What We Learned About Taste in Miami

Virtues of an "in-between" city, cuffed at the club lounge, oligarchs rent style.

Miami held immense importance to Gianni Versace, who purchased a mansion there, transforming it into a luxury hotel known as The Villa Casa Casuarina, and playing a crucial role in South Beach's transformation. Versace was gunned down by serial killer Andrew Cunanan on 15 July 1997 outside his Miami Beach mansion.

Pod: The Taste Premium, Episode 127. We dig into the idea of taste—how it’s formed, how it signals identity, and where it fits in media and business today. We also unpack how taste once defined media gatekeepers, how it’s now being democratized (or commodified), and why developing taste is less about money and more about intentionality. We are then joined by sociologist and brand strategist Ana Andjelic to debate the merits of European taste vs American taste. Plus: Anonymous Banker has a cameo on how to get a “taste premium” in M&A. Apple | Spotify | other podcast platforms. Watch PvA on YouTube. Out every Friday AM.

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PVA CONVERSATION

Taste is relative

“To spend time in Miami is to acquire a certain fluency in cognitive dissonance.” Joan Didion, Miami

TROY: It was nice hanging with you in your adopted hometown of Miami, Brian. I totally understand what you see in this place apart from its tax advantages, which I’m sure you appreciate.

Miami is one of those in “in between” cities, places of contrast and contradiction. My favorite cities share this quality. Like Montreal, the world’s second largest French city. Marooned inside our crass English continent, it defends its heritage fiercely, enticing visitors through a Euro-lite vibe with a Canadian twist. Austin fights to “keep Austin weird” lest the quirky, music-loving capital becomes like the rest of Texas. Istanbul, like Miami, are both cities on the edge — of continents, cultures and identities. Barcelona, Berlin, Hong Kong all cities that sit in between. All are more interesting because of the tension.

Hanging out in Miami got me thinking about TASTE, which I think could be a good theme for this week’s pod.

Miami resists the suffocating judgement of what some consider “good taste.” As you commented Brian, “You can be anything you want here.” I don’t understand the appeal of neon-green Lambos, butt implants, botox-swollen duck lips, public art that looks like it was designed by a 13-year-old boy. I like seeing Orthodox Jews rollerblading on the boardwalk or playing tennis, full tznius in the swampy heat. If I still vaped, I would want to do it in the pool too. Miami is uninhibited. Taste is relative here, and that is liberating.

BTW, the giant floating TV ad screens that pulse up and down Miami beach are so blatantly tasteless. Banners on the sea! Who bribed local officials to get those approved? Do they float in front of the endlessly tasteful Four Seasons at the Surf Club? I hope not.

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You’re always guaranteed some unexpected surprises here. Like yesterday on the floor of my hotel where the afternoon calm was shattered by a handful of buff Miami police officers escorting a handcuffed guest to the elevator presumably because of an afternoon domestic dispute. Our concierge host assured us that everything was fine. As they say at the Ritz, “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Mostly.

Taste is the most sublime and elusive of the capitalist levers, the others roughly features, quality, reliability, service and price. These are more workman-like and measurable. It's clear what you need to do to compete. Hotels are a good lens to understand the levers.

Like The Standard Miami, where we met up for lunch the other day. André Balazs knows how to take a dumpy motel off the strip and inject it with the effervescent spark of good taste. He did it at the Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island. The Standard got the Balazs touch in 2004. It’s still hopping today, while lacking the natural virtues of the South Beach strip. Good taste targeted to people who value taste is a powerful and enduring differentiator.

I asked a hotel owner friend about taste. He made an interesting comment. What might be considered tasteful trappings of a hotel, things that are unique, quirky and memorable, are often impossible to operationalize. When you try to, they lose their charm and, in many cases, do not pencil. It’s why talent is so important. And why taste feels so manufactured in chains.

There’s so much to discuss here. The MAGA people seem to have so little taste. It has always been more abundant with liberals. Imagine what they could do if they had more of it. Despite a complete lack of it, Elon has triumphed. Perhaps resolve is more important than taste?

Taste is endlessly important in media. The classic example is Tyler Brule’s Monocle, a media brand that embodied the idea of good taste and somehow made a business of it. Condé had taste. The Financial Times is a nice conservative version of good taste. A different kind than the conservative North Carolina family on The White Lotus who exhibit a southern version of Preppy taste that I find safe and nostalgically compelling.

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I wonder if AI will ever have taste? I’d love to hear how the Anonymous Banker thinks of taste as it pertains to enterprise value. He reminds me a bit of those Southern White Lotus people. I am sure Alex will have a good take on where taste meets design and interface.

BRIAN: There’s a few things you need to know about Miami: 1. Everything is fake; 2. Corruption is a feature, not a bug; 3. It really isn’t a big deal for a guy cuffed and stuffed by roided-up cops at the Club Level of the Four Seasons.

These in-between places have contrasts. In Istanbul, you can go from Europe to Asia, not just literally but figuratively. Miami is between America and Latin America. The saying I heard was, “The best thing about Miami is how close it is to America.” A local bar of mine lists the country of origin of the beers. La Rubia is listed as MIAMI.

Taste here is very relative. They build a lot of luxury towers with car elevators so you can bring your neon green Lambo up to your sprawling condo. The sensibility is more Dubai than Milan.

Then again, taste is relative and by its nature subjective. It’s long been a critical underpinning of culture, yet it was also a product of the scarcity and gatekeeping of a bygone era. Graydon Carter’s memoir of the golden era of magazines is a case in point. Magazines were tastemakers in a world of scarcity. That tastemaking function has been outsourced to the influencer/creator class and more broadly to algorithms. It used to take work to have taste. My friend Brian Braiker has great taste in music. He’s a Brooklyn DJ dad. He has a point of view on what makes great music and worked at it through trips to record stores. Spotify’s algorithmic playlists have mostly replaced that function for most people, although I still trust Braiker’s suggestions.

I find it deeply ironic that in an age of authenticity the tech oligarchs are faking taste. I find it hard to believe that Mark Zuckerberg suddenly became interested in fashion. He got a stylist. The before and after photos of him, Bezos, Huang, Musk et al are a case study in how taste can be rented. But it’s not the real thing. At its best, taste is a reflection of a personal point of view. I like to make fun of Monocle, but I give it a lot of credit for being consistent in a point of view (Tyler’s) of what is tasteful.

MAGA has terrible taste. I suspect that is by design. Americans overall are not a taste people. We are crass, practical and very commercial. You gotta pick a lane. Compare an American hotel experience to Italian one. Italians simply have good taste. I don’t know if I want them building AI, but I would prefer an Italian POV in a hotel or restaurant. We all have roles to play.

But let’s get to the monetization angle already.

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ANONYMOUS BANKER

Taste as competitive advantage

Taste has become the latest buzzword—and life preserver—when people talk about surviving (and preserving value) in the face of the incoming AI tsunami. But what is taste, and how does it impact business value and M&A?

Taste is the ability to sense what feels right now—intuition fused with cultural fluency, a personal alignment with the current zeitgeist. In a world of infinite content and choices, taste is shorthand for knowing what to amplify and what to ignore. For companies, good taste can drive consumer engagement, fuel monetization, and propel a business to market leadership—and, ultimately, to premium valuations.

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There’s a long list of recognizable media names (some now infamous) whose taste helped create a flywheel of value creation: Oprah, Howard Stern, Jimmy Iovine, Rick Rubin, Shonda Rhimes, Anna Wintour, Graydon Carter (not Air Mail), Les Moonves, Roger Ailes.

Harnessed correctly, smaller media and tech companies can use the perception of good taste to spark buyer interest and command premium transaction multiples—valuation on vibes rather than financials. Large companies, eager to maintain cultural relevance, often turn to M&A to acquire taste.

But in today’s fragmented media landscape—where algorithms meter attention and scale distribution—can taste drive more than the creation of a highly profitable Substack newsletter?

Yes, Netflix is still thriving. However, a recent Substack post makes a compelling case that algorithm-driven economics and upfront content deals have diluted quality and flooded audiences with forgettable content.

Looking ahead, if algorithms are driving engagement, does the machine’s taste matter more than the human’s? MrBeast offers a compelling case study: $5B in paper value built by mastering the YouTube algorithm and delivering fast-cut, high-energy content engineered to keep viewers hooked.

Ultimately, the companies best positioned to create durable value are the ones that combine human taste with algorithmic fluency. Businesses like A24, Semafor, and Puck sit squarely in that category.

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Links and things from the group chat

1: H&M Knows Its AI Models Will Be Controversial (Business of Fashion)

H&M is working directly with models and their agencies to create digital replicas of 30 different models this year that it will be able to use in AI-generated images for purposes such as social-media posts and marketing campaigns.

The models themselves will own the rights to their twins, according to the company, and will even be able to let other brands use them, including H&M’s competitors.

2: Nick Denton is moving to Hungary and shorting Musk (Vanity Fair)

I got myself in trouble again. I’m always doing that. All I’m trying to do is report the world as I see it and then make decisions based on how I see the world. That’s all I’m trying to do, and people seem to react so badly to that. Did you see this thing by Michael Cembalest? To my mind, this is the most radical statement of our times: “The stock market is unique. It cannot be indicted, arrested, or deported. It cannot be intimidated, threatened, or bullied. It has no gender, ethnicity, or religion. It cannot be fired, furloughed, or defunded. It cannot be primaried before the next midterm elections and it cannot be seized, nationalized, or invaded. It’s the ultimate voting machine, reflecting prospects for earnings growth, stability, liquidity, inflation, taxation, and predictable rule of law.” This guy is my hero now. I have this quote basically as my screensaver. This is true radicalism. I hate the vandalism, the burning of Tesla cars and showrooms. I think it’s a terrible own goal. It’s idiotic. Please stop, whoever’s doing it. If you have a view, make your view known in the market. That’s what I’m doing.

3: Are phones are making us dumb? (X, John Burn-Murdoch)

Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s.

4: Social media is taking time from everything (Deloitte)

This year’s Digital Media Trends lends data to the argument that video entertainment has been disrupted by social platforms, creators, user-generated content (UGC), and advanced modeling for content recommendations and advertising. Such platforms may be establishing the new center of gravity for media and entertainment, drawing more of the time people spend on entertainment and the money that brands spend to reach them.

5: Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then A.I. Saved His Life. (NYT)

In labs around the world, scientists are using A.I. to search among existing medicines for treatments that work for rare diseases. Drug repurposing, as it’s called, is not new, but the use of machine learning is speeding up the process — and could expand the treatment possibilities for people with rare diseases and few options.

6: AI Chatbot Traffic Tracking (Similar Web)

With this new feature, you can finally track traffic coming from AI platforms and understand how users are discovering your content through chatbot recommendations. This gives you a new lens on your performance in the age of AI-assisted discovery.

7: Substack vs Patreon rockstar list:

8: Network rockstar list:

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GOOD PRODUCT

The Champagne Bar, Miami Four Seasons at the Surf Club

The palm-fringed room of the Champagne Bar reflects the soulful charm and glamour of The Surf Club’s early years. From the moment it first opened its doors on New Year’s Eve 1930 The Surf Club in Miami has hosted history. It is an institution whose reputation looms large in the imagination of so many more people than can ever have visited it, let alone been members. Legends and luminaries came to The Surf Club for its reputation as a place where proper impropriety was allowed. It was for people with good taste seeking good times. It combined power and pleasure, ceremony and swagger – its members felt off duty but on show, together. It provided its crowd with somewhere they felt they belonged, somewhere safe: a ballroom and beach, behind closed doors. The Surf Club was a place of imagination and possibility; it turned experiences into memories.