SXSW 2025: Mike White — Founder of Lively and Audience 101

After a whole weekend of great conversations, we finally got the man behind the madness behind the mic. Mike helped bring everyone — including us — together at The Lively Grit Daily House for SXSW 2025. We chatted about dealing with stress, putting on live events, why ‘Zoom Fatigue’ is bullshit, faking football knowledge, bowl cuts, Linkin Park, the difference between a fad, a trend, and a culture, and a lot more in between. 

“There will be one person walking down the side of the street and you'll be like, ‘they're cool.’  And then there'll be somebody else probably making a noise or walking stupidly or wearing something absolutely disgusting, trying to be cool. And you'll cross the road to avoid them.”

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn. 

Special thanks to Lively and Audience 101 for hosting us at SXSW, and YouGov for running the survey that supported our series of conversations.

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