Dialectic 55: Dan Lilienthal & José Chayet - As [untitled] as it Comes
Dan and José run
@uuuntitleddd, a sacred place for work-in-progress music.
They aren't trained engineers, designers, or musicians, but have built a platform that hundreds of thousands of artists—from 16-year-olds on their first record deal to Lorde—use to store, listen to, and work with their music.
Lorde also recently released XRAYS on [untitled]: 49 demos, the sonic museum behind her album Virgin.
Dan & José are also childhood best friends. I talked to them about the adventure so far, empathy as a product strategy, and their quest to build the biggest music company in the world.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Opening Highlights
(1:24) Intro to Dan & José
(4:42) Start: Brackets, How Creativity Makes the World Bigger, and Music's Connection to the Divine
(20:40) Duchamp, Music as a Set of Choices, and The Museum Behind the Work
(27:52) [untitled]: A Medium for Music In-Progress
(45:03) From a Better Dropbox to a Creativity Company
(52:13) Empathy as a Product Philosophy and The Collaboration's Origins
(1:01:04) Scaling the Sacred Place and Product Intuition
(1:10:33) Lorde's XRAYS Drop and Designing for a Wide Range of Artists
(1:17:26) 10K Unheard Songs and Whether Process Should be Seen
(1:24:10) Brand, Trust, Alignment with Artists and the [studio]
(1:30:54) The Word "Sacred" and Resisting the Feed
(1:40:52) AI as an Instrument: Building Tools Artists Actually Want
(1:49:27) Building a Company with Your Best Friend
(1:56:31) Closing Questions: Dream Users, Rapid Fire Brackets, and Titles
@dialecticpod with
@danchotweets @josechayet available below and on all platforms. Links below.