Get Paid by OpenAI: How All Publishers Finally Can

About this episode

My guest today is Doug Leeds, co-founder of RSL. 

He’s tackling the question every media CEO and content owner is asking right now: how do you get paid by AI companies — including even if you’re small?

He’s already working with Reddit, People Inc., USA Today and others — a collective representing nearly half the content AI models train on. That gives RSL real leverage across the table from the AI giants.

RSL stands for Really Simple Licensing. Doug’s co-founder, Eckart Walthart, co-created RSS over 25 years ago — the standard that powers this very podcast feed. 

It feels like they were built for this moment.

Doug explains why “the ship has not sailed” on monetizing your content with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others — and how even small publishers can land real licensing deals.

We go deep on Reddit — where Doug coached CEO Steve Huffman — and how Reddit is making real money licensing content to AI while still growing traffic 

He breaks down how RSL differs from ProRata and TollBit, what the first real AI licensing deals will look like, and gives his hot takes on all the AI Frontier Models— including which frustrates him most.

We also talk about competing with Google. When Doug was CEO of Ask.com, he and his boss Barry Diller turned Google from a threat into a profit-driving partner.

He teaches at UC Berkeley, is a longtime CEO, and has spent decades navigating the space between content and search engines.

And we close with how AI touches his mom, his dad, and his daughters– you get to see the human behind the CEO.

Please enjoy my conversation with Doug Leeds.

Thx, Rob