tolman, the Tolman family, and who was the Warren Buffett of investing in uh multi-day tour uh brands, he would always grill the executives on their USBs and their unique selling proposition.
[39:41] SPEAKER_01: And he always grew increasingly frustrated when they were talking about the competition or these macroeconomic factors, or like getting into things like we need more discounts.
[39:50] SPEAKER_01: And it's like, what are you doing to really make your business unique and stand out and memorable and taking care of the customer?
[39:56] SPEAKER_01: And it was like it always brought the conversation back to where it should be.
[40:00] SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, whenever you're working on marketing, you're trying to come up with something that is memorable or brand name.
[40:05] SPEAKER_01: But what you just pointed out, I think, is actually far more profound for our listeners because they often get pigeonholed into this situation you just described, where it's just like, you know, we're it's like it's how movies get funded.
[40:15] SPEAKER_01: It's like it's a cross between Rocky and Jaws.
[40:18] SPEAKER_01: It's like a it's like a it's a boxing movie combined with a like that's how movies get funded, but that's not how great businesses are built, where you say you're a combination of Uber meets.
[40:28] SPEAKER_01: So I think that's actually really helpful guidance.
[40:31] SPEAKER_01: The other thing I wanted to get into while we have this time together, because there's so much I want to cover.
[40:36] SPEAKER_01: I really I want to cover technology with you.
[40:38] SPEAKER_01: And um, because again, some of the bets you've bet on a category, but you've also bet on companies that have, and fever is probably the best example because that is truly a business that meets what you just described.
[40:49] SPEAKER_01: Incredibly unique.
[40:50] SPEAKER_01: The fact they came out with this with this phenomenal business model during the pandemic.
[40:54] SPEAKER_01: I experienced it when I was living in LA, went to the Stranger Things, and I've discovered this company called Fever.
[40:59] SPEAKER_01: That was my first realization.
[41:00] SPEAKER_01: There's something magical happening here.
[41:02] SPEAKER_01: And even in speaking to you, you've highlighted the fact that get your guide is for people that are traveling, whereas fever is oftentimes for people exploring their own backyard.
[41:10] SPEAKER_01: And so you have, yeah, you have locals.
[41:12] SPEAKER_01: So you've got a built-in customer base that are gonna experience such you're not relying on someone booking a flight, going to a destination.
[41:20] SPEAKER_01: So it is it is travel, it is experiences, but it's drawing from a very different customer base, which, if anything, is very substantial.
[41:27] SPEAKER_01: The price point is attractive and can uh and it can be mass market.
[41:32] SPEAKER_01: These are, you know, and we know entertainment drives travel behavior.
[41:35] SPEAKER_01: So I think fever is probably uh I would say from looking at your portfolio and actually knowing the the fever team and their journey, because conviviality ventures obviously invested in fever as well, one of the best investments they've ever made.
[41:47] SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're so bullish on the future of fever.
[41:51] SPEAKER_01: But that's where when it comes to technology, so you've got a category, and now we're in this next wave of AI.
[41:57] SPEAKER_01: So I'm everyone wants me to ask you this question, Michael, and that's why I uh I bring it up now.
[42:02] SPEAKER_01: As we enter this new technological age that we are already in, but seeing how it's impacting companies and even starting your portfolio companies are talking about how they're leveraging AI, how they're going to use it.
[42:15] SPEAKER_01: Where do you think AI is best placed when it comes to the experience economy, transformative travel?
[42:22] SPEAKER_01: Is it in the back end and automation or does it apply to do you see up as a scenario where new businesses are going to be created, like AI native travel businesses that incorporate this technology right into the core of their business, and that there'll be other companies like Fever that will come along that will be you know AI led?
[42:45] SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, where where do you see AI impacting travel and the experience economy in 2026?
[42:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[42:52] SPEAKER_02: That of course is a big question.
[42:54] SPEAKER_02: And uh I uh ask myself this question, and the way I think about this question is in almost layers.
[43:10] SPEAKER_02: Uh there's not like one answer, you know, 42.
[43:15] SPEAKER_02: Uh there are layers of answers uh to this question.
[43:23] SPEAKER_02: And I'd say one base layer of answer to the question is I think of the AI, of course, like everyone, I think it's a foundational this like electricity, whatever of the 21st century.
[43:40] SPEAKER_02: It's remarkable and gonna have extra already is having will continue to have extraordinary impacts, good and bad, uh, by the way.
[43:51] SPEAKER_02: Um but I would say at a base layer, uh it's I think of it as uh a connective tissue uh between data and context.
[44:05] SPEAKER_02: So uh everyone in our industry or in travel is trying to personalize.
[44:16] SPEAKER_02: And the issue has been for years and years and years, well, okay, fine.
[44:24] SPEAKER_02: So that sounds good, but how do we personalize?
[44:28] SPEAKER_02: On what basis?
[44:30] SPEAKER_02: Uh how do we empower typically the frontline human uh who is um staging the experience uh with information about the guest, for example, this very difficult problem that I would argue has not been solved.
[44:53] SPEAKER_02: Um and it's not just the static passive information about the human in the service uh situation.
[45:06] SPEAKER_02: Okay, there's a woman, the age, where does she live?
[45:09] SPEAKER_02: Is she what status is she?
[45:11] SPEAKER_02: How frequently does she come?
[45:13] SPEAKER_02: Has she been to this hotel before?
[45:16] SPEAKER_02: Uh there is, I think, uh in experiences a very important dimension, which is the contextual dimension.
[45:25] SPEAKER_02: Why is she staying at the hotel?
[45:27] SPEAKER_02: Is it a happy occasion?
[45:29] SPEAKER_02: Is there a wedding or a birthday party or is she there for a funeral?
[45:34] SPEAKER_02: Like what's the context of the person?
[45:37] SPEAKER_02: And you know, combining uh the information about the static information, the contextual information, and then bringing this to bear uh intermediated by a human uh in order to deliver this like mystical personalization.
[46:00] SPEAKER_02: To me, that's sort of a ground layer of the power of uh of AI.
[46:07] SPEAKER_02: And um so that to me is yeah, where it starts.
[46:12] SPEAKER_01: And so that's one layer.
[46:14] SPEAKER_01: The one thing I just want to add to that, but what I'm seeing um is that these companies are also now layering in AI and raising additional funds based on being able to chase more of an opportunity.
[46:24] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so uh very keen to get your take on how AI is impacting travel and even looking at the companies you invest in that are now coming back to you to say, we're ready for the next stage of growth because we've we can unlock a lot more value by investing in AI.
[46:38] SPEAKER_02: I would say another layer of answering the question about the impact of AI is the productivity layer.
[46:46] SPEAKER_02: And so, yes, of course, that is all of the so-called back office or internal processes.
[46:55] SPEAKER_02: And it is obvious that a lot of those will be automated and increasingly automated, and that the productivity gains will generate higher margin, all else equal.
[47:15] SPEAKER_02: Uh, obviously, and you know probably this explains in part why we're having uh the stock market performance that we are having, you know, the anticipation of uh margin increases uh sort of generally across industry, not just travel, all industries.
[47:35] SPEAKER_02: Um and so that's a that's a separate uh layer uh of the answer of what's the impact uh uh of uh of AI.
[47:48] SPEAKER_02: And then a third layer I think about is uh the impact on time.
[47:56] SPEAKER_02: So I think that for a group of us, of humans, I think it for sure uh AI will uh free up more time.
[48:11] SPEAKER_02: And some of that time, I do think, will get allocated towards experiences.
[48:20] SPEAKER_02: So I do think that there is going to be net new demand for experiences just by virtue of the fact that this technology is going to free up net new time for people.
[48:39] SPEAKER_02: Not for everyone, by the way.
[48:41] SPEAKER_02: I think uh uh AI could well uh put enormous pressure on other uh people, you know, who might be uh on uh the losing end of the efficiency gains, and uh who might, at least for a period of a few years, before our governments adapt to uh all of this in whichever way they might adapt to it or not.
[49:16] SPEAKER_02: But uh I wouldn't be surprised if for a lot of people uh the near term would become more challenging and they would have less time potentially for experiences.
[49:30] SPEAKER_02: But the impact on time is one of the layers or strands that I think about a lot.
[49:40] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, connective tissue between data and context, productivity, and impact on time would be uh three ways that I think about how AI is gonna change our industry and frankly every other industry.
[49:58] SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the things you mentioned there is a really interesting thing, I appreciate your insights on all three of those.
[50:02] SPEAKER_01: I was actually reading with keen interest your newsletter yesterday and preparing for our conversation today.
[50:07] SPEAKER_01: And in the newsletter I had two graphs uh indicating the decline in employment for junior employees compared to senior employees.
[50:15] SPEAKER_01: So this question about, you know, uh and obviously then there's real uh economic outcomes of that, that if younger people don't have those opportunities, they're not gonna have the disposable income.
[50:25] SPEAKER_01: So there is that, of course, that knock-on effect.
[50:28] SPEAKER_01: Wealthy travelers are continuing to travel and spend more than ever.
[50:30] SPEAKER_01: So as you said, there's winners and losers.
[50:33] SPEAKER_01: And um, but rather than going down that specific path, because obviously the scenarios can play out a number of different ways.
[50:39] SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I'm you know most intrigued about is that when I look at you know when you share the example of winners and losers, obviously the most recent example for us in the travel industry was the pandemic, which is the wasn't you know the very much the foundation of the show, is how consumer behavior is changing.
[50:55] SPEAKER_01: And that's ultimately what I want to get into next in our conversation, because you know, you have you know the travel industry or even people who are running events, obviously had a very difficult few years.
[51:04] SPEAKER_01: Companies that were building software, however, uh were having the time of their lives and um stocks were soaring, and you know, there was all these you know, like companies like Zoom, of course.
[51:12] SPEAKER_01: And there's a few out there that were a real flash in the pan that all of a sudden were worth uh significant valuations and then just disappeared.
[51:19] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, when I look at your portfolio, you know, you've not only backed winners, but you've backed winners that have continued to perform over the long term, and that's clearly part of your investment uh thesis.
[51:29] SPEAKER_01: So when it comes to looking at consumer behaviors, this is where I wanted to go, because these are the things that you're looking at to make decisions on the category you're gonna invest in, and then specifically what companies you're gonna invest in.
[51:40] SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about consumer behavior changes in 2026.
[51:44] SPEAKER_01: We've talked about the you know, the this concept of experience economy and transformation, and you also highlighted some of the other sectors that you are now investing in.
[51:53] SPEAKER_01: Psychedelics, I'm really intrigued about, and there's one more that Michael mentioned to me at the very beginning of the call, which I had not heard of before, and it's sustainable death.
[52:01] SPEAKER_01: Is that understand that correctly?
[52:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[52:04] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[52:05] SPEAKER_02: Very, very interested in sustainable death.
[52:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is fascinating as well.
[52:10] SPEAKER_01: Because if you look at the demographics, of course, you know, there's going to be this generational wealth transfer.
[52:15] SPEAKER_01: Um, but then there's also going to be um, you know, many of those baby boomers, they're spending their money before they move into retirement homes and sadly pass away.
[52:25] SPEAKER_01: And so so tell us a little bit about uh consumer behavior changes in 2026 and then some of these kind of kind of more um long-term projections around such a concept of sustainable death and how you kind of start how you're thinking about that, knowing that you know there is that imminent um uh change of uh generations.
[52:46] SPEAKER_02: Yes, so again, uh super interesting question.
[52:50] SPEAKER_02: It's a really big question, and maybe the place to start is um actually the forest, not the tree.
[53:05] SPEAKER_02: Uh and so it is my belief uh others share it, uh so I'm not a complete lunatic in saying this, but uh it is my belief that uh the forest here is really a shift in consciousness, and that uh people are seeking uh meaning and purpose in a way that uh is new.
[53:36] SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think COVID really accelerated that.
[53:41] SPEAKER_02: I think it was there before.
[53:43] SPEAKER_02: Uh I think we may have had this uh a hundred years ago when our churches, our institutions were more meaningful.
[53:54] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but as we all know, uh trust in all of these, I'm gonna call them legacy institutions, has and deservedly been lost.
[54:06] SPEAKER_02: Uh but I think we have entered a period where people are really looking for something uh that hasn't been there for a while in terms of, as I said, uh purpose and meaning.
[54:22] SPEAKER_02: And so to me, that's really the forest uh behind uh behind everything else.
[54:29] SPEAKER_02: And then the trees that make up of the forest, there's a lot of trees, and obviously uh, for example, wellness uh is a huge trend right now, and I think is a trend that has a lot of legs.
[54:54] SPEAKER_02: Longevity uh is a huge trend.
[54:57] SPEAKER_02: You know, as people think about uh this this is just not something I I I phrase it in terms of shifting consciousness because I just don't believe that these were questions that our parents, for example, uh asked themselves and wanted to address in the way that we are choosing to address.
[55:27] SPEAKER_02: Like why am I here?
[55:29] SPEAKER_02: What is my legacy?
[55:31] SPEAKER_02: What am I trying to do while I'm here?
[55:34] SPEAKER_02: You know, you look around yourself and you see people who are uh fit and active and contributing to the world in their 70s, in their 80s.
[55:49] SPEAKER_02: That's all new stuff, and that causes many of us to say, I want to be like that.
[55:58] SPEAKER_02: And I think that's part of why we're seeing all the discussion and all the uh energy around uh wellness, for example, and longevity, you know, just just just to pick to pick two.
[56:18] SPEAKER_02: Uh my read of the forest is people are really looking for inspiration.
[56:26] SPEAKER_02: Uh people are really looking, as I call connection.
[56:30] SPEAKER_02: When I use the term connection, of course I mean human-to-human connection.
[56:38] SPEAKER_02: And I think there is a ton of evidence that people are paying a lot of money to have more and more human-to-human connection.
[56:48] SPEAKER_02: That we're all sick of Zoom, and uh there is an awareness that we are having now that we didn't have uh until you know more recently.
[57:01] SPEAKER_02: I mean, all of this stuff is very recent, right?
[57:04] SPEAKER_02: The entire industry is only 30-year-old, it's nothing.
[57:08] SPEAKER_02: Um, but an awareness that uh the screens and the digital, it actually atrophies us.
[57:18] SPEAKER_02: It uh causes MIT published a piece of research a month ago that talked about cognitive decline or cognitive deficit in the context of um of uh AI.
[57:34] SPEAKER_02: So there is, I think, awareness that these technologies are actually uh making us less well, increasing.
[57:44] SPEAKER_02: And so, of course, yeah, we're not stupid, we're very resilient, so we are acting uh against these uh realizations and these trends, and so people are looking for connections more and more.
[58:02] SPEAKER_02: But uh when I use the term connections, it's very broad.
[58:07] SPEAKER_02: Like uh my use of language typically is broader than uh the common definition.
[58:14] SPEAKER_02: So when I say connection, I mean connection to humans, connection to meaning, connection to nature, connection to purpose.
[58:24] SPEAKER_02: And I think experiences is how people, humans, get these kinds of connections.
[58:31] SPEAKER_02: So inspiration, connection, and I think agency.
[58:35] SPEAKER_02: I think people want more agency.
[58:39] SPEAKER_02: I think uh we're all realizing, learning that the old, old model of um, you know, we're gonna be in one family, in one structure for the rest of our life, and we're gonna have.
[58:56] SPEAKER_02: I know that hasn't been the case in a long time, but it's helpful by analogy to uh draw the distinction.
[59:02] SPEAKER_02: You know, we're all gonna work for one company for uh our working career.
[59:08] SPEAKER_02: That doesn't work, that world doesn't work, it doesn't exist anymore.
[59:11] SPEAKER_02: And increasingly uh we are independent participants in society, and I think people realize this, young starting with young people, and they say, okay, how do uh I need to take care, uh I need to be responsible for my own outcomes, and uh, how do I gain agency over my own outcomes?
[59:33] SPEAKER_02: And again, I think that is through experiences.
[59:36] SPEAKER_02: So inspiration, connection, agency are some of the themes that uh to me are uh very much top of mind as I think about companies and investing and in what they offer.
[59:53] SPEAKER_01: I really like that you mentioned agency because one of the things that came up in my conversation with Vince, the one of the co founders.
[1:00:00] SPEAKER_01: Of Meowwolf, uh, Vince Katalubic.
[1:00:02] SPEAKER_01: And it's one of the things that stood out to me about the experience at Omega Mart and that the whole idea that you have agency over your environment.
[1:00:08] SPEAKER_01: So you were not just being taken on a journey.
[1:00:11] SPEAKER_01: You actually had the ability to make decisions like a choose your own adventure.
[1:00:14] SPEAKER_01: And that um and so I that stands out to me as still an uh an opportunity for the travel industry to give people more agency.
[1:00:22] SPEAKER_01: And uh people that it's part of the reason I think people are actually seeking out you know smaller group adventures where they get on different types of uh uh uh transportation, and it's less cookie-cutter than what people had been familiar with with group travel, getting being uh getting on a coach and being kind of escorted around, is that people are looking for more autonomy, agency.
[1:00:41] SPEAKER_01: They're looking for flexibility.
[1:00:42] SPEAKER_01: They want to find, you know, they want to be able to uh go at their own pace, they want to be able to explore things that'll be of interest to them, but they yet they want to connect with other people because there's there is very much a reason why the very concept of um not being able to engage or talk to anyone is a form of punishment, because that is written on our DNA, and we we need to be able to communicate to to survive.
[1:01:04] SPEAKER_00: We'll be right back.
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[1:03:38] SPEAKER_01: And now back to the show.
[1:03:42] SPEAKER_01: Two more questions I have for you on insights, and obviously then I want to make sure that as we look at 26, some of the things that you're paying attention to, you're obviously very well informed.
[1:03:53] SPEAKER_01: You're very well read.
[1:03:54] SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things I'm sure our listeners would also be keen to uh understand is when you're looking to educate yourself more on a specific market.
[1:04:04] SPEAKER_01: I know you attend a lot of different conferences, like you'll go into different conferences totally outside of travel to kind of get a different perspective.
[1:04:11] SPEAKER_01: What are the what are your techniques and approaches to expanding your own mind to identify opportunities?
[1:04:17] SPEAKER_01: Um is there what recommendations might you have for people listening to this that you know here someone that thinks uh as broadly and takes those lateral moves to look at other industries and bring them back to what they're working on?
[1:04:30] SPEAKER_01: What what what direction would you point them in or what advice would you give them, Michael?
[1:04:35] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
[1:04:36] SPEAKER_02: I think that's a really uh interesting uh question.
[1:04:39] SPEAKER_02: Uh and I want to answer it.
[1:04:41] SPEAKER_02: Uh but I want to just highlight you because you referred to uh Meow Wolf and to Vince.
[1:04:48] SPEAKER_02: Like Meow Wolf, I think is one of those unique companies.
[1:04:54] SPEAKER_02: And I give Vince a lot of credit for uh what uh they have built there.
[1:05:01] SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it's an extraordinary experience that they've created.
[1:05:06] SPEAKER_02: And yes, agency is a part of it, but I think also wonder.
[1:05:11] SPEAKER_02: I think what they're trying to give, it's super, super hard.
[1:05:15] SPEAKER_02: How do you stage an experience of wonder uh for people?
[1:05:22] SPEAKER_02: Uh it's super valuable.
[1:05:24] SPEAKER_02: I think that's why they're doing well, it's because they have put their finger on creating something new in a new way um that uh people really want.
[1:05:39] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:05:40] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:05:40] SPEAKER_01: Let me just add one thing, if you don't mind, just to that, because uh you can please comment on this too, is that you know, there's this been theory about societies that if you uh look at the tallest buildings, that's what they worship, right?
[1:05:52] SPEAKER_01: And so for many years, and there was uh an American mythologist, I think his name is like Joseph Campbell, that had this theory, which was that you know in the earliest ages it was the cathedrals, and so um, because obviously religion or uh pol um political, like well, castles before uh um and then today it's either office buildings or more importantly, banks, like we worship money, so the banks are the tallest buildings.
[1:06:17] SPEAKER_01: But in this era when we value our time and we value experiences, I think of places like uh Meowwolf, because if any town, any city um that you want to visit, I I said to Vince, every city should have a Meow Wolf.
[1:06:30] SPEAKER_01: The difficulty for them is everything has to be totally unique, what they build.
[1:06:33] SPEAKER_01: Um, but the other thing I also think that what you described before is that the temple is more the self now, like that where you're putting the investment is in wellness and longevity as you just described.
[1:06:43] SPEAKER_01: So it's an experiences, but it's experiences that nourish, enrich, um, and add to your life.
[1:06:49] SPEAKER_01: And so obviously it's it's no longer about a building because so but yeah, let's go back to the more important thing here, which is you know, when you are uh attending conferences or reading up on different industries, yeah.
[1:07:02] SPEAKER_01: What what are the sources you gravitate to?
[1:07:04] SPEAKER_01: How do you keep yourself informed, inspired, and uh and motivated?
[1:07:09] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[1:07:09] SPEAKER_02: You know, it's hard to obey you and uh answer your questions when you introduce people like Joe Campbell.
[1:07:17] SPEAKER_02: Like that man uh is an extraordinary teacher and obviously he's no longer with us, but you know, for the audience, uh I would strongly he's he's the person who uh coins the idea of the hero's journey and the structure of mist.
[1:07:38] SPEAKER_02: And for anyone who uh is serious about understanding experiences, these are really foundational ideas, foundational concepts.
[1:07:49] SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, I think it's wonderful you're highlighting someone like that in your um in your uh discussion here.
[1:07:56] SPEAKER_02: It's a great conversation.
[1:07:58] SPEAKER_02: Listen, I believe that uh a superpower is curiosity, and uh, you know, not everyone has to have it, but if you want to be good in certain uh uh professions, then you just inherently have to be fundamentally driven by curiosity.
[1:08:21] SPEAKER_02: And um so I am an insanely uh curious person.
[1:08:26] SPEAKER_02: I will find the most trivial uh data points or anecdotes uh extremely fascinating.
[1:08:36] SPEAKER_02: And um I think you have to have that.
[1:08:42] SPEAKER_02: You either do or you don't.
[1:08:44] SPEAKER_02: You can force yourself to be curious.
[1:08:46] SPEAKER_02: Uh but if you want to be an innovator, uh if you want to shape the future, uh I think you have to be uh curious about what people want, what's changing, what's new, what's different, what's not the same anymore.
[1:09:04] SPEAKER_02: And um one critical enabling condition that I think could be relevant for everyone who's listening to this is you need to give yourself the time uh to be curious.
[1:09:19] SPEAKER_02: And that takes effort, uh, but I actually am highly mindful of giving myself the time.
[1:09:29] SPEAKER_02: Uh again, that mentioned it before, that's really the most precious resource that we all have, and uh I am uh very mindful about my use of time uh because I can never get back the time that has passed.
[1:09:53] SPEAKER_02: And I do give myself, I don't know if it's a day a week, 20% of my time, to um to be curious, to explore, and uh I believe I'm a fairly intuitive person, and so I do trust my energy, my intuition, and if my curiosity says, uh, oh, this is uh interesting, and uh you should spend more time uh on this or on that, then I follow.
[1:10:36] SPEAKER_02: I give myself the permission to do it, I make the time to do it, I don't allow uh life basically uh to interfere.
[1:10:46] SPEAKER_02: Like uh to me, the idea, oh, I don't work out because I don't have the time, I think that is very, very bad excuse.
[1:10:55] SPEAKER_02: Um, if it's important to you, you make the time.
[1:10:59] SPEAKER_02: You you have agency over your time.
[1:11:02] SPEAKER_02: And uh if it's something that uh is important to you, then you just prioritize it.
[1:11:11] SPEAKER_02: And curiosity and learning uh is very important to me, and I make the time.
[1:11:17] SPEAKER_02: So I'd say that's kind of the general answer.
[1:11:20] SPEAKER_02: And then specifically, since you engaged me on it, I mean this is more like an anecdote, and I'm certainly not uh saying, oh, uh I know these are like winning bits and uh this is the future.
[1:11:35] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I've been very curious about psychedelics.
[1:11:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, to me, psychedelics is an obvious form of psychotherapeutic experiences.
[1:11:46] SPEAKER_02: I do invest in psychotherapeutic experiences.
[1:11:50] SPEAKER_02: Uh and to me, it's the next level, and I have learned about the research that extremely credible and reputable uh institutions, Johns Hopkins University, University of Washington, uh, Stanford, you know, some of the most reputable medical research universities in the world, have fired up again their psychedelic labs and their psychedelic research programs over the past few single years.
[1:12:33] SPEAKER_02: Um, all of that stuff got banned and stopped cold uh in the 70s with the Nixon War on Drugs.
[1:12:45] SPEAKER_02: And only recently, I think, when our collective awareness about hey, we have serious problems here with uh behavioral health and uh depression and anxiety and PTSD and loneliness.
[1:12:59] SPEAKER_02: And frankly, the solutions we have they're not working so well, and they're not working for everyone, and we need new solutions, and that's given the courage to a number of pioneers who I respect very much in these very credible institutions who say, you know what, maybe we should take another look at that kind of stuff.
[1:13:22] SPEAKER_02: And so they call it experiential medicine, and so yeah, I'm the experiences guy.
[1:13:28] SPEAKER_02: So of course I would have curiosity about what's that, what what's that thing that they're calling experiential medicine?
[1:13:36] SPEAKER_02: Tell me more, tell me more.
[1:13:38] SPEAKER_02: And you know, the more I'm learning, the more I'm thinking this is really interesting, and this could be part of uh you know all of our future.
[1:13:48] SPEAKER_02: This is not next year, it's not a 26, although there's some interesting development.
[1:13:54] SPEAKER_02: But I think that uh is likely to be an area of uh attention for Michael for sure, and I'm very hopeful could be an area that does good uh for the world and uh for for many of us.
[1:14:14] SPEAKER_02: And um, in the same vein, yeah, I think our relationship to death is changing.
[1:14:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh and it's part of this forest that I talked about earlier of uh shifting consciousness, more uh attention to I would say meaning, spirituality, uh it's more discussion.
[1:14:40] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, uh I don't know um what's the egg, what's the chicken, but there are literally dozens of podcasts about consciousness and afterlife, and uh it's very interesting, and it's much more part of the discourse if you choose to look for this uh than I think uh it's ever been.
[1:15:07] SPEAKER_02: I think our relationship sort of as people, as society, to death and dying is changing.
[1:15:14] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we're all gonna go through that transition uh at one point.
[1:15:21] SPEAKER_02: The addressable market is 100% of the population.
[1:15:26] SPEAKER_02: So uh from an investment perspective, it's super interesting.
[1:15:29] SPEAKER_02: And obviously, uh with these new technologies, obviously, we're all gonna live forever in a digital form.
[1:15:39] SPEAKER_02: So, what does that actually look like?
[1:15:42] SPEAKER_02: And are people gonna pay for this?
[1:15:45] SPEAKER_02: And what are they gonna pay for?
[1:15:47] SPEAKER_02: That's a little more out there, but for sure that's a very interesting area for a venture investor to uh to investigate.
[1:15:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:15:58] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[1:15:59] SPEAKER_01: And I think for many people listening to this, I mean, thinking that far out or the impacts of what that could mean is you know, is a domain that clearly you are focused on for all the right reasons because you can kind of then bring that back to where we are now.
[1:16:13] SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, uh you will know Harari is one of my favorite authors.
[1:16:16] SPEAKER_01: And after, of course, reading Sapiens, Homo Diaz came out and he's kind of gone, he kind of went back to Sapiens and it's kind of kind of it is his most popular work, but I liked the fact he was starting to project forward because as a historian, he was uh often criticized for why he was talking about the future, but he highlighted the fact it's a study of change over time, and now that we have AI and the fact that people can live longer, and it is gonna play to many people's uh the wealthier people's advantage, um, that can take advantage of new medical breakthroughs that are gonna be possible.
[1:16:47] SPEAKER_01: So you're absolutely spot on about the longevity movement.
[1:16:49] SPEAKER_01: Everyone, I think, hears about the guy that's spending uh two million dollars a month to uh to extend his, to reduce his age and to live as long as possible, and and even to learn from that, because there was a academic theory, he's just you know, he's the guinea pig in many ways, um, because he had enough money to be able to actually and and and also the discipline to implement it.
[1:17:09] SPEAKER_01: Um and so we're learning all these interesting things about longevity right now.
[1:17:13] SPEAKER_01: But if we bring it back to where we are in 2026 and think about in the next three to five years, and knowing that you're focused on the experience ecosystem, where within that do you think is most ripe for disruption or innovation?
[1:17:27] SPEAKER_01: Is it in the uh the tour side?
[1:17:29] SPEAKER_01: I know you've become intrigued more recently in some of our conversations about uh multi-day tours.
[1:17:34] SPEAKER_01: And obviously there's attractions, so that's I don't know, like the meow wolf or you know, where Disney and companies like that are headed.
[1:17:40] SPEAKER_01: When you look at the Asian market, because you obviously have a great deal of experience there when they're talking about super apps and hyperpersonalization, how much of that plays out here in this market?
[1:17:48] SPEAKER_01: Um, loyalty is obviously a big segment.
[1:17:51] SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think within the experience ecosystem, from your vantage point right now, still the most ripe for disruption and innovation?
[1:17:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:17:59] SPEAKER_02: Um so the things you mentioned and uh we talked about multi-day, I do think uh is not uh yet, there's no winners yet.
[1:18:13] SPEAKER_02: And uh I do think there's more and more of that.
[1:18:16] SPEAKER_02: Um there hospitality, I think, is changing a lot.
[1:18:21] SPEAKER_02: I think the why is becoming more important than the where.
[1:18:26] SPEAKER_02: And uh I think a lot of uh hotel, hotel flags, hotel brands are uh really struggling with how do we redefine ourselves and for this new era?
[1:18:39] SPEAKER_02: Do we specialize?
[1:18:40] SPEAKER_02: Are we becoming more wellness-centric brands or more something else, more community-centric brands?
[1:18:48] SPEAKER_02: How do we redefine what we stand for?
[1:18:50] SPEAKER_02: So, hospitality, I think, is very interesting.
[1:18:53] SPEAKER_02: One sector I'm spending more and more time is employee empowerment.
[1:18:58] SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh, how uh to actually make the people at the front line uh uh give them uh more agency and uh bind them like one of the characteristics I think that's very unique to our industry, to experiences, is uh they're really manifested by humans in many, many cases.
[1:19:27] SPEAKER_02: And uh COVID has done a huge number negative uh on employees, employee workforce.
[1:19:36] SPEAKER_02: The churn has been massive.
[1:19:38] SPEAKER_02: People who've been on the front lines of a lot of experienced businesses have been treated really poorly, uh laid off, like literally from one week to the next.
[1:19:48] SPEAKER_02: And you know, good luck to you, Sayonara.
[1:19:51] SPEAKER_02: And so I think there's a lot of trust.
[1:19:53] SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of competency that got lost, and there's a lot of trust that got lost.
[1:20:00] SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of companies at the tippy top of luxury, that's not been the case.
[1:20:06] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I think for much of the rest of the industry, employee motivation, employee trust, uh, employee agency, employee empowerment is really in deficit.
[1:20:21] SPEAKER_02: And uh I think the this is a short-term issue.
[1:20:24] SPEAKER_02: You can't deliver excellence and experiences if the people at the front line aren't bought into your promise, uh, uh not been trained, are not motivated, and are not personally uh inspired by the mission of what you're trying to stand for.
[1:20:45] SPEAKER_02: And we've all had the experience recently, last week, last month, last year, of uh having very, very poor such experiences.
[1:20:56] SPEAKER_02: Because it's not that sometimes it's the people's fault because they don't care, but most of the time is they've just been thrown into the pool and at the wolves.
[1:21:06] SPEAKER_02: And so there's uh it's part of rebuilding or part of strengthening that I think in the uh in the employee, in the front line to guest interaction, there's a lot of opportunity there, or at least there yeah, opportunity for improvement.
[1:21:29] SPEAKER_01: Well, and one last one on this topic, because it's not intended to be a leading question, Michael, but I since I uh uh obviously I've gotten to know you and understand your portfolio, I've also come to understand some of the new investments that you have made as well.
[1:21:43] SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things I wanted to ask you is that if you're to make a bold bet on the next breakout category within the experience economy, where would that be?
[1:21:51] SPEAKER_01: And I know one of the you're a big fan of Skift as well, and I know they've followed, uh they've kind of coined the term about live tourism.
[1:21:58] SPEAKER_01: And uh, if I'm correct, uh you have a recent investment in a company that is uh really going to pioneer this space.
[1:22:05] SPEAKER_01: So so I guess maybe it's a bit of a two-part question.
[1:22:07] SPEAKER_01: What do you think is the biggest kind of bold bet?
[1:22:09] SPEAKER_01: Um, and even if that isn't one, give us a little bit more detail on that, because I think that is quite fascinating as well.
[1:22:15] SPEAKER_02: No, no, I mean it's it's it's it's it's part of the theme of the why, not the where.
[1:22:21] SPEAKER_02: So it's clear that uh people are increasingly choosing uh to travel to destinations for specific reasons and for specific experiences.
[1:22:34] SPEAKER_02: And yes, I did invest in um uh Ari Emmanuel's new company called Mari, which uh aspires to become the largest live events company uh in the world, and uh today owns a number of uh prestigious tennis tournaments like the Miami Open and the Madrid Open and uh the Freeze Art Fairs, uh number of uh festivals, car vintage car festivals, culinary festivals, mass participation, sporting events, and so forth.
[1:23:13] SPEAKER_02: All live events, yeah.
[1:23:14] SPEAKER_02: So I I do think the professionalization, the scaling, the consolidation of uh live events is I don't know if it's the biggest trend, but for sure it is a big trend and one that's gonna continue, I think, for uh for a number of years.
[1:23:33] SPEAKER_02: I'm very bullish on the Middle East as a region.
[1:23:37] SPEAKER_02: Uh I think that region has made it clear that uh it wants to diversify its industrial base, that they don't necessarily use the word experiences.
[1:23:50] SPEAKER_02: They talk about travel tourism.
[1:23:52] SPEAKER_02: It's clear that that region, the investments that they're making and the things they're building and the events that they are staging.
[1:24:03] SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's extraordinary.
[1:24:05] SPEAKER_02: Like we've never seen one region in the world commit itself to such a degree to, frankly, uh a new emerging industry.
[1:24:16] SPEAKER_02: So I I do I part of why I go is learning and uh seeing with my own eyes um what's being developed there.
[1:24:25] SPEAKER_02: I think that's that I do think is a very material trend for the next uh the next few years.
[1:24:33] SPEAKER_02: Wellness, you know, as we talked about, wellness, longevity, it's a new trend.
[1:24:39] SPEAKER_02: You know, uh if you if you're uh in the alcohol business, uh you've had a very, very tough 25 and 24, and I think you're gonna have a very tough 26.
[1:24:51] SPEAKER_02: Like people are drinking less, and um so there's much, much higher awareness to uh wellness and food and and so forth.
[1:25:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those those would be some of the of the of the of the key things, the the key big ideas.
[1:25:11] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I really appreciate that, Michael.
[1:25:13] SPEAKER_01: And clearly uh I would love to have you back for a part two because there's so many more questions I have for you, especially when we think about uh the next five years.
[1:25:22] SPEAKER_01: And I think we can do a part two of and again, I appreciate you actually.
[1:25:26] SPEAKER_01: I just want to state this.
[1:25:28] SPEAKER_01: Um it's obviously been wonderful getting to know you.
[1:25:30] SPEAKER_01: The more time I spend with you, the more time I want to spend with you.
[1:25:33] SPEAKER_01: And um and I appreciate you investing your time to have this conversation with myself and for all of our listeners.
[1:25:40] SPEAKER_01: I do want to make sure, though, if there are people that are listening to this that want to reach out, I want to make sure that they do so in the right way, meaning that um I don't want your inbox on LinkedIn to all of a sudden get just an influx.
[1:25:51] SPEAKER_01: But uh if if there's organizations that are listening to this that are realizing that there could be a great partnership opportunity or it makes sense to be in touch, what would be the best ways for them to do that, Michael?
[1:26:01] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I I I don't want to be hard to find.
[1:26:05] SPEAKER_02: So uh I'm Michael at FMZ Ventures, and they can just send me an email.
[1:26:11] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:26:12] SPEAKER_01: Very generous of you.
[1:26:13] SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
[1:26:14] SPEAKER_01: I don't I uh I'm sure you're gonna get some reach outs, but I don't want your inbox to blow up at the same time.
[1:26:18] SPEAKER_01: But it's very kind of you to offer that up.
[1:26:21] SPEAKER_01: And it it and this is where I have to say, I mean, I'm sure our listeners got a a good understanding of at least you know but getting a chance to meet you in person like I have, and just to see you kind of navigate a room, there's just certain people that you gravitate to.
[1:26:34] SPEAKER_01: Um and I you are one of those people, so I have a uh a deep respect not only for what you've accomplished, but what you're continuing to do in the industry.
[1:26:41] SPEAKER_01: Uh so it's a pleasure to have gotten to know you and continue to uh develop our relationship.
[1:26:46] SPEAKER_01: And I really think there are uh obviously we'd love to have you back at our AI summit next year.
[1:26:51] SPEAKER_01: Um we'd love to have you there in person, and I would just love to continue the conversation and bring and bring you back.
[1:26:56] SPEAKER_02: I'm thrilled.
[1:26:57] SPEAKER_02: I'd love to do it uh as uh as I as I suggested.
[1:27:02] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I learn, I learn from all of these interactions myself.
[1:27:07] SPEAKER_02: So um I'm delighted to do it.
[1:27:09] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:27:10] SPEAKER_02: And just to finish, uh maybe on a really optimistic uh note here, uh I believe we can all be really grateful for living right now.
[1:27:24] SPEAKER_02: I think this is such an extraordinarily interesting moment in time.
[1:27:31] SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, the developments that occur all around us and uh the changes, and I I don't see how you cannot be an optimist uh right now.
[1:27:44] SPEAKER_02: I think uh we're super lucky actually uh to be around uh right now and to have the richness uh around us that uh that exists.
[1:27:57] SPEAKER_02: So pleasure to uh spend time with you.
[1:28:00] SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, thanks for having me and would love to come back anytime.
[1:28:05] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for joining us on our latest episode of Travel Trends.
[1:28:08] SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to say a special thank you to Michael Zeisser for joining us for this episode.
[1:28:13] SPEAKER_01: I learn so much each time I speak to you.
[1:28:15] SPEAKER_01: I certainly look forward to having you back again on the podcast and seeing you at a number of industry events over the course of 2026.
[1:28:22] SPEAKER_01: I'm actually going to be speaking at Get Your Guides Headquarters in Berlin right before the ITB conference, which I'm thrilled to be invited back to.
[1:28:30] SPEAKER_01: There's actually all of our conferences are now updated on our website at Traveltrendspodcast.com slash events.
[1:28:37] SPEAKER_01: And don't forget, wherever we're recording an event spotlight episode, feel free to reach out to me, Dan, at Traveltrendspodcast.com, so I can try to incorporate you into that episode.
[1:28:48] SPEAKER_01: I'm always very keen to feature our listeners, so feel free to reach out to me.
[1:28:52] SPEAKER_01: And for any of you that are new to Travel Trends, don't forget we do post clips and highlights on our social channels on Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
[1:29:00] SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, make sure you're subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice to be notified when new episodes go live every Wednesday.
[1:29:07] SPEAKER_01: Now, next week, we are going to have our last deep dive of season six.
[1:29:12] SPEAKER_01: We're gonna focus on aviation and specifically look at One World Travel Alliance.
[1:29:18] SPEAKER_01: It's a really interesting conversation, so I definitely encourage you to check out next week's episode.
[1:29:22] SPEAKER_01: And right after our aviation series, we're gonna close out season six with Joe Pine, the legendary author of The Experience Economy, who is just publishing the Transformation Economy.
[1:29:33] SPEAKER_01: I encourage everyone to order a copy.
[1:29:37] SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna have Jake Haupert join us as well from the Travel Transformation Council.
[1:29:41] SPEAKER_01: So a perfect way to wrap up season six as well as kick off 2026, the year that I have coined.
[1:29:48] SPEAKER_01: This is the year of transformative travel.
[1:29:51] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for joining us.
[1:29:52] SPEAKER_01: Have a great start to the new year.
[1:29:54] SPEAKER_01: I look forward to speaking to you all next week.
[1:29:55] SPEAKER_01: Until then, safe travels.

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