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During San Francisco Tech Week a few weeks ago, we co-hosted our first New Media Summit with Yahoo, bringing together media’s biggest names for candid conversations on where the industry goes next.
One of our speakers was Dylan Abruscato, President of TBPN, which has had a huge year. He joined us to share how a bootstrapped, 10-person live tech show became one of the most valuable ad slots in Silicon Valley, why live remains “a truly unskippable ad format,” and why reaching a niche audience can be worth more than reaching a big one.
Dylan began his career in live TV at SNL and CNBC. He then helped run HQ Trivia through its rise and fall, and built his own live interactive game show before joining TBPN, a daily, three-hour tech variety show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays. Under Dylan, it grew to roughly $25 million in annual revenue with 30 year-long sponsors, led by presenting sponsor Ramp. Six months ago, it was acquired by OpenAI.
In our in-depth episode, we discuss:
Why the OpenAI deal had little to do with the show itself, and how the marketing and comms advisory work built into TBPN’s sponsorships became the real reason behind the acquisition
The Super Bowl stunts that preceded the deal: a hyper-local 15-second spot built from over a thousand founder logos, and claudewithads.com
How TBPN copied Formula 1’s sponsorship model: year-long deals, category exclusivity, 100% share of voice, and an ad read to Mark Zuckerberg as he took his seat
Why the show stayed intentionally niche, and why it only takes one or two founders switching platforms for a tech sponsor’s ad to pay for itself
Inside a daily live show: the 6 a.m. gym sessions, the three-hour run of show, last-minute guest booking, and the vibe-coded internal tools that power it all
Watch or listen now across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and X
Download the transcript 👇
Timestamps
(0:00) Meet Dylan Abruscato
(2:20) Why OpenAI acquired TBPN
(6:48) What changed after the acquisition
(7:43) Will frontier models come on the show?
(8:17) What makes TBPN so vibrant
(9:32) Prepping for a daily live show
(10:46) Why live streaming is hot
(12:04) Are niche audiences more valuable?
(12:58) How the ad integrations work
(15:44) Calling partners post-acquisition
(17:10) Building alongside legacy media
(18:17) The copycats
(19:38) Will another TBPN-style acquisition happen?
(20:08) OpenAI’s marketing services
(21:02) Thinking about distribution channels
(22:10) Dream guests
(22:59) TBPN’s next 12 months
(23:22) Audience Q&A
Lessons from this episode with Dylan
1. The OpenAI deal was for the team, not the show
Dylan says most people misread why OpenAI bought a live tech talk show.
“I think what a lot of folks got wrong about the deal is that it had very little to do with the show itself and much more to do with the interest in us and the brains behind the operation.”
Many of TBPN’s 30 sponsorship deals included marketing and comms advisory work, a tactic the team first used to win sponsors. OpenAI’s offer was simple: keep doing the show, wind down the advisory clients, and make OpenAI the only one.
TBPN was profitable, had raised no money and had no plans to sell. Fidji Simo reached out the morning after the Super Bowl.
2. Build the show you’d want to watch
The two stunts that came right before the deal both started as ideas the team found funny.
“The truth is we’re just building the show that we always wanted to watch.”
The first was a hyper-local 15-second ad that aired in San Jose at noon but still counted as a Super Bowl spot. It spelled out TBPN using over a thousand logos of past guests, and those founders shared it everywhere. The second was claudewithads.com, a reskinned Claude that gave one real answer and then rotated through sponsor ad reads.
The team’s brainstorming rule is that if an idea makes them laugh, they run with it.
3. Live is the last unskippable ad format
Dylan has worked in live TV at SNL, CNBC and HQ Trivia, and has argued for live for a decade.
“It’s a truly unskippable ad format, and that’s kind of allowed us to command such high prices.”
Almost nothing is watched live anymore. Sports is the exception, and even award shows are now consumed as recaps on X. TBPN’s audience is smaller than HQ’s was, but advertisers value it more because no one can fast-forward.
4. Go intentionally niche
TBPN never explains the jargon. Where CNBC would spell out what AWS stands for, John and Jordi just say AWS or GPU, and the audience respects it.
“It really only takes one or two founders watching the show to switch to this platform for the advertisement to pay for itself.”
A small audience of founders, CFOs and VCs is worth more to a tech sponsor than a mass audience. As an example, John once read a Ramp ad straight to Mark Zuckerberg as he took his seat.
5. Copy Formula 1’s sponsorship model
TBPN sold only year-long deals, split into a couple dozen categories with one sponsor per category.
“Everyone got 100% share of voice in their category on everything that we did over the course of the year.”
Sponsors got the same ad read in every episode, plus the ticker, merch, newsletter links and end cards on tweets. Dylan’s view is that repetition is what counts when a founder is finally ready to switch products. TBPN also never tried to upsell new placements partway through the year.
The commercial mindset was there from day one. On the first episode, with one viewer, John did fake ad reads for sponsors the show didn’t have. When TBPN wound down its sponsors after the acquisition, viewers asked for the ad reads back.
6. Chemistry plus a fixed format
The show depends on the friendship between its two hosts.
“It’s like a true one-of-one friendship, and it’s just so relatable.”
John and Jordi meet at the gym at 6 a.m. every day and work out the day’s lead story in the sauna. They go live at 11, and after the show ends they still call each other on the drive home.
The format never changes:
Hour one: John and Jordi on the current thing, then live reactions to the timeline.
Hour two: one or two tier-one interviews.
Hour three: a lightning round of startup fundraising news.
Most guests are booked last minute. Mag Seven–level names take six months or more of back-and-forth.
7. Be a companion to legacy media, not a competitor
TBPN never tried to beat traditional outlets at breaking news.
“We always viewed TBPN as a companion show.”
When founders or publicists offered scoops, TBPN sent them to the Journal or Bloomberg. The founder would come on a few hours later to break the story down. Every show opens with a hard copy of the Journal.
Dylan doesn’t want copycats making another three-hour daily show. He would rather see new formats in tech media, like a late-night tech show or an interactive Shark Tank.
Where to connect with us
Follow Ollie on X: https://x.com/ollieforsyth
Follow Dylan on X: https://x.com/DylanAbruscato
Watch and follow TBPN: https://www.tbpn.com
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