481: Wim Sweldens on Kiswe’s Playbook for Interactive Sports and Music Streaming

Tom Richardson welcomes Kiswe co-founder Wim Sweldens, a longtime digital video and streaming pioneer, for a look at how live sports and entertainment are being rebuilt for a direct-to-consumer future. Sweldens shares Kiswe’s origin story, and how he went from Nokia, to Columbia University, to launching the company in 2013. Sweldens explains the philosophy behind “democratizing access” to live experiences through personalized, interactive, mobile-first viewing. The conversation dives into Kiswe’s two core products, why teams and leagues want to own the fan relationship and data, and how cloud production is changing the economics of broadcasting, highlighted by Kiswe’s work enabling intimate “athlete moment” interactions during the Olympics. Sweldens also breaks down what makes K-pop streaming explode (multi-view, live engagement, real-time AI subtitling), why Western music has been slower to adopt pay-per-view live streams, and how one breakout event can shift industry behavior.Connect with Wim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wimsweldens/?skipRedirect=trueThe CUSP Show is hosted by Joe Favorito (@Joefav) and Tom Richardson (@ConvergenceTR) and produced by Sam Henry (@s_henry11), LJ Holmgren (@LJ_Holmgren), and Danny Hagenlocher (@DhColumbiaSPS), with social media efforts led by Lissa Ruiz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecuspshow.substack.com