All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · Wednesday, September 30, 2026
The Chainsmokers believe the music industry is on the precipice of a new era where artists might reject traditional label deals and connect directly with fans. They note the challenges of breaking through in a saturated market and the difficulty artists face in deciding whether to trust their own path or take a safer route with a label, acknowledging that labels still offer value.
“And I'm honestly, like, very interested to see who will be that, like, first brand new artist that sort of rejects all the typical, you know, customary things that like an artist does, like signing with a label and, you know, signing away your next five albums and things like this. And I think we're like on the precipice of that.”
“And so is this like the moment where you decide to like truly bet on yourself and go direct? in every sense of the word, or do you sort of like take the slightly safer route, but in the process sort of sell a part of your self and future self to sort of the label model.”
“And there's a lot of value that labels still provide, I think, in different capacities. But I think it's like a completely new world out there right now. I don't think anyone really has a clue what's going to happen, particularly with like AI and music and streaming and YouTube and all these other platforms and people's attentions getting shorter and shorter.”