37: Trevor McFedries - Creative People Should Be Rich

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Jan 20, 2026

Trevor McFedries, a musician and tech entrepreneur known for creating virtual pop stars like Lil Miquela, delves into the disparity between creators and those capturing cultural value. He discusses how the internet has devalued media and advocates for creatives to own their instruments through crypto. Trevor emphasizes the importance of fostering genuine artistic intention while navigating modern complexities. He also highlights the role of emerging markets in reshaping cultural capital and expresses optimism for a future where creators thrive.

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ADVICE

Design Durable Attention Markets

Build attention instruments with longer time horizons than meme coins.
Make durable, low‑volatility ways for fans to back cultural bets, not 2‑hour pumps.

INSIGHT

Markets Can Make Slop Valuable

Bonding curves enable markets for "slop" and emergent aesthetics, rewarding weird collectors.
Early, broken primitives can surface undervalued cultural objects into truth via market bets.

ADVICE

Speculate Rationally To Survive

For low‑status folks, short speculative plays to turn small capital into survival money are rational.
Embrace micro‑opportunity tactics rather than moralizing about extraction.

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All linked references & transcript available at dialectic.fm/trevor-mcfedries.

Trevor McFedries (X, Instagram, Wikipedia) is a musician, technologist, and entrepreneur. Today he is the founder of Runner and 1/2 of electronic dance duo SoFTT. Previously, Trevor was co-founder and CEO of Brud, the company behind Lil Miquela that was acquired by Dapper Labs; Founder of FWB (Friends with Benefits); early artist in residence at Spotify; and a touring DJ who performed as DJ Skeet Skeet, was part of the rap group Shwayze, and produced for a range of artists.

Trevor’s work emerges from a tension he’s lived with throughout his career: the gap between who creates cultural value and who captures it. Growing up poor in Iowa and entering the dying music industry in the late 2000s, he witnessed firsthand how the instruments that capture value rarely benefit the creative people who generate that value. This has run across his entrepreneurial work, from building virtual pop stars to a range of crypto projects that hope to give creative people more upside.

Trevor bridges culture and technology, art and capital, and high and low. I’ve met few people who are as consistently ahead of culture. His perspective challenges both the art world’s disdain for commerce and Silicon Valley’s shallow engagement with culture, arguing instead for creative people to play the game on the field and build the instruments that will make them rich. Today, he’s focused on how that may end up being as much about predicting what’s next with stakes as it is actually making things. We also talk about authenticity and honesty, why he continues to spend time in crypto despite it being low status, why speculation is rational and selling out is punk, how power comes from consensus, his keen nose for weird—especially on the internet, briefly working with Kanye West, and his forever optimistic curiosity.

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