Starlee Kine, David Rees, Jon Kimball

Starlee Kine, David Rees, and Jon Kimball are the co-hosts of Election Profit Makers. Follow Starlee on Twitter here, follow David on Twitter here, and follow Jon on Twitter here.

How did this crazy podcast start? 
DAVID: Jon and I have known each other since seventh grade. In the summer of 2016 I called him to say hello and randomly asked what he’d been up to. (Jon is always getting really obsessed with interesting things like urban infrastructure, old arrowheads, almanacs, etc.) He told me about PredictIt and how he was making lots of money by betting against Trump supporters in the presidential markets. Jon also deals in domain names and other internet business stuff so I thought it could be cool to make a podcast about the internet and the election. My friend Jonathan Coulton told me to keep it simple and just make it about betting on the election. Jon agreed to participate and I asked Starlee if she would help me make it because I’d never made a podcast before. The more Starlee listened to Jon talk during the recordings, the more questions she had for him -- so eventually she got on the mic too and became our co-host. We lost a ton of money on the 2016 election and were totally traumatized by the results. So in 2020 we decided to bring the podcast back and get our revenge. 

JON: I’ve known David since middle school and in the summer of 2016 we were catching up on a phone call when I told him about this new obsession of mine: betting on political outcomes using the website PredictIt.org. I was feeling pretty smug as I was making good money betting against over exuberant Trump supporters. David suggested we should do and podcast about it and just like he used to bully me into his pet projects back in middle school, this was no different. Soon after he roped in Starlee and the EPM team was in place. 

I often have a hard time describing the show to people. How do you do this? What is your elevator pitch?
DAVID: It’s a comedy show about three friends betting on political outcomes as a way of managing their anxiety about the state of the world.

JON: It’s a show about current events and betting with real analysis and smart commentary but it’s mostly comedy driven by the absurdity of our current political situation. 

STARLEE: It’s a political comedy show about three friends helping each other cope with the world, that will end with them crying, either out of sorrow or relief.

Do you have anything special planned for the week of the election? 
DAVID: We’re still figuring this out.

JON: I just want to make as much money as possible to make up for all the money I lost in 2016 so I’ll be heavily focused on setting up my positions on PredictIt that week. Obviously, the podcast will be a major focus too but it’ll get complicated at the end. Entertainment vs staying financially solvent. 

How do you prepare for an episode? It feels very off the cuff but I'm sure you do a lot of prep.
DAVID: We have a weekly call where we go over the week’s news and decide which topics we want to discuss. We look at PredictIt and see which markets are especially active or relevant to the week’s news (Jon takes the lead on this). We go over which listener questions we want to answer, and Jon does the necessary research. So we have a general episode outline ... but sometimes we just throw it out the window and talk about other stuff if the spirit moves us. 

What do you hope this show does for people?
STARLEE: I think we all hope that it makes people laugh a bit during a time when it feels especially hard to do that. Recording the show is sometimes the only real laughing I do that week. First season we got messages from Democratic listeners in red states who said the show helped them feel less alone and so that’s always a hope too. A general mission to help more than harm.

JON: I just hope the show can people some semblance of joy while at the same time providing them with helpful analysis of current events.

Who is Beckett?
DAVID: Beckett is my friend Sam’s son. We used to live in the same town so I watched him grow up. He’s always been a smart kid with a dry sense of humor and we’d always talk about politics -- he’s been interested in politics for a long time. I think Beckett rebels against his liberal parents by being a centrist; I think he enjoys annoying them (and me) by being very middle-of-the-road. At some point he started listening to EPM and really liked Jon’s analysis. He would steal his dad’s phone to text with Jon about the election. (He and Jon have a lot of the same personality traits.) I thought Beckett and Jon’s nerdy relationship was so funny that I asked Beckett if he’d like to come on the podcast. He did a great job so then we asked him to recap the Democratic National Convention for us.

What's something the three of you disagree about when it comes to the election results?
JON: I think we’re all about the same on the partisan index though David and Starlee have a running bit about what a centrist I am because sometimes they feel I’m too “reasonable” at times. I think David and Particularly Starlee are more inclined to bet with their hearts whereas I try to stay neutral and focus on what the data is telling me is the likely outcome. 

STARLEE: I’m more superstitious than Jon is about the results. Intellectually I know the superstitions aren’t real but I’m so nervous about the outcome that I can’t even type out what I’m hoping will happen. So when Jon bets on anything red, just as a strategy to make money, I want to pelt eye of newts at him or whatever, to counteract the curse he is setting in motion. 

Fill in the blank: You will like Election Profit Makers if you like ______.
DAVID: You will like Election Profit Makers if you like gambling and anxiety.

JON: You will like Election Profit Makers if you like anything David Rees or Starlee Kine has ever done. Political betting may be the hook of the show and I may be the “expert” but this show would suck if that’s what it was truly all about.

What's the best strategy for people who want to make a profit on predictit.org?
JON: First you should never invest more than you can afford to lose. Start small and learn how the site works and get the basics of trading. Read everything you can about prediction markets and PredictIt but assume most everything you read in the website comments section is not true. Know how to use Twitter as it’s the number source for breaking news which is crucial for making quick trades. Don’t get greedy. Take your gains and be happy. 

Are there too many podcasts?
DAVID: Sometimes it feels like there are, but then if I get interested in a topic and want to listen to a podcast about it, a lot of times I can’t find one! For example, I wanted to find a podcast that would give me a basic understanding of music theory. Turns out there aren’t many podcasts about music theory. Same with noise music / circuit bending. Maybe the answer is “there are too many podcasts about pop culture and true crime and politics, and not enough podcasts about other stuff.”

STARLEE: Of course there are..

Can you talk about how you've been able to grow the show? What's worked?
STARLEE: I have no idea how people found the show the first season since we did it out of my kitchen and didn’t promote it. Somehow they did and told their friends about it. The growth of the show has always felt organic, word of mouth. The second season has more inside jokes than the first one did and I’ve seen comments from people about how hard it would be to start listening at this point in the season, because of the number of references you wouldn’t get. One of our stickers says “Jon & Starlee & Kid Midas & Helicopter Tony & Frog Princess & Beckett” and I showed it to a friend who’s never listened to the show. He stared at it like it was an encrypted code, unable to make sense of any of it.

Why should we sign up for your Patreon?
STARLEE: Because we don’t get paid to make the show otherwise. And because the Patreon model makes it so creators don’t have to be beholden to networks, which is a model I support in general. I subscribe to a bunch of podcasts on there.

We put a bonus episode on our Patreon at least once a month. Lately we’ve been doing a movie club, which has been fun. At least for us. It’s been nice to have a project like that during the pandemic, that is sort of free floating in time, where we’re just watching a collection of old movies strung together by a theme. Intertwined by mustaches.

What connection do city skylines have with the election markets?
JON: Skyline analysis is a little bit of art and a little bit of science. There’s an asthetic beauty to a skyline but without the underlying data you might not be getting the full picture of what you’re seeing. Same goes for betting on political futures. You have to look at data like polling or fundraising numbers but you need to study the personality and psychology of the candidates, too.

Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
STARLEE: I’ve actually mostly been treated kindly about my voice. I haven’t searched my name on Reddit in awhile so maybe there are whole threads over there tearing my voice apart but in general, people seem to go easy on me. I’ve been doing audio for so long that when I speak, I can hear how I actually sound. Like there’s no disconnect at all for me anymore. Maybe that’s more common now that people are recording themselves all the time.

But for anyone who criticizes a woman about her voice, why would you do that? Stop doing that.

You are all so funny. Is it ever hard to get a word in?
STARLEE: Yes.

What shows do you listen to?
DAVID: I have pretty middlebrow taste when it comes to podcasts. For politics I listen to the Slate Political Gabfest and sometimes Josh Marshall’s podcast and Pod Save America and the Majority Report. For cultural stuff I listen to the Slate Culture Gabfest and Night Call and Jessa Crispin’s podcast Public Intellectual. I will admit that I feel overwhelmed with how many podcasts are out there; I basically still listen to the same podcasts I was listening to back in 2012 or whenever. 

STARLEE: I love the Groceries by Bryan Safi and Erin Gibson (who also host the fantastic podcast Throwing Shade which just changed its name to Attitudes.)  In Groceries, Bryan and Erin review grocery stores and it’s so incredibly soothing. There’s also a new podcast by my friends Christina Lee and Neha Potalia called Diversity Hires about diversity in the entertainment industry that is very good. I recently listened to Ross Sutherland’s two-part series about a fictional Sex and the City Sleep No More, on his Imaginary Advice podcast, that I absolutely loved. I can’t stop thinking about. I listened to it while walking around my neighborhood, at night, at the height of quarantine. It felt like the world had ended which was the perfect setting for it. My perennial podcast recommendation is In the Dark. Madeleine Baran impresses me more than anyone else in radio. Such a hero.

Thanks, guys!