Democratised Storytelling – Ep 1 – The Background

A Fever Dream of Tools for Storytellers (00:47)

A generation ago… I experienced what felt like a prolonged fever dream.

A vision — shimmering, elusive — of something that, at the time, seemed quite impossible.

It was not merely a dream of technology… or of innovation for its own sake.

It was a dream of tools.

Tools for storytellers… designed not to constrain, but to liberate. Tools that could empower creators to share their narratives freely… unencumbered by the gatekeepers who, for so long, have stood at the threshold of public expression.

At its core… it was a vision of equality. Of democracy. A new kind of digital commons… where the barriers fell away — and something brighter, more human, emerged.

Some might call that idea dangerous.

I do not.

I see it as… emancipation.

A Glimpse of a Different Future (01:55)

But sometimes… you catch only a glimpse of a different possible future.

It’s there — clear enough to feel — but impossible to hold.

You don’t know how to tell the story in a way that brings it forth. You don’t know how to make it real.

Because this story… it’s complex. Its implications are profound. It changes nearly everything. It tears at the fabric of long-held assumptions.

It demands… a different way of seeing.

There are details. Necessary details. Things about today’s technology… hidden from most. Things that must be explained, before anyone can understand why this fever dream of mine is different.

It is easy to dismiss. To conclude, prematurely, that it could not possibly work.

But that… is only bias, speaking.

An Unexpected Blueprint (03:04)

When the revelation came into focus for me… I learned something unexpected.

You set out to solve one problem. But in the solving, you sometimes solve another. A larger, more general problem.

That’s what happened to me. For twenty-five years, I’ve wrestled with this story. How best to tell it.

I began with something small: a way to reward freelance creatives more fairly for their work.

But what emerged… was a blueprint for something larger.

A parallel economy. One in which value was rewarded… only when lasting value was created.

This strange economy discouraged speculation. It diminished exploitation.

And instead, it fostered innovation. It nurtured creativity.

It gave a voice… to the voiceless.

It became a sketch… for billionaire-proofing the Internet. For levelling the ground beneath all value creators.

But… I’m getting ahead of myself.

A Product Manager’s Promise (04:21)

I am a product manager. With decades of experience making things that people buy. Things people love to use. Things that solve real problems.

I come from engineering. I know about building things that work.

Not all product managers are like this.

Some — the extractive kind, the predatory kind — only want to hoodwink. To trick people into giving away their time, their money, their attention.

I was never one of those.

I care… about the people who must live with what I build.

Scratching a Name into the Rocks (05:02)

If you’ve read Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, you know the tale. A quest, sparked by a secret text. A vision carried by Professor Otto Lidenbrock, who finds the name of an earlier explorer — Saknussemm — scratched into stone, a message across time.

Each carving, each sign, a reassurance: you are on the right path.

I think of that story often. Because this podcast… is my way of scratching my name into the rocks.

I never reached the centre of the Earth. I never reached that brighter imagined future.

But perhaps… someone else will.

Patrick and the Fever Dream (05:46)

This is why I return to that fever dream. A dream of tools for storytellers. A dream that consumed me and my collaborator, Patrick Gregston.

Together, we felt it. The need. The urgency. A psychological fugue, stretching across months, even years.

We worked hard on it. And though it began in video production — the industry we shared — we knew it was something more. Something unheard of.

Our conversations stretched across oceans. Santa Barbara. The old forests of Hampshire. Quiet moments, where reflection gave shape to the vision.

Slowly, it crystallised. Each new idea spawning another. And another. Like matter tumbling down a slope, gathering speed, gathering weight.

The dream became more vivid. More detailed. Unstoppable.

Strange… to live in two worlds at once. The real world — messy, unfair, imperfect. And the dream world — a place we longed to inhabit.

If only we could.

Hollywood and the Editing Revolution (07:04)

Patrick and I met in Hollywood. He was always there. I flew in from England, from time to time. We spoke with editors, learned their needs, helped stories find their way to the screen.

Computers were replacing film. We were products of that wave. And we clicked. Two minds, alike in passion… for visual storytelling.

Back then — in the 90s — films were edited on flatbeds. Physical film. Cut with razor blades. Joined with sticky tape.

Editing was slow. Painful. Sometimes bloody. It was destructive. Linear. Every mistake, costly.

Television was no better. Endless decks. Manual syncing. Prone to error. Always rushed to meet the broadcast clock.

Then… computers. We worked on some of the first. Non-linear. Non-destructive. Undo became possible.

Suddenly, editors could change their minds. Reconsider. Experiment. Storytelling advanced. A small step toward democratisation. And with it, new storytellers emerged.

YouTube. TikTok. A flood of voices.

The means of production, in the hands of the many.

But not distribution.

That remained controlled. Restricted. Curated by the few.

We were not there yet.

NeoPixSys: Inventing the Universe (08:51)

That was the dream behind NeoPixSys. A company born of fever. Born of possibility.

Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

That’s what it felt like.

Because cameras in phones… and YouTube channels… are not enough. You must address power itself.

Relations. Hierarchies. Ownership. Governance.

You must think of exploitation. Of equality. Of carbon emissions. Of the ancestors we are becoming.

None of this… has been done. Not fully. The old status quo remains.

The story of NeoPixSys is long. Full of surprises. Failures that were not failures.

Lessons written in ashes. And sparks worth sharing. Because in this historical moment… globally… we may need that spark again.

At its heart, this is not only about technology. It is about stories. And about who gets to tell them.

It is about power. And about how we share it.

It is about emancipation.

The Product: A Federated Fabric (10:20)

And so… what is this product I speak of?

It is software. Installed on your device. And once installed… it begins to weave.

A fabric. A federated, distributed, collaborative fabric of computation.

Your device… becomes a node. One among millions. Together… they form a virtual machine. Not in the corporate cloud. Not in centralised data centres.

But everywhere. The machine is the cloud. The people are the power.

And with it… new capabilities emerge. Unthinkable before. For everyone.

But that… is for next time.