The L!FT Podcast
Over the course of two seasons, in two distinct styles, L!FT expanded into audio entertainment.
Season 1
L!FT Season 1 (2020) is an epic musical comedy about tech and innovation—think The Producers meets Gimlet’s Startup podcast. Over five episodes, this inaugural season tells the extraordinary (and heavily fictionalized) story of our lead, Matt Hooper, as he launches his new venture – a variety show-within-the-show known as Live! From Tomorrow.
Throughout the first season, Matt tackles subjects like blockchain, coworking, climate change and AI, and interviews real-life icons and innovators like Andrew Yang, Akon, and Jesse Jackson. Recorded in the style of a cast album, the show seamlessly combines studio recordings with live performances and guest interviews.
EPISODE 5 | June 25, 2020
It’s An Ad Ad Ad Ad World
Matt arrives in Copenhagen to meet the MFB team, accompanied by his ex-fiancee Sally Skalski. Their hotel, built by a company called LikeLyfe, is sentient, powered by an advanced AI and subsidized by advertising. Matt grows suspicious of the hotel, while Sally comes to love the advantages of a totally personalized hospitality experience. Matt’s paranoia grows when it is revealed that the livestream itself is just meant to advance the career of a single MFB executive. He and Sally head back to New York where they move into the newest LikeLyfe apartment building, and their lives are ruined by a constant barrage of highly-targeted advertisements. Matt and friends learn to push back against the comfort and convenience of this late capitalist nightmare, taking back their identities and their independence.
EPISODE 4 | June 18, 2020
The Node I Knew
Eager to build his audience, Matt takes Live! From Tomorrow on the road: to Dover, Delaware! And while this small city may not be considered a ‘hub’ of innovation, there is apparently an enthusiastic community of tech experts, or so Matt thinks. In the wake of his first public failure, Matt heads to a bar next door, where he meets Feldman, a journalist, who may just be the only fan he has tonight; alas, Feldman’s boyfriend joins them later in the evening. Matt heads back to New York, downtrodden, to interview pop star Akon and Reverend Jesse Jackson, where they discuss Akoin, a new cryptocurrency designed for use across all of Africa. Here, inspired by these two icons, Matt realizes that this is what he’s been missing: the power of belief in his own work. Live! From Tomorrow means something to audiences -- it makes people laugh, and it offers them the chance to learn. By episode’s end, he is ready for Copenhagen!
EPISODE 3 | June 11, 2020
...Or Hardly Working?
When Matt’s old mentor Pat Dreyfuss arrives backstage at his second show, Matt invites him to visit a co-working space, where Pat discovers how much the working world has changed. Open floor plans, flavored water, phrases like ‘circle back’ and ‘level set’ -- the millennial workplace is foreign to a Boomer like Pat, who struggles to steady himself. Meanwhile, Matt heads downtown to interview presidential candidate Andrew Yang, whose thoughts on the coming automation crisis hit Pat like a tide pod to the head. With Pat pushing Matt’s ‘Dad joke’ threshold to its limit, the pair still manage to work together: for Pat, it’s pivoting hard into the information economy; for Matt, it’s getting back into the dating game.
EPISODE 2 | June 4, 2020
It’s Not The Right Climate For Us
Becoming a host takes practice, and Matt has next to none. With hundreds of public officials in New York for the UN Global Goals Week, Matt manages to secure a few guests to help him hone his craft. Tensions rise when his ex-fiancee, Sally Skalski, arrives with her parents, West Virginia coal miners turned cryptocurrency miners-- a new way to make money that still harms the planet. Finding themselves on opposite sides of the climate ‘debate’, Matt and Sally, an innovation evangelist and a crypto miner’s daughter, must settle their differences by duetting across the rooftops of New York City.
EPISODE 1 | June 4, 2020
We Are Live! From Tomorrow
In the fall of 2018, Matt Hooper quits his job at an investment bank to become a “song and dance man” with a very unique obsession: innovation. We meet Matt in a coffee shop on the morning of his first live performance, which will be staged at New York City’s new hotbed of innovation, an office building in Hudson Yards. Unbeknownst to Matt, he has drawn the attention of executives from MFB, one of the world’s largest technology companies. Big Tech is eager to engage the startup ecosystem, and Matt might just be the character they need to reach this all-important audience. By episode’s end, having won his first client, Matt and his peers realize: his new life as a singing, dancing ‘innovation evangelist’ might work out after all.