AI ISN'T FUNNY: BACKSTAGE

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DONATIONS

DONATIONS

We are an INDEPENDENT non-profit incorporated in Nebraska and currently based out of Omaha, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. 

NO AFFILIATIONS with anyone.  WE ARE SUPER BRAND-CAUTIOUS.  (Our brand is way more delicate than yours.)

Email comedy@theidh.org (once it's turned back on) for private donation and partnership options.

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We Are Almost Annoyingly Transparent About Our Finances

Barring a true AI Isn't Funny spinoff, how we plan on spending donor money in Spring 2025 is outlined on the Go Fund Me page for the IDH

click here

Why we are in a jam.

#assholes #murderapolis


  • TO KEEP THE BRAND/IP PURE (and keep me from being re-NDA-ed ) no one has been paid in a year.

    (and we spent months fighting off bullshit IP grabs and legit hacks)

    i actually liquidated all my assets (except the guitars and 2 dozen records)

    and i walked away (mid interview) from a dream gig, turned down opportunities w/ the pres campaigns, am still headhunted to run schools, etc.

  • which sounds nuts, i know, but I'm telling ya:

    it is so ugly (and insane and literally dangerous) on the inside of "both sides"(esp. w/ ai, higher ed, and the free speech stuff)

    my options were: quit entirely. or try to fix it. this is me trying to fix it.


    but, like, i have to throw this football.
    right now

  • all i / we need is a week to try to land this with the comedians (and then another one, if that don't work, to grab one piece of a the puzzle via a college, state/city, or industry).


    So our "worst case scenario," i suppose, is most people's "best case scenario."

    either team would buy what I/we know. but, after going through all this bullshit we went through, we'd rather make things better, not worse.

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I am not a stand up. But I tell the backstage $$ story here. (#Assholes.)

But I once heckled Stanhope so hard in Kentucky that he brought me on stage to argue about libertarian pizza parlors. This is probably where I say I’m 7 years sober.

To get my PTSD under control after the shooting and the threat against the students -- the rumor was bomb; I have no idea, we had to evacuate for the semester -- I had to hop on a stage last year. It worked.

but for real folks:
we have three open lanes
that no one else has.

we spent 20 years anticipating
(and building a bipartisan counter for)
Project 2025, the college free speech/DEI clusterfuck,
and AI insanity

  • The first open lane is the IDH's "Manhattan Project"

    which, for a thousand complicated legal and nerd reasons --

    and the simple fact that we took zero partisan/DEI/MAGA dollars --

    is now most likely the last nationally-scalable, bipartisan (and sane) "Manhattan Project" -- for AI, disinfo, privacy, free speech, and the college DEI mess-- still standing.


    that was not easy to get /keep
    (for anyone, in all of the ways).

    Manhattan Project Specs 

  • The second open lane is the IDH's Education Division:


    Because what the fuck can Project 2025 say about something already adopted by 2 Big 10 universities, the wokest school in America, and a MAGA-adjacent Bible college?


    (and that fixes postmodernism correctly, shits money as an AI alignment strategy for schools/states, and is the only free speech org dealing with DEI/AI not-insanely and as a win-win for everyone.)


    wooo! 
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  • But the universe
    has a sense of humor
    (Open Lane #3):

    because we branded a version of this thing for comedians
     -- in case, uh, 2025 happened --

why the bang for your buck

Since our primary "product"
is training and education


we organically grow/scale highly-skilled teams
(from any industry)
in weeks,
and then train them to do the same.

you might, totally hypothetically, call it evangelizing.

(and those evangelical kids might have,
totally hypothetically,
used their team's strategies to scale this thing the first time,
which was pretty cool of them, right?)

At scale, any of these orgs look like this

this is the 'bare bones' -- but self-sustaining by year two (i fucking hate fundraising)
-- operation, how it gains 'employees' via a multiplier effect,
and this can run/produce everything yer seeing.

paid and salaried staff are in bold. "lw" are staff paid a living hourly wage.

  • ILLUMINATI

    Executive Dir
    Associate Dir

    Head writer
    Head of brand
    A morty
    $ person


  • RESEARCH DIVISION

    Director

    Associate Dir


    = up to: 20 interns/research assistants

    w/ 4 research associates (lw)
    = up to 60 interns/research assistants

    ROUND TWO:
    FIRST SCALE UP

    w/ Assistant Dir
    = up to 12 research associates =
    180 interns / research assistants

  • EDUCATION DIVISION

    Director
    Associate Dir


    Since the ED Division scales via teachers -- and partnerships -- it can go big very fast (and the numbers depend on the clients).

    Historically

    2 Assistant Directors
    and 50 teachers

    can network thousands of students fairly easily.

    And teachers know how to teach each other very fast.

  • PRODUCTION DIVISION

    Executive Producer
    Executive Director


    = up to: 20 interns/production assistants

    and a shitload of contracted work.

    w / 4 assoc. producers (lw)
    = up to 60 interns / production assistants / artists

    ROUND TWO:
    FIRST SCALE UP

    w/ Assistant Director
    = up to 12 assoc. producers
    180 interns / production assistants / artists

  • CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
    DIVISION

    Executive Director
    Associate Director


    = up to 20 interns/pr assistants

    w/ 4 pr associates (lw)
    = up to 60 interns/pr assistants

    ROUND TWO:
    FIRST SCALE UP

    w/ Assistant Dir
    12 pr associates (lw)
    = 180 interns/pr assistants

    Civic Impact:
    Community content curation (and workproduct creation) is already in the thousands at round one.

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PRICE TAG / BUSINESS MODEL

THE BUSINESS MODEL:
50% of Associate Director time (and 25% of all Director time)
is on the monetizable assets.

  • This is a market evaluated at hundreds of billions of dollars. Just our white labeled education shit can by resold by clients for $30k a pop.

But given the speed of the 2025 clusterfuck -- and the opportunities --
you'd ideally want to give every division a dedicated sales/marketing person (Pete Campbell), and then someone working the phones/email (Willy Loman).

SALARIES and OVERHEAD

  • Competitive for the five directors (averaged out with benefits, etc.) is about $1M/yr
  • For the associate directors (using our internal talent) its about $500k.
  • (if you wanted to poach , like, top people in the world for the directors, add $500k)
  • Head writers, and the people who make sure people get paid, and the staff on living wage (we use a lot of them) just doing shit, and just the shit you have to pay for is another $500K, put a little more not to worry about it
  • and everything after that just makes shit go faster/bigger/cooler.

SO PRE 2025 PRICE TAG TO BECOME SELF-SUSTAINING: $2M

(i.e., we were in negotiations where someone ponies that up, we make shit for them, they more than double their money in 3 years, we stay open, etc.)

2025 GO FAST PRICE (W/ THE ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL): $2.5ish

TO ADD A SIDE OF "'FUCK LET, LET'S POACH THE TOP PEOPLE FROM THE BIG DOGS": $3Mish

TO SCALE FAST AS FUCK?
SKY IS THE LIMIT. BUT WE'RE THE BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK.

(AND, OBVIOUSLY, TELLING START UP EMPLOYEES THAT THEY ARE GUARANTEED 18-24 MONTHS OF EMPLOYMENT, VERSUS 12, HELPS. BUT -- GIVEN THE EASY LAYUPS ON ROI -- WE CAN MAKE IT WORK EITHER WAY.)

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