{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"","title":"How Sotheby's Conquered the Attention Economy","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6626c0bb5dd0140012ca4c11/1785857726080-25f643da-18e0-4b38-9884-18f157f52221.jpeg?height=200","description":"

Phyllis Kao is a senior auctioneer at Sotheby’s. You might’ve recently seen clips of her taking bids for a 67-million-year-old T-Rex named Gus, which sold for a whopping $50.1 million to an unnamed buyer. Being an auctioneer (auctioneering is not a verb) has always sat at the intersection of performance and expertise. And in the attention economy, Kao has displayed a knack for both in a way that’s helped the 18th century institution navigate the modern media ecosystem while also attracting a younger audience of bidders. We talk with Phyllis about how auctions have evolved with the rise of social media, her thoughts on celeb-backed auction houses like Pharrell’s JOOPITER, why there’s such high demand for brand archives in the age of AI, the lost art of expertise, and more.


","author_name":"with Clara Malley, Eli Williams, and Trey Taylor"}