Equity
Equity
TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, Theresa Loconsolo
Fizz CEO on why anonymous social is winning with Gen Z
32 minutes Posted Dec 31, 2025 at 3:00 pm.
Introduction
What broke in social media
Building for the 99% of life
Content moderation at scale
The risks of anonymous social
Pandemic origins and IRL community
Why the company moved to New York
Scaling with "arguably the most retentive social product in history"
Almost getting arrested at Pepperdine…for donuts
The future of social media
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Show notes
Fizz is betting that Gen Z is tired of performing their lives on Instagram and TikTok.  
What started as a pandemic-era group chat frustration has turned into the dominant social platform on college campuses across the US, focused on the 99% of life that doesn't make it into a highlight reel. Capturing the attention of a demographic typically glued to Instagram and TikTok, the app's hybrid anonymous model and hyperlocal focus has made it what Solomon calls "the biggest college social app since Facebook.”  
Today we're bringing you a conversation that Dominic Madori Davis had with Fizz’s co-founder and CEO Teddy Solomon from this year's Disrupt, digging into why he thinks social media stopped being social.  
Listen to the full episode to hear: 
Why Solomon thinks Instagram and TikTok became pure entertainment platforms, and why that created an opening 
How Fizz uses 7,000 volunteer student moderators plus AI to keep the platform safe 
The company's expansion strategy beyond college and what "Global Fizz" actually means 
Solomon’s case for why New York is a better place to build a consumer company than San Francisco 
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