Social Currency with Sammi Cohen

How does a scrappy startup beat Amazon when Amazon copies your product, undercuts your price and slaps its own name on it? According to Square co-founder Jim McKelvey, you don't. Except, once in a while, someone does.

This week Sammi revisits one of her favorite conversations ever recorded for Social Currency: her sit-down with Jim McKelvey, the artist-turned-entrepreneur who co-founded Square (now Block) with Jack Dorsey. Jim opens with the story of how he once stripped down in a trade association's office just to get a meeting, and explains why getting someone's attention is always the real first step in any pitch. He breaks down why he intentionally designed Square's original card reader to work poorly, and how that "flaw" turned millions of small business owners into free advertisers for the brand.

Then, Jim tells the almost unbelievable story of how Square survived Amazon's attempt to copy and kill its business with Amazon Register, why he studied history to understand how rare that survival really was, and how a conversation with Southwest's Herb Kelleher led him to write his book, The Innovation Stack. Jim also opens up about his years as an independent director of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, what he learned living through zero interest rates, the pandemic and the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and how the role reshaped his politics. Plus, he explains why his media venture Invisibly failed to save journalism despite cracking the monetization problem, and details his newest venture, Fast Trials, an attempt to slash the cost of FDA drug trials so more life-saving drugs can make it to market.

Follow Sammi Cohen on Instagram Subscribe to the Social Currency newsletter Read Jim McKelvey's blog and check out his book, The Innovation Stack

Here's What Sammi Covers with Jim:

00:00 Jim McKelvey's Social Currency

02:03 Why Sammi Is Revisiting This Episode

05:09 The Striptease That Landed a Six-Figure Deal

08:00 Why Getting Attention Comes Before Any Pitch

11:01 Why the Square Reader Was Designed to Not Work Well

14:23 Respecting Your Audience's Attention

17:56 Why Jim Doesn't Use Social Media

19:00 The Power of the Pause

20:22 The Real Origin Story of Square

24:32 How Square Survived Amazon's Attempt to Kill It

28:04 The Commandment From Herb Kelleher That Became a Book

32:11 Why the Rules of Innovation Are Different

36:27 The Hardest Part of Doing Something New

37:28 Serving as an Independent Director of the Federal Reserve

40:22 What the Fed Taught Jim About Political Neutrality

42:19 The Allergic Response to Ideas That Don't Fit

43:22 Why Invisibly Failed to Save Journalism

47:04 The Monetization Model That Actually Worked

49:26 Jim's New Venture: Fast Trials

54:31 Advice for Building in Regulated Industries

58:08 Jim's Don't-Do List

59:48 Social Currency Corner: Tipping Culture

01:02:20 A Listener Question on the Future of Fintech

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Dan Clancy's resume includes NASA, Google and Nextdoor, an unlikely path to becoming CEO of one of the biggest live streaming platforms in the world. This week, Sammi sits down with Dan to unpack what actually makes Twitch different from every other social platform: a community that survives even when the algorithm doesn't.

Dan explains why he still streams himself as "DJ Clancy" (despite never once DJing), what that experience taught him about belonging that he couldn't have learned any other way, and why Twitch's average watch time of 73 minutes says more about human connection than any growth metric. He breaks down how creator monetization actually works, why gift subscriptions often outperform tipping, and the advice he gives anyone intimidated by starting their first stream.

Then, Dan gets into why platforms like YouTube have tried and failed to poach Twitch's top streamers, what's still defensible about Twitch a decade after everyone copied the format, and how he thinks about AI as a creative tool rather than a threat to authentic connection. Plus, he opens up about the songwriting career he only discovered in his fifties, the identity boxes we build for ourselves, and the life advice he shared with Sammi that she says she'll be thinking about for a long time.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Dan:

00:00 Dan Clancy's Social Currency

02:29 From Theater Major to Tech Executive

04:35 What Theater Taught Dan About Leadership

08:30 Streaming as "DJ Clancy"

10:10 What Live Streaming Taught Dan About Community

12:05 The Pitch to a First-Time Twitch Viewer

15:00 Comparing Twitch to Bingeable TV and "Cheers"

15:40 The Power of Horizontal Connections

18:04 Twitch's Core Demographics

19:30 How Twitch Differs From TikTok and YouTube

23:10 How Creator Monetization Actually Works

26:10 Advice for Streamers Just Starting Out

28:00 Short-Form vs. Long-Form Content Strategy

28:51 Why Collaboration Drives Growth on Twitch

29:46 Why Gaming Is a Co-Creation Activity

30:50 Balancing Online Community With Real-World Connection

33:10 What Still Makes Twitch Defensible

36:00 Could Twitch and Amazon Build Social Commerce?

38:25 How AI Fits Into Live Streaming

42:50 Why Every Tech Revolution Comes Back to Connection

46:00 Dan's Songwriting Journey and Breaking Out of Old Boxes

49:08 Dan's System for Embracing Failure

52:26 Cori Marchisotto, e.l.f. and Brands on Twitch

56:44 Listener Question: Supporting Twitch's Volunteer Moderators
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A federal judge just ordered an ice cream company to hand over nearly $24 million because their pint looked a little too much like someone else's.

Today, Sammi breaks down the case of Van Leeuwen versus Rebel Creamery, a lawsuit that is about way more than ice cream. She explains how Van Leeuwen's pastel packaging, designed by the firm Pentagram in 2016, became one of the most valuable assets in the company's business and helped drive a nearly 50% jump in sales velocity. Then she unpacks how keto ice cream brand Rebel launched with strikingly similar packaging, despite a buyer warning them beforehand that it looked like a ripoff.

Sammi digs into the legal concept of trade dress, which protects the overall look and feel of a product rather than any single design element, and explains why the court sided with Van Leeuwen. She also covers the idea of "reverse confusion," why Rebel's missing design paperwork sank their case, and how the judge's finding of bad faith unlocked a massive damages award under the Lanham Act.

Finally, Sammi shares why this case matters for every founder and brand builder today: in an age where AI can replicate any aesthetic instantly, the real competitive advantage isn't the look itself, it's being able to prove you own it.

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Here's what Sammi covers today: 00:00 The $24 Million Ice Cream Lawsuit 00:59 Partner Message: Mercury 02:16 Van Leeuwen's Origin Story 02:44 The Pentagram Packaging Redesign 03:34 How the Design Became the Brand 03:50 Enter Rebel Creamery 04:17 The Wegmans Warning 05:00 Van Leeuwen Files Suit 05:25 What Is Trade Dress? 06:06 Proving Consumer Confusion 06:46 The Concept of Reverse Confusion 07:10 The Paper Trail That Won the Case 07:46 Rebel's Missing Evidence 08:25 The Judge's Bad Faith Ruling 08:34 The Good Faith Remote User Defense 09:10 How Rebel's Profits Became the Damages 09:50 The $23.8 Million Verdict and Redesign Order 10:16 Partner Message: Mercury 11:26 Why Provable Ownership Matters in the AI Era 11:47 The Founder's Takeaway 12:30 How to Show Social Currency Some Love

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Chili's now goes through 65 million pounds of mozzarella a year, up from just 12 million four years ago. The reason traces back to a single TikTok video of a cheese pull that quietly turned a decade-old menu item into one of the biggest comeback stories in restaurant history.

Today, Sammi breaks down exactly how Chili's pulled off what one analyst called the best turnaround in restaurant history. She digs into the operational fixes nobody saw coming, from a shrimp-counting ritual that wasted hours of labor every day to a salt shaker redesign that cut seasoning time by more than 80 percent. She also traces how CEO Kevin Hochman, who came from Procter & Gamble and Yum Brands, rebuilt the kitchen experience from the inside out while his marketing team leaned into the viral moment instead of manufacturing one.

Then, Sammi unpacks the marketing engine behind the comeback, including the Triple Dipper's rise from a forgotten combo platter to 16 percent of total sales, the launch of Nashville Hot Mozzarella, and nostalgia plays like the Boyz II Men jingle and the Margarita of the Month program. Finally, she reveals the number buried in Chili's most recent earnings report that complicates the celebratory headlines, and what it means for the road ahead, including the struggles at sister brand Maggiano's Little Italy.

Go check out the incredible Fast Company article on Chili's comeback: https://www.fastcompany.com/91549042/chilis-comeback-restaurant-retro-redesign

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Here's What Sammi Covers Today:

00:00 Chili's Mozzarella Explosion

01:30 Sammi's Intro to the Story

01:40 How Far Chili's Had Fallen

02:20 Kevin Hochman Takes Over

02:50 "Marketing Brings Them In, Ops Brings Them Back"

03:13 The Listening Tour That Started It All

03:29 The Shrimp-Counting Fix

03:54 The Ordering Glitch Costing 15 Plates a Night

04:15 The iPad and Wi-Fi Overhaul

04:33 The Salt Shaker Fix

04:53 Cutting the Menu and Adding Staff

05:13 Reformulating the Food

05:41 The Viral Cheese Pull Video

06:17 The Triple Dipper's Sales Surge

06:57 The Launch of Nashville Hot Mozzarella

07:30 Nostalgia Marketing: Boyz II Men and Margarita of the Month

08:05 The Three for Me Deal and "Value Theater"

08:24 The Numbers Behind the Comeback

09:11 Rolling Out the Retro Redesign

09:19 The Number That Complicates the Story

09:36 Why Traffic Is Actually Down

10:00 Maggiano's Little Italy Struggles

10:24 What's Next for Chili's

11:27 How to Show Social Currency Some Love
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Last year, $100 billion in housing payments flowed through Bilt's platform, and one in four apartment buildings in the US now runs on its system. So how did a rewards card for rent turn into one of the biggest players in AI-powered commerce?

This week, Sammi welcomes back Bilt founder and CEO Ankur Jain to unpack how the company has evolved from a direct-to-consumer card product into a full ecosystem connecting apartment buildings, local merchants and now AI agents. Ankur explains why the card now represents a small fraction of the business, how Bilt responded when a portion of customers started gaming the rewards system, and why listening to customer feedback in real time reshaped the recent Card 2.0 rollout.

Then, Ankur breaks down Bilt's viral Rent Day celebrity collaborations with stars like Madonna and A$AP Rocky, the strategy behind its unbranded scripted series "Roomies," and why the company is investing in original entertainment instead of traditional advertising. Later, he makes the case for why Bilt, Google and Anthropic are the only companies positioned to power agentic commerce in the physical world, and how its new Neighborhood Concierge tool can plan your night out, book your workout classes and even pay your restaurant bill automatically.

Plus, Ankur shares how Bilt builds trust with landlords and merchants by making them co-owners in the business, what he thinks is next for AI hardware in the home, and the productivity system that's changed how he works.

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Here's What Sammi Covers with Ankur: 00:00 Ankur Jain's Social Currency 03:38 A Full-Circle Moment at Bilt's New NYC Headquarters 04:19 Where Bilt Started and the Affordability Problem 06:17 How the Bilt Card Became Just 11% of the Business 07:29 Building Housing's First Unified Platform 08:54 The Hotel Experience Analogy 11:36 Card 2.0 and the Trade-Offs of Cutting Off Bad Actors 13:46 Listening to Customer Feedback in Real Time 17:00 Inside the Rent Day Celebrity Collabs 19:41 Stories From Madonna and A$AP Rocky 22:07 The Martha Stewart vs. Ryan Reynolds Moment 22:25 Why "Roomies" Was Launched Without Bilt's Branding 25:16 Building Community Through Bilt's Comedy Series 25:56 Neighborhood Concierge and the Agentic AI Future 27:23 Why Even the Big AI Models Aren't Integrated Locally 29:23 How Consumer AI Behavior Is Shifting 31:31 Why Bilt Belongs in the Same Sentence as Google and Anthropic 34:03 Building the Pipes for Both Sides of the Ecosystem 35:15 What Wins Over Landlords and Local Merchants 37:00 The Seamless Checkout Experience at The Corner Store 40:26 The Disney and Amazon Comparison 42:37 How Small Businesses Compete Like the Big Guys 44:26 Lightning Round 45:30 Ankur's AI-Powered Productivity System 46:44 Social Currency Corner: Could Bilt Enter AI Hardware? 48:50 Listener Question: Building Credibility as an Outsider

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