Tom Dotan, Katie Benner, and I became friends in San Francisco back in 2014 when we all worked as technology reporters at The Information. But we didn’t achieve that core pillar of modern friendship until August 2021 when we started a podcast together.
Insider generously let Tom co-host the podcast with me — and Katie, a reporter at the New York Times, came on every few episodes as a regular special guest.
A year and a half ago we kicked off the show with an interview of Rippling CEO Parker Conrad. Since then, publishing most Tuesdays, we’ve pumped out 69 episodes and have built up a loyal following of listeners for our niche tech media podcast. With our intense focus on how the media covers technology stories, we’ve become a must-listen for newsrooms, tech public relations shops, startup world movers and shakers, and tech industry onlookers.
We’ve had a variety of guests on the show. We’ve featured venture capitalists, startup founders, political operatives, and security experts. In our most popular episode, we took a look at the media’s coverage of the rise and fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick with the old Uber CEO’s former top deputy, Emil Michael.
Reporters, especially our reporter friends, have been a regular fixture of the show. We’ve talked with reporters like the New York Times’ Erin Griffith and Mike Isaac, the Wall Street Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman, Rolfe Winkler, and Kirsten Grind, Semafor’s Ben Smith and Reed Albergotti, Insider’s Aki Ito, Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, and Puck’s Teddy Schleifer.
Now the show — at least as we’ve come to know it — is coming to an end.
Tom is taking a job at the Wall Street Journal and he’s stepping back from his co-hosting duties. Today’s episode is our last together. The episode is a fun look back at some of the themes that we’ve explored over the past year and a half.
I’d encourage you to DM Tom on Twitter with your Microsoft story ideas and tips. Hopefully Tom will come back on the show as a guest and this memoriam will look overblown.
This iteration of the Dead Cat show is going out on a high, apparently ranking number two among tech news shows at this moment.
Going forward, I plan to continue podcasting and would love to get your input on the future of the show. I might keep the name “Dead Cat,” or I might not. I’m rather fond of it. (By the way, I explain the origins of the show’s name here.)
Leave a comment or send me an email with your thoughts on what the future of the podcast should be. I’m open to suggestions for co-hosts, interview subjects, topics, show names, etc.
As I talk about on this week’s episode, I’m inclined to align the show more closely with Newcomer newsletter content, meaning going forward it will probably be more focused on the business of technology and less about how it’s covered.
In January, I hope to experiment with different formats and see what works. I think the podcast will continue to be free, meant to draw people into the newsletter and to attract a broader audience. I might pause the show in February for a relaunch or might decide that I can keep my stride. We’ll see!
Anyway, this was a really enjoyable last episode to record. I hope you’ll give it a listen and help us wish Tom farewell.
Give it a listen
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:05
Welcome, welcome to dead cat. We have been Gravely betray.
00:00:16
This is the end of the ERA. This is a breaking news.
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The podcast is imploding. There's the wheat.
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There's a we in that stuff. Is we the audience?
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We have. I committed a front against the
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entire deck. Heck, yeah.
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Yeah. Exactly.
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The Diehard fans, the thousands of listeners.
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You know, you it's merry Christmas everybody.
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Your podcasts talking is filled with coal, you know, that
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there's like a percentage of our audience.
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I don't know what percent may be a minority that's just like he's
00:00:46
fucking gone. Thank God this guy's out like I
00:00:49
was I was dragging ass on this show.
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Yeah. So Tom is leaving for a
00:00:54
different startup? Yes gonna go join a little known
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publication called The Wall Street.
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Yeah. After eight great years, a dead
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cat, it's time to Happy Trails for me.
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I got my LinkedIn post right here for my leaving.
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Todd cat know, like Eric said, and as I've tweeted, I am
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joining the Wall Street Journal and they have requested.
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How do I say? They'll get here.
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Bringing the kibosh down, you know.
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They're they're a large Media company and so they want to make
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sure that Tom is not creating competing products and we know
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that dead cat and the Wall Street journal's podcast
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division are in it. In a heated battle.
00:01:30
For dominance. Yeah, yeah, this is a rival.
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That's the key. I will just say that as I found
00:01:40
out in my early onboarding, to the Wall Street Journal, a lot
00:01:42
of Journal listeners to this show and so hey everybody out
00:01:45
there, I know through journaling or listening to this to you.
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No no I love my bosses and I love my new co-workers and Of
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standards and practices and editorial discretion.
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And, and look, I've we have said on this show that the journal is
00:02:08
probably the most reliable source for Tech news and they're
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judicious nasaw. Unfortunately is I wouldn't want
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to have to bear it myself personally, but I'm not it
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exists. And the people have to be sort
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of st. Like no opinion have a I gave up
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that life. Well, we're not good luck to
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you. Tom, well you tell me though
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because yeah this is just step one of two.
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The second one is when Mike Bloomberg buys the journal
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apparently and we have to figure out how the melding of you know,
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Bloomberg and you know everything is you know,
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everything is on the table. You can do whatever you want.
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Melds with the more straight. I'm joking, right?
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Isn't Bloomberg. Also like a strict.
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Oh Bloomberg Bloomberg. All I remember is that everybody
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knew my life minute to minute? Because not only do you swipe in
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with your badge and swipe out. So know when you're done
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building, they know when your keyboard is not Use, so it gets
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pretty in today. Do you think he's been tracking
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a Bloomberg? Does he just sit over here?
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We get your backpack enough to Bloomberg.
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They send you home to go. Get it.
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It's like, you're like an elementary school student.
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Yeah, they will all my boss like Ida security guard.
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Tell me this, this is going to the highest levels, you know, my
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badge failures. I remember when I got packages
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sent to the office, which I've done at every place, I've worked
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even when I was a waitress, when I got mail sent to the office
00:03:29
that I needed to. Pick up because I don't live in
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a fancy doorman building. That was also a security matter
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and that to have a real conversation about it, but
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that's Bloomberg. None of us is worked at the Wall
00:03:39
Street Journal. We don't know which foibles that
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they have, you'll have to, you have to let us know tells
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through a pseudonym, I guess. But our very special guest Dom
00:03:50
totin that would be a good bit. We like have this, like,
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Anonymous character that they can never sort of totally proved
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is you, it's like, it just sounds like yeah, I'm getting
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worse. From someone who's appeared on
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this show before. Yeah, I'd love for my first
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introduction to the journal standard and practices to be is
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me submitting content to a podcast under a pseudonym.
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Which I'm talking about interior, you know, politics of
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the company that I don't think it's strange that this show is
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popular among reporters and people to Wall Street Journal.
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And yet there been any whatever they're not Banning me.
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They're asking me for a little bit of a timeout.
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On board with the team. See you guys back here in a
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couple of yes, taking back the podcast, you want to talk about
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what the show is going to be like going forward so you can
00:04:50
back it to be able excited about it.
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All right it's all money is sense.
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Going for none of this tomfoolery.
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You know none of this tomfoolery could have been the name of the
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show. Yeah.
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Yeah, well I don't know. I mean I think in January I'm
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going to experiment with different configurations.
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I mean Katie I'm a regular regular special guests can come
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on, but I think I will experiment with format, you
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know, I don't know. This is not a key part of the
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show, we're gonna keep going. All of it.
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I wasn't told by the way, I couldn't have an only fans so
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that that maybe my outlet. Well you know the problem with
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co-host is they cut in? You know, if it's a one-on-one
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interview show I just I can I can be a more Kara Swisher, like
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figure and just sort of really get all my opinions out which
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right now. I feel like I'm only getting
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diapers. Are we talking the free flow of
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newcomer a pin, right? That Zack made you a character
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on Twitter for 20-25 minutes or so my God.
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How do you know? I'm not on Twitter anymore.
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Well, I got it, this fucking thing.
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Brought me back to Twitter. It was like, you were Breeze was
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like a trauma for me, okay? So, you know, the New York Times
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broke this story about this congressman, who faked his
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resume, right? Very, very very and then there
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were some like, son, I don't know, George said liberal
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leftist, I can't quite tell where their Parker Malloy fans,
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I don't even know what that means.
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Continue some account. So, so I just make the point.
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They like it's ridiculous to criticize the outlet that scoop
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It's the story for failing to scoop it earlier, and like the
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last person you should criticize are the actual people doing the
00:06:37
scooping and like any other institution in the world should
00:06:40
be blamed before them, and of course, defending the York Times
00:06:43
is the one thing that everybody hates on Twitter left, right or
00:06:47
Center people are low. So we're defending the New York
00:06:49
Times in the Shell of Defending a Michael Barbaro tweet which I
00:06:54
think, oh my God, exponentially more.
00:07:00
Don't think those when other people are taking Ells.
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So my Twitter and then and then of course you know me like
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you've heard of suicide by cop. This is like suicide by Barbaro.
00:07:09
So people are coming at me and I'm replying to every single one
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of them. You know, I'm just like are you
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doing so? So all my followers are like
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more aware of this and they ever would have been because instead
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of just getting all these random replies, I'm like engaging with
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everybody in like you went for a boy, it's sort of telling people
00:07:28
like fuck off. I said something like, you know,
00:07:34
liberals, who are upset that like, I don't know the New York
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Times isn't giving them scoops and what did I say about the
00:07:41
right? Anyway, I just don't ask me to
00:07:43
recline. I told the left and right to
00:07:44
both go fuck yourselves on Twitter and that year and then I
00:07:47
was a little surprised. Why people were so angry at me.
00:07:51
You know what I mean? The responses are idiotic, I
00:07:54
mean, literally, you get people saying like, well, I enjoyed
00:07:58
this one. Somebody was like You don't have
00:08:00
any friends and I replied to them if I didn't have my Downs,
00:08:04
wouldn't it be really mean of you to say that to me?
00:08:06
Like, I do. They're like drinking.
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I thought, luckily, I was like you're a sad person.
00:08:11
If you were to say something like right there supposed to be
00:08:13
nice, you know, I don't know if you're carrying is supposed to
00:08:17
be part like isn't the point of having when you see p Buddha,
00:08:20
just dating space benefits for people that you want to extend
00:08:24
your compassion to people. You don't know.
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Like I feel like that should translate.
00:08:28
I think you misheard your ass. Equitable like, interpersonal
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Behavior. I think you misinterpreted what
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it means to be a liberal today, but to me, the liberal tell you
00:08:35
that means testing for emotions. It's just like well if you are
00:08:39
below a certain income bracket, then I suppose I should extend
00:08:42
some elements of empathy to you. Oh my God.
00:08:45
Yeah and then I got some white side, some average white guy
00:08:49
with an opinion, you know? It's just like that is.
00:08:52
Oh, that's the name of your new podcast, maybe?
00:08:56
Yeah, right whatever. Me to do is lean into a race
00:09:01
politics. That's that's what the baltics
00:09:05
should be about, just sort of all you, come on.
00:09:07
Sure. You know, like they're like more
00:09:09
of that. Well click on that as part of
00:09:11
the show's gonna say I guess that Tom and I will actually
00:09:13
never be guests again because I love to come back to.
00:09:17
Yeah, my new editor is at the journal and asked it reappear on
00:09:20
the new race Focus dead cat, what it's all about.
00:09:25
It's like no, no, no. The format has changed a bit.
00:09:28
Since you guys were concerned at thrown out.
00:09:30
All about like cranial shapes. Okay.
00:09:41
So Eric that was um yeah watch watch this space.
00:09:45
It sounds like, what's the scale to close off?
00:09:52
Maybe this I literally had someone in my diems, by the way,
00:09:55
saying that it looked like I was about to go on Tucker Carlson
00:09:58
it's like I'm here jobbed by all these leftist but they want to
00:10:01
dream up a world where I'm like suddenly on the most powerful
00:10:05
platform. You know, it's just like oh yeah
00:10:07
you guys are all booing me. Constantly, but it's me, who's
00:10:11
about to oppress you all like, it's like this am at.
00:10:14
It's just like, total like story crafting, you know?
00:10:18
They just I, it is insane. So, clearly, this is something
00:10:22
that's still very present for you.
00:10:24
And this radicalize me, you know, hey, hey, a professional.
00:10:28
Therapist might want to walk through with you a couple times
00:10:32
to say week, so we can all move on, but I also like Tom, right?
00:10:37
Bring it up and and I also So like the idea of Eric going over
00:10:41
this with his therapist and everybody did but I was bragging
00:10:44
about, I'm like I'm fighting with them.
00:10:46
Like fuck them - I can only imagine what your therapist
00:10:49
right. It was writing down her fucking
00:10:51
notepad. Yeah.
00:10:53
Well she was in the wreck lies. This is why I don't really use
00:11:04
Twitter so much. But hey, Gary.
00:11:07
You were like trying to wean yourself off of it, right?
00:11:09
It's like an artery really doing the whole fight, on the web
00:11:12
browser, mobile web browser version of Twitter.
00:11:19
Like that's how like it's like everyone to a methadone clinic
00:11:22
and immediately bottom down. It's just now I know why your
00:11:25
therapist didn't say anything. And that first session because
00:11:28
she was just like we got it. There's we got a he has to get
00:11:31
to a place where he can start unpacking this on his own
00:11:33
before. I closely help him.
00:11:35
Let's see if we can try to make this into something useful for
00:11:38
the broader audience. Well, I was going to say So,
00:11:39
part of the year in review that we were planning was to think
00:11:42
about Twitter, I didn't realize that Eric had been engaging with
00:11:44
it so, so ardently over the last couple weeks.
00:11:50
Oh, so, when there clearly are experience might tell us
00:11:53
something about the direction of new Twitter and you whom on
00:11:56
Twitter who? Well I guess what I sort of
00:12:01
gathered through this episode taking newcomer out of it,
00:12:03
specifically, is that it all it all kind of went through the
00:12:05
same cycle that Twitter outrage Cycles have gone You're over the
00:12:09
past couple of years which is like, there's a character,
00:12:11
people pylon at some point. There's an article in like a
00:12:14
Gawker, you know, subsidiary or something.
00:12:17
That affects coffee people. Excuse me, I was mentioned, I'm
00:12:20
a stack this Parker Malloy person.
00:12:23
It was behind a pay wall though. I mean she was just using me as
00:12:27
like as if I was like a New York Times Reporter when I wasn't,
00:12:31
but I think they called you like a like a VC freak, or something
00:12:34
like that. But, but anyway, that's what we
00:12:36
call Eric. I'm not sufficiently deferential
00:12:41
and then the rest of the world. This is what drives me,
00:12:44
literally, we had this podcast where were fighting with Antonio
00:12:47
Garcia Martinez and I'm like arguing for the left.
00:12:50
And then meanwhile before that's published, I'm eating it from
00:12:53
the left. It's just like, man, you really
00:12:56
not. This is my self-righteous thing.
00:12:57
You can say, but you can't be an independent thinker anymore.
00:13:00
You got to align with one side or the other otherwise people
00:13:03
are just going to boo. Boo, okay.
00:13:05
But here's here's what I, here's what I was thinking as as a
00:13:09
cycle Through its, you know, stations like it all felt fairly
00:13:13
deflated to me, you know? Like it was it was this thing
00:13:16
that we've seen happened for the last couple of years and it
00:13:18
sounds like the like the fries on that exist in these things.
00:13:23
It wasn't there anymore. Like I just feel like we're
00:13:25
going through the motions of it was like black people weren't
00:13:28
really no one's interested in this anymore which is to me more
00:13:31
than anything. The reason I, you know, taking
00:13:33
even Elan out of it, why? I'm just not I just don't expect
00:13:37
Twitter to matter as much in the future.
00:13:39
Feeling about the Elan of it all people just don't, they're kind
00:13:43
of just done. It was running on fumes or it
00:13:45
was getting to that point. The one counter to that is my
00:13:47
bizarre meltdown on Twitter. Definitely penetrated.
00:13:51
Like my real life, like, I had people be like, what's going on
00:13:54
like you, are you okay, you know, like so definitely normies
00:14:00
became aware of it, you know, and people who never interact
00:14:02
with my Tweets, we're like very, very aware.
00:14:06
So I do think Twitter's our reach is Bigger than represented
00:14:11
which is why he left trying to do this whole weird view count
00:14:13
thing right now. But yeah, which again, when I
00:14:16
released my fake statement distancing myself from you and I
00:14:19
got messages from people saying, hey, my mom didn't understand
00:14:22
your Tweet. Exactly.
00:14:24
That was hysterical. By the way, there is a
00:14:26
penetration outside the world that that is even more reason
00:14:29
for journalists to not be on there but if you but let's just
00:14:31
go with my argument that it isn't maybe you know as
00:14:35
motivating to people has as it was Yas.
00:14:37
Couple of years. Quit what is it?
00:14:39
What does it mean for journalists?
00:14:40
Like because I mean Katie you've been off maybe more than the
00:14:44
three of us but yeah pay attention to shit online.
00:14:48
Continue though it's just like just as I'm giving up my
00:14:52
independent platform where in my and going to a big sort of
00:14:56
faceless Media Company. Maybe that's like the narrative
00:14:59
at the moment where everybody is if there is a face of her Thomas
00:15:02
Media company is the face of Rupert Murdoch, it's huge it
00:15:05
looms large like the a but journalism or Right.
00:15:10
Twitter has meant so much to the way a lot of journalists have
00:15:14
decided whether or not their stories have impact and like the
00:15:16
conversation that's happening around it.
00:15:18
And even as I was kind of sort of off it over the last couple
00:15:21
months, I did sort of you do miss a little bit, the kind of
00:15:24
what, you know what engagement is my story getting what is the
00:15:26
conversation around it. And I am kind of curious to your
00:15:29
both your thoughts on like if we are entering a world where
00:15:32
Twitter just matters less and journalists are spending less
00:15:34
time on their and viewing the success and penetration of their
00:15:38
stories. Not through how much people are
00:15:40
talking about on Twitter, but throughout some other prism, I
00:15:43
mean, what does that word even look like?
00:15:45
Like, how do you decide whether your story is having impact?
00:15:48
If you're not at least taking into account, you know, the
00:15:51
people that are talking about it one way or the other on Twitter.
00:15:53
That's so funny because I feel like my weird-ass experience
00:15:58
being in Washington which has been super weird.
00:16:00
Is basically what you just described like there are a lot
00:16:04
of Washington reporters for on Twitter and very active and
00:16:07
whatever and their Get talked about a lot, but then, there are
00:16:11
some reporters who are really not on it at all, truly, like, I
00:16:15
would say, the entire National Security team at the New York
00:16:18
Times is like not on Twitter, you know.
00:16:21
Julian, Barnes my colleague, Mazzetti went mad.
00:16:24
Apuzzo was still in DC before he went to Brussels to be are like
00:16:28
head of Investigations there. He like stop tweeting all
00:16:32
together, our Congressional reporter, Nick fan, Des was
00:16:34
literally never on Twitter. The entire time, he covered the
00:16:38
entire Intel. Around Trump and to impeachments
00:16:41
and it did not impact the reach of their stories is what I would
00:16:45
say. Nor did it really like, I don't
00:16:47
think you would judge their work and its success by whether or
00:16:51
not people were talking about on Twitter or whether or not they
00:16:54
were on Twitter the stories were the stories.
00:16:56
So like a secret drone program, right?
00:17:00
So I mean insane about of hastens his take on that episode
00:17:04
and you were trying to push for me.
00:17:05
What was interesting is it's clear.
00:17:06
He's never heard of any of those people or read stories like I
00:17:09
think no, I mean, like he won't you have time for a story but
00:17:12
he's a penetrated, his Consciousness but he has no
00:17:14
idea. No.
00:17:15
I mean, like he kept talking about this one story that I
00:17:17
never heard of about a suitcase company.
00:17:19
Like it was a front panel talking about a secret drone
00:17:22
program. And I can't no idea what story
00:17:25
was talking about because I was like, when I think about the
00:17:27
biggest Stories, the times published, in the last few
00:17:29
years, it none of them are suitcase stories.
00:17:32
They're all like a suitcase startup.
00:17:33
It's like secret drone program. It's like this incredible.
00:17:37
Look, we just did inside the military.
00:17:40
It's a lot of foreign news. I'm sure he hasn't read.
00:17:43
It is, you know, stories about what was going on at the justice
00:17:47
department in the last days of the, you know, before January 6
00:17:51
like these are really important story is that one of the
00:17:54
reporters really tweeted out and yet they had a lot of impact
00:17:57
into the impact. In d.c. is measured by, you
00:18:00
know, does it impact an election doesn't impact actions by
00:18:04
Congress and rather than Twitter this is something I really find
00:18:08
super complicated for me. Because I don't watch TV or
00:18:10
engage with it. It is cable television.
00:18:13
That is like, the Twitter of decent.
00:18:15
So like, if reporters are on cable television, CNN, MSNBC
00:18:18
Fox, that is where like, and that's the conversation that
00:18:22
happens after the story comes out, right?
00:18:24
Yes. That's where all the influences
00:18:25
measured. It's not really Twitter as much.
00:18:27
And I wonder if it's just because like, you know, Chuck
00:18:30
Grassley was born before the invention of the chocolate chip
00:18:32
cookie. So, he might not know use like
00:18:34
Twitter, but he definitely knows how to like, sit, still and
00:18:37
watch TV, something like right on.
00:18:39
Sure, he used to be, if you remember that time, it's whoever
00:18:43
it is. I, It's gotta be him ever his
00:18:44
one about like, assume dear dead and all of that.
00:18:48
The Chuck Grassley Twitter feed is actually incredible, but but,
00:18:51
but II hear your general take. Yeah.
00:18:52
That's, that's the for like his hands.
00:18:54
That's when his hands were still operational.
00:18:56
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess within business and
00:19:00
Tech business, but Tech is totally interesting because,
00:19:03
like, I'm sure that suitcase story was all over Twitter.
00:19:06
Like even though it wasn't on the front page of the New York
00:19:09
Times, That's probably not the front page of the journal are
00:19:11
pretty much anywhere else on Twitter.
00:19:13
I bet the suitcase story was a huge deal.
00:19:16
I mean, tying it to my sort of experience on Twitter and just
00:19:21
sort of Twitter. Generally in the point you're
00:19:23
making I mean Twitter is just like a psychological war on the
00:19:26
participants to convince them that the things that they're
00:19:29
experiencing on Twitter, really matter.
00:19:32
Right. Even some of the otherwise, why
00:19:34
are you on Twitter at? All right, all right, you see
00:19:37
past the veil there? It's all very sad and pathetic,
00:19:39
you know? Oh, the left is you were like,
00:19:40
cancel culture are isn't real. We're just sort of like, I don't
00:19:43
know, just stop reading Twitter. And like, if this problem goes
00:19:45
away, when you're not reading Twitter, then you didn't get
00:19:48
cancelled. You know what I mean?
00:19:49
They're just agree with that. There's just like stop looking
00:19:52
at the people yelling at. You don't respond to them, turn
00:19:55
off the app and like if the problem is gone, then it wasn't
00:19:58
a problem. You know, like are you think
00:20:00
it's just Twitter makes people who are on it more relevant so
00:20:04
they have an incentive to believe that it's like around
00:20:06
and I'll try and so, exactly. So everyone is just Playing this
00:20:09
game of, like, what happens here is the real, you know, Global
00:20:13
discourse when, when clearly normies aren't reading it, the
00:20:17
president's not really reading it.
00:20:19
You know, I think the Biden White House sort of indicated
00:20:21
that they see it as a way to manipulate journalists mostly
00:20:24
yeah, the reads it journalists and their editors.
00:20:27
And so I think if we could get our editors off of Twitter and
00:20:30
never look at it again, that would be the most extraordinary
00:20:33
thing, that, that would be the real meaning of Christmas.
00:20:35
Yeah. But then, what would what would
00:20:37
where would the discourse take place in a way that Porter's
00:20:39
could engage with it because okay, in d.c., you've got cable
00:20:42
television. Maybe you've got like a kind of
00:20:44
closed circuit of people who will, you know, read the tip
00:20:47
sheets and talk about the stories and the impact that it
00:20:49
had. I mean like Twitter is
00:20:51
incredibly useful for that. I mean if yes it inflates,
00:20:54
stupid stories, you know like it inflates in important something
00:20:59
like that. This fucking away story which
00:21:01
apparently did a real. Real mind spark on the VC
00:21:04
investing Community. Yeah.
00:21:05
I mean I own two pieces of away luggage and I loved it.
00:21:08
I had no idea. There's anything With a company
00:21:10
and I still don't know. Because, you know what?
00:21:11
I didn't do, read the story. I just didn't give enough of a
00:21:13
shit. I was like, you know what,
00:21:14
there's a huge War happening in Europe and I'm going to take
00:21:18
that time to read an update on what's going on in Ukraine, am
00:21:20
I? And I was like, okay, be as a
00:21:22
baby, a side point, to all of this, I've been reflecting on
00:21:25
the eat it. You probably listen to a Katie
00:21:27
but we talk to Antonio Garcia Martinez last week just like
00:21:30
interesting who I thought is a smart.
00:21:32
Got tweet the episode dude. Like come on.
00:21:35
Well I don't see our episode 7 Twitter anyway.
00:21:37
Could you know he kind of That is what it is, but you know,
00:21:44
that was really like bringing him on and I'm glad he came and
00:21:46
I do think he is a smart guy who's done the reading, but it
00:21:48
was really our best attempt to get someone who speaks to that
00:21:51
point of view. The, like, anti-tech point of
00:21:53
view to come engage with us anti-media point, anti-media.
00:21:56
Sorry. Sorry, anti-media point of view.
00:21:58
And I really bent over backwards.
00:22:00
I thought during the episode to be as agreeable to him and see
00:22:03
his points of view as much as possible.
00:22:06
And the more I think about that episode, The more hardened, I To
00:22:09
the media perspective. And the fact that these guys are
00:22:13
just, it's just weird, there's no way.
00:22:15
We're gonna be able to bridge that Gap and I'm sorry, they're
00:22:17
a bunch of fucking babies, right?
00:22:19
As if you, if you wanna talk about hard coverage and we're
00:22:21
like most of the hard covered that comes from the media.
00:22:24
It is not go towards the fuckin oh a CEO.
00:22:26
It is not go towards, you know VCS for you.
00:22:29
A nice person is the reason why the issue is likes you.
00:22:32
No slack employees being upset if the board wanted to hold on.
00:22:35
They absolutely could have held on to that those people.
00:22:38
I have no, We're like the most aggressive anti-tech anti-tech
00:22:43
in quotes coverage has been and last couple years it's been
00:22:45
towards Facebook. It's been towards maybe Google.
00:22:48
It's been towards face. I spoke.
00:22:51
Yeah. Yeah and like it's like they're
00:22:53
still engaging with the media. There vample comes apartments
00:22:57
that are doing that. I mean they work to influence
00:23:00
the stories that they can have their point of view out there.
00:23:02
They don't just basically like you know, take their ball and
00:23:04
walk home because they're upset that a couple of mean stories
00:23:07
were written about them and like you This in d.c. probably
00:23:11
exponentially more intensely. That the meteorites really means
00:23:14
story is about Congress people or whatever the White House or
00:23:18
any. Right.
00:23:19
Your brother still did not have strong responses.
00:23:23
I was literally like begging him like make your strongest
00:23:25
argument please like let's not to shit on a guess but I mean
00:23:29
Stamos I think was so clear. I'd, you know, Alex Stamos, the
00:23:33
former Chief security officer who said they Ceylon bubble is
00:23:37
going to pop. And I He he's being Vindicated
00:23:40
by the day. Like thank God, we got that
00:23:42
episode. I mean, all that Twitter poll,
00:23:46
right? Sort of the cultural Elan bubble
00:23:52
was gonna get a pop and everybody supporting him is
00:23:55
going to look like a fool and start pretending like they never
00:23:57
did thankfully, you know, Andreessen Horowitz since the
00:24:01
Quake. I check.
00:24:02
So we'll be home after them to pretend like they never did.
00:24:05
And all in is been all in on Elon Musk, but yeah, I Things
00:24:09
are turning fast and to some degree, I mean, maybe this is a
00:24:12
good time to Pivot the show because the media is winning and
00:24:16
text, you know, all the tech made up bullshit, Ori those
00:24:19
valuations are collapsing, Bitcoin, Tesla like that stuff
00:24:23
is falling. In reality, is coming back, it's
00:24:26
great. I don't necessarily winning or
00:24:30
losing And I think that's totally fine and it's not like
00:24:41
Tech will go away like walnuts didn't go away you know like
00:24:46
government wanted to go away even though reverent is trying
00:24:49
to dismantle itself as quickly as possible like government
00:24:51
still here we still have elections even though you know a
00:24:55
lots happened to make people cynical about government so yeah
00:24:59
it's not like text gonna go away just because people are like
00:25:02
Elon Musk might not be a god. Well it's sort of like elections
00:25:06
where you know before Anna They're all these crazy
00:25:10
narratives and then elections, ideally sort of create some
00:25:14
consensus around what the true narrative is based on the actual
00:25:17
performance of the politicians, similarly, in business, right?
00:25:21
Let's darken the Red Wave, it's hard.
00:25:24
It's hard for everyone to agree at what point the stock market
00:25:26
is rational, you know what I mean?
00:25:28
So, when the stock market is saying, Tesla's, worth the
00:25:31
entire Auto industry, the media class, and sort of the Skeptics
00:25:36
are in a weird place to deny that when You know, the stock
00:25:40
market's are version of Elections.
00:25:42
The Elan bubble is it's also just entirely under his control.
00:25:46
I think there was a lot that, I mean, people have been posting
00:25:49
all these charts showing like since he bought Twitter Tesla's,
00:25:52
stock has, you know, Fallen, whatever percentage.
00:25:54
You know. Insane amount.
00:25:55
He's probably, I don't think, as the time of recording is not the
00:25:57
richest person in the world. Oh he was, he hasn't been for a
00:26:00
couple for a little while but I mean it's collapsing, it's down.
00:26:04
Year-to-date Tesla's down, 69%. He must love that.
00:26:08
I just think, like, There's no winning when talking to the
00:26:11
people that are fully on diehards because they're going
00:26:14
to say in the same way that people that you know, defended
00:26:17
Trump throughout the entirety of his disastrous presidency.
00:26:20
Saying you look what he's doing for the country, he's willing to
00:26:23
sacrifice his net worth, and all of his wealth in order to build
00:26:28
this country. Back up, the Elan Defenders are
00:26:31
saying, well, you know, the fact that he's lost so much money or,
00:26:33
you know, personal wealth as he's taken on this.
00:26:36
This whole Twitter Quest is an example of like I'm fighting for
00:26:39
free speech, so it's not been at the Box, actually.
00:26:42
The lock-in is just such a powerful force.
00:26:44
Once some, once you have a theory of the world that
00:26:46
revolves around someone, it's very hard.
00:26:49
Yeah, to Pivot. Anyway, I want to change unless
00:26:52
you really have something to say on this always.
00:26:53
Here's just the last thing I would say on just that the AGM,
00:26:57
that groups vision of media. And, you know, I don't he wasn't
00:27:01
necessarily endorsing himself, but he was basically saying some
00:27:04
people would say that the you know, the best outcome would be
00:27:06
that the New York Times and all mainstream media just like Burns
00:27:08
to the ground. And none of that stuff.
00:27:10
And it seemed very violent. Like he, I mean, he was like,
00:27:14
Nuke the media? I think you killed.
00:27:16
Yeah, yeah, it was an editor. Like it was, it was colorful
00:27:18
language. I know, I'm not one of those
00:27:20
reporters that actually thinks were like under attack and like,
00:27:22
this is a dangerous job, really? No, no, I mean, I understand
00:27:27
people they're definitely a who I think if the rules were
00:27:30
eviscerated would kill the media like, whatever, that's a whole
00:27:35
other conversation. But I just wanted to say like
00:27:37
they don't really have a proposition for Or anything like
00:27:40
a realistic proposition for anything, that would replace it
00:27:42
and I watched she said the other day, the ultimate Normie movie.
00:27:47
I haven't seen now, it's not very good.
00:27:50
But the one thing I will say to it is that I think it does a
00:27:53
good job of explaining or at least pointing out the role that
00:27:57
the media plays when every other institution fails because in the
00:28:01
case of Harvey Weinstein, the law didn't do anything.
00:28:04
Obviously right, there were people that press charges and
00:28:07
they basically drop them the industry.
00:28:09
Do anything he wasn't blackballed.
00:28:11
There is basically no recourse for anybody that had been raped
00:28:15
or assaulted or harassed by him other than to go to the media
00:28:19
and right idea acted as its supposed to, which is like some
00:28:23
sort of force pushing against Power in order to rectify the
00:28:26
situation. I don't think it's the ultimate
00:28:29
solution like the media writing the story does, it's all in the
00:28:31
media cannot be expected to get every Harvey.
00:28:34
Once that's what I've been losing, that's what I was losing
00:28:36
about it on Twitter with the leftist and what I was losing.
00:28:39
Fighting with a GM about like you can't.
00:28:41
The media is not the only institution.
00:28:44
You know what I mean? It's meant to sort of be be a
00:28:47
self. It's one key stream.
00:28:48
Yeah it's one piece of many and in the case of Harvey Weinstein,
00:28:51
it was the only functional one and it led towards him being
00:28:55
literally put in prison for the things that the, you know, the
00:28:58
law was not able to do prior to that fight.
00:29:00
And like, I don't think these guys, you know, I don't want to
00:29:02
put a GM is like the face of it. But the people, the biology is
00:29:04
whoever who think that the New York Times and all these
00:29:07
Publications should be burnt to the ground.
00:29:08
They haven't actually Will answer to how to deal with
00:29:11
someone like him, right? They just don't because every
00:29:14
other institution that existed failed, and if they think the
00:29:17
New York Times shouldn't be there than Harvey Weinstein,
00:29:18
would arguably still be out making movies and attacking
00:29:22
women. Well, this is why I keep saying
00:29:23
that the right needs to produce actual reporting fact-finding.
00:29:26
Like, none of like a GM, just launched a podcast, you know,
00:29:31
Jason on all in is not claiming to be a journalist.
00:29:34
Like none of these people are committing themselves to the
00:29:36
moral sort of obligations of Journalism where oh, I might
00:29:40
actually do some real reporting that would help Society.
00:29:43
In some way, look at the Active starting is like the act of
00:29:46
reporting itself is treachery, right?
00:29:48
Like all you want is like an unfiltered point of view coming
00:29:51
from the person that has their one perspective on it.
00:29:54
And I also want to add to this and I'm sorry, I didn't bring it
00:29:57
up in that episode. The example of going direct was
00:29:59
very clear and its Effectiveness during the SPF situation when
00:30:04
Sequoia wrote their own article about him.
00:30:08
So, the journalism that came to Lee from the investor, clearly
00:30:10
isn't very good. And should they have far more
00:30:13
access information than any of us, you know, right.
00:30:15
And they wrote the glowing bullshit piece that they
00:30:17
apparently want us to be writing all the time.
00:30:19
They want to be reading these kid-glove pieces, and the other
00:30:21
thing I was going to say is that Harvey Weinstein is a, he was a
00:30:23
huge donor, the Democratic party and the New York Times and every
00:30:26
other public record of and I had no problem writing me and
00:30:28
stories about him. The idea that like we are able
00:30:30
to logically beholdin to Democrats because they donate to
00:30:34
I'm tired of media criticism. All right.
00:30:36
I know we get a lot of reporters on here but my goal.
00:30:39
Goal in 2023 is just not take media criticism.
00:30:42
So personally not really gets just just stop letting them
00:30:46
work. The refs just like media is, I
00:30:48
think on a good footing, there's plenty of media criticism
00:30:52
already and just to get back to sort of scrutinizing, the
00:30:55
subjects and like move on from the bullshit of of being worked
00:30:59
having the refs worked. I came into this podcast really
00:31:02
trying to be not this episode but like generally dead cat
00:31:05
trying to be as open to the other point of view as possible
00:31:08
and not. In the media, latest and and
00:31:11
trying to criticize the media as a way to better understand the
00:31:14
complaints against us. And after having conversations
00:31:17
with people, in the decide, I am more hardened to the media side
00:31:20
than I was going into it. And I didn't expect that and I
00:31:23
don't know these people need to fucking grow up, you know, it's
00:31:26
America. And I mean the last thing just
00:31:29
while we're deconstructing the AGM thing is that he seemed to
00:31:34
be mourning, the loss of sort of advertising Based shared media
00:31:42
that everyone sort of understood together while also sort of
00:31:46
rooting for this opinionated sort of sub Sac journalism.
00:31:50
I honestly it wasn't clear, which world he was rooting for
00:31:56
ya. So, like, it's a strange thing
00:31:58
to like, asked the media to re-embrace an advertising model,
00:32:01
that was killed by the tech industry, essentially, or at
00:32:04
least made like much much, much less lucrative, and about
00:32:06
blaming the tech industry, like it was evil that they did that.
00:32:09
I think advertising is problematic for that exact
00:32:11
reason. Like it doesn't have morals.
00:32:13
It just goes towards audience and I also thought, well, I
00:32:16
thought it was super bizarre that he wouldn't say whether he
00:32:19
was a Republican or not like oh, I didn't if it felt very hard,
00:32:24
like I almost wanted to have a survey done before he came on.
00:32:27
Like what are your profess to use?
00:32:29
Because there's some of the Republican or not is such a
00:32:32
loaded question. That's the most black and white
00:32:34
thing there is like if you can't decide which party your well
00:32:38
maybe, A few people want to associate with me, she like
00:32:41
you're fine. You know, saying you're a
00:32:42
Democrat. Iran has die-hard Democrat, but
00:32:45
a lot of people that may even agree with you in a lot of
00:32:47
politics and policies. Wouldn't call themselves a
00:32:49
Democrat. Like, I think that's a hard
00:32:51
question, ask people, they're wimps, you know, they don't
00:32:53
admit that there's a bifurcated choice.
00:32:56
They have to choose one and that choosing shows how they stack up
00:33:00
the values of the two parties. Anyway, that's a boring.
00:33:03
We don't need to sorry Katie. We were, we were, I was just
00:33:06
saying that I thought she said was not a very good movie, but
00:33:08
it did kind of Reaffirm my biggest that Katie was not on
00:33:11
the podcast for that part of it. So she's that's why she didn't
00:33:16
have you. But I went I was actually saying
00:33:17
that, you know, she said, was not a great movie,
00:33:29
unfortunately, my personal life having gone up in Flames.
00:33:33
I haven't had the chance to watch as much TV and film as I'd
00:33:35
like, but when I go into a catatonic state of I'm
00:33:39
overwhelmed, I'm actually have a really good long list of things
00:33:42
to watch from my room and the insane asylum.
00:33:45
So I'll put she said at the in the middle it sounds like yeah I
00:33:48
wouldn't I wouldn't go right to she said but I check out our
00:33:51
check out our highly recommend things about.
00:33:55
I want to see it. Yeah I watch it.
00:33:57
Lets I would I would fight my boss has to come back on to this
00:34:00
podcast of a conversation about the ending of tar.
00:34:03
Okay there's a lot there's a lot going on there.
00:34:06
Good episode, sorry I came back in and I heard are Say something
00:34:09
about both Democrats and Republicans.
00:34:11
Yeah we're right where we started reflecting last week's
00:34:16
episode a little bit just sort of how we finally face.
00:34:20
You know some iterate. Some real version of the media
00:34:23
critique without imagining ourselves and we were
00:34:26
underwhelmed. I think that's the people that
00:34:30
want to burn India media institutions to the ground.
00:34:33
Turns out, they don't really have an alternative.
00:34:34
So, yeah, I mean, I think that we would do such a good job
00:34:37
critiquing the media except We'll all get well Tom and I
00:34:43
think we'd be happy to give that searing critique.
00:34:45
It's just, you know, Tom just starting his new job so he
00:34:48
really can't get into it. I never keep mine for the
00:34:50
healthcare but so Tom. I mean these are our last
00:34:52
episode we we had one big bucket.
00:34:55
I mean, which was you've come away from this podcast sort of
00:34:59
you've sort of worked through the media criticism and you
00:35:01
believe in media sort of at the end of the day I came as more of
00:35:05
a sort of bullshit haterade on the other side.
00:35:08
Yeah. And Millennia we cannot believe
00:35:12
in media. Like you don't want news, right?
00:35:14
I don't want to that like if there's a fire strike if that's
00:35:19
what's the alternative. Yeah.
00:35:20
Like okay. So here here's an earthquake
00:35:22
that takes out. Like all of, you know, Oregon
00:35:26
and Washington and Northern California.
00:35:29
Do we not want receiving some journalism, geologists should
00:35:32
all start their own independent Stacks, right?
00:35:35
And you should if, you know, as a reader, not shooting, do we
00:35:38
not want to? Know what I mean?
00:35:39
Okay, there's that stupid. Do we not want to know the facts
00:35:41
there? If there is anyway?
00:35:44
Let me Stitch holder is describing here, that's not the
00:35:50
media that's news. The media is when they write an
00:35:53
article about the founder of away, that's, that's the media.
00:35:57
And that's what needs to be breaking ground.
00:35:58
Well, I really love news and like I said, as the owner of two
00:36:01
pieces of way, luggage, I have, I'm very happy with them.
00:36:04
I don't else to say, yeah, so what went wrong?
00:36:09
What are your other big conclusions?
00:36:10
Or what else have we sort of work through throughout the
00:36:14
show? Yeah, this is like the last
00:36:16
song. Did you guys see?
00:36:17
Walk Hard? Never Walk Hard.
00:36:18
The Dewey Cox Story? Oh yeah, of Yahtzee, Riley.
00:36:21
One of my favorite movies but at the end of the movie, he has to
00:36:24
like sing a song at an award show to like some of everything
00:36:27
he's learned in his life. Yeah.
00:36:29
But anyway, what else have I learned through the process of
00:36:31
this show. Well, I've liked our episodes,
00:36:35
who's the VC that came out at the at the outset of the bubble
00:36:37
bursting. A Rick and Rick heintzman.
00:36:40
Yeah, Rick heintzman, I really liked that episode.
00:36:42
That was a lot of fun. It was fun to hear.
00:36:44
Eric asking the question. What is the opposite of
00:36:47
quantitative easing? Whose name for it?
00:36:51
They're lightning tightening. Yeah, it was a real, like late
00:36:55
Millennial question that we sewed is sort of what I see some
00:36:59
of the future. I mean, it was more businesses
00:37:01
and more sort of financial To. Yeah I think we're going to
00:37:04
enter a very interesting period for Tech reporters and just the
00:37:08
tech industry in general of not being fueled by low, interest
00:37:11
rates, and this unending supply of capital that has created a
00:37:15
bunch of interest in company, a bunch of fraudulent companies.
00:37:18
A bunch of celebrities, probably shouldn't have been celebrities.
00:37:22
Yeah, we're on the fence about the suitcase company.
00:37:24
Is it, you know, we don't know what's going to happen with
00:37:26
Lonely Hearts. Yeah, it is certainly the
00:37:28
question of our time though, but yeah.
00:37:32
I'm I think we're in for a very new era of reporting and even
00:37:39
just talking about these tech companies and we have to ask
00:37:41
very new questions about what their fundamentals are, what
00:37:44
their values are. And I don't mean values, like
00:37:46
cultural values, but, you know, like, can they make it?
00:37:48
Like me, is, this is this thing worth investing thing.
00:37:51
Yeah, yeah. I think that's going to be a lot
00:37:53
of fun, frankly, just because it's so new.
00:37:56
It's just something we haven't had a chance to do, and we've
00:37:58
talked a lot about sort of Sam Venkman freed over the Codes and
00:38:03
also just, you know, the sort of, I don't know the tragic
00:38:08
founder, you know, we I feel like we obsessed over, we had
00:38:12
the Elizabeth Holmes trial for a while.
00:38:14
Our first episode was Parker Conrad.
00:38:17
Whose company zenefits? Imploded.
00:38:19
I don't know. What's your what's your walk
00:38:21
away here on the, on the founder?
00:38:24
Tragic, Founders. I think the media is very Adept,
00:38:29
at building up and taking down characters.
00:38:30
It's one of the best things we do.
00:38:33
Um, we love someone on the rise, we love someone who kind of
00:38:36
breaks the mold and in each of the cases here, it's that was a
00:38:39
very smart way in which they position their, you know,
00:38:42
character Elizabeth Holmes was, you know, Stanford Dropout, who
00:38:46
didn't know much about, you know, biology turns out that was
00:38:50
a bit of a red flag, but at the time it made her seem cool.
00:38:53
You know, obviously being a woman founder, you know, she
00:38:55
played that card very well and probably, unfortunately, the
00:38:58
women who built companies that actually did things.
00:39:03
Sandbank manfried. I mean we've talked endlessly
00:39:04
about that one. This is going to be an
00:39:06
incredible story going forward just because of how perfectly he
00:39:10
played us by being this like the face of crypto in an
00:39:17
approachable way. Not that long he burns super
00:39:20
hot. I mean I feel like he was in the
00:39:21
Zeitgeist what was like to you when I started throwing money
00:39:25
around politics right now? Yeah, yeah.
00:39:27
Yeah. But also, you know, he was like,
00:39:29
I'm Pro regulation which seemed real kind of counterintuitive to
00:39:32
a lot of You know you know the general trend of me is so yeah I
00:39:37
guess there's not much to say they're like PE live by the
00:39:41
sword die by the sword with with a lot of is interesting to like
00:39:44
I think there is a bigger question about the idea of a
00:39:47
profile like you know we read profiles or it celebrity
00:39:51
profiles where your business profiles for your profiles of
00:39:53
politicians. And I think that it's it's
00:39:57
always hard and it's one of the reasons why I would rather do an
00:39:59
investigative piece then I'm profile because I think profiles
00:40:02
are hard. Order.
00:40:03
Because I think it's more difficult to try to present
00:40:06
somebody's life in the context of what's happening in the
00:40:08
bigger world and actually give the reader something that it
00:40:13
feels true. You know, when you read a
00:40:15
profile of a celebrity of Brad Pitt or of you know, or if you
00:40:23
read a profile politician, do you feel like you're reading
00:40:25
something true? Do you feel like you're reading
00:40:28
something that gives you? I mean I guess it gives you a
00:40:30
couple of facts but yeah, field true.
00:40:33
Do you do you know the person after?
00:40:35
Yeah. If you don't what do you really
00:40:37
know? Are you just learning something
00:40:38
about the way we're pouring? I mean, the real social showed
00:40:41
into a human and so like, those are hard is he?
00:40:44
I mean, you could write 3 profiles with the same set of
00:40:46
facts and have very different Slants, I think, absolutely.
00:40:50
And that's and that's what a lot of.
00:40:52
You know. The tech people do hate about
00:40:54
media that it's sort of, if the mood about, you know, Brad Pitt
00:40:59
is really - right now. Those facts will have - slant or
00:41:04
sometimes it's really - but you get what who's that person?
00:41:06
Your is it like taffy? Some you know you get one whose
00:41:08
profile writers who's good at writing like sort of a positive
00:41:12
sounding profiling - calendar showing how like a celebrity
00:41:17
reflects on her own life and makes?
00:41:19
Yeah. Sure.
00:41:20
Which actually does feel true because it's like true.
00:41:23
Never know. Like really like but I know how
00:41:25
quite as good a better job. I'm so happy.
00:41:27
You brought her up because I'm just so yeah.
00:41:30
So she's now like a showrunner of the show that Based on the
00:41:33
book that she wrote called fleischmann's in trouble.
00:41:35
I love to cook. Yeah, which is, it's an
00:41:38
interesting show. I just watched the first episode
00:41:39
last night and I read an interview with her afterwards.
00:41:42
It it's a book about this New York.
00:41:44
Dr. A dog whistle who who gets divorced and his in the process
00:41:51
of his divorce. His wife just disappears for a
00:41:53
couple days and stuff with the kids and he kind of has this
00:41:55
like early forties sexual Revolution.
00:41:58
No, our sexual Awakening, where he's like hooking up with all
00:42:00
these people on Tinder. But I read this interview, View
00:42:03
with taffy. What's your last name, bro?
00:42:04
To Sir Ochsner back Nur. And she was talking about her,
00:42:09
you know, success writing all of these celebrity profiles.
00:42:12
And she wrote a really great piece about goop and Gwyneth
00:42:14
Paltrow and Bradley Cooper and Britney Spears and people like
00:42:18
that. And she talked about how when
00:42:19
she started working on this show and had met with the actors on
00:42:23
the show who it's Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg.
00:42:26
And Seth Cohen from the o.c., a camera, the actor's name, excuse
00:42:32
me, cast, yeah. Yeah.
00:42:33
And she's like, I was sitting down Rodeo.
00:42:35
No. No.
00:42:36
Adam Brody. Yeah, yeah.
00:42:38
And she was like, I was sitting down to dinner with them and
00:42:40
talking to them as a regular human beings.
00:42:42
And I realized they were much more real with me now than they
00:42:46
ever were with me as a profile writer.
00:42:48
And I kind of was terrible at my job because I was presenting
00:42:51
these people as of this is who they really are.
00:42:53
But in fact, I didn't get anywhere with them.
00:42:55
They were just presenting a version of themselves to me.
00:42:57
That was appropriate for the media and that is kind of always
00:43:01
what she struggled with as a profile, right?
00:43:03
Her was like I am getting a version of them that they want
00:43:06
presented to me. But I'm supposed to be
00:43:08
interpreting a reality behind that that is going to be
00:43:10
appealing to readers. And there is this kind of
00:43:13
inherent artifice behind any kind of profile writing that I
00:43:16
didn't realize. Until I actually had a human
00:43:19
interaction with these people that wasn't transactional in
00:43:21
nature. And I didn't do like, I would
00:43:24
basically, I was bad at my job up to that point which I've even
00:43:27
though she is great and she and so, why would a business profile
00:43:30
be any different, right? All in there.
00:43:33
So controlled and you have like investors or you have boards or
00:43:37
you have Executive Suite saying we need a really good profile of
00:43:40
Mark Zuckerberg. Like I think back to those
00:43:42
profiles in the early days of Facebook.
00:43:44
Those were all to Tuffy's point in this interview, very
00:43:48
manufactured for specific reason, that reporter really
00:43:52
cannot cannot Pierce through its hard.
00:43:55
You can try. So now that Sam, Venkman feeds
00:43:57
company has collapsed, it's actually much easier to write
00:44:00
about because the facts on the ground it's Really hard to get
00:44:03
three different versions of a story out of the facts, right?
00:44:06
Like it's there's only kind of really one one or two versions.
00:44:10
Now it's, and yeah, but they're, it's much clearer now that we
00:44:14
have, for example, the statements from the CEO, the
00:44:17
accounting, the CEO is doing the indictments by the federal
00:44:20
government looking at a totally different set of facts.
00:44:24
That's not about house and bacon Freitas presenting himself or
00:44:28
who he surrounds himself with or what he eats for dinner but
00:44:31
they're just a literal these very nuts and bolts.
00:44:33
Things of where the money went and then you kind of only get
00:44:35
one story. It's funny that 15 minutes ago,
00:44:37
we were like, oh yeah, media is good, never mind.
00:44:40
And now we're back to actually media is a deeply broken
00:44:44
practice, you know, which it's not that it's broken, but that
00:44:47
it's more complicated and difficult to write certain kinds
00:44:50
of stories. And then I think that people
00:44:52
imagine or that even sometimes reporters imagined for
00:44:54
themselves, which is why we could do such a good job,
00:44:58
critiquing media. But again, we all got to keep
00:45:00
our jobs. Yeah.
00:45:03
It's also, you know, part of it is the unknowability of people
00:45:07
and the expectation that any person, especially in a
00:45:11
transactional nature, could figure out what makes someone
00:45:14
tick or what Corps moment in their history.
00:45:17
LED them to be this person that, you know, made them incredibly
00:45:20
successful, incredibly famous great.
00:45:21
If you, you know, if we wrote a profile of Eric today about his
00:45:27
trauma, like it would be a very specific version of Eric, you'd
00:45:30
be defending himself, abla would You get to know the real like
00:45:34
who he is from that story. Like, well interviewing the
00:45:37
person is almost. Yeah, the real me is.
00:45:40
Everything else is fake? That's true actually.
00:45:45
Yeah, I mean, if you want this, this could be maybe not our last
00:45:50
episode if you want to do one. Well we all just drop acid at
00:45:52
the beginning and get to the real core of who we are.
00:45:55
Logan, spend 518 our episode kyndra, kyndra, kyndra like Fox,
00:46:02
you know. Yeah, but again, we all need to
00:46:05
kind of keep our jobs. So I do well in the episode and
00:46:10
this has been an idea that sort of been bounced around my head.
00:46:12
Just the sense, you know, we live in like this fog.
00:46:15
Like, there's so many facts in the world that we don't know,
00:46:19
especially in business, there's just so much this undisclosed.
00:46:23
So, we have that problem, which I think is obvious and easy to
00:46:27
agree to on, but I think another problem, the creates this
00:46:31
narrative mess right now with sort of And the anti-media is
00:46:34
just like there isn't a lot of consensus on shared stories and
00:46:39
shared values, you know, like I think part of the problem is
00:46:42
like, okay with SBF. It's fairly easy because
00:46:46
everybody agrees like, fraud theft, they're bad, but I think
00:46:50
like going back to this sort of founder narrative stories.
00:46:54
I think it's a lot less clear you know like Parker Conrad.
00:46:56
Our first guest it's like his sins seems small.
00:47:00
He's exciting he's going for it again.
00:47:02
Then like how to spin those stories and, like, where our
00:47:07
values are in terms of, I don't know, failure and sort of Boss
00:47:13
employee relationships, like, all those things we don't have
00:47:16
shared values, so it's very hard to have shared stories.
00:47:19
Well, I also think and this actually came out of my
00:47:23
reflecting on. She said a mediocre movie, but
00:47:26
an interesting topic to think about and a great story, which
00:47:29
Tom was saying earlier. Yeah, that I think the media is
00:47:32
very Writing stories in which there's clear criminal
00:47:37
misconduct like Harvey Weinstein was the best examples backs
00:47:41
being and you can't really move those facts around and tell
00:47:44
them. Yeah, I continue.
00:47:45
Yeah, hurry went skiing like that whole period that like,
00:47:47
that whole story was a great one of the best examples of
00:47:49
accountability journalism, it just basically every other
00:47:52
system failed, but the media was able to kind of point out that,
00:47:56
you know, there's in controversial Oreo.
00:47:58
You know what I'm saying? Like, unassailable facts that he
00:48:00
broke the law and he He damaged all these people and I think
00:48:04
that's why that story was held on.
00:48:06
We agreed that the actions that didn't necessarily break the law
00:48:08
were immoral and wrong to. Right.
00:48:10
Yeah I think the gray area ones where I think the media really
00:48:13
finds itself in a lot of trouble and where you end up kind of
00:48:16
coming to conclusions that may be unfair to some of the
00:48:18
subjects in it because it really can go both ways.
00:48:21
But there's such a need to come up with some sort of conclusion
00:48:25
or final analysis on what happened that certain people
00:48:29
just get thrown under the bus even if what they did is
00:48:32
debatable. Still and I think that's been
00:48:34
the problem with a lot of these kind of corporate culture
00:48:37
stories, not to bring any way because I actually like Jason
00:48:42
Cole gets a lot. So but I mean it seemed to me
00:48:45
that that was his worry and fear and anxiety around this suitcase
00:48:49
story was a like, the suitcases were being used in ways that
00:48:53
were like much to put on a Suitcase.
00:48:55
Yeah, I really don't know what the story was about.
00:48:58
Do you. Chemical burns because the
00:49:16
lithium battery exploded on the would actually be like a pretty
00:49:20
straightforward, but then they don't agree on what the like
00:49:29
accountability, for example, in the Harvey Weinstein thing.
00:49:33
The accountability is still with the prosecutors, right?
00:49:37
Jodi. And Megan didn't then go to law
00:49:39
school, right? Past the bar become State
00:49:42
prosecutors and take him in front of a jury.
00:49:45
Like the accountability is still outside of the media
00:49:48
organization. I think is actual solution
00:49:51
exists outside of the media. Yeah like laws that were hard
00:49:54
times in different stages of rape, by the way, right?
00:49:56
Let me get a couple times like in multiple did not do that.
00:50:03
Been convicted if the jury had not found him guilty, that also
00:50:06
would not have been the times. And so, I think that because of
00:50:09
a lot of things that have happened culturally in the last,
00:50:12
you know, let's see, 86 years, certain president there's,
00:50:19
there's, there's been a wish and desire for the media to not only
00:50:22
be able to surface the stories that prompt the questions and
00:50:26
prompt the difficulties arise. But you are taller than take
00:50:30
people and put them in jail, and that is not.
00:50:33
Literally never going to happen nor should it.
00:50:35
And again, if the jury had not convicted Harvey that would not
00:50:39
have been the times either, this, slowness of the legal
00:50:42
system in a Twitter culture, I do think is one of the
00:50:46
underestimated issues of our time.
00:50:48
Like we move fast, the business world moves extremely fast, but
00:50:53
government moves too slow. And obviously, there's a level
00:50:56
of sort of thoughtfulness and due process that you want with.
00:51:03
Mint but man it is way too slow, definitely broken.
00:51:06
Like I think it's a core problem.
00:51:08
I mean from the regulatory front that the SEC just Waits out.
00:51:12
You know, crypto basically lets it blow up before they punish
00:51:14
anybody. I think this Harvey whines any
00:51:17
of this stuff. The government is not delivering
00:51:21
as sort of a, its cultural piece, right?
00:51:24
It's going, the Trump any sort of trump intervention.
00:51:27
The idea that we would have Trump prosecution's now when
00:51:30
it's basically irrelevant because not In.
00:51:33
But not when it actually mattered is just a total
00:51:36
dereliction of Duty. So I think this point most
00:51:38
careless Duty by whom by anyone who could reasonably have
00:51:44
charged or decides to charge down the road if they didn't
00:51:47
charge when it actually mattered.
00:51:49
I just think his delusions, they can find evidence of somebody
00:51:54
committing a crime, they should charge, no matter, they have to
00:51:58
have the case, but they should turn it whether or not impact
00:52:01
somebody's ability to be President, like, I still think
00:52:04
it's worthy to charge it. Like, for example, you could say
00:52:07
no, you could say, what's the point of charging Harvey
00:52:09
Weinstein? Now that he's decrepit old man
00:52:11
with a walker when he can trust anyone anymore, right?
00:52:13
Right. They should have charged him
00:52:14
when he was raping but it right. And no, I think it's good that
00:52:16
much better better late than never.
00:52:18
But I'm saying it would be well, I think the president either
00:52:20
border crying. It's hard to put the, you know,
00:52:23
the issues around charging the president with the crime which
00:52:26
is never actually been done and may not even be legal.
00:52:29
No, we have charged people with rape and they have been
00:52:31
convicted before in history. Right, right.
00:52:34
But like the fact that it took this long to get, even the
00:52:37
stories out there publicly about Harvey Weinstein, was a failure
00:52:40
in the system up to this point. And and I was saying, like the
00:52:43
long-term solution to I'm sorry killing took forever do, I mean
00:52:46
there are lots of these that Kelly take forever.
00:52:48
And so I think something so I guess it's not just me Jeffrey
00:52:53
Epstein, you know, like they couldn't keep him alive, you
00:52:56
know, they just well, I mean narrative, the there's to your
00:52:59
point earlier time the narrative around Tech is going to get Much
00:53:03
days here because there's going to be a downturn and the
00:53:06
industry. I think that that is I think
00:53:11
that also we have in acknowledging that we have to
00:53:14
acknowledge how much of especially the startup industry
00:53:19
really needs has been fueled by the media and partnered with the
00:53:23
media. So if that goes away, you know
00:53:25
what gets Built My Hope Is that just better companies, get
00:53:29
built. But right, so I just wrote a
00:53:31
piece about like this bubble. Seeing and one of my points in
00:53:35
the piece was just, I don't, this isn't like 2008 where I
00:53:39
think there's some like huge societal Stakes like let the
00:53:42
bubble burst let some people lose some money like I don't
00:53:45
know. Is it really going to make Tech
00:53:47
more of a villain? Like in some ways it's gonna
00:53:49
push the other companies. You can write.
00:53:52
I think you need to be closer to reality.
00:53:55
Like honestly, I think we've sort of, I mean, maybe I'm
00:53:58
naive, no play a different way but we've sort of seen a lot of
00:54:02
the villainy People sort of hucksters selling and of teas
00:54:06
and shit. And now that's being corrected.
00:54:09
And so, those people lose some money, we get back to reality
00:54:12
and I don't know that it's going to actually turn Society more
00:54:17
against Tech because I think Tech will see more level-headed.
00:54:20
Like, I don't do you disagree, do we need villains and heroes?
00:54:24
I mean like, that's okay. Yeah.
00:54:25
Just building, you know if be back to profile writing it is an
00:54:28
easier way to kind of organize the world.
00:54:30
It is a way easier way, but it might not be the best.
00:54:33
Sway. But this just feels pretty
00:54:35
disconnected from, I don't know. Well, I also think a lot of tech
00:54:40
Founders grew to be very uncomfortable with the amount of
00:54:43
attention that they were getting.
00:54:44
I mean, when San Francisco when you guys both lived here in San
00:54:47
Francisco, for a brief period was like the cultural.
00:54:50
And, you know, economic Hub of the country and there were, you
00:54:55
know, which is a strange place that someone growing up in the
00:54:57
Bay Area for the city to be. I think it ended up reflecting
00:55:01
very poorly as it would on almost any tea and group of
00:55:03
people the people really couldn't handle it anyway.
00:55:05
I mean, like Manhattan, during the height of like the Wall
00:55:08
Street like boom. In 2007 Manhattan was like
00:55:11
grotesque to be in most parts of it.
00:55:13
Like the sort of bottle service culture of it all and like women
00:55:16
with not much clothes, like addresses bringing out like
00:55:19
champagne with sparklers and all of it was just like sort of like
00:55:22
Nikki. Yeah, yeah, San Francisco.
00:55:25
Went through a different version of that.
00:55:26
For, for that, it was just more like hiring task rabbit stew,
00:55:28
weight loss, Provisions for something.
00:55:33
Into fights at like the soccer field in the mission.
00:55:36
But yeah, I so we're allowed to show.
00:55:41
Well, that's always the funniest thing about tech, right?
00:55:43
Is that, like, you know, another thing, I can bring it for the
00:55:46
millionth time in this podcast, when you read through Barbarians
00:55:48
at the gate and they talk about, you know, that that 80s, you
00:55:51
know, Bond culture, at least the people that were running, those,
00:55:55
you know, giant private Equity Funds and companies, at least
00:55:58
they, kind of knew what to do with the money.
00:56:00
You know, they would kind of look like they were having fun
00:56:01
with it. They would have like Fleet Of
00:56:03
private jets and buying you know watches for Frank Gifford and
00:56:07
weird shit like that but at Tech it was just like what do you
00:56:10
exactly spending the money on? It's just that's why they moved
00:56:12
to Miami in the end you know. Right.
00:56:14
Right where they could like be where they could have you know
00:56:17
by some high-end art go to some clubs and and you know the
00:56:20
Google co-founders are spending on islands that really see you
00:56:27
know what? Yeah yeah but I wonder you know
00:56:32
if Entering a more rational period of tech where the
00:56:36
valuations will be compressed of multiples of be compressed and
00:56:39
the kind of stories that have been written for the last couple
00:56:41
of years. Won't mean, as much anymore.
00:56:44
What does that say? More broadly about like the
00:56:46
business world because Tech was kind of this miraculous engine
00:56:50
of American exceptionalism, over the last couple of years and it
00:56:54
was shown as like this is how we're still out on the frontier
00:56:57
compared to the rest of the world.
00:56:58
And if tech is just going to be another industry with, you know,
00:57:01
rational You ations and still done like.com.
00:57:05
This is not an existential question.
00:57:08
The stanshall, I'm just, no, I know you're not but I'm just
00:57:11
that it is about crypto, but it's certainly not about tech
00:57:14
and Tech is still going to be the dominant.
00:57:20
Part of it, I think it'll be hard but instead it dominant
00:57:22
part of business. It's in every part of every
00:57:25
industry right now and I don't like companies are still silica
00:57:28
like VC originated. You know that funding model
00:57:32
going going big. There's still a ton of VC money
00:57:35
like I think that process is an ending.
00:57:38
So we have that story and then we still have.
00:57:41
I mean the content, moderation and sort of how we have these
00:57:45
conversations online is still very much alive.
00:57:48
Yeah. They're all going to be
00:57:50
Interesting important or not. All going to be important,
00:57:52
companies are getting plenty of important companies but they're
00:57:54
not going to be exceptional. I don't think they're going to
00:57:56
exist in a class outside of the rest of the business world.
00:57:59
I think a generative AI, the rise of the I/O, happy New Year,
00:58:02
Steph the cool Tom wrote of his last parting shot, an Insider
00:58:05
was to to shit on whether or just to cast, what to cast doubt
00:58:10
on whether generative is a, I would be helpful in the company.
00:58:15
What would replace Google? So I'm happy to talk about that
00:58:17
for a second here because New York Times literally said the
00:58:19
opposite We, and that's what know, Nico wrote a really great
00:58:24
story for the times. That was talking about how good
00:58:25
I know I dragged mom. Can we like, just a Twitter plan
00:58:28
to the audience at the reason why I don't know anything that's
00:58:30
fucking going on, is because like, everybody, I love is sick
00:58:33
and dying, and I've been really busy, and it's not because I
00:58:36
stopped reading the New York Times.
00:58:37
It's not because I hate media. It's literally just because when
00:58:40
I'm not doing this podcast or doing my day job, I'm like,
00:58:44
literally just keeping track of all the people who could die.
00:58:46
Anyway, keep going part of why we're doing this.
00:58:50
I guess is like 80 be distracted for an hour.
00:58:52
That's the very good chance. That's the greatest hits, but we
00:58:55
could give with this podcast, take people away.
00:58:57
Only way Tom and I know how to be good friends.
00:58:59
Hey, come on our podcast. That's a good way to maintain
00:59:03
any friendship, it's all just podcast related, interact juice
00:59:06
for us. All right, just just create
00:59:09
content, that can be distributed.
00:59:11
So generative AI, we, you know, obviously what that is.
00:59:14
And so there's been this kind of Meme and argument among the tech
00:59:19
report In class, especially that all of these Technologies
00:59:22
specifically chat GPT, which maybe you've seen.
00:59:25
It's kind of like a chatbot that's very smart and can
00:59:28
produce very interesting, you know, intelligent human sounding
00:59:31
responses to questions. There's this argument that it's
00:59:34
going to replace Google and that Google is fucked because the new
00:59:37
way of searching and getting answers to things is going to be
00:59:39
interacting with open a eyes, you know, G PT 3 or GPT for
00:59:43
which it would come out next year or chat GPT and New York
00:59:47
Times. Nico Grant who's a really good
00:59:48
reporter. Wrote a piece that talks.
00:59:50
About how Google is declaring it, you know, Red Alert or code
00:59:53
red internally because they feel that they have kind of missed
00:59:56
the boat to this point on. You know what, generative Ai and
01:00:00
chat Bots will do for the future of search and it came out a
01:00:03
couple of days. After I wrote a story that
01:00:05
basically said chat is not anywhere close to replacing
01:00:09
search, it has huge flaws in it. It's a lying expense.
01:00:12
What's wrong all the time? It's very cocky.
01:00:14
Like it gives you a very confident sounding answer this
01:00:17
one minor or be attacked. You know, it sounds like to
01:00:29
bring up this example now so yesterday because I do love
01:00:32
talking about it to people and because it is a really fun demo
01:00:35
to bring to people. Everyone's you do it at
01:00:36
Christmas, you know, wants chat GPT and show him how good it is
01:00:39
at respond to your questions but I wanted to show Rosa recently
01:00:43
how good it is at writing essays.
01:00:45
And so I was like, oh I should have it write an essay like in
01:00:48
doing interpreting, the symbolism of some Short story
01:00:51
and I was like, I remember when I was in college, I read the
01:00:53
short story that was something about a girlfriend talking about
01:00:56
her. Boyfriend was evolving reverse,
01:00:59
having like reverse experiencing reverse Evolution and I couldn't
01:01:02
remember the name of the short story, but I remember that that
01:01:04
was like an opening line. Like my boyfriend is evolving in
01:01:06
Reverse normally. You would just go to Google and
01:01:09
type that in and come up with the name of it.
01:01:10
But like, no, let me ask chap GPT.
01:01:12
So I asked you have to be T. What's the name of the short
01:01:14
story where the narrator says her, boyfriend is evolving in
01:01:17
reverse and they're like the story that you were talking.
01:01:19
Seeing about is called the reverse evolution of Chuck,
01:01:21
Palahniuk in which the narrator it talks about her boyfriend,
01:01:24
Chuck Palahniuk is evolving in Reverse.
01:01:26
I'm like, what the fuck? What are you talking about?
01:01:30
I've never heard of the short stories, then I go to Google and
01:01:32
I type in the evolution of Chuck, Palahniuk in Quotes.
01:01:36
No responses. Yeah.
01:01:38
And then I go to Google and type in the same question that I gave
01:01:40
chat GPT which is like, what's the name of the short story?
01:01:42
And they're like, oh, it's the remember or by a me Bender,
01:01:45
which is like this anthologized short story that was written in
01:01:48
like the late 90s. So immediately it Me the correct
01:01:51
answer to it the Wikipedia page to that short story.
01:01:55
Where is chibi T. Literally just fucking made it
01:01:57
up, but it didn't go anywhere. Came up here, you seem to me
01:02:00
like a Chuck Palahniuk fan, just just like looking at you.
01:02:03
So maybe you knew me better than I did.
01:02:07
This story is very much like my gas car does goes very fast like
01:02:11
why why I need an electric car that level driving directly into
01:02:15
a wall recharged every, you know, like, yeah, it's a newer.
01:02:19
Knology. You know, they're working on it.
01:02:21
One of the most interesting things about this era and
01:02:24
writing about chat GPT and open AI is their willingness to
01:02:28
release a product. That is clearly not streak,
01:02:30
ready, right? This thing is in no ways a
01:02:33
replacement or even potestas willing to do it with a car.
01:02:37
Yeah, well, this is something that's interesting with
01:02:39
self-driving, right? You know, like what happened,
01:02:41
really self-driving, any sir, well Tesla, hell, yes, it he'll
01:02:44
die but you know like the responsible companies have not.
01:02:47
Where's open a? I basically just and there's
01:02:48
been a lot of criticism. In the AI world for open a.i.?
01:02:52
Well, I think I mean opening, I, you know, use stable diffusion
01:02:55
as part, you know, there is there are other people who came
01:02:58
out ahead and then well it's gonna be out there.
01:03:00
We'll we'll do it. I mean, Google has seemingly
01:03:03
been very restrained. I mean, they write a lot more
01:03:06
cautious about their self driving cars are much more
01:03:08
cautious about whatever their Dolly competitor is.
01:03:12
I mean, you're you're about to be covering Microsoft, which is
01:03:14
very closely partnered with open a.i.
01:03:18
So I'm sure you'll be writing about this.
01:03:19
This fight with Google ton going for?
01:03:23
Yeah. And I think it's also something
01:03:24
that you out to Tom. Yeah.
01:03:26
Yeah. My DMs are open.
01:03:27
That's the only thing I use Twitter foot.
01:03:28
Make clear to him that if you need to hang your scoops on him
01:03:35
getting permission from Wall Street Journal, editors to let
01:03:37
him come on the podcast, we like this cube is.
01:03:40
If Tom does another episode and then he can go to his editors
01:03:43
and be like, listen, I don't know.
01:03:47
I think he's for them. What about me here?
01:03:52
I don't want to position myself as the anti AI guy.
01:03:56
I think it's really interesting technology.
01:03:57
I do think the media is running into an issue, which is that it
01:04:01
is kind of suspicious that. At the same time that a lot of
01:04:03
VC Investments are going into AI.
01:04:06
You're seeing a lot of stories written by reporters saying this
01:04:08
is the future and this is replacing Google, which is
01:04:10
exactly argue this and this is exactly what DC's want to have
01:04:16
happen because then you are investing in a really valuable
01:04:18
company. My God, the next Google, how
01:04:20
great would that be? And so, first of all, it's a
01:04:22
funny counter to the idea that, you know, the media hates Tech,
01:04:27
right? Because we are hyping up a new
01:04:29
technology, we need to acknowledge that.
01:04:31
There's a relationship, right? Venture capital and the and I
01:04:36
think we need, right? But I also want to clear-eyed
01:04:38
about just how Humanity Works Humanity wants on you to talk
01:04:41
about. It's like we're bored of these
01:04:42
old themes. Like what's the new thing we can
01:04:44
like? All right, hash out like that's
01:04:46
good. I mean and it's fun to the sent,
01:04:49
the sense. We don't have a, it's good to
01:04:50
have a shared common. Station.
01:04:51
Like if anything, it would be more fun.
01:04:53
If more people could talk about the same things, you know, we
01:04:56
all have our different little media outlets and look at them,
01:04:59
you know, in different degrees of meta, and self, reflexivity
01:05:03
or whatever. But we're all talking about,
01:05:04
some interesting like that. So much of the Nostalgia for the
01:05:07
90s is that it was the last time that we all talk about the same
01:05:09
stuff. So even though not everybody
01:05:11
like monoculture, loved the show Friends.
01:05:13
We all just kind of watched it together and we didn't love
01:05:16
these things, but we did it together and so that's, you
01:05:18
know, I don't know if I'll ever have that again.
01:05:21
I Just watched a Lindsay Lohan Netflix movie we couldn't Point
01:05:24
Eric and I are never going to share that experience.
01:05:27
Anyway, the last thing on the AI side of things I will say is
01:05:30
that when you talk to these people and I expect to be
01:05:33
talking to a lot of, you know, the people that are working on
01:05:35
the front lines of building a high-tech.
01:05:37
They are extremely confident in their belief that this will
01:05:41
replace so many different kinds of jobs and not only that it
01:05:45
will do it, but it will do it in the next like, three or four
01:05:47
years and it's very compelling talking to them.
01:05:50
And I think a lot of Is fall into the Trap of listening to
01:05:53
them and assuming that, that is truth and it is certainly a
01:05:56
version of truth. But I encourage a lot of people
01:05:59
over the next couple of months, as this becomes probably the
01:06:02
biggest story in Tech to measure your enthusiasm for the people
01:06:06
that are talking to about it with the realities of what the
01:06:10
tech can't do. And I think Eric you were like
01:06:13
very outspoken in your belief that like self-driving was a
01:06:15
waste of time to write. Yeah.
01:06:17
When you were covering, it was something that was supposed to
01:06:20
be with us. Today.
01:06:22
I mean like yeah, right last year it was like 20 challenge.
01:06:25
14 2000 strategy was just like not right about it a lot and the
01:06:29
challenges there isn't much benefit to anyone to reporters
01:06:34
to just like I'm out on that story.
01:06:36
I mean you I get to if you have really good friends or willing
01:06:39
to brag about you, I guess you get to be self-indulgent but
01:06:42
it's even hard to convince people.
01:06:44
It's like always smart about not doing something, you know I mean
01:06:46
is it's hard to just like sit out the conversation and to just
01:06:50
like scold the Conversation to add more attention to it.
01:06:54
I'm just more bullish on generative AI to be clear
01:06:56
because I think the thresh, it doesn't need a be as good to be
01:07:01
useful. I think it's unclear.
01:07:03
I think we're probably going to be bad at predicting which jobs
01:07:06
get displaced but I think we also underestimate as Elites
01:07:10
just like how much most people aren't great at writing.
01:07:14
Don't feel comfortable writing and like you can use it like in
01:07:18
their daily life to be more literate you know or come off as
01:07:21
More literate. So I think it's gonna be pretty
01:07:23
powerful. Yeah, it has a place and I'm not
01:07:25
saying don't write about it or I guess I'm going to.
01:07:28
So everyone will call me a hypocrite when they see stories
01:07:31
that I've written about it. But I just think it's probably
01:07:34
would do reporters. Well to not jump to conclusions
01:07:39
that it's going to replace a trillion dollar company, right?
01:07:42
That's couple of years and I'm not saying that's what Nico
01:07:44
story did. But you know it's easy for Red
01:07:48
Alert or something right here. Yeah I think toad rat or
01:07:50
something. And you know, to be like fully
01:07:53
up front here. I was also chasing that story as
01:07:55
well and also heard that Google was concerned about it.
01:07:57
I also think, you know, companies can respond to
01:07:59
external stimuli as well when they see other people saying
01:08:01
shit employees were like what do we do?
01:08:03
When you start asking questions? Then leaders respond to what
01:08:05
their employees are a skandagupta companies big as
01:08:07
Google. I was spect.
01:08:09
If you structure it while you have one team that thinks one
01:08:12
way and one thing at the other and you just sort of like, I
01:08:13
don't know, both both pursue your strategies and then we'll
01:08:16
decide at the end. Yeah, but I will say I'm more
01:08:19
excited to see this whole era of AI Investments then I was about
01:08:23
crypto. Yeah I think it's way it's way
01:08:25
more meaningful for Marc Andreessen would say it's
01:08:27
because crypto is fundamentally like pro leftist pro sensors.
01:08:31
Sorry aai is pro left. Is pro censorship.
01:08:35
Whereas crypto was no fraud libertarian decentralisation,
01:08:38
you know, like the ideology of AI is sort of more aligned with
01:08:42
like we're not going to have to work in an ER like these.
01:08:45
Yeah, that people that it's fucking people.
01:08:49
I think that the AI story is fine.
01:08:51
One that's similar to self-driving and that there will
01:08:53
be a lot of interesting utility there, but it just won't be the
01:08:55
things that we predicted based on things that VC's told us
01:09:00
based on the narrative, they had to create in order to raise
01:09:03
money. Yeah.
01:09:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that could be like, the
01:09:07
one thing people can learn from not this show but, you know, the
01:09:11
kind of things that we talked about, we were all on the show,
01:09:13
was that think about the motivations that people have for
01:09:16
saying the things that they say, and that includes the media, if
01:09:20
they write you, You know, the motivations that we have for
01:09:22
writing a certain story reveals a lot about the incentive
01:09:25
structure of the companies we work for and also the sources
01:09:28
that we have and yeah, yeah, and that hopefully can help people
01:09:33
understand better the reasons they hate us.
01:09:35
If they do. Well, I think we all understand
01:09:37
the reasons why people are down on Eric right now, based on this
01:09:41
Twitter trauma because I said they should go fuck.
01:09:44
Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, I, you know, I didn't
01:09:50
conflict the Escalade Shin that was maybe my tactical I wasn't
01:09:55
trying to deescalate. This is this is my Eric are so
01:09:57
different as people. Well, yeah, that was funny too
01:10:02
because you saw yourself as like the scold during the Jason
01:10:05
calacanis show. And I was like, you're pretty
01:10:07
restrains during most of that stuff.
01:10:09
Yeah, I mean like for me, I have to be in my world.
01:10:14
I was being a real dick, okay. It was trying to fact-check him.
01:10:17
Someone really do that. Not worth it.
01:10:20
Not worth. It was funny.
01:10:22
It was funny to during the AGM episode when he was like, it
01:10:25
seems like we have this interesting trip to going here
01:10:27
of Left, Right? And Center.
01:10:28
Where like I'm right, where's the left?
01:10:29
And I'm like, no. I forgot to say this or the
01:10:31
episode, I have no political ideology here.
01:10:33
I just gravitate towards which argument is the most cynical so
01:10:37
yeah that's my ball around the place Su with that sit with that
01:10:41
for a while. Observation have no core I have
01:10:47
nothing. Well Merry Christmas that I mean
01:10:50
they that's exactly yeah yeah well I don't know.
01:10:55
I mean I hope everyone that's listening has enjoyed and it's
01:10:58
learned things over the last 18 months that we've done.
01:11:00
The show it will continue to exist in some form with Eric and
01:11:05
occasionally Katie. And hopefully with the same
01:11:08
name. I like dead cat.
01:11:09
I mean, I think that cat back from the grave is a perfectly
01:11:13
good name? Yeah, that's good.
01:11:15
Very nice. I might just call it dead cat
01:11:18
with their newcomer, really leaving the stakes here.
01:11:24
What you're getting with the show?
01:11:26
I do you think you can be a little confusing?
01:11:28
Like we we, you know it whenever you get New people a listeners.
01:11:32
They don't necessarily have the contacts and where if they live
01:11:35
if this is their first episode God help them you know the show
01:11:39
going forward. Look we didn't even introduce
01:11:41
Tom at all arkadia, doesn't matter because we're leaving.
01:11:45
Why introduce people closer to say I write like a newsletter.
01:11:49
I'm like, I don't know if they can't figure that out.
01:11:51
They're not going to make it through this episode.
01:11:54
You know. Well, you know we we can end on
01:11:56
this point because we did talk earlier in jest about, you know,
01:11:59
friendships and relationships. Being, you know, transactional
01:12:02
as funneled through a podcast. But the one thing that I enjoyed
01:12:06
more than anything with this show is I think we've talked
01:12:09
more, you know, person to person and we had probably since we all
01:12:12
lived in San Francisco together and you know, would hang out
01:12:16
over the weekends. Yeah, I'm I'm urges saccharin
01:12:21
Tom. Oh my God, Tom agree with you,
01:12:23
that has been very lovely. It has been very nice.
01:12:27
I'm sad that the Wall Street Journal has decided Friendship
01:12:32
breakup family, at least make it Rupert.
01:12:35
Murdock, Murdock told, you have to break up with your friend.
01:12:38
This is a gang initiation. Well, no, I, I don't know, I
01:12:48
don't know how to end on anything.
01:12:50
Maybe we can just record our own episodes like never get sort of
01:12:55
for ourselves and then one day, you know, well the unreleased
01:12:59
release the archives. Yeah.
01:13:01
Well, it was very good. Seeing you guys in 2022.
01:13:04
I'm hoping 2023 is a little better and that will see what
01:13:09
other in person soon. Be great.
01:13:12
I love you guys. Love you too.
01:13:13
Love you too. All right.
01:13:15
All right. He's having a meeting here.
01:13:16
All right. Bye.
01:13:17
I think that was very nice and a good.
01:13:19
Bye good.
01:13:30
Bye. Goodbye.
01:13:31
Goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye.
01:13:33
Goodbye. Goodbye.
01:13:31
Goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye.
01:13:33
Goodbye.